Joslyn Manufacturing and Supply Co.
 Ft. Wayne, IN
 

Special Exposure Cohort
 

Evaluation Report Addendum
 

James W. Neton, Ph.D., CHP
 Associate Director for Science
 

Division of Compensation Analysis and Support
 

Kansas City, MO
 

January 28, 2014
 
 

 

 

About Joslyn
 

 Atomic Weapons Employer (AWE) from March 1943 

to 1952 

 Machining and rolling of uranium rods, limited 

thorium machining before 1948 

 Primary commercial uranium rolling facility for the 

AEC before Simonds Saw and Steel 

 Manhattan Engineer District (MED) - hot rolling, 

quenching, straightening, cooling, grinding, waste 

burning, and abrasive cutting of natural uranium 

billets into metal rods 
 

 

 

Production
 

 Pre-1948 work uranium production for Hanford site
 

 Develop procedures for rolling uranium metal for 

nuclear reactors 

 Rolling operations for testing uranium metal rods at 

Chalk River reactor, Canada 

 Uranium metal for British government 
 

 

Three rolling mills
 

18 inch
 

12 inch
 

9 inch
 
 

 

 

 

Petition review 

 Received March 15, 2012 

 Qualified May 10, 2012 

 Petitioner proposed class 

 All employees who worked in any area of the Joslyn 

Manufacturing and Supply Company in Fort Wayne, 

Indiana, from 1944 through 1952 

 Class Evaluated 

 All employees who worked in any area of the Joslyn 

Manufacturing and Supply Company in Fort Wayne, 

Indiana, from March 1, 1943 through December 31, 

1952 
 

 

Board action review
 

 December 2012 

 AWE employees for March 1944 - December 1947 

 NIOSH proposes dose reconstruction (DR) from 

January 1948 using TBD-6000 methods 

 Board tasks SC&A with report on 1948 - 1952 

 December 2013 

 SC&A submits report with 11 issues 

 January 16, 2014 

 Addendum, issues matrix with work group
 
 

 

 

NIOSH action review
 

 Numerous interviews 

 Additional data capture 

 Reviewed records and basis for TBD-6000 and 

appropriate use of surrogate data 

 Recommended class amended to include 

January 1, 1948 -July 31, 1948 due to inability to 

reconstruct internal dose for reasons to be 

discussed 
 

 

 

Exposure sources
 

 Inhalation and ingestion of natural uranium oxide from 

uranium metal rods production and shaping 

 Hand-operated shop, rods were manually reinserted into 

the mill the required number of times and then dragged to 

the next process 

 Three co-located rolling mills (18 inch, 12 inch, and 9 inch) 

used for various operations simultaneously 

 Uranium rolling 

 Rollers had water-cooled bearings 

 Produced steam and high levels of contamination 
 

 

 

 

 

Exposure sources
 

 Additional machining and preparation steps on 

uranium metal prepared on site and other facilities 

 Centerless grinding, cutting, heat treating and 

quenching, and threading 

 Billets stored onsite for long periods of time 

 Uranium waste collected and burned outside 

• Worker interviews noted burning of waste on site 

 Documents reviewed describe off-site explosion of 

an improperly treated drum of uranium metal 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Exposure sources
 

 For all operations, Joslyn was responsible for 

packaging, handling, and loading 

 MED/AEC kept strict records of metals and sought 

to regain as much of the material as possible 

 Joslyn responsible for cleanup and accounting for 

materials 

 Documents describe a required medical 

surveillance program for Joslyn workers including 

x-rays and blood work 
 

 

Exposure sources
 

 Two recorded thorium-related processing periods 

prior to 1948 

 June 21, 1946: Straightening and centerless grinding of 

six thorium rods 

 January 21, 1947: Centerless grinding of five extruded 

thorium rods 

•	 NIOSH has developed an external dosimetry model 

for these operations based on a TBD-6000 approach 
Uranium quantities processed

Uranium Work at Joslyn

six month interval

1st half 1943

2nd half 1943

1st half 1944

2nd half 1944

1st half 1945

2nd half 1945

1st half 1946

2nd half 1946

1st half 1947

2nd half 1947

1st half 1948

2nd half 1948

1st half 1949

2nd half 1949

1st half 1950

2nd half 1950

1st half 1951

2nd half 1951

1st half 1952

2nd half 1952

pounds of uranium processed

0

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

700000
 

 

External Monitoring Programs and 

Data Availability 

 No evidence of routine monitoring program
 

 Extremely few measurements are available, 

source term basis needed 

 1949 Health and Safety Laboratory (HASL) 

survey reported contamination levels and 

dose rates in several areas 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Internal Dose Monitoring 

Programs and Data Availability
 

 No routine air monitoring or bioassay program 

 Limited air samples taken on three different 

occasions (December 1943, May 1944, October 

1951) 

 Very limited in scope 

 Mostly General Area (GA) samples 

 Early data taken using equipment (electrostatic precipitator) which 

would not be comparable to HASL equipment 

 Substantial study performed January 8, 1952 

 HASL conducted a time weighted average study of various
 

production operations at Joslyn
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Class addition rationale
  Previously recognized TBD-6000 approach needed validation 

for specific practices and methods used at Joslyn facility 

performed under MED supervision 

 Extensive data collected in 1952 was shown to be bounded by a TBD-6000 

approach: How far back can NIOSH justify these measurements represent 

the conditions and practices at the site? 

