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 


NINTH MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


ABRWH SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING
 

The verbatim transcript of the Subcommittee 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Doubletree Oak Ridge, 


Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on January 24, 2006. 

 

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C O N T E N T S 

January 24, 2006 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

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ROCKY FLATS SITE PROFILE 

PRESENTATION OF MATRIX AND DISCUSSION 

MR. JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A 

DR. JIM NETON, NIOSH/SC&A 

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TASK III REVIEW – STATUS/DISCUSSION 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, ABRWH 

DR. JOHN MAURO, SC&A 

MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH 

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Y-12 SITE PROFILE DISCUSSION 

UPDATE OF MATRIX 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, ABRWH 

MR. JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A 

DR. JIM NETON, NIOSH 

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COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 177 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

4

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


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 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 

 

5 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 


STAFF/VENDORS
 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

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OTHER PARTICIPANTS
 

(in order of appearance) 


MR. JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A 


DR. JIM NETON, NIOSH 


DR. JOHN MAURO, SC&A 


MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH 


MS. KATHY BEHLING, SC&A 


DR. HANS BEHLING, SC&A 


DR. ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(9:10 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. If you'll 

please take your seats, we=re going to begin 

our morning session. Welcome, everyone. The 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 

is pleased to be here in Oak Ridge again. We 

met here some time back, I forget the exact 

date, but we=re pleased to return here again to 

Oak Ridge and -- not only a place that carries 

some bit of sentiment for some of the Board 

members, but also opportunity to meet many 

folks who've worked here -- in some cases for 

their whole working lives. 

 This morning=s session is actually not a 

meeting of the Board. It=s a meeting of the 

subcommittee -- of a subcommittee of the Board, 

although you'll see a good fraction of the 

Board members are actually here present with 

us. But until 2:00 this afternoon we will be 

in session as a subcommittee, and then the full 

Board will meet beginning at 2:00 o=clock this 

afternoon. 
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 We=d like to ask everyone -- Board members, 

Federal staff people, and members of the public 

-- to register their attendance with us. Now I 

noticed when I came in, and probably when most 

of you came in, the registration book was not 

there. You didn't realize that but it was 

supposed to be there. And you didn't miss it 

at all but the Board members did. It will be 

out there I think by break time and, as you 

have a chance, please sign your name in that 

book so we have a record of your attendance 

with us here today. 

Also for members of the public there will be a 

sign-up booklet for you if you wish to make 

public comment later in the day. We have a 

public comment session late this afternoon at 

5:30, and if you wish to make public comment we 

ask that you sign up so we have some idea of 

how many will be addressing us and we can allot 

the time accordingly. 

On the table over here in the far side there 

are a number of handouts which include today=s 

agenda, copies of materials that the Board will 

be discussing, so that -- please avail yourself 

of those materials as you see fit. 
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 I=m going to introduce Dr. Lewis Wade, who=s the 

Designated Federal Official for this Advisory 

Board, and Dr. Wade has a few initial comments 

as well. Dr. Wade. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you, Paul. Only to -- to join 

Paul in welcoming you to this meeting. For the 

next three days, we'll be heavily involved in a 

number of issues. And this Board believes in 

transparency in all that it does, so we 

encourage you to be here and to listen. We do 

have two public comment periods; one today from 

5:30 to 6:30 and one tomorrow evening from 7:00 


to 8:30. And again, we welcome your comment. 


I bring you regards from the Secretary of HHS, 


also from the Director of CDC and from the 


Director of NIOSH. 


We do reserve the right to be a bit flexible 


with the agenda. One of our members, Mark 


Griffon, is delayed in reaching us. He started 


out in a snowstorm in Boston and will join us 


mid-morning. As Mark has had the lead on the 


discussion of the Y-12 site profile, I've 


suggested to the Chair that we delay that until 


Mark arrives. We'll have the full discussion, 


but I think it would be best had with Mark 

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here, and we'll start then with the Rocky Flats 

site profile discussion. 

As should be my practice and hopefully will be 

my practice, before we start any discussion 

I'll identify to you if there are any conflicts 

on the part of any members of the Board. In 

order to get a Board that=s capable of doing 

what we ask this Board to do, these people have 

experiences throughout the industry that we=re 

serving and therefore from time to time there 

are conflicts. If there are conflicts, we'll 

identify them and specify to you how those 

conflicts will be dealt with. As it turns out, 

there are no conflicts on the Board for Rocky 

Flats, so my first report is that there are no 

conflicts. 

ROCKY FLATS SITE PROFILE 


PRESENTATION OF MATRIX AND DISCUSSION
 

MR. JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A
 

DR. JIM NETON, NIOSH/SC&A


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Lew. We will 

then proceed as suggested with the discussion 

of the Rocky Flats site profile. We have a 

presentation from the Board=s contractor, SC&A. 

The discussion will be led by Joe Fitzgerald, 

and then following that we will hear from NIOSH 

and Dr. Neton. So Joe, if you'll kick off this 
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discussion, please. 

 DR. WADE: And just to make sure that we all 

have the right papers, we have Joe=s 

presentation in front of you. There=s also Jim 

Neton=s comments, and then we have the latest 

copy of the matrix or the matrices we use 

filled out for Rocky Flats. That should all be 

in front of you now. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. WADE: And copies on the table. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And I might just mention, 

particularly for members of the public, the 

matrix that we=re referring to is a document 

that flows out of the review by the Board. It 

all begins with the site profile which is 

developed by NIOSH. This is true of Rocky 

Flats; it=s also true of Y-12 and other sites. 

There=s an official site profile. Then the 

Board reviews the site profile and the 

contractor assists the Board in that review, 

and so as an outcome of that review a number of 

issues are identified. These issues are 

identified in the matrix. They are issues that 

are raised on behalf of the Board by the 

contractor, and then in turn NIOSH reviews 
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those issues and develops a response. That 

response may be yes, we agree with that issue 

or with that particular item that has been 

raised or we disagree with their finding, or 

perhaps some middle ground may be reached, and 

ultimately the Board then will take a final 

action item by item. So the matrix is a way of 

tracking the issues that are raised as the 

Board=s contractor reviews the site profile. 

So with that as background, Joe, if you'll 

proceed. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. Good 

morning, everybody. 

 What I=m going to present is really highlights 

of the matrix. The matrix I think is over here 

on the table. And I=m not going to repeat that 

and go line by line, but I want to just go 

ahead and cover that and I think Brant from 

NIOSH will also provide some perspectives as 

well. 

A little background, particularly for those who 

aren't familiar with the review, this review 

was done last summer. It went through 

classification review, actually was submitted 

to the Board and NIOSH on December 8th . And 
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this is really the advent of the issue 

resolution process. We haven=t had a dialogue 

with NIOSH, and I think this is the point where 

clearly we=re going to begin talking about some 

of these issues. Some of these issues may in 

fact have answers. We have not had that 

exchange yet, so this is almost a snapshot in 

time going back to when this was submitted 

December 8th . The matrix itself went in 

midBDecember. 

Okay. In any case, in terms of highlights, the 

primary issue that I think we felt very 

strongly about and would hope to have some 

discussions on is the use of the median MDA 

values for plutonium and americium at Rocky. 

We feel in particular this is important 

because, again, given the low thresholds in 

terms of measurement of plutonium and 

americium, how one handles the MDA value, how 

one applies that and what one does in the 

instance where you have in fact zeroes in 

background recorded readings -- and Rocky Flats 

actually, given the history, looking at the 

data, there are a number of instances, 

particularly in the early years where you in 
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fact see a lot of zeroes in backgrounds 

recorded -- and certainly there=s a lot of 

documentation to how that was handled, but also 

some questions and ambiguities about how that ­

- those -- that got (unintelligible) 

interpreted and when in fact (unintelligible) 

background recorded. 

In this particular issue, though, there=s two 

issues. One, how the MDA is defined is very 

critical, and in this case we are concerned 

about the variables, the factors that go into 

defining the MDA according to ANSI standards, 

and what we=re reading in the TBD. And again, 

we haven=t had a chance to really get behind 

some of these words and talk about the basis 

involved, but clearly going back into the '50s 

one is trying to figure out how these MDAs were 

developed, how they were applied. And what 

concerns us is, given the thresholds we=re 

talking about and the low level of measurement 

in the urine, words like Atypical@ and 

Atheoretical@ -- typical counting times of 150 

minutes, for example; a theoretical upper-bound 

detector counting efficiency; assumed sample 

values in this case equal to 24-hour urine 
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samples, and so on and so forth. The question 

we=re really getting to is, how precise can one 

be given the amount of time involved and given 

the records, in terms of coming up with an MDA 

that would be applied across the board; and 

does one need to cut a little bit of -- not 

slack, but some margin, given the fact that 

there are some uncertainties involved, clearly. 

And I think that the TBD attempts to provide 

some bounds to this, but in the process clearly 

points to the uncertainties involved in all 

these parameters. And again, the record is not 

clear and there is certainly uncertainty 

perhaps compounded on uncertainty. So here the 

concern is, can you in fact come up with median 

MDAs that are in fact quantitative and based in 

-- in the record. 

And beyond that question is the question of 

whether in fact, given the way background and 

zero values were applied at Rocky Flats, 

whether in fact the MDA value may be nonconservative in the final analysis. And the 

history is the fact that urinalysis results 

less than ten percent of the tolerance level, 

and the tolerance level was the maximum value 
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that -- action level that was permissible for 


urine counts for Pu and americium. And values 


that were less than ten percent of that level 


were not recorded. And for plutonium that 


comes to .88 dpm per 24 hours, and for enriched 


uranium of course, 8.8 (unintelligible) point 


per hour, and I guess the implication there is 


-- implies that when you get below those 


threshold values, those values are what's 


inferred as going to be recorded as zero or 


background, and this in fact may be in excess 


of some of the MDA values that would be 


averaged and used and applied. And our concern 


is that that's not going to be conservative. 


In fact, that's going to skew the data quite a 


bit, and what we're interested in finding out a 


bit more is how in fact is NIOSH addressing 


that particular issue and is there any 


additional information that wasn't in the TBD 


that could be forthcoming to rationalize this. 


So the history is murky. Certainly the 


implication is there that in fact, given the 


practice of assigning these values of 


background zero, using median MDA values may in 


fact be inappropriate and not technically 

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founded. 

Another issue, this low or insoluble Pu, we -- 

we've had this issue and this issue came up 

with -- certainly in our Y-12 report and other 

instances. Another terminology, I think high 

fired's been used. Certainly our concern here 

is that -- we've converged with NIOSH on this 

particular issue in the sense that we've -- in 

the final analysis, with regards to the 

solubility class, if someone in fact gets a 

intake -- uptake of plutonium in the lung, it=s 

not going to change the dose reconstruction 

bottom line significantly. It=s going to be in 

fact something that will be significant 

addressed as such. However, what we're 

concerned about is the fact that you have 

events -- you have instances where an acute 

intake of insoluble plutonium may in fact give 

you situations where you're not going to see it 

as readily and you're going to have situations 

where, if -- if not lung, you're going to have 

systemic organs, GI organs that may be 

critical, and it's going to depend on the type 

of cancer, so this is almost one where we've 

come very close to agreeing that overall it's 
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not going to be as significant as we once 

thought it might be. However, I think there's 

going to be instances where, if the target 

organ is not the lung, in fact is the GI 

organs, it may in fact play a role, may be 

significant, something that can=t be 

discounted. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Joe let me interrupt just a 

moment. Could you clarify then -- what you=re 

saying in general, this doesn=t appear to be a 

significant issue but there may be individual 

cases where it would B-

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. I think what we=re 

saying here is that -- you know, we went into 

this concerned that -- you know, again, the 

high fired or insoluble plutonium issue was 

something that we had seen at other sites. 

Certainly it figured in the debates at Rocky 

and the deliberations with Rocky. We looked at 

that particular issue; we certainly had a 

number of discussions with NIOSH and the 

technical staffs. I think the bottom line on 

that is that it=s not going to ultimately make 

a significant amount of difference in terms of 

the activity in the lung and in terms of dose 
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reconstruction what the outcome would be. 

However, we have two situations where we=re 

concerned. That for events or acute exposures, 

it=s not clear that you would not have a 

situation where this is not being addressed 

adequately. For instances where you=re dealing 

with a target organ that=s other than the lung, 

you=re dealing with the GI tract or whatever -- 

you know, the systemic organs -- it=s again not 

clear that that might not be a significant 

contributor of dose. So in those instances the 

S -- or super S as you might call it -- 

plutonium might actually be a factor and should 

be -- a contributor and something that=s 

treated in the analysis. So just those two 

exceptions -- not as broad as it was at one 

time, not as significant as it was at one time, 

but certainly something that can=t be ignored. 

In this particular instance, you know, 

certainly the neutron exposure issue, 

particularly with NTA film, was a key issue at 

Rocky Flats. Certainly there was a neutron 

dose reconstruction program that was run over 

the past several years, if not longer, that has 

come up with a factor that would correct for 
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the misreading of the NTA film at Rocky Flats. 

And I think this -- you know, this group, this 

Board, is familiar with some of the NTA issues 

at Rocky Flats. Clearly it was recognized 

early on, they went back and tried to 

reconstruct how these NTA films were read, how 

they in fact needed to be corrected, and 

there's a report that was issued this past year 

that wasn=t acknowledged or reflected in the 

TBD because, again, the site profile came out 

before that, but clearly would provide some of 

those factors. What we=re saying in the 

review, though, quite apart from the extent to 

which that may correct for the NTA film 

readings, for those energies, you have neutron 

energies at Rocky Flats that actually fall 

below the threshold of NTA. So this 

reconstruction program may not give you much in 

that regard. I think the tack there would be 

similar to what we=re taking with Y-12, that 

certainly one has to consider what correction 

factors, really what energies may exist at the 

site that may fall below the NTA threshold. 

That wasn=t evident in the site profile. 

Also it doesn=t address -- this is, again, the 
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NDRP program, this reconstruction program does 

not address non-plutonium workers. In other 

words, sources of neutrons that may exist 

outside the Pu process lines, and for energies 

that would fall outside of that. Again, this 

so-called neutron dose reconstruction program, 

the NDRP, focused on trying to correct for the 

NTA energies -- or the NTA readings, records 

that existed. So anything outside that scope 

is still problematic in terms of neutrons. And 

so what we=re pointing out is, in order to have 

the complete picture at Rocky, one has to be 

careful about looking at the possibility of 

energies that would fall below those energies 

in the thermal range, and also look at non-Pu 

workers elsewhere in the plant as well. 

I think we also pointed out in the site profile 

that it=s important from a coworker standpoint 

to look at job categories. We=re, you know, 

aware that a lot of this data was developed by 

the University of Colorado and that, again, 

NIOSH has had some difficulty getting that 

information out of the University of Colorado, 

so we=re I guess affirming that that=s 

important. We're affirming that they=re doing 
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the right thing, but we=re also acknowledging 

that it=s been difficult to get ahold of. So 

again, we think that=s pretty critical 

information and that=s going to help certainly 

develop some of the answers we=re talking 

about. 

We=re particularly concerned about the -- I=m 

going to use the word data reliability. I 

think we finally came to that conclusion, that 

was the right word terminology so we=ll use 

data reliability. But in the report we talk 

about data integrity, and I think, again, our 

concern here is that, given the lengthy history 

at Rocky Flats and a lot of the documentation 

investigations, our concern here is the 

integrity of the data, the reliability of this 

record to be used for dose reconstruction. And 

here we=re concerned about a number of issues 

that, you know, collectively raise questions, 

and we don=t have answers. I think this is a 

point of departure where we think the site 

profile would go a long ways to inform the dose 

reconstruction process by providing some 

perspectives on these issues. But for example, 

the potential problems with algorithm and 
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dosimeter calibrations, that was the subject of 

a major GAO investigation maybe ten years ago 

where there was a lot of concerns about whether 

in fact the dosimeters were calibrated 

correctly and what the implications for 

miscalibration would be. And again, we feel 

that that isn=t treated sufficiently and the 

implications aren=t addressed sufficiently in 

the site profile. What does it mean, in fact, 

to acknowledge and have this addressed in a GAO 

investigation, that in fact the dosimeter 

calibrations are faulty? And we think that 

needs to be addressed clearly. 

Issues of placement of dosimeters -- this is 

not a new issue. We certainly have addressed 

this at Pantex and at Iowa. This question 

seems to crop up in different sites for the 

same reasons. But again, I think this is 

something that would be very helpful to have 

addressed in the site profile. 

Dosimeters not worn and improperly worn -- 

interviews with workers, looking at 

documentation, even internal DOE oversight 

reviews, you know, there=s, again, a history 

where certain groups of workers, certain 
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workers clearly did not wear or improperly wore 

dosimeters. And the implication there is in 

the following bullet, which is in a number of 

cases the policy for not getting a returned 

dosimeter could be very well to assign a zero 

or no data available. The policy shifted over 

time, but clearly in terms of the data base 

there=s instances where decisions were made 

when a dosimeter was missing, when a certain 

reading fell below a threshold, and what have 

you, to in fact make an administrative decision 

to assign a zero, a null (unintelligible), a 

null dose or a no data available factor, all of 

which I think conflates the question of, you 

know, is there in fact a real dose there and 

how is that missing dose going to be addressed? 

And again, I think that needs to be developed 

further in order to address the reliability of 

this broad and lengthy database that we=re 

dealing with at Rocky Flats. 

 Another interesting factor is the presence of 

blank readings, which I don=t think I=ve seen at 

other sites, but blank readings are ones where 

you don=t really have a zero -- well, you don=t 

even have a number, but it=s recorded as a 
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blank. And prior to =64 those were instances 

where somebody was assigned a security badge 

with a dosimeter, but they essentially only had 

the security badge, they didn=t have the 

dosimeter. After =64, of course the wearing of 

the combined badge and dosimeter was required, 

so one would expect not to see blanks after 

=64. In a cursory view of the database, we are 

seeing blanks -- not many, but seeing blanks 

after =64. So that=s another issue which, by 

itself, may not be the earth-shaking issue, but 

collectively I think it gets to -- just wanted 

to make sure there=s a clear picture of policy 

and practice in terms of the actual data itself 

over time. 

And I guess the last item is the question of 

unmonitored neutron exposures and there the 

concern is that the early years, where the 

program was relatively primitive, the issue was 

not really having a good handle on what was in 

fact recorded in terms of neutron exposures, 

whether in fact there was a lot of unmonitored 

neutron exposures. And not surprisingly so, 

either, in the early 50=s. 

 One thing we=re trying to do is trying to shape 
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some sense of priority. We did cover a lot of 

ground, there=s a lot of findings, and 

certainly I wanted to highlight those preceding 

findings as ones that we think we need to dig 

into, along with NIOSH and the Board. There=s 

other issues -- not to say that these issues 

aren=t important, in fact they are important, 

but they=re probably more in the technical 

clarification or in the technical basis side of 

things. And again, I think these are easily 

addressed and I think, given our experience in 

issue resolution, we=ll get some answers fairly 

quickly. I=m not going to go through these. 

think you can read them for yourself. But 

certainly these are questions that came up in 

our review. 

You have the matrix that we submitted. Again, 

that gets into a pretty big cataloging of 

issues. I guess my question is, is there any 

questions or anything else that you want to 

address? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Joe. Let me pose a 

couple of questions and then other Board 

members may have some. Could you clarify the 

difficulty in obtaining the records from 

I 
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University of Colorado? Is that just an issue 

of finding them, or is there an administrative 

difficulty in actually having them release 

them, or what=s the nature of the issue? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I=ll defer to NIOSH, 

but my understanding is just a matter of -- you 

know, they -- they -- this data, this 

information was developed by University in 

conjunction with DOE. And the ability of NIOSH 

to in fact gain access to and receive it from 

the University, not being a government agency, 

certainly that has been part of –- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I wondered if they were having 

trouble finding the records-- 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, no, I don=t think that=s 

the issue, but I=ll defer to Jim --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: -- since the office of NIOSH 

has been doing this. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Ownership issue. Jim Neton. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, this is Jim Neton. This is 

the data that were collected as part of a study 

that was actually funded by NIOSH. The Healthrelated Energy Research Branch funded a study 

to have the University of Colorado go out and 
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reconstruct internal/external doses for workers 

at Rocky Flats, and we=re trying to obtain the 

raw database essentially, the individual data 

that were collected for that study, and we=re 

just having a little difficulty getting it out 

of the University at this point. It=s a matter 

of format and shape and is there additional 

work required to get that to us, that sort of 

thing, but we=re working very diligently to try 

to get that information. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And Joe, could you 

clarify, or perhaps Jim, when you say -- 

talking about the blanks, does the record 

actually show nothing or does it have some 

wording thatYs -- what --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, it -- it --

 DR. ZIEMER: When you say blank, what does 

that actually mean, there=s nothing in the 

record? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, it means there=s 

nothing in the record, and there is some 

documentation which suggests the fact that the 

so-called blanks were in fact -- I don=t want 

to say recorded --

 DR. ZIEMER: So it=s not a zero, there=s no 
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number, it=s just nothing? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. It=s a aberration of 

sorts because situations where you clearly had 

a unmonitored worker, and that was a little bit 

more understandable in the >50=s when you had a 

situation where you had workers that were 

unmonitored. =64 when you had the security 

badge with the TLD, that becomes less 

understandable and that=s the part where in 

particular this use of a so-called blank would 

be something we=d want to see looked at and 

researched to some extent and to understand the 

implications. What does that mean? Does that 

mean an unmonitored worker, does it mean the 

data wasn=t available? And then of course that 

was another terminology that was used, Adata 

not available,@ and in those situations 

sometimes the badge just wasn=t returned. You 

know, for whatever reason, the badge wasn=t 

returned to be read and so that was recorded. 

And so you have -- I mean to point this out. 

Given the lengthy history going back in time, 

and the fact that while this stuff was 

formative in the >50=s and early >60=s, you had 

different, you know, approaches to how things 
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were recorded. And again, some of these may be 

perhaps resolvable in terms of some research, 

but taken together, we think it just raises 

some questions about the database that we, you 

know, certainly would want to see those 

answered. We would want to understand, with 

each of these categories, how=s that play into 

somebody=s dose? If you had a individual who 

had a blank, a null finding and a data not 

available, how would you go about 

reconstructing that dose? How would you -- 

what kind of coworker information or model 

would apply in those instances? I think that 

would be the basis for making that judgment. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Robert Presley. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Joe, this is Bob Presley. We 

talking about one percent or we talking about 

50 percent? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, no, we=re talking about --

particularly in the 60's, the numbers get 

fairly small. And in terms of blanks you see 

certainly more of those in the 50's, and that=s 

actually understandable. I guess I have less 

of a problem. My question is, if you see them 

after >64 when that was part of the security 
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badge -- and being at Y-12, I think Rocky was 

analogous -- that=s hard for me to understand, 

because you certainly wouldn=t be running 

around without security badge. And if you had 

a security badge without a TLD, is that the 

case or does that mean something else? So it 

raises a lot of questions. I=m not saying it=s 

-- it's not a -- there=s not an explanation, 

but right now it=s unclear based on the site 

profile, and I think that=s probably food for 

additional thought and research. And I think, 

again, we've picked that out in terms of 

talking to workers, looking at documentation, 

reviewing the GAO investigation, just seemed 

like there=s a number of issues that pointed to 

questions of data reliability. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, other questions? 

Michael? 

 MR. GIBSON: Joe, you mentioned that the 

assumed default particle size is one of your 

concerns. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 

 MR. GIBSON: Are there other assumed default 

factors that they use in the bioassay system at 

Rocky and other sites, such as the assumed date 
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of intake since the last sample, and the 

assumed solubility of that isotope where they 

sometimes use a 33 percent B-

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think, you know, our 

concern is that there=s certain simplifying 

assumptions made, but the problem with 

simplifying assumptions is that there=s actual 

real data that=s available on the five 

microgram -- micron AMAD. Some of the data we 

looked at in terms of the fires at Rocky 

suggest a lower, you know, AMAD in terms of the 

particles, and I guess our concern is that 

since that was a source of exposure, if you had 

workers that were perhaps exposed to that 

range, is five going to be sufficiently 

conservative. This is not a new issue. This 

is, you know, obviously one that we=ve debated 

and talked about at other sites. We raise it 

again because when you have actual data on 

particle size, our question is almost a kind of 

a policy question, I guess is what you=re 

getting at, too, is how do you handle that? Do 

you actually apply the average, or do you in 

fact go beyond the default size in instances 

where workers were obviously exposed to maybe, 
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in this case, these fires where actual data 

shows a smaller particle size. And that=s 

really the question in our mind. 

And for these other instances, the same 

question. You go to a simplifying default 

parameter, and I guess what we talked about 

earlier on some of these other issues at Rocky, 

including the median value, that comes fraught 

with some issues because you=re going to have 

worker categories and you=re going to have 

different operations, you=re going to have 

different periods of time in production, where 

that average isn=t going to apply. And which 

makes it important in the coworker model to 

look at subgroups and your operational history 

to look at certain operations and figure okay, 

the default applies except for these periods of 

time for these operations and for these 

subcategories of workers. In those instances 

we have real data that suggest that the 

exposure is higher. And, you know I think 

that=s reasonable if in fact the data is 

available to do that. 

 But we=re seeing instances where the 

simplifying assumptions, although well thought 
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out and understood as something that=s, given 

the amount of records you=re looking at, 

certainly that=s an efficiency. We=re concerned 

that these sites are very heterogeneous in some 

cases and anything that=s that overly 

simplifying is going to miss these instances 

where workers are going to potentially get 

exposed above that average. 

So I agree, I think this is a generic issue. 

think in this particular case we=ve pointed out 

the median value and the particle size as sort 

of examples to illustrate that particular 

issue. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Roy DeHart. 

 DR. DEHART: You had mentioned on the internal 

dose problem with the TS compounds that 

internal organs, GI organs, et cetera, you have 

some concern about, and that was identified I 

think you said with specific incidences perhaps 

that would give you issues of exposure. Do you 

have any idea of how you would identify 

individuals or groups of individuals who would 

be exposed to a higher internal dose like that? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: I think our perspective was 

if the target organ happened to be the GI tract 

I 
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and if you work backwards, if you=re doing --

dealing with dose reconstruction that=s maybe 

based on colon cancer or something of that 

sort, then I think it=s clearly something that 

ought to be factored in, just because it may 

have contributing exposure value for that 

particular cancer. And so it=s sort of one of 

these where -- and overall I think we=re 

actually pretty close to the NIOSH position. 

All we=re saying is that there are maybe 

exceptional cases, depending on the target 

organ and the cancer involved, where the 

insoluble plutonium actually may provide 

additional dose because of the insolubility and 

the fact of how it=s handled. 

 DR. DEHART: Is it possible to identify those 

instances where that would have occurred, or 

are you just going to have to use a blanket 

assumption to those who have internal cancers? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think you=re going to 

have the systemic exposure. I just think that 

you=re not going to probably apply it in terms 

of contributing dose unless you=re, again, 

reconstructing dose by virtue of cancers that 

may have been in those target organs, the 
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systemic organs, the GI tract. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions or comments, 


Board members? 


 (No responses) 

Okay, thank you very much, Joe. Then let=s 

turn to Jim Neton and Jim has some responses on 

some of these issues from NIOSH. 

 DR. WADE: While Jim is coming to the 

microphone maybe this would be a good time for 

me to sort of underscore the urgency of our 

deliberations on Rocky Flats. I=ll repeat my 

comments when the full Board is seated, though. 

 NIOSH received an SEC petition on February 

15th, 2005. It was to cover all employees at 

all locations at Rocky Flats for the years 

April >52 through the date of the submission of 

the petition, which was February 15th , >05. 

NIOSH qualified that petition on the 16th of 

June, 2005. As Joe mentioned, we did not 

receive SC&A=s evaluation report until December 

8th
 of 2005. This is in no way to reflect 


negatively upon SC&A. They did that work 


timely; there were classification issues that 


had to be dealt with, there were reviews that 


had to be gone through with their report before 

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it could be received. 

If you do the arithmetic you realize that NIOSH 

has 180 days to make a recommendation to the 

Board after it qualifies a petition. That 

means we were due to make a recommendation to 

this Board the middle of December. We were 

just in receipt of SC&A=s comments, and 

therefore NIOSH sent a recommendation to the 

Board. That recommendation was that we resolve 

these issues before NIOSH would produce an 

addendum. We hold to that. We think that=s 

the appropriate way to go. It is certainly 

NIOSH=s hope to have a definitive 

recommendation to the Board before the Board 

next sits, which would be in April of 2006. 

In order to do that to the satisfaction of the 

Board, these issues need to be resolved to the 

degree that they can. So I only make the 

little recollection of dates to stress the 

importance of our working intellectually with 

these opened issues that have been raised by 

SC&A=s review so that we can be in a position, 

NIOSH can be in a position to make a definitive 

recommendation to the Board and the Board can 

be in a position to vote on that recommendation 
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when you meet next in April. 

DR. NETON: Okay, thank you Lew. Lew actually 

has sort of summarized a little bit about what 

I was going to talk about in this first slide 

labeled time line. Some time ago when the 

Board initially started to embark on reviewing 

site profiles, Rocky Flats was one of the 

original I think eight that were recommended to 

SC&A to review, and SC&A has been going through 

and producing these. I think the Rocky Flats 

profile review was somehow being fast-tracked, 

as Lew indicated, because of the SEC submission 

that we received in the middle of February. 

Because of that, we have been working very 

closely with SC&A to try to resolve some of 

these issues. 

 As Lew indicated that we=ve just received the 

report in the beginning of December, a several 

hundred page document that outlines the issues. 

But as has been the case with sites that have 

SEC active SEC petitions, we=ve been trying to 

focus the issues related to the site profile 

review on those issues that are relevant to the 

SEC petition. That is, which of these issues 

in SC&A=s reviews are show-stoppers? What 
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issues would essentially prevent NIOSH from 

doing dose reconstructions with sufficient 

accuracy, as defined in our regulations? 

 Because of that, after the initial review came 

out, we=ve been now receiving these comment 

resolution matrices that are sort of summaries, 

summary findings as Joe went over, of the 

issues, the major issues. That allows us to 

focus a little better our efforts to bring 

these things to resolution. 

 Now Joe=s presentation was a little different 

than what I=ve done. I=ve actually put together 

sort of a little sketch as to our general 

feelings and comments on the 21 issues that 

you=ll find in the comment resolution matrix. 

I think there are handouts available at the 

side table and I believe the Board actually has 

those as well, and you=ll see on the right-hand 

side, you have what I call NIOSH=s response. 

I=d like to caveat that to some degree, to 

point out that these are initial draft 

responses that we put together, just to put 

some of these issues on the table for 

discussion. 

So with that said, I think I=d just like to go 
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through and briefly, where I can, offer some 

insight as to what NIOSH believes the relevance 

and significance of the comments that exist in 

this resolution matrix. The first one I think 

Joe spent some time on, which is the bioassay 

MDA values for plutonium and americium. 

There=s been an issue raised that they believe 

the MDA=s that we=ve cited in the site profile 

are not sufficiently conservative. That is, 

they do not incorporate all sources of 

uncertainty that would go into that 

calculation. And in fact, we do agree that the 

variance or the uncertainty of the MDA values 

needs to be examined to some degree. 

Right now the MDA values propagate the 

traditional counting uncertainty in a blank, a 

relevant blank, and then they fold in the 

median values for other factors that influence 

the ability to detect an intake, such as the 

recovery -- the chemical recovery of the 

process, the volume of the urine that was 

obtained from the individual and maybe such 

factors such as the self-absorption of the 

alpha activity on the planchet. SC&A=s 

recommendation was that we should take the 95th 
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percentile of those other factors, and possibly 

two out of the four factors, and use them to 

increase the MDA to be sufficiently 

conservative or claimant favorable. 

We disagree with that approach. We feel that 

that=s not the best way to handle the 

situation. We believe that if you go back and 

look at ANSI 1330, there are indeed examples of 

how one propagates the overall uncertainty, 

let=s call it in the 1330 standard a total 

propagated uncertainty. One would fold those 

distributions, the uncertainty added to the 

overall value of those distributions, into the 

over all value and then use the 95th percentile 

of that as your MDA value. We=ve done some 

analyses of this. We=ve looked at propagating 

in chemical recovery, self-absorption, those 

sort of parameters, and they do increase the 

value of the median that is presented in our 

site profile, but nowhere near the extent as if 

we were to just take the 95th percentile of the 

values and use them as the de facto value in 

the MDA calculation. 

 So we=re looking at this. We welcome some 

dialogue with SC&A on this issue. We believe 
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that we can adjust these to some degree, but 

the adjustments are going to be much less 

significant than I believe the finding 

currently indicates. 

There=s a second part of this issue which is 

the reporting limits. We totally agree that 

when the Rocky Flats health physics folks 

reported a value as less than a certain value, 

a reporting value, then we need to use that 

value in our calculation because we have then 

no a priori knowledge of what the measured 

value was. There=s essentially sensor data. 

For administrative purposes they would report 

the value as say less than .88 dpm. That .88 

value was really based in administrative 

controls as opposed to some statistical 

calculation of the detectability of the 

process. And when those are used -- and I 

think prior to 1960 or even >62 they were 

exclusively using these reporting values -- we 

agree, we need to use those in our 

calculations. We would have no technical 

justification for doing otherwise. And I don=t 

know that we imply that we wouldn=t use them in 

the profile, the MDA was cited there. But 
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where there is a reporting value, we=ll 

certainly use it. 

The second issue, super S plutonium, again Joe 

Fitzgerald went over it in some detail, and I=m 

glad that we agree that this is not as 

significant an issue as previously thought. 

There=s a couple things going on here. The 

first situation is that if there were much more 

insoluble plutonium compounds than can be 

modeled using the ICRP parameters, then in fact 

the dose to the lung would go up substantially. 

The reality is, if one looks at the dose 

reconstructions we=re doing for the Rocky Flats 

site, almost any detectable lung value or even 

any detectable lung dose based on missed dose, 

even for class S, type S material, is over the 

50 percent compensability mark. The doses are 

just very large based on the current ICRP 

models. By us not defaulting to something even 

more soluble would merely increase the dose and 

increase the value over 50 percent. So it in 

practice makes very little difference in those 

situations. 

Now when one looks at systemic organs, that is 

organs where the material has left the lung, we 
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would assume that the material, if it were 

insoluble -- the material that is in the 

systemic compartment would be overestimated 

using type S. In fact, we=re assuming more is 

coming out of the lung than thought. So in 

that case, we would tend to overestimate the 

systemic organs using the current ICRP models. 

The one area that Joe correctly pointed out 

would be in the case of the GI tract where, if 

you have an underestimate of the lung dose -- 

in other words you=re measuring the urine and 

you think there=s less in the lungs than there 

really is there, then indeed over a large 

period of time you would ultimately swallow the 

deposition in the lung, it would be cleared 

through the GI tract, and the GI tract dose 

could be substantially larger in that 

situation. We=re addressing that to 

accommodate the situation. We=ve actually 

issued a contract with the Transuranic 

Registry. They=re going back and looking at 

autopsy cases, whole body donor autopsy cases 

that they=ve analyzed for Rocky Flats intakes. 

We also have some data from the folks at Rocky 

Flats who have looked at some former workers to 
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try to develop a model for super S, as it=s 

known, or very insoluble type S material and to 

accommodate the extra dose that would be to the 

-- would result to the GI tract as a result of 

the insoluble material. But it=s really in 

that narrow instance where the GI tract type 

cancer is present that we would have to concern 

ourselves. 

So again, we agree with SC&A that this is an 

issue. But by and large it=s not a significant 

issue for the vast majority of our cases. 

Okay, the default particle size. We believe 

the profile does recognize that there were 

plutonium fires at Rocky Flats, and in fact 

they are categorized in the site profile. And 

our guidance to dose reconstructors is that 

when there is evidence that a worker was 

involved in a plutonium that may have been 

involved with a fire, a .3 micron particle size 

would be the recommended median value of the 

distribution. So we believe we=re 

accommodating it. 

The second part of the issue, though, is when 

we=re dealing with bioassay data, the particle 

size largely does not -- the particle size 
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distribution that is inhaled does not largely 

affect the dose, because what we=re doing is 

taking what=s in the system. When you=re 

measuring something in the urine, you=re taking 

systemic -- systemic activity, and then that is 

-- the amount that=s directly in the system is 

related to how much is in the systemic organs. 

So in this case it=s sort of a selfcompensating factor where the particle size 

really makes very little difference in the 

overall internal dose for systemic organs. 

But again, we certainly would be willing to sit 

down and discuss this with SC&A. We=ve had 

some early conference calls that Brant Ulsh of 

our staff has been chairing with SC&A on some 

of these early issues, but we have not had a 

chance, since this report has come out, to 

discuss these one on one. 