 Found that practices and standards evolved rapidly from 

1943-1948 

 For Joslyn, the same oversight continued through the high 

production rolling period (until the end of July 1948)
 

 Operations after July of 1948 guided by AEC (including contracts and 

presence of AEC officials) 

 Tie to AEC (and HASL) provides consistency with monitoring
 

procedures, representativeness of sampling
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Class addition rationale 

 Three closely co-located rolling mills (see earlier 

diagram) 

 The pre-August 1948 practices include documented 

rolling of multiple rods simultaneously on the same or 

adjacent mills 

 The 1952 study was done one station at a time 

 In early 1948 this practice was needed to handle the 

nearly 600,000 lbs of uranium rods that were processed 

in 42 operating days (January to July 31, 1948) 

 NIOSH believes data collected in 1952 are directly 

comparable to this high production phase that required 

different operational practices 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Class addition rationale
 

 Most of the rolling days (and the only days with substantial 

rolling efforts) in 1949 and 1950 were in support of the AEC 

at the Chalk River reactor Canada (alpha phase uranium 

dimensional stability) 

 Required careful temperature control 

 Represented smaller efforts (approximately 30 tons in both 1949 and 

1950) 

 These two efforts represent were specifically done using only the 18 

inch rolling mills 

 The 18 inch rolling mill was shown in the 1952 study to have 

substantially lower air concentration levels that the 9 inch mill. 

 Previous electrostatic precipitation air sampling also showed the 9 

inch mill produced much higher air concentrations than the other 

mills 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Class addition rationale
 

 Suitable DR method does not exists before 1948 for Joslyn 

workers who were not monitored and potentially exposed 

to uranium and thorium 

 Lack of adequate biological monitoring data, 

 Insufficient air monitoring information 

 Differences in operational characteristics from other metal 

working (no appropriate surrogate data exists) 
 

Class addition rationale 

 Why everyone? 

 Based on reports by the AEC and facility layout, the 

process areas were broadly distributed and controls for 

preventing movement in these areas was not enforced 

 Why stop in July 1948? 

 NIOSH proposes that the surrogate data from TBD-6000 

coupled with the known operational data and source 

term information provides support that a realistic dose 

can be determined 
 

 

 

Employees not included in the SEC? 

 NIOSH will use internal monitoring data that may 

become available for an individual claim 

 Perform DRs for March 1, 1943 - July 31, 1948
 

 External 1943 - 1952 

 Medical x-ray 1943 – 1952 

 Internal August 1 – December 31, 1948 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

External Dose Post 1943-52 

 Standard approach to medical X-ray dose using OTIB-0006 

 External dose rate factors for rolling days and contaminated 

surfaces will be applied 

 Billets were stored onsite for an extended amount of time 

 For the purposes of the example dose reconstructions 

external dose determined 

•	 Rolling day: 10 hour exposure to a long billet at 1 foot per rolling day 

(7.03 mR/day) 

•	 Billet storage: 10 hour exposure to a long billet at 1 meter per nonrolling day (1.08 mR/day) 
 

 

 

 

 

Post July 1948 Internal Dose
 

 NIOSH proposes to use the data from TBD-6000 and known 

rolling days to determine internal and external dose 

beginning with August 1, 1948 

 Dose reconstruction approach summarized in a white paper 

(currently in classification review) 

 TBD-6000 tabulated data converted from per calendar day to 

per rolling day exposures for ingestion and inhalation 

(assuming 250 work days per year) 

 In addition to rolling operator, NIOSH will include uranium 

machining as a method using TBD-6000 to assess the 

considerable amount of machining operations conducted 

during the Joslyn operational period 
 

 

 

 

Health Endangerment
  The evidence reviewed in this evaluation indicates 

that some workers in the class may have 

accumulated chronic radiation exposures through 

intakes of radionuclides and direct exposure to

radioactive materials. 

 Consequently, NIOSH is specifying that health may

have been endangered for those workers covered by

this evaluation who were employed for a number of

work days aggregating at least 250 work days within

the parameters established for this class or in

combination with work days within the parameters

established for one or more other classes of 

employees in the SEC. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary 

Feasibility Findings for Joslyn Petition SEC-200 

March 1, 1943 – December 31, 1952 

Source of Exposure Reconstruction Feasible Reconstruction NOT 

Feasible 

Internal 

- Uranium 8/1/1948 - 

12/31/1952 

3/1/1943- 

7/31/1948 

-Thorium N/A 3/1/1943- 

12/31/1947 

External 

- Gamma/Photon All years 

- Beta All years 

- Neutron N/A 

- Occ. Medical X-ray All years 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proposed Class 

“All Atomic Weapons Employees who worked in 

any buildings/area owned by the Joslyn 

Manufacturing and Supply Co. in Fort Wayne, 

Indiana, from March 1, 1943 through July 31, 

1948, for a number of work days aggregating at 

least 250 work days, occurring either solely 

under this employment or in combination with 

work days within the parameters established for 

one or more other classes of employees included 

in the Special Exposure Cohort.”