The fourth issue here, the uncertainty of the 

plutonium lung counting calibration, this is 

related to the use of americium 241 as a tracer 

for plutonium intakes. It=s a fairly 

widespread common practice in the industry that 

one ratios the amount -- americium 241 is much 

more easily detected in the lung, so one uses 
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the americium and then infers how much 

plutonium is there. The site profile itself is 

fairly conservative in the sense that it 

recommends default amounts of americium to 

plutonium ratios, certain parts per billion 

ratios, when the date of intake is known. But 

in fact if nothing is known about the date of 

intake and the age of the plutonium, there are 

some very conservative defaults that would tend 

to overestimate the amount of plutonium in the 

lung. So I -- we think that this is covered 

fairly well in the site profile. 

This full equilibrium assumption for depleted 

uranium refers to, again, a sort of a -- I 

wouldn=t say a trick, but a practice in whole 

body counting where, you know, one -- one 

cannot measure uranium 238 in the lungs 

directly. There are insufficient photons. So 

one normally result -- has to resort to using 

thorium 234 as an indicator of the uranium 

activity. Thorium 234 has a half life of about 

20-something days, 24 days; it grows in very 

quickly from the uranium parent. So anything 

over 80, 90 days old is at a substantial degree 

of equilibrium. 
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 There were some practices at Rocky Flats where 

they attempted to separate out the thorium 234, 

which would result in disequilibrium. But we 

believe in general the assumption of this 

equilibrium is valid and reasonable, unless we 

know that we=re dealing with specific cases 

where they have altered the equilibrium. And 

even then, if the intake is over 80, 90 days 

old, we believe that the assumption of full 

equilibrium is reasonably valid. 

 The interpretation of the NTA film, the nuclear 

track type A film, there are some issues and 

number seven is a similar issue with the 

neutron doses. We believe that we=ve had a 

claimant-favorable bias correction factor for 

these neutrons, and in fact we believe we=ve 

corrected for low energy under-monitoring. 

However, there is this new neutron study that 

has been done at the Rocky Flats sites to 

reassess the neutron doses to workers in the 

early days. That study has been available to 

us fairly recently. We=ve looked at that. We 

are now using those new data to do dose 

reconstructions for individuals who have data 

that were re-evaluated under the conditions of 
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those studies. But we are also going to take 

the new nuclear neutron data and incorporate it 

into the site profile to re-do the bias 

correction factors. So that is something that 

we will be doing. 

Okay. All right, some of these later ones go a 

little more quickly. They=re not quite as 

significant. As Joe pointed out, they=re more 

in the lines of -- you know, we need to address 

these but they=re not, in our position or mind, 

show stoppers. 

 This exposure geometry, angle of dependence, 

this is something that=s been raised in other 

site profile reviews. In fact, you know, we 

have -- in our profile and in the 

implementation guide -- had some discussions 

about how to deal with correction of badges on 

the chest to certain exposure geometries such 

as rotational and isotropic and PA and those 

sort of things. We have recently adopted the 

position that these will all be modeled using 

the AP geometry, the anterior/posterior 

geometry. It=s the most claimant-favorable 

thing to do, and unless we can clearly indicate 

that the exposure situation was otherwise, 
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we=ll do that. We=ve adopted that by and large 

in our dose reconstruction program and I think 

-- I think SC&A would agree that if we adopt 

this approach, this issue becomes not 

significant. 

There are some other factors that were pointed 

out related to maybe some environmental 

conditions and those sort of things, and we do 

need to address those, the uncertainty 

associated with those conditions. And we 

recognize we need to explain those a little 

better. 

This missed dose issue, unfortunately the 

response that you see in here was I believe cut 

and pasted from something wrong. It=s 

addressing an internal dosimetry issue. Number 

nine is really addressing an external dose. So 

that, I think, falls into the category that Joe 

was speaking about that was related to these 

other factors like wearing badges and 

environmental levels of exposure that weren=t 

subtracted properly from the badge, and those 

sort of things. So I guess I could say right 

now I=m just not prepared to address that 

because I=ve got the wrong response here. 
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 Number ten, recycled uranium, we agree that we 

need to increase the language in there a little 

bit and explain some -- in somewhat more detail 

how we=re going to deal with the recycled 

uranium issue, although we need to be careful 

when we=re talking about recycled uranium. 

There is recycled uranium that is recycled that 

had already been through a reactor that has 

trace contaminants of transuranic materials. 

There=s also uranium that is just in general 

recycled, meaning you=ve got scraps and stuff 

that has not been through a reactor, is going 

to be re-melted and reprocessed. I think one 

of the comments that SC&A made related to 

recycled uranium was talking about that type of 

material. We don=t believe there=s any 

dosimetric issues with that, so we just need to 

be careful when we talk about recycle, we mean 

transuranically contaminated recycled uranium. 

But we will -- we will revisit the site profile 

and put some additional language in there to 

help explain what we=re talking about. 

 Okay, unmonitored internal dose. This is --

let me just look at my notes here. This is 

related to when you have no monitoring data at 
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all. And NIOSH, as we=ve heard in the past, 

has been developing coworker models. We=ll 

take monitoring data from workers who were 

badged, who we could hopefully demonstrate were 

more heavily exposed than the unmonitored 

workers, and develop some lognormal 

distributions and apply those. That=s not in 

this profile. I mean, just like in the Y-12 

site profile you didn=t see that. We believe 

that that should be covered in another 

document, and it will be. The site profile 

itself, as we talked in the past, is not an 

all-encompassing document that covers every 

single issue that could possibly be there. 

This is generic guidance to dose 

reconstructors. But we will deal with the 

unmonitored dose in a separate document. 

Okay, elevated ambient external radiation. 

This again is a -- one of the issues that -- I 

think it was on Joe=s last slide, which is the 

other issues that we need to visit but are not 

show stoppers. There were some issues that we 

are aware of at Rocky Flats where badges were 

stored in higher elevated areas near where 

workers were exposed, so we were -- we might be 
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inappropriately subtracting badge rack 

background. In fact, you know, the badges were 

stored in the areas where the workers were 

being exposed. If one subtracts that, then you 

have a low est-- a low -- biased estimate of 

the dose on the low side. We looked at that in 

some detail when the profile was being put 

together. I think we just need to explain a 

little better, you know, what we looked at and 

what our position is in that area. 

 These next few issues, partial body exposures, 

has to do I believe with glove box workers and 

that sort of thing, and we=re going to have to 

do a little better job explaining what we=re 

doing in the site profile in that area. 

 This occupational external -- occupational Xray dose, I think this comment "assuming full 

equilibrium from lung counts is reasonable", is 

not the appropriate comment. I=ll -- I=ll take 

blame for that. But what we really meant to 

say here was that we don=t believe that 

occupational X-ray dose as a result of an 

injury is covered in this program. We do 

include all X-ray doses related to being a 

condition of employment, such as if one wanted 
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to be -- had to be an asbestos worker at Oak 

Ridge in some years, you needed to have an 

annual chest X-ray to be an asbestos worker, or 

early years at Lawrence Liver-- or Los Alamos 

one needed to have routine chest X-rays to be a 

uranium worker. Those we believe are relevant 

and should be covered as part of this program. 

But when you break your leg or have a back 

injury and go, we view that as sort of a normal 

occupational X-ray that is there that has 

medical benefit, and therefore we are not 

including these in our -- under the regulation 

as covered exposure. 

 Fifteen, ingestion dose, we acknowledge that we 

need to do a little better job addressing that. 

However, I would point out that when one deals 

from bioassay measurements, ingestion dose is 

covered and that one just needs to figure out 

whether ingestion or inhalation provides the 

higher dose to the worker. 

 Again, I=ll just whip through these. Air 

monitoring dose, that has to do with 

environmental data. Again, we=re committed to 

explaining that in some more detail in the site 

profile. 
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 Soil resuspension, similar issue, we do believe 

we=ve included resuspension, but again, we will 

increase the level of detail in the profile, as 

well as number 18, hands and wrist doses. That 

will be addressed in the next issue. And 19 as 

well, industrial X-ray and neutron sources. 

Although I will say that we=re hard pressed to 

find really any additional sources of neutron 

exposures outside of the plutonium worker 

areas. There may have been some neutron 

generators, whether they=re californium sources 

or what not. But unless we have, you know, 

significant evidence of very high enriched 

uranium with a low Z material or something, 

we=re having a little trouble coming up with 

other sources of neutrons. But we=d -- we 

certainly would like to talk to SC&A about that 

and see what their -- where -- their thoughts 

on where these other other sources could have 

come from. 

And 21 and 22, again, post-production 

operations -- there=s some concern that we 

didn=t cover in the site profile, for instance, 

external exposure during the D&D phase, the 

decontamination and decommissioning phase of 
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the operation. And we are committed to going 

back and making that clearer and beefing it up 

a little bit. And the same as 20 -- in comment 

21, with the phases of operation. That=s a 

very -- like 10,000 foot level summary of where 

we are. We have not had a long time to review 

these, and you know, we welcome the opportunity 

to sit down with SC&A and to try to work these 

out and figure out which ones are extremely 

relevant to the SEC petition and bring these to 

closure as soon as possible. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jim. Let me begin with 

this question. Again, to try to understand 

this issue on item one, which has to do with 

the MDA values and what are selected. If I=m 

understanding what the difference in the two 

views, one is that you -- I believe SC&A is 

suggesting that you -- you=ll have a 

distribution. You take the 95th percentile and 

then that becomes part of a new distribution 

that eventually there=ll be another 95th 

percentile? Is that what -- 

DR. NETON: Well -B

 DR. ZIEMER: -- is happening here? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess one concern I have is 
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that I=m not sure where the 95th percentile 

distribution we -- I think that two out of four 

parameters was the suggestion -- you know, 

we=re saying one possible way to go is two out 

of four parameters, take the extreme values of 

those two --

DR. NETON: Right 

 MR. FITZGERALD: -- as a bounding mechanism, no 

-- no distribution. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, no distribution. 

DR. NETON: Well, what -- we would not use -- 

would not appropriate the distribution of those 

values in the overall uncertainty, which is a 

traditional MDA calculation. You take an 

uncertainly distribution and pick the 95th . 

What SC&A is asserting is that our 

distribution, the bell curve, is slightly 

narrower than it should be because we haven=t 

incorporated the uncertainty in chemical 

recovery, self-absorption. So indeed, that 

bell curve will widen. But as Joe just pointed 

out, they are suggesting we stick with the bell 

curve which is the counting error, and then use 

the 95th percentile of the recovery for every 

single sample. And then that 95th--
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 DR. ZIEMER: Discrete values, though. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, discrete values. So instead 

of incorporating the uncertainty, the total 

property of uncertainty, we would just take the 

highest 95th percentile for each of those 

parameters -- and that has a dramatic effect on 

the MDA=s. It raises them by a factor of two, 

three or more, and we don=t believe that that=s 

reasonable, given that we=re already 

incorporating these MDA=s as missed dose 

calculations and assigning workers doses that 

they possibly didn=t even receive. So we have 

to careful about how far we -- we sort of take 

this calculation. And again, to their -- SC&A 

did not -- it was a suggestion. They didn=t --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: -- they didn=t say this was the 

only way one could do... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: On your point number two where 

you where you talked about the super S 

plutonium in the dose to the GI tract and going 

to the Transuranic Registry to get information, 

I have two questions on that. Will you get 

that in time, and the second one, do they have 
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sufficient data, however you define sufficient, 

to get that information? 

DR. NETON: Yeah. Yeah, the cases have already 

been analyzed and we=re getting data as we 

speak. There have been four or five other 

cases that Rocky Flats has reviewed, and we=ve 

already looked that. We=ve -- we=re trying to 

develop a model that incorporates this, and 

there is clear evidence that in some cases the 

plutonium just re-sits in the lung. I mean it 

just does not leave the lung, and you know, we 

need to factor that in. It=s a little 

difficult, though, as you suggest, to -- you 

know how many data points do you need to really 

get a handle on a new model? But we believe 

that we=ll have this resolved before -- before 

we -- before the Rocky Flats SEC petition 

evaluation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Michael? 

 MR. GIBSON: Jim, on number three you mention 

that particle size is not significant factor 

when you have enough bio-- when you have 

bioassay results. 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GIBSON: Are you talking about -- by 
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bioassay results, are you talking about the 

amount of activity seen in the bioassay and 

then making your own calculation, or are you 

talking about the assigned dose from Rocky 

Flats from that sample? 

DR. NETON: No, we -- we=d never use any 

assigned dose from any DOE sites from a sample. 

We always independently calculate our own doses 

to the organs, and so this would be our 

interpretation of the dose based on the 

measured value in the urine or even the MDA. 

Even if there=s no activity measured in the 

urine that=s above the detection limit, we will 

assume a certain value would have been there. 

But, yeah, it=s our own calculation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments or questions? 

 DR. WADE: I have a question -- a question 

just generally. Jim, just how do you see this 

unfolding -- and Joe as well -- I mean just 

since the Board will -- will deliberate, you 

know, tomorrow as to steps to take. But while 

you=re up here and this is fresh in our mind, 

how do you see this unfolding? 

DR. NETON: Well, I don=t want to speak for the 

Board, but if the past provides any insight, I 
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would suspect that the Board would put together 

a working group that would work to help NIOSH 

and SC&A come to resolution on these comments. 

We would hold several working group discussions 

as well as some technical interchanges between 

SC&A and us over the telephone with published 

minutes and, you know, make this as transparent 

as possible, inviting relevant stakeholders to 

listen in as we have in the past. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Joe, you want --

 MR. FITZGERALD: I'd like to add --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- to add to that? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: -- I think the Y-- again, the 

Y-12 process has worked very well in terms of 

converging on the most important issues, as 

well as narrowing differences. I would say, 

you know, the same process would be effective. 

 DR. ZIEMER: A number of these it appears that 

you=re fairly close. There=s others where NIOSH 

has agreed to do some clarifications and 

updates --

DR. NETON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and perhaps items like the 

first one --

DR. NETON: Yeah. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: -- as you get together at the 

table, we can come to some sort of closure. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I think we can resolve that 

number one fairly quickly. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I must say, this -- this 

is not the only time that we=ve started --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: -- exchanging issues and 

clearly converged on a couple of these just in 

the process of putting the report together 

(unintelligible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: Yeah. I will say for clarity, 

SC&A did make us aware of this number one issue 

well before their report was published -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

DR. NETON: -- so we had some knowledge of this 

prior to this meeting. 

 DR. WADE: Sometimes it=s appropriate that we 

wait for one or the other parties to do some 

work to get together. I=m sensing maybe you=re 

ready to get together very soon. 

DR. NETON: I think so. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. WADE: Joe, is that correct? 
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 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think that we pointed 

out a number of things that -- frankly, even 

this was helpful just to bring us up to date on 

what NIOSH has done as far as looking at some 

of the issues, so I think the step would be 

maybe to clear off on some of the easily 

cleared-off items and then start focusing on 

ones that the Board would need to have better 

information on. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Clearly SEC=s significant 

issues, perhaps. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. WADE: Don=t read my questions as sort of 

meddling. I just have a sense that this is an 

issue that we want to work with some dispatch, 

so thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments, questions, Board 

members? We don=t necessarily need to take any 

actions. We will report to the full Board 

tomorrow what was -- what was covered. The 

sort of consensus might be that what we just 

heard described would indeed need to occur and 

that, without objection, I think we would 

recommend to the full Board that this process 
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that had been used in other cases be carried 

forward in this case to try to reach resolution 

on many of these issues. Is that agreeable? 

Yes, Henry? 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I just wanted to ask the 

two -- which of these issues do you see as 

being critical to the petition sort of 

activity? >Cause I think those are ones where 

we really need to resolve first if -- I mean 

the others -- a lot of these are -- they=ll be 

taken into account in the next revisions, well, 

we really can=t determine whether the revisions 

are in fact addressing -- how they=ve addressed 

the issue. But certainly that -- a lot of 

those seem to be and are useful issues to 

address, but not necessarily SEC petitionrelated. So which of these are the ones that 

we need to focus on the most, I guess is the 

question. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Joe, can you give us a partial 

answer from SC&A=s perspective? I think you 

somewhat have them ordered by priorities, so -- 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I -- I think 

(unintelligible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- is it the first seven or 
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something like that? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: He=s waving his hand to me. 

Yeah, we -- I wanted to order that that way 

without getting into fingering anything as SEC 

or not SEC. I think that=s obviously your 

province. What we wanted to do, though, is 

illustrate the issues or findings which we felt 

were important or relevant to that process, and 

then issues that were important to the site 

profile, as you point out. And I think that=s 

the distinction we=re making -- the same thing 

we=re doing with Y-12, as you will hear later. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And if at the next meeting we 

learn -- that is the next full meeting of the 

Board -- we learn that there are unresolved 

issues, the Board may have to make a specific 

decision on and do the resolution. Roy DeHart. 

 DR. DEHART: As far as procedure is concerned, 

is it possible that the site profile findings ­

- where we=re standing now, what looks like 

perhaps a resolution coming along -- and the 

SEC petition can run in parallel? The Board=s 

taken a very hard position that they want the 

site profile completed before we complete an 

SEC because --
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 DR. ZIEMER: In essence, the -- NIOSH has 

taken an action on the site profile. The 

action was that this -- essentially this 

process be carried out prior to a final 

determination. But Lew, do you have a partial 

answer to that as well? 

 DR. WADE: Yeah, I think, Dr. DeHart, it=s 

really a matter of degree. I mean we lived 

through the experience with Mallinckrodt where 

we had an SEC petition in front of us and a 

moving target relative to agreement on a site 

profile, and I don=t think we want to 

experience that again. I do think that there 

are a number of issues that I see here that can 

and should be resolved before we would expect 

the Board to be in a position to vote on an SEC 

petition. I think there are others that really 

can wait, and I think -- you know, Henry=s 

question was obviously the correct question. 

You know, how do we bin these, and I think 

we=re starting to understand that. So yes, I 

think they can run in parallel. But when we 

come to the Board and ask for a decision, I 

think it=s important that the Board would have 

in its possession the information it would need 
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to act on that decision reasonably. 

DR. NETON: I think Lew's summarized it well. 

I would just like to add that as of late we=ve 

been requested by the Board to also provide 

example dose reconstructions, so those in 

themselves go a long way toward demonstrating 

how we would actually do it. Whether there is 

a complete, signed-off revision to all issues 

in the site profile or not, one could get a 

good sense from that dose reconstruction 

example. 

 DR. WADE: John Mauro has a question. I should 

point out as John walks to the microphone, John 

has been very helpful in trying to work through 

this process and understand the trade-offs 

involved. So John, what do you have to tell 

us? 

DR. MAURO: I=d like to sort of stick my neck 

out a little bit. And I=m John Mauro. I head 

up the crew out at SC&A. And listening to this 

discussion to move the flags forward a little 

bit, I see three areas that perhaps -- and I=m 

really throwing this out as a -- almost like a 

-- am I looking at correctly, 'cause I=m 

looking at it just as everyone else is looking 
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at it. It seems to me that if you=re going to 

try -- out of the long list of 21 items, three 

of them, in my mind, merge as possibly being 

the ones that could be -- fall into the 

category that you would say SEC. Okay, you 

know. 

And the first one had to do with data 

reliability. You know, when all is said and 

done, all these approaches that we=re using to 

reconstruct coworker data, et cetera, we need 

to put the data reliability questions to bed so 

that we could say we=re standing on a sound 

rock, first and foremost. In fact, I would say 

just about across the board data reliability is 

the heart and soul of dose reconstruction. 

The other area that I feel puts us in a 

position that would challenge our ability to do 

dose reconstruction, and it turns out to be a 

small segment, but it=s -- in other words we=re 

talking about individuals with GI tract cancer, 

can we reconstruct their dose in light of the 

fact that you might have these high-fired 

plutonium where you have to use Transuranic 

Registry data to see if in fact you have a 

mechanism to reconstruct the dose to 
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individuals who may have come down with a 

cancer of the GI tract. We need to be able to 

say yes, we have a way to at least put an upper 

bound -- a reasonable, plausible upper bound -- 

on that dose. Sounds like right now we=re not 

there. So I put that in the category that that 

needs to be resolved. And believe me, I=m 

putting this on the table more to advance the 

dialogue so at least I=ll have -- I could give 

you my perspective. 

And the final one is that -- the business of 

the chest count being the way in which you get 

a handle on plutonium. That is, when you=re 

taking your whole body or your chest count, 

you=re looking for the americium, and from -- 

based on the americium you could default to say 

okay, we see how much americium there is in the 

chest, therefore we can predict what is 

possibly the lung burden of plutonium. From 

speaking to our folks that have been looking at 

this issue, the degree to which that could be 

done reliably and in a claimant-favorable way 

in situations where you have relatively small 

amounts of americium -- and as I understand it 

there are circumstances where if you have 
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freshly processed separated plutonium, you may 

not very well have very much americium present 

-- leaves you in a situation where, okay, if we 

have a situation where that exists, you=re in a 

tough spot. How are you going to get a handle 

on the plutonium in the lung if you can=t 

really trust the ratio of plutonium to 

americium? If that circumstance could exist, 

we have ourselves a situation where how are we 

going to do that dose calculation? 

So in the interest of furthering the dialogue, 

at least from my perspective, I see those three 

out of the 21 as the areas where I=d sure like 

to zero in and say let=s see if we can put this 

one -- these to bed. I hope that helps. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: Just one more little observation 

about time. Tentatively, when last we met, we 

scheduled a possibility of a call of the Board 

on March 14th, and then we have scheduled a 

full Board meeting the end of April. You know, 

we now have the positions clearly identified on 

Rocky Flats, the need for the parties to get 

together and start to, through working group, 

work issues. We could look at that call on 
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March 14th as an opportunity for the Board to 

review this information one more time. 

Subsequent to that I would see NIOSH issuing an 

evaluation report, and then a full Board 

deliberation. So I think we have -- we have 

time to do this right, but I think it=s 

important that we reflect on all of those 

questions. 

TASK III REVIEW – STATUS/DISCUSSION
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, ABRWH
 

DR. JOHN MAURO, SC&A
 

MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. We=re going to proceed 

now. Another item on our agenda -- again, we 

have altered things a bit to accommodate the 

fact that Mark Griffon, who has the lead on the 

Y-12 discussion, was snowed out and has not yet 

arrived. But we will move to the Task III 

review, which is the last item on the agenda 

sequentially, as it was distributed, Task III 

review status. In this case John Mauro from 

SC&A and Stu Hinnefeld from NIOSH can take us 

through the discussion there. 

Now let me identify first the documents that 

you should have. 

 DR. WADE: Under the tab. 

 DR. ZIEMER: There is a tab, Task III procedure 
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findings matrix. Remember, Task III was the 

task of reviewing NIOSH=s procedures. That is, 

the review conducted by our contractor of 

NIOSH, and actually of ORAU, procedures. And 

we have looked at the findings matrix in the 

past. We=ve looked at the initial findings, 

we=ve looked at the NIOSH response. And the 

Board actually took some actions I think before 

 DR. WADE: Right, I think the Board has acted 


fairly completely on the external dose portion 


of this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: The internal dose is still a work in 


progress. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And what you have -- in your 


folder you have the Board actions that were 


taken on the external portion. And then if you 


get to the internal dose procedures, you find 


there are no Board actions listed because we 


took none at that point. So, okay, Stu. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, this -- I'm --


 DR. ZIEMER: Stu Hinnefeld from NIOSH. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- Stu Hinnefeld from NIOSH. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that on? 

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 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm okay. Just to refresh 

everybody=s memory, we did meet -- we=ve been 

following the six-step convergence process on 

the procedure review findings just as we have 

on site profile reviews. And with the 

procedure review findings, we did follow the 

converging conversation step -- on the external 

dosimetry procedures only -- at a working group 

meeting in Cincinnati some months ago, and a 

series of recommendations to NIOSH were 

established at that. And we=re proceeding to 

implement those recommendations, and here in a 

minute I=ll give you a real quick status on 

where we are on the implementation of those 

actions. 

With respect to the external -- or the internal 

dosimetry procedures and the claimant interview 

procedures, that -- there=s been no converging 

conversation yet about -- of those findings and 

our initial response. And so following the 

pattern that would have -- that=s been 

established so far, the next action would have 

-- would be a working group meeting to discuss 

-- where we would discuss with SC&A and the 

working group would help us converge on a 
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common understanding of the depth of the 

findings for the internal dosimetry procedures 

and claimant interview procedures. So history 

indicates that when we schedule workgroup 

meetings with site profile reviews on the 

table, they pretty much subsume the entire 

workgroup meeting, and so procedure issues 

don=t necessarily get there. It may be 

worthwhile to have a meeting for this topic or 

for this topic and dose reconstruction report 

review type topic, as opposed to adding it to 

the site profile reviews, because the site 

profiles really do seem to overwhelm the day on 

those meetings. 

 So that=s where we are today. We have -- NIOSH 

now has some -- our initial response to the 

findings that are on this matrix that is 

distributed today on the internal dosimetry and 

the claimant interview procedures. We can 

provide that electronically to SC&A and the 

working group members for convenience for 

working, but I think the next topic -- the next 

subject would be to have that converging 

meeting to discuss the internal dosimetry and 

claimant interview procedures. 
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Now with respect to status on the 

recommendations from the external procedures, 

the first -- external dosimetry procedures, the 

first several items in the matrix -- very many 

of these comments refer to sections of our 

implementation guide, IG-001, which is the 

external dosimetry implementation guide. That 

revision to incorporate these changes is 

drafted. We want to make sure -- the reason 

it=s not out yet is we=re try -- we want to make 

sure we get consensus among ourselves about the 

approach that=s being taken on the dose 

conversion factor changes. There are certain 

things we=ll have to change with respect to the 

dose convers-- organ dose conversion factors 

that are published in that document. And so 

we=re trying to make sure that we have -- you 

know we=ve -- among ourselves agree that we=ve 

done the science correctly to do those, to get 

those changes, and then that will proceed 

forward. 

All the rest of the revisions are ready to plug 

in and we were just going to do the one 

revision. So we were getting the DCF=s 

finalized. So that=s our status on -- that 
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covers all the recommendations through -- of -- 

that reflect IG-001. 

 The next document on here is then of course 

Procedure 6, which is our contractor=s 

Procedure 6, which are the same findings and 

the same changes then will be incorporated into 

that that are incorporated into IG-1. 

 Following Procedure 6 I believe is our 

Procedure number three which was kind of a 

general description of how dose reconstructions 

are done. It was written very early on when 

there was a general -- when it was like our 

first procedure of how to do dose 

reconstructions. In the meantime our 

contractor, ORAU, has written very many 

procedures and technical documents about how to 

be -- how to do dose reconstructions and so 

this guidance has been essentially made 

obsolete by the later instructions, and so 

we=ve canceled Procedure 3. That one has been 

canceled. That was the recommended action; 

that=s been done. 

The next two documents are Technical 

Information Bulletins number eight and number 

ten. These findings relate to some confusing 
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language throughout. We agreed with that. Our 

contractor is revising those Technical 

Information Bulletins to more clearly reflect 

what=s intended to be done when people are 

following them, and we expect to see those 

revisions next month from our contractor. 

With the OTIB-7 having to do with environmental 

occupational exposure, that one is hardly used 

at all anymore. I believe that one may 

actually have been canceled. I apologize, I=m 

not completely up to date on OTIB-7, but I can 

probably find out before the end of the meeting 

where we are on that. It=s barely used at all 

since we now have site-specific information 

about environmental exposure. This was a 

complex-wide estimating approach that was used 

before very many site profiles were done. 

The next two are OTIB-6, okay. OTIB-6 is again 

undergoing revision by our contractor but I 

don=t have an expected date yet on when we=re 

going to receive that. Has it been revised 

already? Okay, Hans is more up to date than I 

am. OTIB-6 has been revised to include these 

recommendations. The two OCAS TIBs, number six 

and seven, reflect -- they provided specific 
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guidance to how to deal with certain issues 

that came up at the Savannah River Site that 

the site profile as published originally didn=t 

address. The recommendation is to get the site 

profile modified to address this so you can get 

rid of these so you don=t have this confusion 

of several different documents, and they 

weren=t terribly -- and they weren=t all 

consistent, either. And so that again, the -- 

depends on the revision of the site profile by 

our contractor and we=re st-- we are awaiting 

that. We have not received that yet. I don=t 

have a scheduled delivery date for that, but I 

don=t believe it will be too far behind the two 

procedures, OTIB-8 and OTIB-10. 

 And, let=s see -- I believe that completes it, 

right. That completes the set of actions we 

were going to do from the external procedures. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Stu. I think it might 

be helpful, and perhaps you could summarize 

this in writing for the Board after this 

meeting, just to have a list that we can lay 

side by side -- for example, you=ve told us I 

think that the revision on 06 is now complete. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. OTIB-6, right. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Would that be helpful, Board 

members, I think just to have -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: You want like a status column? 

Or --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, something that would 

parallel each of the items, just -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Sure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- if the revision is complete so 

we know that. I don=t actually recall if the 

Board had actually decided it wanted to see 

these revisions. I think -- I think we just 

needed to know -- I don=t think we --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- need to see them, we needed to 

know that they=re complete. And in the future 

and if the Board wants revised things reviewed 

by the contractor, we can do that. But I think 

it would be helpful if we had kind of a status 

report that=s -- and we understand the low 

priority ones. We weren=t expecting those 

revisions --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- to occur in any --


 MR. HINNEFELD: In many cases when a revision 


was underway anyway, for instance -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- if there was a medium 

revision, a moderate revision on the same 

document, we could try to incorporate the low 

ones if it were fairly easy to do. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. And I think it would be 

helpful if we had a written status report. 

That -- I don=t know that we need that before 

the next meeting but it=s -- it would be 

helpful to have that in writing, or whenever 

you can pull it together. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I=d like to do it next month 

when I hope I have a little more to report, in 

terms of things being delivered. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: The easy way to do this would 

be to add an additional column. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Add a column, right. Just tell us 

 MR. HINNEFELD: That may put us on legal sized 


paper if we do that in order to still be able 


to read it. Is that okay? 


 MS. MUNN: That's okay. That's fine. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I could shr-- I guess it=ll 


shrink. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Smaller font, sure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- however you can do it 

conveniently so that we can -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Smaller font and magnifying 

glasses. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And then on the other ones then, 

what you=re telling us is that the steps for 

reaching resolution have not yet been taken. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, in fact, these were 

fairly -- I don=t know that they=ve been 

provided before now actually to SC&A. I 

intended to, but I don=t believe I did. I 

think I sent them the wrong copy of the matrix 

that didn=t have these on it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So SC&A has not yet seen the NIOSH 

response yet --

 MR. HINNEFELD: I -- I don=t believe so. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and had a chance to interact, 

so --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- those interactions remain to be 

done. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, whenever the working 

group is assembled to do that, we=ll -- we can 
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be prepared for that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So basically this is a status 


report of where we are on -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- on this item. Board members, 


any questions or comments? Wanda Munn? 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, thank you for the suggestion 


with respect to the status line. My memory is 


that the working group was concerned about that 


as well --


 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- and was looking forward to the ­

- seeing complete, done -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- finished, yeah. Good. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: Thanks, Stu. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, other comments on this item? 


 (No responses) 

I notice that we had allowed an hour for that. 

Am I missing something here? Can you drag this 

out a bit, Stu? 

 No, I don=t think we need an hour -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: We could ask SC&A for their 

comments on this, I=ve been doing all the 
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talking. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don=t know -- SC&A has not had a 

chance to respond to the new recommen-- or the 

NIOSH responses, but -- yes, Hans, if you would 

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, we only looked at the 

response this morning and of course it=s -- be 

premature for me to make comment, but I do 

understand the issues that were raised. And 

quite frankly, I think many of the issues can 

be resolved relatively quickly because -- and I 

already spoke to Jim and Stu on this issue 

prior to the meeting -- many of the issues 

involve things that have a technical side to 

that, but not really a strong impact on what we 

hope to achieve here in terms of deciding 

whether or not a claim or a dose reconstruction 

may have a claim, will go over the 50 percent 

or below 50 percent, which is really the 

critical issue. 

And many of the issues that were identified 

early on when we reviewed Implementation Guide 

Two and many of the others, TIB-2 and others, 

which were clearly intended only to be used in 

select instances where the claim up front is 
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known to be non- compensable. In other words, 

what can we do to overestimate an exposure to 

the point where no one would reasonably argue 

whether the dose that we assign is in fact an 

overestimate, and in the process show a POC 

that=s less than 50 percent, and therefore, 

say, end of the claim. 

And I think many of the issues that were 

identified and yet to be resolved in behalf of 

internal dosimetry involves the high five for 

Savannah River, the 12/20 radionuclides under 

hypothetical exposures, and while there were 

technical issues that were identified with 

regard to the blending of ICRP-30 with more 

recent ICRP documents, they will only add a 

small amount of dose for individuals who, in 

most instances as the TIBs actually specify up 

front, to be only used in non-compensable 

claims, so what you=re really doing is refining 

something that in the end has a very limited 

impact. And so in discussing with Jim and Stu, 

I think we can resolve some of these issues and 

focus on those things that are important. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much for that 

comment. Lew? 
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 DR. WADE: Wanda first. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: Again, not speaking for the entire 


working group, but there was a serious concern 


-- a primary concern with respect to a lack of 


clearness relative to which procedures applied 


in many cases. We had circumstances where one 


procedure would appear to be applicable, but 


another would not approach it in the same way 


or would, even though the end result may be 


similar, would not be the same. And there was 


a significant concern with respect to not 


having procedures in place that might confuse 


the dose reconstructor or cause a question to 


be raised with respect to which took precedence 


on any given site. So for that reason, 


certainly I as a member of that group was very 


eager to see these procedural issues resolved 


since they apply not to individual sites but 


generally across the complex. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, and again, when we're -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Hans? 


 DR. BEHLING: -- talking about those particular 


procedures that are referred to as complex-


wide, as a rule they always end up being those 

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procedures that are directed towards noncompensable claims. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, yeah. 

 DR. BEHLING: And there has been a lot of 

misunderstandings and misinterpretation and I 

think Stu correctly pointed out that they=re 

currently in the process of revising TIB-8 and 

ten which were mostly the ones that were 

misinterpreted by dose reconstructors. But 

what has also happened in the meantime over the 

last six months or so, we have seen, in 

reviewing the various audits that we have 

performed, a steady, steady almost complete 

conversion from the use of procedures to 

workbooks. And the use of workbooks now takes 

all that guesswork away. In fact, we were 

talking about the potential that someday if 

there is some time, Kathy could present to the 

Board an understanding of the workbook, which 

would take a lot of mysteries out of how dose 

reconstruction is being done. And when you 

look at the workbooks, many of the issues that 

we have found that were problematic for the 

dose reconstructor in his interpretation of the 

various procedures, have been taken away 
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because that option no longer exists. And so 

it=s a self-rectifying situation where we=re now 

dealing with dose reconstructions that make use 

of workbooks that take the mystery out of dose 

reconstruction for the people who are involved. 

So I think the problem has essentially been 

largely eliminated. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, Hans. And Kathy 

Behling, did you have an additional comment on 

that? 

 MS. BEHLING: Yes, I do. In fact, I believe 

the reason that there was a large slot of time 

for the Task III, both today and I guess on 

Thursday, I think the intent was that we would 

try to go through some of these internal items 

and findings on the matrix. We did receive 

NIOSH=s responses a few months ago, and I don=t 

know if they=ve changed with this matrix, but 

we have looked at those. And so at this point, 

although a lot of the issues were handled by 

Joyce Lipsztein, both Hans and I are prepared 

to go through those items and I think -- I 

believe it was Mark=s intent that we might be 

able to go -- to step through some of those 

items and get some of these issues working 
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towards closure. And I think Hans and I are 

prepared to do this if there is additional 

time. 

 And also Arjun is here and can discuss the 

internal -- or the interview procedures. If I 

might, since we do have a little bit of extra 

time here, also let you know that we will -- in 

-- currently we=ve been authorized, as an 

extension of this Task III project to, as Hans 

said, look at the workbooks and review the 

workbooks, so we have a new list of procedures 

that have -- that we=ve been authorized to look 

at. And we=re also looking at various 

workbooks, both site-specific and complex-wide 

workbooks associated with this. In fact, I=m 

working right now on a complete table so that 

you all can see the list of all the relevant 

procedures that are out there regarding dose 

reconstructions, which ones we=ve reviewed, 

which ones we=ve been authorized to review, and 

also I=m going to tie with that which ones have 

a workbook, and which workbooks we=re looking 

at so that you have a full understanding of 

what -- of the entire picture of the Task III. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Certainly it would be appropriate 
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to proceed through that. Kathy, do you want to 


lead that off or is Hans going to take the lead 


on that? And also, do we have a handout on 

this? 

(Pause) 

I think what we=ll do -- let me just -- we=ll 

take a break for ten minutes, comfort break, 

and we'll get this part prepared -- 

 DR. WADE: If I could interject just one thing, 

and again, it=s been alluded to by several of 

the speakers, you know, this Board is drawn 

into very time-critical issues with regard to 

SEC petitions and therefore site profiles, and 

we have a tendency to put this issue off. And 

I think -- I know Mark wanted to bring focus, 

as Kathy so eloquently did, to this. So I 

think it=s important that when we walk away 

from this task, we walk away with a strategy 

that will allow this item to be given 

sufficient time. This migration to workbooks 

is non-trivial. I think it=s a very positive 

development, but I think it=s important for the 

subcommittee and then the full Board to get its 

mind around this and then have a plan of action 

that=s implementable. We go to the workgroup 
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meetings expecting to do everything and this, 


and we don=t do this, and I think we have to 


learn from that lesson. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we=ll take a ten-minute 


break and then reconvene. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 10:48 a.m. 


to 11:05 a.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Return to your seats, we=re going 


to reconvene here. On Task III, Board members, 


if you=d take your -- have your matrix in hand, 


we=re going to have an opportunity for NIOSH to 


indicate on the matrix those items where they 


in essence have agreed with the SC&A comments ­

- and Stu will go through those and identify 

those -- then we=ll have an opportunity for 

Hans and Kathy Behling to indicate some next 

steps on the other items. So Stu, if you can 

take us through those items where it appears 

that NIOSH has essentially agreed or at least 

there=s been a resolution of the issue, or at 

least identify those issues where we=re... 

(Pause) 


Or at least take us through those NIOSH 


responses. 


(Pause) 

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 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, is it on now? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Well, I mean the ones 

that we agree with the comment and agree to 

make revision to, we=ve kind of identified in 

our comment as -- you know, as -- and I=m going 

to have to be kind of on the fly here if that=s 

-- if that's the one you want to talk about. 

You know, we may also -- you know, since there 

-- in those cases where we say okay, we agree 

we=re going to make this change, maybe we would 

be better to talk about ones where we don=t 

think a change is necessary. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Is that okay? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, maybe you could identify 

each. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Okay. Well, we=ll start 

through this and when you get tired of it just 

tell me to shut up and I=ll sit down. This --

the internal dosimetry procedures -- the 

document starts with OCAS-IG-002, that=s on 

page 12 of this matrix, and I noticed that this 

-- the finding numbering actually calls these 

IG 001-01, but that=s a typo. These are all on 
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IG-002, so the far left column is the correct 

column where the document is numbered 

correctly. 

 First comment describes lack of clarity in 

identifying special circumstances in an 

example, and our response is, well, we can=t 

write an example that includes all the special 

circumstances that we=re going to have to face. 

So we thought that the examples we wrote 

illustrated what we intend to illustrate and we 

didn=t expect we would have to change those. 

But we did say that, you know, if part of this 

description of the finding -- the total body of 

the finding also talked about uncertainty not 

being addressed very well, and we do agree that 

we need to beef up the uncertainty portion of 

IG-2. So we do intend to do that. 

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I think was has happened is 

that when we undertook the review of the 

various procedures, we were also as new as 

anybody else and we didn=t realize what was to 

come. Obviously, no one could foresee the 

massive expansion of procedures that would 

provide more definitive information as time 

went by, the introduction of workbooks, so some 
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of our criticism was perhaps somewhat premature 

because we weren=t really in a position to 

assess the future and accurately assess what 

additional TIBs would be developed that would 

fill in the blanks as we saw them. So again, 

some of these comments, we have to take it in 

context of time. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: So, moving on down the page, we 

agree with the second comment that there are -- 

I believe that had to do with an incorre-- an 

out of date or an old ICRP or this most -- 

latest ICRP-71 not being referenced and a 

couple of radionuclide models on this 

particular table, we agreed that we needed to 

update that table to do that. 

DR. ROESSLER: Should that be californium or 

calcium? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I -- it=s -- I believe it=s 

both. I believe it=s -- I believe it is -- I 

don=t know, I=ll have to go back and look. It 

may be a typo. It may be Cf, but I don=t know. 

The next comment is about the -- doesn=t 

mention treatment of gases and vapors, and we 

agree that we didn=t say anything about it, but 
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we also feel like any internal dosimetrist who 

has a gas or vapor exposure would know he had 

to use the gas or vapor model, but we will go 

ahead and make that change since we=re going to 

be revising IG-2 anyway. 

The fourth comment has to do with clarity in 

how exactly to do it. I believe this kind of 

speaks to Hans's comment just a minute ago 

about when this review was done they didn=t 

recogn-- you know, SC&A didn=t recognize the 

proliferation of other technical documents that 

would be coming along to give more specific 

detail. And because this is sort of a general 

rules document as opposed to a specific 

guidance document, so we didn=t really feel 

like there was a revision warranted from that 

comment. 

 Comment number five, again, this site -- this 

speaks to uncertainty approaches and so we 

agreed that we needed to beef up or do -- be 

better perform-- provide better explanation in 

those sections. 

 DR. BEHLING: And -- and as just an add-on, the 

uncertainty issue=s oftentimes driven by other 

procedures where you have a very, very firm 
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understanding of how to deal with uncertainty, 

whether it=s the use of a triangle distribution 

that makes use of DCF=s, the three values, et 

cetera, and I think it was introduced there, 

but perhaps not as adamantly stated as it 

should be. But I think the issue is one that 

we would walk away from and say it=s not an 

issue that is appropriate here for the 

implementation guide to be addressing. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: See, where -- I think we=re at 

comment number six now, which is the second one 

on page 13. This is one where I guess we do 

have a disagreement which would probably 

require conversation, and it has to do with 

whether the mouth as the target organ is 

appropriately modeled by the ET-2 portion of 

the respiratory tract. And we>ve got a certain 

body of research that we=ve done that we feel 

like we selected appropriately when we said the 

mouth was not included appropriately as a 

target by -- or not modeled appropriately by 

ET-2. So this will require I think some 

discussion. 

 DR. BEHLING: And I should also state to the 

Board that I=m really speaking in behalf of 
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Joyce Lipsztein here because this is the area 

that she was involved in, but unfortunately 

she=s not here today to make comment, and so 

there=ll be some comments that I will refrain 

from making in her behalf without having 

conferred with her first. So on this one I 

will -- I will remain silent. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think basically we just 

want to identify where there=s essentially 

resolution and where further interactions may 

be needed, and this is one. Okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Finding number seven, we agree 

that the statement that was cited is incorrect 

and we shouldn=t have said that that way, but 

the finding -- while it=s not captured here in 

the finding, the description -- the full 

finding goes on to speak about things like 

investigation of a hygiene habits and things 

when you=re dealing about ingestion, and we 

don=t propose to do that. We don=t think that 

information will be available in dose 

reconstruction and so we don=t propose to say 

anything about that in IG-2. 
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 Comment number eight state-- is an example, it 

says an in vivo measurement with no detectable 

thorium 232 in the lungs is a comment in our 

IG-2, and yes, we agree that thorium 232 isn=t 

directly measurable in the -- by an in vivo 

count in the lungs. You actually look for one 

of the photon from the decay products. And so 

you have to have some knowledge of the degree 

of equilibrium between the decay product and 

the parent in order to correctly interpret the 

bioassay result, and we understand that. But 

this particular portion of the implementation 

guide was talking about how to resolve 

situations where you have multiple indications 

of the intake. You know, how do you resolve -- 

in these cases when you have a positive lung 

count and bioassay data, and so we felt like 

this was an acceptable example to use for that 

particular instance because if you=re doing in 

vivo counting for thorium 232, in order to do 

that at all you have to have some knowledge of 

that equilibrium. So we figured, yeah, we 

understand that, but what we were trying to 

explain is how you deal with it when you have 

more than one in vivo type that=s telling you 
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that you got an intake. That was the intent of 

this section, and so we don=t think the section 

needs to be revised. 

 Okay, finding number nine. We don=t dispute 

what the reviewer said, but we felt like, given 

the structure of the document, that it was 

appropriate to list things the way we listed 

them. For instance, the IG describes -- let me 

think and make sure I=ve got the right one 

here. Okay, I was thinking of something else. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are you on the radon? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I=m on -- I=m on -- I=m trying 

-- I=m trying to get my mind around number nine 

and what we -- what number nine was. 

 DR. BEHLING: Stu, if I can interrupt, I think, 

again, it=s an academic issue because the 

assumption generally speaking is that if you=re 

talking about the lungs, the lymph nodes, and 

certain other tissues that are metabolically or 

mechanically concentrating a radionuclide, the 

assumption is to always go to the highest dose 

that involves the solubility of S, or slow. In 

metabolic tissues you go to -- default to type 

M, so that the assumption is always to be 

claimant favorable. 
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Now I do have a comment on that issue which I 

had probably wanted to make this morning, and 

that is -- and it goes back to some of the 

audits that I=m doing. Generally speaking, the 

assumption is -- today is to deal with type M 

as a claimant favorable default value for 

solubility for non-metabolic organs, but that=s 

only partially correct and conditionally 

correct. 

And what do I mean by that? If we start out 

with, for instance, an air intake, if we have a 

person breathing in air and it has so many 

becquerels per cubic meter and you=re talking 

about plutonium or uranium, then it=s clearly a 

claimant favorable assumption to assume type M, 

because you will be breathing in the same 

amount whether you assume type M or type S. On 

the other hand, and this is what I=ve found now 

in doing audits, when you start out with a 

urine sample -- and let=s assume you have a 

urine sample that has one dpm per 24-hour urine 

excretion volume -- and if you start on the 

assumption that because the cancer is a nonmetabolic cancer and you say that it=s type M 

because it=s claimant favorable, you would be 
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wrong. Because for the simple reason that if 

you work backwards and say how much do I have 

to breathe in in order to get one dpm in a 24­

hour urine volume, if the material is assumed 

type M, you will get a certain value -- let=s 

say it=s X. If you start out with the same one 

dpm per 24-hour urine volume but assume it=s 

type S, slow, you will end up -- the required 

intake, inhalation intake, is maybe ten times 

higher. And then if you use that value and put 

it into IMBA and work forwards again for that 

organ dose, you end up actually with a higher 

dose if you assume type S as opposed to M. And 

that is unique only when you start out with a 

urine data that=s defined in terms of alpha 

particle disintegrations or something else. 

Because the difference being is that when you 

work backwards, you start out with a much 

higher intake when you say how much do I have 

to inhale in order to see one dpm and assume 

that I=m dealing with a slow solubility class. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay --

 DR. BEHLING: And I just wanted to quickly 

point that out. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- it=s clear to the Chairman that 
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we need to have the face-to-face 

(unintelligible) this. We have 75 more items 

to go here on this list and we cannot resolve 

them here at the table, I think. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: We won=t belabor that any more 

then. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Actually, I think Hans was going 

into a different issue, really it=s sort of a 

separate issue. But on this issue I think 

really -- I think what you=re saying is that 

the IG wouldn=t address that kind of 

specificity. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Is that kind of what --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, that=s pretty much what 

we=re saying on this comment. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But nonetheless, I want to stop 

here for a moment and -- because we have -- we 

have the Y-12 site profile that needs 

discussion here this morning. We also have the 

dose reconstruction matrix that needs some 

discussion, and I want the Board to decide on 

how it -- or the subcommittee to decide on how 

it would like to proceed on this. Clearly 
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there are a number of items where NIOSH has 

already indicated that they in essence agree 

with the finding. There are a number of items 

apparently where there=s still some 

disagreement and some face-to-face needs to 

occur. 

So -- and Mark, your working group dealt with 

this. Mark Griffon now has joined us. We=re 

glad you made it out of the snows or whatever 

else was occurring in Boston. 

But Mark, is this something, just to expedite 

things, that we need to have the matrix sort of 

filled in next -- the next step by the 

workgroup before we bring it to this level? Or 

what needs to occur? 

 DR. WADE: Just to look at assets -- consider 

our assets, we have an hour on the agenda for 

the full Board for Task III. That hour is 

available to us to do what might be 

appropriate, so --

 DR. ZIEMER: On the full Board meeting. 

 DR. WADE: On the full Board meeting. So there 

is time. I think how we spend that time, it=s 

-- it's worthwhile talking about now. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I don=t know if -- time­
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wise if there=s any time between now and then 

for the workgroup to sit down with Stu and Hans 

and just go through this matrix and try to fill 

in some of the blanks and then, you know, at 

the full Board meeting maybe we could highlight 

which ones still need resolution, as opposed to 

doing it here where it=s going to take longer. 

Because I think a lot of the IG ones -- I mean 

we can skip by a lot of those first ones and 

get to the heart of the matter. But doing it 

in real time here might be difficult. So it 

might be possible to meet as a workgroup after 

the meeting tonight. I don=t know how much 

time we have. 

 MS. MUNN: Twenty-five minutes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: But I mean I=m -- you know, I=m 

certainly willing to do that. I would like to 

see this procedures review move along. I hate 

to wait >till -- to push it off another 

meeting. 

 DR. ZIEMER: What Lew has suggested is that the 

-- the discussion on the dose reconstructions 

might be fully done -- simply not done here in 

subcommittee, but done in the full Board 

meeting -- and devote maybe one half-hour more 
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to this and try to finish it up. And one way 

to do that expeditiously would be just to 

identify quickly which items, if -- if NIOSH 

has basically agreed to the finding, just 

identify which those are. And where there=s 

disagreement, identify and then -- because 

there clearly may need to be some additional 

follow-up. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Does that leave us time for Y-12? 

That=s the only question I had. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We, we still have an hour for Y12. The agenda calls for 45 minutes; I=d like 

to allow an hour if we could. We have set 

aside 1:00 to 2:00 also for subcommittee, so we 

could do Y-12 then. 

 DR. WADE: Right, again, looking at the assets, 

we=ve got an hour on the agenda -- the full 

Board agenda for dose reconstruction. We=ve 

got an hour on the full Board agenda for Task 

III. You know, how you would best want to use 


that time, you know, we have between now and 


lunch here, and then I think I agree with the 


Chairman that after lunch I think we should 


come back and devote ourselves to Y-12. So we 


have those time slots, and how best to use them 

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I think is something we could talk briefly 

about. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I=m suggesting we have about 

a half-hour here we can go through and identify 

where we are on the matrix. There=s about 80 

or so items on the matrix, so we -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that sounds good to me, 

maybe we can -- the only reluctance I have is 

we might miss something, but if we can go 

through and find areas of disagreement -- maybe 

with Kathy and Hans looking and we=ll try to 

catch areas of disagreement and discuss those 

issues, and then --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- move us along quicker, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And in -- in cases where basically 

there=s an agreement, there=s no point in taking 

a lot of time on it so... 

 MR. GRIFFON: Although some of those areas of 

agreement I still -- but we can discuss this 

maybe at the full Board meeting 'cause there=s 

-- in some cases there=s agreement, but the 

agreement was that it was captured in a change 

in another procedure, and I=m just wondering, 

you know, how we track that through. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. Okay. But -- Stu 

if you want --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- another comment. Wanda. 

 MS. MUNN: I had just wanted to comment that 

prior to Mark=s arrival I had previously made 

the comment that the working group was 

concerned about having put these procedures off 

again and again, so that if running through 

them right now will distill what we need to 

address at the full Board tomorrow, I would 

certainly support that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That=ll certainly help, but I don=t 

want to spend 30 minutes trying to decide how 

to proceed, so let=s -- let's --

 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I think I can -- I can 

move to OCAS TIB-8, and then I think that one=s 

a Joyce Lipsztein issue -- as you just 

mentioned, Hans, right? 

 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So -- is there anything prior to 

that, though? There=s pretty much agreement as 

far as I could see on most of the items prior 

to that in the matrix. 

 DR. BEHLING: And again here Mark, there have 
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been so many changes here with regard to the 

surrogate use of organs over time -- for 

instance, in the case of prostate for 

externals, testes for internals, bladder -- 

didn=t used to be that way. So there have been 

changes in response to that issue. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, yeah, and they=re 

noted, I think, right? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, very quickly, where do we 

stand on 09? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Wait, which -- which one are you 

looking --

 DR. ZIEMER: That=s the one Stu was discussing 

when --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) on page 13. 

 DR. ZIEMER: On page 13. It=s actually --

 MR. HINNEFELD: I guess, I -- I really --

 DR. ZIEMER: It=s IG-002-09. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. Our view is it=s an 

editorial comment with, you know, really no 

consequence. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, keep going, Stu. 
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 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, I guess we=d put number 

ten in that same category, really, is that, 

okay, the -- that has to do with dose from 

radon gas as opposed to radon daughters because 

the radon section only address radon daughters 

and -- again, kind of -- it is editorial but 

not terribly consequential. Okay, and then 

that completed -- it's IG-10 and was the last 

one of IG-2. 

The next one goes into our Procedure number 

three, the first one appears to be an editorial 

comment about some references being missing 

from the references section. 

 Comment Procedure 3-2 says that the procedure=s 

not sufficiently descriptive in how you -- 

what=s sufficiently good data to make 

adjustments from the default assumptions about 

particle size, solubility, intake data, et 

cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Our view was it 

wasn=t intended to be -- to describe how to do 

that, that we -- an experienced dose 

reconstructor would have to do this and we 

didn=t try to -- can=t make somebody an 

experienced dose reconstructor by reading this 

procedure, essentially. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Was that Proc. 3, number 2? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Was Proc. 3, number 2, right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: How >bout the phrase in the 

finding, it talks about results are considered 

sufficient data and of good quality. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Uh huh. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That seemed different than the 

selection of parameters. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: The text of the procedure at 

this point in the procedure -- the procedure 

has several steps where it describes how to 

select values for these various parameters of 

intake data, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, 

and we didn=t attempt in this procedure to say 

what kind of data or how much data do you need 

to depart from that. But there was no other 

place -- you know, since we=re listing how to 

select, we wanted to put in a warning that, 

given the data in front of you, you may have a 

way to fit the data -- well, you can fit it 

with IMBA -- fit the data -- that other than 

what we=re describing here. So in order to say 

-- you know, we chose the language we chose in 

order to allow an experienced dose 

reconstructor to make decisions based on the 
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data in front of him or her rather than 


following lock-step down these procedure steps. 


That was the intent of putting the statement in 


there. It was not intended to provide 


sufficient experience or knowledge to someone ­

- you know, that really only comes with, you 

know, knowing what you=re doing, that -- really 

doing dose reconstructions for a while or being 

an internal dosimetrist, you know, and doing 

some of that for a while. So that=s -- we just 

felt like the comment wasn=t really 

particularly relevant to what we=re trying to 

portray in the procedure. 

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I agree in the sense where 

we all are fully aware that internal dosimetry 

is a very, very complex subject, and to give 

definitive, step-by-step procedures for 

assessing it is essentially impossible. And 

you need to rely on a person=s academic 

background, experience and just good intuition 

in wading through the information saying what 

is reasonable and what is not. And in some 

cases -- for instance, there is some guidance 

that, for instance, says that if given a choice 

between urine data and chest count when you=re 
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looking at plutonium and you have to through 

the early periods during which chest counting 

was done simultaneously with urinalysis, rely 

on urinalysis because it=s likely to be a more 

definitive assessment of internal body burden. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So SC&A is agreeing then. 

 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: But I guess that jumped out at me 

because of the discussions we=ve had of late 

about, you know, whether we have a 

statistically robust sample and things like 

that, and this gets back to the question of are 

there any -- within your guidance document 

should there be anything that sort of says to 

dose reconstructors, you know, what -- what 

sort of things you should look for in terms of 

checking sufficient data and of good quality. 

There are sort of two things there, I guess, 

but if --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, the --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- I understand your --

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- the procedure wasn=t written 

with that in mind, clearly. 

 DR. BEHLING: And Mark, I believe the area 
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where dose reconstructor needs to focus on in 

arriving at certain conclusions about the 

robustness of data would really not be in the 

implementation guide but more so in the TBD. 

That=s where the heart of the data is that 

would say how much do we have -- or how much 

faith can we have in a data based on the 

information presented herein, and the 

implementation guide is really not the place 

for that information to exist. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let=s proceed. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Next. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, let=s see, Procedure 3 

comments, number three through number six are 

editorial comments about particular tables that 

we agree with and we will include. 

That takes us to TIB-8, this is the long 

version of the one I described earlier that 

will undoubtedly have to be discussed in -- in 

a convergence meeting. It has to do with the 

mouth and is it appropriately modeled by ET-2. 

Let=s see -- okay, the next one is -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I=m sorry, is there a disagreement 

on this one, or --

 DR. BEHLING: I=m going to skip down one 
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because this is an area that -- I=m familiar 

with the ICRP long model but these fine points 

or minutiae points are things that I=m going to 

defer to Joyce to--

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, 8-1. 

 DR. ZIEMER: These may be subject to further 

discussion. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: 8-1 absolutely will be the 

subject of discussion, there=s no doubt in my 

mind. And probably will be somebody other than 

me representing the OCAS side from internal 

dosimetry. 

Okay, OTIB 8-2, we agreed there are sort of 

conflicting statements here about use of 

highest non-metabolic in this particular 

circumstance, and so we think we can revise 

that and clarify that. 

8-00 -- or 008-3 is really the same comment as 

one. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Same comment as what? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: 8-1. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, Okay. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) needs to be discussed. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 
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 MS. MUNN: Which means there=s more of it. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Knowing us, we=ll probably 

discuss it twice, too, since it's listed in two 

procedures. 

Okay, Procedure number two is in the use -- how 

to use IMBA, which is a computer program for 

internal -- internal -- Integrated Module for 

Bioassay Analysis, that=s what IMBA stands for. 

For the first procedure we felt like it=s not 

really needed to point out the start 

calculation button after you -- you know, a 

novice can find it eventually, and after you 

use it a couple of times there=s no point in 

having it in the procedure, so... start 

calculation is a button you click with your 

mouse to start the arithmetic. 

 MS. BEHLING: We agree. It=s just not as userfriendly as it could be. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Procedure number 2, finding 

two, Proc. 2-2 -- again, this -- we feel like 

this comment is -- more hits to the science 

than art of internal dosimetry and internal 

dosimetry interpretation, as opposed to 

operating the model. And we didn=t feel like 

it was really relevant to the procedure on how 
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 MS. BEHLING: Okay, I agree. Yeah, there=s --

and I now know that there=s specific training 

that they give for the IMBA so I=m in 

agreement. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You=re okay? 

 MS. BEHLING: Yes. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I believe for 2-3 we=d 

put in that same category. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh huh. 

 MS. BEHLING: Okay, yes, we=re in agreement. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, next we go to Technical 

Information Bulletin number two, TIB-2. The 

first is editorial about la-- or some documents 

not being references, and we agree that those 

were inadvertently omitted. 

The second comment is that the instructions for 

handling intakes of various tritium forms are 

kind of cumbersome, and we agree that they=re 

cumbersome but they do get the right answer. 

So we didn=t necessarily propose to change that 

speci-- you know, that. 

Okay, the next is OTIB-2 which would be 

prepared by our contractor, ORAU. Again -- now 

these are probably ones we=re going to have to 
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discuss, I would guess. This is going to hit 

to the nature of the hypothetical intake. 

OTIB-2 is a hypothetical intake and so I=m 

guessing that since Joyce isn=t here these will 

be subject for discussion at a convergence 

meeting. 

 DR. BEHLING: I just want to make a comment 

here. While this is a technical issue that 

should be perhaps remedied, the issue=s also 

one that needs to be looked at in context of 

how this particular procedure=s used. It is 

really only confined to non-compensable claims 

in an attempt to overestimate and basically 

say, even with this kind of assigned dose -- 

which we all essentially agree with is an 

overestimate -- you still do not come up to the 

50 percent probability of causation. And of 

course these changes that Joyce had made would 

in effect perhaps raise the bar a little bit in 

terms of the assigned dose, based on her 

comments. But the truth is, the minute you 

approach or exceed 50 percent, that procedure 

gets canned and you go back to the nuts and 

bolts of dose reconstruction through more 

rigorous methods which usually means this 15, 
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16 rem that might have been jacked up to 18 or 

20 rem gets reduced down to near zero when you 

realize in most instances the person who was 

assigned this dose wasn=t even monitored. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, finding TIB 2-- OTIB-2-2, 

this is the first numbered one there on page 

19. This one I had trouble interpreting 

exactly what documents it -- that wasn=t --

weren=t properly referred to, and so I 

concluded that this was sort of a summary 

statement -- restatement of a couple of later 

findings, number four and five, where it talks 

about a lack of clarity on some matters. And 

so we agreed we would clarify it, but I think 

these are kind of all going to wrap up into the 

OTIB-2 discussion to a certain extent. 

And then the comment OTIB-2-3 speaks to -- it=s 

not consistent with OTIB-1, which is the 

Savannah River high five, which is another 

hypothetical intake. So our position was they 

are both hypothetical ways for doing certain 

populations of claims -- one=s for Savannah 

River, one=s for other sites -- and so we didn=t 

necessarily feel like there was any particular 

problem with having those two methods. But I 
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suppose that=ll all be discussed on that dis-- 

in that meeting. 

I suspect that since we=re going to be talking 

about OTIB-2 in meeting, we might as well just 

deal with all of those in that meeting rather 

than go through the rest of the OTIB-2 comments 

here? So that takes us to -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: So that takes us through page 20 

then, right? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, and on to page 21, 

actually. 

 DR. ZIEMER: 21. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, takes us to OTIB number 

five, first comment on OTIB number five is the 

same one we talked about earlier with the mouth 

being properl-- is the mouth appropriately 

modeled by ET-2, so that will be discussed 

later. 

Okay, OTIB-- this -- this next one we didn=t 

agree with the comment. Says OTIB-5 guidance 

is not sufficiently prescriptive, requires 

levels of detail that are not reasonable. 

OTIB-5 provides for ICD-9 codes -- by ICD-9 

code what the external target organ is, what 

the internal target organ should be, and what 
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IMBA model you should run. So -- and all you 

need to know is the ICD-9 code in order to pick 

out which one you=re answering, and we get the 

ICD-9 codes as part of the cancer diagnosis. 

So we didn=t believe there was insufficient 

guidance. We believe that the guidance -- or 

that it=s pretty clear, it=s a table. We 

believe it=s pretty clear and that the 

information is available to the dose 

reconstructor. 

 DR. BEHLING: I agree in the sense where the 

dose reconstructor is basically told what the 

organ of interest is and that=s not his 

decision to make to begin with. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, OTIB-1 is the Savannah 

River high five, and I believe that will 

probably be discussion of -- probably have to 

be discussed at our later meeting. I=m kind of 

looking at Mark and Hans here. I believe that 

-- I believe Joyce was probably the author of 

most of the comments on TIB -- 

 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Then so I believe they will 

probably have to be addressed at that time. 
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For expedience now, we can, you know, just put 

all those off and -- because they will have to 

be talked about later. I -- I -- rather than 

try to parse them out as to which ones we=re 

going to discuss and which ones we=re not. 

 DR. ZIEMER: All of the OTIB--

 MR. HINNEFELD: OTIB-1. 

 MS. BEHLING: OTIB-1. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- 1s on through the top of -- 

there=s 14 comments, right? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is that correct? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So all of the OTIB-1 comments 

would be discussed. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I think there are certain 

places where you could say, you=re right, we 

should explain things more clearly, and we 

agree that we will explain things more clearly. 

But since we=re going to be discussion OTIB-1 

anyway, I suspect --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) cover it all. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- why don=t we just cover it 

all at that point. 
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 MS. MUNN: That would be better. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Has that -- has any of this been 

discussed in the Savannah River profile review? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Has that been discussed? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Or it sort of overlaps, right? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Certainly there --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- this issue was brought up in 

dose reconstruction review, and the resolution 

was we=ll address this in Savannah River site 

profile. Okay, we can address it through this, 

we can address it through that -- 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) So we're 

overlap (unintelligible). 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- we just need to address it 

once and -- yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We=re up to OTIB-3. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Up to OTIB-3. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, all of these start with 

OTIB-3 has been canceled, so... 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right 

 DR. ZIEMER: And then there=s some other things 

referred to, so... 

Is that a moot point? That=s what I=m really 

asking -- or is there an issue on the -- where 
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I 

the pertinent information is now. Hans, do you 

have a --

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I was really asking Stu. 

believe OTIB-3 has been replaced by 11, is that 

correct? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 DR. BEHLING: The tritium calculation? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 DR. BEHLING: Which means that this -- all 

these comments are at this point moot. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Except that here -- here=s one of 

the examples I was talking about >cause it=s --

we have agreement, I guess -- sort of 

agreement, but it=s just saying, you know, see 

TIB-11, which we haven=t reviewed, so --

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- I guess from a tracking 

standpoint, we want to make sure that the 

issues brought up in the three findings are 

appropriately addressed in TIB-11. So I think 

 DR. BEHLING: Correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- from a follow-through 


standpoint, I think we need to do something 


with that. I --

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 MR. HINNEFELD: We can come to the discussion 

meeting later on with more explanation of how 

either TIB-11 doesn=t conclude that issue 

anymore or -- or maybe it still does. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: And -- okay. One of these 

comments is about organically-bound tritium, 

OTIB-3-3, which has come up in several places 

at Savannah River. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask this question, though. 

At this point how many new procedures, aside 

from the workbooks, are there? What I=m really 

getting at is do we need a -- do we need to 

think about reviewing another set of procedures 

or do we look at these items -- it=s now in 

011, we automatically look at it because that=s 

where it is now, to see whether the issue has 

been resolved. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MS. BEHLING: Excuse me. We have been 

authorized, under the extension on Task III, to 

review some of the newer procedures that are 

out. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MS. BEHLING: And OTIB-11 is on that list. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: So -- okay, so then we -- we 


simply carry it across --


 MS. BEHLING: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and make sure we track it, 


then, yeah. 


 MS. BEHLING: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: The comment about organically-


bound tritium at Savannah River is -- as near 


as we can tell, organically-bound tritium is a 


really minor contributor in general. I mean if 


-- if -- to the extent it contributes at all. 


Yes, there are some organic compounds in the 


tritiated areas. Yes, they can become 


tritiated. But the intake seems to be 


overwhelmingly tritiated gas and tritiated 


water. So that would be our (unintelligible) ­

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UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Right 


(unintelligible) --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Tritiated 


(unintelligible) --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Sure 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. BEHLING: We looked at it. We looked at it 

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and the small percentage of organified -- okay, 

increases the effective half-life from ten to 

40 days, but it=s an insignificant component of 

the overall dose. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, OTIB-4. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. Well, we=ve revised 

OTIB-4 and, at least for the first two 

comments, we believe we have addressed at least 

these two. The third comment, OTIB-4-3, has to 

do with it not being consistent. And again, we 

felt like these are overestimating approaches 

that have identical bases for particular 

populations of claims and that don=t 

necessarily need to be the same approach for 

all populations of claims. So that=s our -- so 

we have -- this is not -- OTIB-4 is another 

hypothetical intake for atomic weapons 

employers. And so we feel like, based upon the 

information you have available for a particular 

population of claims, you may choose one 

hypothetical approach which is -- you have a 

sound basis in one population. You have a 

different basis for another population. So you 

can have more than one, that=s our position on 

these. You can have more than one approach. 
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 DR. BEHLING: I guess the comment on the issue 

of ingestion is something that relates back to 

the Bethlehem Steel. I think people who=ve 

reviewed TIB-4 have looked at it and said well, 

it=s a fairly conservative number for both the 

inhalation and ingestion. But when we look at 

the Bethlehem Steel in comparison to what we 

agreed upon in terms of what might be the 

ingestion dose for Bethlehem Steel, the 

claimant-favorable assumption that this was a 

bounding value as defined in TIB-4 is somewhat 

less than optimal upper bound value. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, we=ll bring -- the 

outcome of Bethlehem Steel will be brought into 

TIB-4 as well. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Where does that leave us on this? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, well that would be -- 

I=ll need to change our response then on 4-2. 

 DR. BEHLING: The driver for TIB-4 is really 

the inhalation dose. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 DR. BEHLING: And when you look at that number 

it is a very, very large dose, and then the 

assumptions that are made are very, very 

conservative, all agreed. But in comparison to 
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the Bethlehem Steel, the ingestion component is 

perhaps somewhat less than bounding and that 

was the comment that we=ve submitted for 

review. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So NIOSH is going to revise this? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: We=re going to revise our 

response on OTIB-4-2 on the -- is that the 

ingestion one? 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, I don=t think so. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: No. One of these had to do 

with ingestion. 

 MR. GRIFFON: First one says procedure=s not 

explicit on how to add ingestion and inhalation 

doses, I don=t know if that=s the one. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, in any event, you=ll make 

the appropriate revision here. You need to 

identify where that is. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: This=ll be Table 3-5 potentially 

could be revised, is that what you=re saying? 

Again, based on Bethlehem Steel, or based on -- 

is that -- I=m confused on that. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Which would -- okay, Table 3-5 
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is -- okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Your response says that ingestion 

and inhalation values are explicitly listed in 

Table 3-5 of the revision of TIB-- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, right. And so that 

Table 3-5 would be adjusted to incorporate 

whatever=s determined out of the Bethlehem 

Steel discussion. Okay. And... 

 MR. GRIFFON: So -- so this gets back -- just 

to tie this back, this gets back to the Board 

actions under Bethlehem Steel where we ask for 

a broader policy on the ingestion rates so this 

will --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- encompass that. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So there=s no more discussion 

needed between SC&A and NIOSH, it=s just a 

matter of updating this, then? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, I believe. 

 DR. BEHLING: I have reviewed TIB-4 and there 

may a couple of items here that are not even 

included that I discovered that there=s some 

minor errors, but we=ll talk about that later 
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on in private when we have reasons to at least 

acknowledge what findings I have when I 

reviewed some of the audits that made use of 

TIB-4 that are not acknowledged here in this 

matrix. 

 MS. BEHLING: In addition, I believe that 

there=s been a revision to TIB-4 that we have 

not been asked to look at yet, although in 

light of the various Technical Basis Documents 

we have looked at it, but not officially put on 

our list of procedures to review -- the 

revision to TIB-4. 

DR. MAURO: I=d like to just add, TIB-4 is 

becoming an extremely important guideline 

because it=s being used as a default for all 

AWE facilities with uranium when you don=t --

when -- it becomes one of the more fundamental 

procedures. It has been revised twice. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're up to Rev. 3 in TIB-4? 

DR. MAURO: Rev. 3 PC-1, so it actually has -- 

it=s been revised even more recently. Now the 

important point is --

 DR. ZIEMER: And you=ve reviewed --

DR. MAURO: No. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- officially only the initial -- 
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DR. MAURO: No, we --


 DR. ZIEMER: None of the revisions. 


DR. MAURO: The only reviews that it=s received 


was because we had so many AWE=s where it was 


used, we were forced to review it because that 


becomes a document. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Part of that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Under -- under Task III, John, 


you reviewed what Rev., Rev. 1 or -- 


DR. MAURO: I don=t believe -- I don't --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


DR. MAURO: -- I have to say, I don=t think we 


reviewed TIB-4. I could be corrected on that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, it=s in the matrix. 


DR. MAURO: It=s on a list? Then we did. I 


apologize. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But that was the original version. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That was the original version, I 


believe, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And they have sort of tangentially 


reviewed the revisions as part of the ongoing 


work. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But not officially. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Right. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. WADE: I can add TIB-4 then to the contract 

to see that its latest revision is reviewed. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think we probably need to, to 

track these issues through. And it is an 

important procedure, obviously, yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Shall we just go past the TIB-4 

ones here, then? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, so that would carry down all 

through the TIB-4s here on -- there=s how many, 

13 of those. So what will be needed then will 

be a review of Rev. 3 and any appropriate 

discussion on these items. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the latest Rev., I think 

it=s 3-PC-1, like John indicated, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, and then the final 

procedures are interview procedures. And based 

on where we are, I believe this will have to be 

subject of additional discussion because we 

were -- had not been able to really provide a 

thorough response. We provided a sort of 

initial response. I=d like to provide a better 
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response by people who actually do the 

interviews, and I don=t have that yet. So I 

think the final ones, the interview procedures, 

would have to be subject to -- discussed at the 

later meeting. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You=re talking about Procedure 4 ­

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 MR. HINNEFELD: Talking about Procedure 4 -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and 5 --

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- 4, 5 and -- it's not 6, I 

don't think. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is 17 part of that? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Seventeen, right -- 4, 5 and 

17. And they=ve actually all been combined 

into one procedure now, but the items -- I did 

go so far as to see that the issues here -- the 

findings here are not necessarily rectified by 

the new procedure that combined all those 

procedures into one. I mean, the issue 

probably carries forward, so it=ll be subject 

for discussion although we may be talking about 

Procedure 90 at that point as opposed to -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Is Proc. 90 on the new list? I 

doubt it, kind of. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I don=t know that it=s much 
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different than these. It=s a sort of a 

consolidation of three procedures into one. 

One was like scheduling the interview, one was 

like conducting the interview and I don=t know 

if it was documenting the -- it was something 

like that, and it was combined into one 

procedure describing how to do all those 

things. But I don=t -- the findings certainly 

weren=t alleviated by putting it in. I=ve 

looked at that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess my concern with this one 

is that, you know, we=ve -- we've done a heck 

of a lot of interviews through this program, 

you=ve done a heck of a lot of interviews 

through this program. And you know, there=s --

half of these are answered by saying that the 

findings reflect a difference of opinion. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I think there=s some pretty 

substantial differences of opinion maybe here, 

I don=t --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I threw that in there 

because clearly -- I mean there are -- the 

claimant interview is conducted in accordance 

with a script that approved by Office of 
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Management and Budget. Okay? Collect -- if 

you=re going to collect the information from 

more than a handful of people, you have to get 

a -- your formats approved by OMB and ours is 

approved by OMB and so we have to follow the 

script. Okay. Within the context of the 

script you can ask additional -- solic-- you 

can elicit -- you can elicit more information 

as you go through there as you need to. The --

our view is that we have interviewers who are 

not necessarily health physicists. We have 

interviewers who have maybe experience working 

at a DOE site or some other -- you know, in 

some other way have learned some sort of 

knowledge about working for DOE, but they=re 

not health physicists. And my recollection -- 

it=s been a while. My recollection on a lot of 

these comments were that at a particular point 

in the interview the interviewer should do this 

or that or other things that it really would 

require probably more knowledge and experience 

to know to ask than our interviewers have. You 

know, that to me is a lot of it. And so that=s 

why I wrote down there that comment. That 

comment is mine, it reflects a difference of 
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opinion on what the interview is intended for. 

That=s my word. I put that in there kind of as 

this doesn=t -- there=s a lot of things being 

asked for are things that I would not expect 

our interviewers to do. So that=s why I listed 

that comment. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun Makhijani. There 

are actually several different categories of 

comments. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Uh-huh. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: In regard to what the 

interviewer should know, we actually didn=t say 

that the interviewer should be a health 

physicist. The only place where that came in 

was in the closeout interview where NIOSH does 

make a provision for a health physicist to be 

consulted later. We felt that the health 

physicist should be on line or on tap, at 

least, during that process because right now 

there seem to be at least some claimants who 

were uncomfortable and can=t get their 

questions answered during closeout. But the 

comment on the interview itself is that the 

interviewer should have some knowledge of the 

case and the site, and so there=s a sequencing 
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problem that arises as to when the interview is 

done. And so many interviewers know the sites, 

you know, because they=ve done interviews at 

many sites and so some reorganization of who=s 

doing the interviews and how much they know 

about the site might be important. 

And then there was a whole other set of 

comments that related to survivor claimants and 

the disadvantage -- our procedures, SC&A 

procedures, approved by the Board, required us 

to go through and evaluate whether it was 

equitable to all claimants. And we did that 

and we felt that survivor claimants were, in 

some categories, at a disadvantage and 

obviously --

 MR. HINNEFELD: I don=t think --

 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- this is an item for 

discussion between NIOSH and us. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I -- sure, we can discuss it. 

I mean it=s on for discussion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, on all of these dealing with 

the interview process which -- does that begin 

with Procedure 4? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And on through 17 -- 4, 5 and 17. 
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Do all of these require some further 

discussion? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, we agree that they do. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I think that -- I mean from 

my standpoint I think we need to look for some 

creative maybe fixes on this. You know, when 

we have these further discussions maybe you=ll 

disagree with it, but you know, I understand 

the restrictions from the OMB standpoint that 

the -- 'cause we=ve -- this is sort of deja vu. 

We=ve been through this before. But you know, 

can the -- can the process be changed so that 

the interviewer has other tools available 

during the interview that help in the sitespecific sort of nature of the follow-up 

questions and things like that. I guess that=s 

a -- that's come up again and again at some of 

the public comment sessions that we=ve had, so 

I think it=s important to consider and I'm -- 

I'm --

 DR. ZIEMER: What=s considered outside the 

script? In other words, if you suggest the 

kinds of questions that an interviewer might 

use to elicit additional information, does that 
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become part of the script and need approval? 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

asking, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that=s basically what -- I 

don=t know if either the NIOSH people or -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I don=t know that I=m 

particularly expert in that and I don=t know 

that I can really comment on that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think this needs further 

discussion with some Board input on that 

because we need to know what the limits are in 

terms of what can be changed without going back 

through OMB. And if -- I think if it=s 

something the Board feels is important, then we 

need to suggest that -- even if it requires 

that, that that be done. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think -- 'cause I think -- for 

example, some of the criticisms we=ve heard is 

this -- this list of radionuclides that -- I 

don=t necessarily disagree with it being in 

there, but I think if -- if the interviewer 

prompts with code names, oftentimes the former 

workers will remember or know the code names. 

They may not know the radionuclide. You know 

Y-12 is a great example of that, there=s so 
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many code names at the site -- although there=s 

other classification issues surrounding some of 

that. But you know, there might -- it might 

prompt -- you might get better responses if you 

have sort of an index of site terminology to 

help the interviewer in these interviews. So I 

don=t know if that=s part -- you know, 

considered part of the script or not, or what 

the rules would be. But I think some of this ­

-

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let=s put all --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- needs to be discussed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- of these in that category 

requiring some additional discussion so we can 

determine how to proceed on these. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, Dr. Ziemer, Stu and I 

caucused a little bit during the break and I 

was told that essentially we=d get somewhat 

more illuminating comments as to what the 

disagreements are or what the reviews are, 

because right now it=s very difficult --

because SC&A doesn=t know exactly what the nub 

of the disagreement is that it -- carry forward 

the dialogue, so that I guess would be the next 

step. 
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 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, I think the next step is 

for us to provide a better response based on 

the interview organization, to have these 

comments now. They need to provide the 

response. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. I=m 

going to terminate this discussion at this 

point. It=s noon. We want to allow enough 

time for the discussion on Y-12 right after 

lunch. Lew, do you have any comments for us as 

we take a break? 

 DR. WADE: Only to say that we will revisit the 

issue of the Task III reviews on Thursday and 

then the full Board can put its mind to, you 

know, giving instruction as to how we=ll 

continue on with this issue. So I think this 

discussion has helped sort of bound the issue, 

and then the Board can decide and deliberate on 

Thursday. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Okay, thank you very much. 

Then we will recess until 1:00 o=clock. Please 

try to be back promptly so that we have a full 

hour if possible to discuss the Y-12 site 

profile. 

 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 12:00 p.m. 
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to 1:10 p.m.) 


Y-12 SITE PROFILE DISCUSSION
 

UPDATE OF MATRIX
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, ABRWH
 

MR. JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A
 

DR. JIM NETON, NIOSH


 DR. ZIEMER: I=d like to call the subcommittee 

back into session. The item that we=ll address 

now on our agenda is the Y-12 site profile and 

an update of the issue matrix that=s been 

developed -- actually by the working group, and 

Mark Griffon was chairing that work group and 

Mark -- we have in our notebooks the matrix and 

also -- I think that matrix is still in the 

same version as what you distributed to the 

Board by e-mail at the time of our January 9th 

telephone conference call. Is that correct? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, as far as I know, no one=s 

edited this. Correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So if you=ll take us 

through the matrix and give us the status of 

each of the items. And after the break when 

the full Board convenes, we have again on the 

agenda the Y-12 site profile, at which time 

we=ll have a full report on issue resolution 

from Joe Fitzgerald of SC&A. But if you=ll 

lead us through the matrix right now as part of 

the work-- or Subcommittee group. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, yeah, and for those in the 

audience, I think the matrix should be 

available on the side table. Correct? 

 DR. WADE: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. So we=re talking from this 

matrix that says Y-12 site profile review, 

matrix of priority issues potentially relevant 

to SEC petition review. And really we -- the 

last public -- the last Board conference call 

about two weeks ago I think we discussed this 

matrix in depth and what I was going to do was 

try to provide a status of what=s happened 

between the last Board meeting and what's -- 

and where we=re at today in terms of the 

outstanding action items. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and Mark --

 MR. GRIFFON: And if I could ask, you know, 

Jim Neton and Joe Fitzgerald -- if I miss 

anything certainly, you know, they=ll fill in 

the gaps for us. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And by way of background, let me 

point out -- particularly for those members of 

the public who are here -- the site profile was 

reviewed extensively by the Board=s contractor, 

and the original findings matrix had I think 
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135 issues on it. We=re not focusing on all of 

those issues, but on those issues which pertain 

specifically to the petition for SEC status. 

And so out of those 135 there are a number that 

were identified as being pertinent to the SEC 

and those are the ones that are focused on 

here. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, and several -- some of 

those were rolled together into -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, into--

 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, into one item so 

it=s not like we reduced from 135 down to, you 

know, 20 or whatever, but some of them got 

rolled togeth--

 DR. ZIEMER: Right but not everything in the 

original review is covered here. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That=s correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- we just want to make that 

clear. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. I guess just to step 

through the matrix, the first issue, internal 

dose issues and issue 1-A discusses the 

validity of the bioassay data. And the action 

items -- there=s several action items listed, 

one through six in the matrix. I think -- as 
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an update on this, I think that NIOSH has now 

provided on the O Drive for access to the Board 

-- the O Drive is the -- a secure server, a 

link to a server that the Board has, and SC&A, 

our consultant have, so we=re able to get this 

additional Y-12 external dosimetry data which 

takes us up through -- expanded the years right 

up to =57 I think --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: >55? =65, I=m sorry, =65 -- and 

also added job title information into the 

database. So that -- that=s certainly progress 

and that=s something that SC&A have requested 

to do a --to assist in their review. So we 

have that. 

 Looking down the list, I=m not sure other parts 

of this have been -- I might ask -- item three 

specifically talks about the comparison between 

hard copy records -- for example, log books, 

data cards, and electronic records, if 

possible, and this was sort of as a way to 

check the reliability of the electronic data 

that NIOSH is using for these coworker models. 

And I don=t think there=s any status here but I 
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was just -- myself, I=m curious whether there=s 

been any investigation into whether -- I know 

initially it was sort of thought that these -- 

most of this raw data would be inaccessible or 

couldn=t be located, and I don=t know if you 

have any update on that item, Jim. 

DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. I don=t have a 

lot to report other than we did have a 

conference call with ORAU on the 13th of 

January after we had this meeting on the 8th , 

and at that time ORAU did indicate that they 

may be able to access some of these laboratory 

analyses results and such. Bill Tankersley was 

going to take that action item. He was here 

this morning, I don=t see him here right now, 

but -- but right now we=re still hopeful we 

might be able to do something. I don=t know 

how extensive it might be, but we may be able 

to get a little -- shed a little information 

from that database. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, let me interrupt you just 

one moment here. One thing I neglected to do 

when we moved to the Y-12 site profile was to 

ask Dr. Wade to clarify for us any conflicts of 
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interest on this particular site. 


 DR. WADE: Right, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


Yes, we are discussing the Y-12 site profile. 


We have several Board members who are 


conflicted with regard to Y-12. They are Roy 


DeHart, Robert Presley, Paul Ziemer and Mark 


Griffon -- Mark only where issues related to 


the Atomic Trades and Labor Council are 


discussed. Let me remind you that with regard 


to site profiles, when discussing a site 


profile, a Board member who has a conflict may 


participate in the discussion at the table. 


They cannot make motions or vote on motions. 


anticipate no motion will be made during this 


discussion, so all those that are conflicted 


can remain at the table and participate fully 


in the discussion at the table. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Okay, Mark, 

proceed. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And just -- maybe I=m -- maybe 

I'm jumping around a little bit here. Number 

two, Jim, the -- also we talked about reviewing 

health physics reports. I think the same goes 

there, that you haven=t yet done anything on 

this but you plan on... 

I 
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DR. NETON: Yeah, there are actually -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Or it=s underway. 

DR. NETON: There is work in progress. You 

know, we=re trying to get this done as quickly 

as possible. I will say that on the laboratory 

notebooks there was some belief that they may 

exist, but we have to be careful, you know, how 

much time that might be required to go to some 

vault or some area and decipher what=s in 

there, so we=ve -- I=ve asked ORAU to be 

judicious in giving us, you know, some idea of 

how much time it=s going to take. If this 

would take months and years, then maybe we 

don=t want to go there. We believe our 

secondary back-up is this looking at the health 

physics reports and such to do what we would 

sort of call a sanity check on the data and the 

database versus the results that appear in the 

fairly extensive collection of health physics 

reports that we have. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And item number four -- 

this item is basically that NIOSH will -- and 

I=m sure this is work in progress, as well. 

NIOSH and ORAU are going to try to provide -- 

the database as it exists now has values of dpm 
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and it=s not always intuitively obvious how the 

values in the database were taken from the raw 

data, the counts in the original laboratory 

records. We did have -- we have at least one 

laboratory report, but it was from 1965, that 

gave an equation. But there were also still 

some variables that were sort of undefined, so 

that=s a work in progress as well. We want to 

know how they took raw data and calculated 

disintegrations per minute in the actual 

database that they=re using. So we want to 

track that back. 

Number five is, again, looking for quality 

control procedures that would have been in 

place for the bioassay program in that 

historical period of interest. And again, 

they=re working on this action item. 

And then number six is that apparently there 

was a letter or they=re looking for some sort 

of communication between the site and DOE that 

DOE would accept the electronic record as the 

record of -- the legal record of the urinalysis 

data. And that=s just another quality control 

sort of measure that they=re going to look at 

in terms of assessing the overall reliability 
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of the -- so these are all -- all these action 

items are related to looking at the validity of 

the bioassay data. So that=s sort of the 

actions that are in progress and the one has 

been accomplished. 

Moving on to the second page -- I think it=s 

the second -- yeah, and this -- I don=t know if 

there=s any progress on this one, Jim, 1-A-4. 

NIOSH had agreed that they would review these 

documents cited by SC&A. 

DR. NETON: We=re still looking at that. We 

have gone and obtained some additional 

documentation, I believe that was written by 

Keith Eckerman, related to this item and we=re 

reviewing that as well. But we don=t have a 

final position on this at this point. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So under review, again. 

DR. NETON: Under review. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Sorry I keep calling you to the 

mike. 

DR. NETON: That=s all right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Excuse me -- interrupt here. Are 

the documents referred to here -- have those 

been obtained, the Max Scott papers? 
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DR. NETON: Yes, we have those. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The next two items, no actions 

were necessary, primarily I think because it 

wasn=t an issue of particular concern for the 

petitioning question, the SEC petition time 

period in question. It doesn=t mean that it=s 

not still a finding in the site profile, as 

Paul stated earlier, but no actions for this 

particular review. 

Going down to 1-B, the header on that section 

is other radionuclides, and we have several 

action items here. Thorium air sampling 

database, I don=t think we have that on the -- 

do we? 

DR. NETON: Well, it=s not on the O Drive. It 

is on the drive, but it=s not in the directory 

that you=re normally used to seeing it. I just 

need to move it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

DR. NETON: We put it out there a while ago, 

but it for some reason is not in the right 

location, so I just need to physically move 

that myself over there. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

DR. NETON: I will point out, though, that is 
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post-1960 data, so it=s not likely to be 

relevant for the SEC petition that we=re 

evaluating. But the data are there and 

available once I get them in the right 

location. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

DR. NETON: As long as I=m up here on number 

two --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, go ahead. 

DR. NETON: -- I can --

 MR. GRIFFON: You can give a positive 

(unintelligible) --

DR. NETON: I=m happy to report that the 6,000­

record CD that was being reviewed for 

classification purposes is now -- has now been 

released as of I believe yesterday. ORAU has 

it in their possession and is looking through 

it to see what, if anything, we=ll be able do 

with this to help reconstruct doses for the 

other radionuclides that we don=t have data for 

currently. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Then number three, I think 

-- let me ask -- this is that NIOSH 

characterizes all the operations involving 

other radionuclides -- Calutron, Cyclotron, and 
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recycled uranium processes. I guess that sort 

of overlaps with number five, which is SC&A to 

review the ratios used for the recycled uranium 

as presented in the site profile internal dose 

section. And -- and -- go ahead. SC&A has 

provided at least a draft response to this I 

think, so... 

DR. NETON: Right. I=d like to just back up. 

Items two, three and four are all somewhat 

related --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

DR. NETON: -- in that they have to do with 

these other radionuclides. We have a very 

large amount of data available for uranium 

exposure, at least bioassay records and air 

sample data. But it was correctly identified 

in the SC&A review that there were other 

exposures to other radionuclides such as 

plutonium and uranium-233 and gallium-67 I 

believe that we may not have data for. Those 

items -- two, three and four -- are related to 

that. The 6,000-record set had bioassay data 

for those other radio nuclides, I think more 

specifically plutonium and possibly polonium. 

And then the 4,000 -- Department 4000 data are 
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related to work that was done at Y-12 on behalf 

of the X-10 facility. And ORAU is looking 

through that to see if we can glean any 

information relevant to bioassay for the 

Calutron/Cyclotron operations, and hopefully 

between the Department 4000 dataset and the 

6,000-record set that=s just been released 

they=re going to attempt some type of a 

coworker matrix to help us flesh out what the 

exposures were for these other radionuclides. 

With that, I=ll turn it over to Joe. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Jim. Just to 

clarify, I think there=s almost three bins for 

this other radionuclides issue. And of course 

one is this question of the X-10 -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: -- sources. Then there=s the 

recycled uranium, both of which I think we=re 

now beginning to make some ground as far as 

actual data and analysis. 

The third one, which is maybe a little more 

problematic, is something that we included in 

the site profile which deals with these other 

sources outside of X-10 and Y-12, and some of 

this is documented but perhaps a little more 
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speculative, which is the origins of U-233 

handling, perhaps processing that might have 

taken place. And the issue there is whether 

it, you know, would have been confined to X-10 

or would have been broader. The other issue is 

this notion of preferential melting and 

vaporization of radon in this case from the 

furnace operations. And that=s something that, 

again, we identified as potentially a 

significant source term for workers that would 

have been in the vicinity of those operations. 

And again, it=s not a plant-wide issue, but 

something we picked up enough in terms of the 

documentation and I think there was a number of 

HP analyses because this would have been a -- 

this was a special situation and was sort of 

flagged by the HPs at the time. So that would 

be something that, you know, certainly the 

third bin would be sort of these other possible 

sources. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And the time frames on these are 

-- overlap the SEC petition time frames? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, uh-huh. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think that kind of would 

be captured under number three, which is that 
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all operations are characterized. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That=s sort of why I had --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- included it, but good -- good 

to clarify that 'cause we -- we -- I think we 

could easily forget that one. Okay. And I 

just wanted to point out on number five, the 

recycled uranium, there is a section in the 

site profile -- NIOSH's site profile that 

discusses this, and SC&A did do a preliminary 

review -- Joe, is that correct? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: That=s right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And maybe we=ll hear more about 

that in the full Board meeting, but they=ve 

provided a preliminary review. NIOSH has not 

had an opportunity at this point to respond to 

that, but at least we=ve got progress on that. 

All right, 1-C -- and this talks about the 

choice of the 50th percentile intake rates. 

This is basically talking about a coworker 

model and what=s the appropriate way to model, 

given different types of jobs or different -- I 

guess primarily based on job that you=re 

looking at. Some of the actions -- the first 
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one, is there any update on the departments and 

their associated names and dates of when they 

were in effect? 

DR. NETON: No, I don=t have any update on 

that issue, but number two, we did forward the 

list of the -- that spreadsheet that everyone 

was looking for that had the 40 functional 

groups that were collapsed. But I=ll still 

need to work with ORAU on getting the 

department listing put together, to the extent 

we can. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. The third item is 

something that -- that there=s -- it=s the 

question of whether the most exposed 

individuals or most exposed departments were 

sampled or monitored. And I think there=s been 

a number of analys-- analysis on this issue, 

but I don=t think we -- well, I guess we were 

going to look into that issue further, 

especially after the last workgroup meeting. 

We had some discussions about -- 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- it may not have been all the 

most exposed workers but rather it may have 

been based on the high priority departments 
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that the sampling was done. 

DR. NETON: Right, if you remember at the last 

Advisory Board workgroup meeting on the 8th , 

Bob Presley raised an issue that -- it seemed 

to cast this source of data in a slightly 

different light. ORAU has since gone back and 

interviewed Mr. Presley and I think we=ve --

they=ve clarified what at least the -- you 

know, the intent of his comments were, and also 

ORAU is going -- trying to refine their 

analysis to a larger degree for the internal 

dose area where we weren=t as clear that the 

highest exposed workers were monitored. That 

was the subject of the debate, I believe. 

External dosimetry-wise, I think we=ve provided 

a fair amount of documentation to support that 

conclusion, but we=re still working to refine 

the internal dose issue. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And you said you clarified -- 

DR. NETON: Well, I don=t -- I=m not -- I don=t 

have the report, but I know -- I think this is 

true, Mr. Presley -- that ORAU did have a 

follow-up interview with Bob after the Board 

meeting to try to figure out exactly what -- 

you know, what he was saying because it was a 
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little confusing to us at the meeting as to 

what he was really relating. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And the outcome of that? Or --

or--

DR. NETON: You know I -- I=ve not seen the 

report. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

DR. NETON: I wouldn=t comment at this point. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. I don=t know if --

Bob, if you want to speak to that now? Okay. 

 MR. PRESLEY: I'd like to see the report. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

DR. NETON: I would say that I think it=s not 

inconsistent with what our thinking was prior 

to Mr. Presley=s remarks, but I can=t go any 

further than that. I=m not aware of all the 

details, but that=s my general impression. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Item 1-D and E -- 

these sort of got blended together -- type F 

uranium exposures and 48-hour delay in 

sampling. 

DR. NETON: They=re blended together because 

it=s our opinion that if the 48-hour sampling 

issue goes away, the type F no longer becomes a 

limiting --
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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: -- nuclide solubility class. Dave 

Allen is working closely with Joyce Lipsztein 

from Brazil on this issue. They had some 

difficulty in connecting over the holidays. 

The analysis is still going on. We think we=re 

pretty clear now on what Joyce=s thoughts are 

on this and Dave is working on a refinement to 

that analysis which will I think -- right now 

he=s trying to demonstrate that it=s our belief 

that it was not always 48-hour sampling. There 

was a significant percentage of the routine 

samples that didn=t wait for 48 hours. And if 

we can pull those out, it will demonstrate that 

the effect is minimal on the waiting period, 

and we need to finish that analysis. We=re 

(unintelligible) in process. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 1-F overlaps with 

previous action items so I won=t look at that, 

this is the job description question. 

Going on to external radiation issues, external 

exposure issues -- again, the first section, 1­

A, looks at the validity of the data and 

explanation of coworker models. I think I 

mentioned this already, maybe ahead of time, 
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but the -- this item 1 -- this CER database has 

been expanded to include up to 1965, as Jim 

indicated. And it has -- they have added job 

titles for those data. I think SC&A has 

received that and took -- had a preliminary 

look at it. I=m not sure how extensive their 

comments will be but they have some comments I 

think to offer this afternoon so... 

Let=s see, adding job titles is number two, 

actually. Item three, I=m not sure that we 

have any action on this particularly. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I expected that -- to have 

that information by now. Unfortunately, I 

don=t, but I think it will be forthcoming. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And then item four is the hard 

copy which I think is pending Bill=s 

investigation. 

DR. NETON: Right, that -- that=s very similar 

to the external dosimetry issue raised in 

comment -- or item number one. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Internal item 1-A. 

DR. NETON: Internal dose item 1-A. So yeah, 

that -- that=s just the validity of the 

database or reliability of the database issue. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. And the same thing for 
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the fifth item I think. It=s the quality 

control question again, looking for past 

procedures. 

DR. NETON: Right. Yeah. We=re moving on 

both paths, both reliability of the internal 

data and the external data. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. All right, 1-A-4 -- I 

skipped 1-A-3, 1-A-4 -- 

DR. NETON: Yeah, that=s a very interesting 

observation. I=ve gone back and reread ORAU 

Report 22. And if you look at it in detail, 

what it really did was evaluate both the 

internal and external dosimetry data available 

in NIOSH=s HERB data holdings. And so it was 

not -- although one would think that the HERB 

data holdings would be, at a minimum, a subset 

of the CER data, I don=t know. And so that 

data comparison really, in my opinion, is not 

valid for this exercise because it really was 

not an evaluation of the CER dataset 

themselves. I=m not exactly sure why it was 

done. I=m trying to get to the bottom of that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess the question that I 

raised on this was if it could be done on that, 

why not on the CER database. But maybe it was 
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HERB being compared to the CER, I don=t know. 

DR. NETON: What -- what they actually did was 

pull a hundred cases -- I think it was a 

hundred -- a hundred cases that we had in our 

possession for claims and matched them against 

the data that were in the HERB database and 

found a 90 percent comparison. Now you have to 

be careful what you mean 90 percent, were 90 

percent of the cases there or were there 

disconnects. It=s not clear from that report. 

But again, that=s very different than looking 

at the CER data holdings and comparing that to 

the -- sort of the raw records. Because we do 

believe that the CER data we have is identical 

to the data that the DOE is providing us 

because they are actually the same database. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: See, I think the HERB dataset was 

-- the genesis of that was for an epidemiologic 

study, so the issues that the working group 

raised a while ago about, you know, the 

reliability of an epi dataset to do dose 

reconstructions is valid. But you know, we put 

that issue to bed since we=ve demonstrated the 

CER data holdings are actually the Y-12 data 
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holdings. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

DR. NETON: So that report is not really 

applicable to this analysis. 

 MR. GRIFFON: 'Cause really it is comparing 

HERB with CER sort of through the claims, 

'cause it --

DR. NETON: Yes, exactly. Yeah, it is. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) rely on the 

CER (unintelligible). 

DR. NETON: Right, but I can=t -- I can=t vouch 

for what was in the HERB holdings other than 

they were collected for an epi study. And so, 

you know, it would seem to us the best 

comparison would be what we currently are 

using, which is the CER dataset. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I=m not sure what further 

action --

 DR. ZIEMER: It=s (unintelligible) o=clock. 

Does that put that one to rest now or -- 

DR. NETON: Well, in my opinion it does. 

Although I can=t take items off the action list 

unilaterally, but --

 DR. ZIEMER: No. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, you know, I guess we had 
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the same reaction perhaps that you did, and 

going through the site profile was just 

confusing, unclear why that statement was made 

and the reference to the report was made. This 

actually makes a lot of sense, but I=m just 

saying that when we went through it, that just 

stood out as an aberration of sorts and we just 

wanted to clarify what this 90 percent 

comparison had --

 MR. GRIFFON: Now I=m confused why it was ever 

done, but that=s another issue. 

DR. NETON: Well, there=s that. It also takes 

the 90 percent comparison off the table because 

I don=t have to justify why it was -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: So I think the issue, the way it 

was framed, is off the table -- in my opinion, 

anyway. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I believe so. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It appears to be a closed issue. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Although I=m just a member of 

the Subcommittee, you know. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I=m still trying to get to 

the bottom, and I will provide an answer when I 

find it, why that was done in the first place. 

I suspect that they were attempting to use the 
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HERB data before the CER data were, you know, 

looked at or -- I=m not sure, but... 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, so going on to 1-A-5 -- I 

think we=re up to 1-A-5 -- and I think we had a 

response to this that was... 

DR. NETON: Right, this --

 MR. GRIFFON: Approximately 12 percent or some 

-- was that the number? 

DR. NETON: No this had I think more to do 

with the --

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, no -- yeah, this is -- 

DR. NETON: -- 1-A-6 is where we=re at, is that 

right? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, that had to do with these 

spreadsheets, and it was clear in my mind 

during the working group meeting, but I have 

since lost focus on this. I=m not exactly sure 

exactly which spreadsheets this ref-- is 

referring to. 

 MR. GRIFFON: This is my -- I was looking for ­

- I wondered where this one went. Yeah, this 

is the thing I=ve been asking for for a while. 

And I think the same situation exists here, 

Jim, is that it=s somewhere on the O Drive but 
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you haven=t -- you haven't put it in one spot 

for us, so --

DR. NETON: I guess the question that we have 

is are these the spreadsheets that were used to 

create the coworker model for the external dose 

results, or are these the worksheets that are 

used to do dose reconstructions? 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, the -- the prior. The 

first one you said. 

DR. NETON: So they were spreadsheets -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: For the external and internal, so 

you have the two. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, the external spreadsheets -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Where the crystal balls models A 

through H I think or A through -- 

DR. NETON: Well, it wouldn=t be crystal ball 

models, it would be --

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, there=s --

DR. NETON: You=re looking for the data, 

actually. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: Maybe this would -- for the 

external comparison, this may tie into the 147 

data --

 MR. GRIFFON: It may, yes. 
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DR. NETON: -- points so -- okay, so that makes 

more sense to me. 

 MR. GRIFFON: For the internal, you know, I=ve 

got this -- these spread sheets that are annual 

spreadsheets which basically pull the CER data 

in and --

DR. NETON: Right, and that=s really what was 

used. I mean those are -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: -- those were used to generate 

lognormal distributions for every year from -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. But I don=t think SC&A 

has even seen those. That=s my understanding. 

DR. NETON: Okay --

 MR. GRIFFON: I just wanted to get everybody on 

the same page with all these different 

spreadsheets. 

DR. NETON: Okay. Well, those are there. I 

need to find out where they are. I thought 

they were on the --

 MR. GRIFFON: Again, I --

DR. NETON: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- again, I think they=re on the 

O Drive. They=re probably not in one 

consolidated position. 
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DR. NETON: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And what I -- I think -- from my 


standpoint, I wanted to make sure I was looking 


at the final revision of whatever was being 


used. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it=s not clear to me now 


what the answer to the original question is. 


The original question on the percentage -- are 


we on 1-A-5 or A-6? 


 MR. GRIFFON: A-6. 


 MS. MUNN: A-6 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, on A-6. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we skipped over A-5. 


DR. NETON: I don=t have an A-5 on my list, 


for some reason. 


 MS. MUNN: A-5 is done. 


 DR. ZIEMER: A-5 is done. Okay. But then A-6, 


whether the coworker models presented are 


sufficient for use in estimating pre-'61 


exposures. The answer is? 


 MR. GRIFFON: The answer is that we hadn't had 


a -- SC&A hadn=t seen these tools that were 


used. They=ve seen the procedures or the TIBs 


but they haven=t seen the tools behind the 


TIBs, I guess. 

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DR. NETON: They=re not -- they=re not 

necessarily tools. They=d be analysis files, I 

think is what you=re referring to. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Analysis files, I=m sorry. 

Analysis files. 

DR. NETON: A tool is sort of like a workbook 

where you would --

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

DR. NETON: I don=t want to get hung up on 

vernacular, but yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

DR. NETON: Okay, well, that=s clear in my 

mind then. I was not sure what -- I thought 

you were referring to a dose reconstruction 

tool, which is different than the analysis 

files. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We're still -- after all these 

years, we=re still (unintelligible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: So these are the analysis files 

used for coworker... 

DR. NETON: Used to develop the coworker TIB, 

that=s my understanding, and those were some 

pretty sophisticated statistical analyses using 

various statistical -- you know, maximum 

likelihood estimators and that sort of thing. 
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There=s another --

 MR. GRIFFON: I think where this came up was at 

the last workgroup SC&A raised a question about 

were the zeroes considered in back-calculating 

the internal dose for the coworker models. 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And it was clear to me then that 

they hadn=t seen the spreadsheets because if 

they had they would have how they were used. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Or -- so I just wanted that to be 

out there so everybody was on the same page. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, but there=s still two parts 

to this then. One is making those available 

and the other part is still -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Is how -- right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the sufficiency question will 

remain and --

DR. NETON: Well, yeah, I think the second 

part here is we had talked about arranging a 

technical meeting with the authors of the TIB 

that generated the coworker distributions and 

such, and we=re prepared to facilitate that and 

-- possibly after these spreadsheets become 

available -- we would like to hook up our ORAU 
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folks with whoever on the SC&A side and our 

Board side want to participate. Because I 

think there -- you know this is a very 

sophisticated technical issue that really would 

be best handled in that setting. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I agree, yeah. Yeah. Okay, 

going on to 2-A, badging of maximally exposed 

individuals. Previously we discussed the 

monitoring, which would have been the -- 

primarily the urinalysis monitoring. So this 

gets into the question of whether the maximally 

exposed individuals were badged, and -- 

DR. NETON: Right. Yeah, and that, as far as 

-- is this an external issue? 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

DR. NETON: This is similar to the other 

issues, but external-wise we provided a number 

of pieces of data that tend to support our 

position that -- the item two I think is one 

that is still out there, which is related to 

the criticality accident where workers -- some 

workers, at least --did not have badges on. It 

raised the question in ORAU=s minds if 

everybody was badged, as should have been, why 

weren=t workers who were in an -- who were 
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exposed to a criticality not wearing badges. 

And we do have a draft report -- or a report I 

think that I=m going to receive from ORAU that 

goes over this incident and discusses it in 

some detail. I think you=ll find that the 

thinking at the time that if workers were in 

the area was there were -- there was no 

radioactive material there. The tanks had been 

cleaned. And what happened was a valve had 

been left open that leaked radioactive 

materials into the area. So it doesn=t 

necessarily cast doubt on the -- at least the 

concept that was in place at the time. Now an 

incident occurred, for sure, but it doesn=t --

it doesn=t discredit the fact that the program 

at the time was badging people that they 

thought were the most likely exposed. I mean, 

they weren=t expecting a criticality, 

obviously. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think the other thing that has 

occurred on this item in between meetings is 

that SC&A has done some follow-up on -- 

previously ORAU -- I think it was at the last 

workgroup meeting ORAU and NIOSH provided a 

report on this -- on demonstrating or looking 
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at the fact that statistically -- statistical 

analysis of the fact that they felt that the 

highest exposed workers were in fact the ones 

that were monitored, and I think SC&A has had 

an opportunity now to review that further and 

may -- may report back on that. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I mean this is going on 

in real time and the expanded external database 

of '65 was very helpful and we were able to do 

some initial sorts this past week that allows 

us to kind of look in more granularity on these 

various years -- pre-criticality, postcriticality and '61 to '65 -- just to see what 

the numbers look like and the averages. And I 

think we still have some questions. I think 

the data is still, in my view, equivocal about 

this notion of the maximally-exposed individual 

being badged throughout that whole time frame. 

I think what we=re seeing is that as you get 

further back in history, maybe the early '50s, 

I=m not sure that holds necessarily. But you 

know, again, we=re sort of in this mid-way, 

haven=t seen the 147 records yet. There=s other 

things I think will help us get there and I 

think this has been a very fruitful thing. but 
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I think the data kind of -- kind of points you 

in the right direction. I think data in this 

case is going to be very helpful to -- to put a 

punctuation point under this issue. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So this is certainly still a 

pending action here or pending item, yeah. 2-B 

is the assignment of the coworker dose. I 

think there has been some update on TIB-51. 

Can someone -- Joe, did you guys review TIB-51 

and... 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we did. Again, this is 

all in the last couple of weeks, but we have 

provided -- as of last Thursday, so this is 

fairly recent -- a set of comments. And we can 

talk about this again in the next session, but 

in general we thought it was a strong step 

forward, a pretty sound analysis. There are 

some issues and, again, we identified some of 

those issues, clarifications and questions 

about bases. But certainly it=s responsive to 

a number of the issues that we were concerned 

about. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Should probably TIB-51 is -- 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, I'm sorry --

 MR. GRIFFON: For the audience I should 
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(unintelligible) --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, the TIB-51 deals with 

the angular dependence of neutron dosimetry, as 

well as the energy threshold of a film that was 

used for neutron measurements back in the early 

days, '50s and '60s. It=s called NTA film and, 

again, it wasn=t very responsive to lower 

energy neutrons, the -- more responsive to the 

higher energy neutrons. So there was a 

discrepancy in terms of the exposure for those 

lower energies. And this certainly provides I 

guess some conversion factors which can be 

applied that would correct for that. And I 

think that was a good analysis. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And the second action on there, 

Jim, is there any update on skin, skin 

(unintelligible) --

DR. NETON: I=m still waiting on an update from 

ORAU on that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. I think that takes us 

through sort of these major pending issues for 

the --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And Mark, on your 

workgroup, you had Bob Presley, Wanda Munn, and 

was Mike Gibson -- and let me ask any of the 
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176 

other members of that work group, do you have 

any comments to add on the matrix or related 

items? 

 MS. MUNN: Mark=s done a good job of rolling 

it up. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now, when we have the full Board 

session which is going to start in just a few 

more minutes, we=re going to return to this. 

We will have a more formal presentation on the 

status of the Y-12 site profile as it pertains 

to the SEC. Let me just allow -- any other 

Board members that have comments or questions 

for Mark? This doesn=t require any action. It 

basically is a status report to update us on 

where they are on -- in terms of the progress 

on the matrix. If that's -- if there are no 

comments, we=re going to take a brief recess of 

ten minutes and then the full Board will 

convene at 2:00 o=clock for the regular Board 

session. So the subcommittee stands adjourned. 

 (Whereupon, the meeting adjourned at 1:50 p.m.) 
______________________________ 

177 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of January 24, 


2006; 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 


7th day of March, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102