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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 

TWENTY-THIRD MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

VOL. II 

The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health held at 

the Red Lion Hotel, 802 George Washington Way, 

Richland, Washington, on April 21, 2004. 

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C O N T E N T S 

April 21, 2004 

REGISTRATION AND WELCOME 

Dr. Paul Ziemer, Chair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 

Mr. Larry Elliott, Executive Secretary . . . . . . . . . 

ADMINISTRATIVE HOUSEKEEPING 

Ms. Cori Homer, NIOSH; Dr. Ziemer; Mr. Elliott. . . . . 10 

CONTRACTOR UPDATE, SANFORD, COHEN & ASSOCIATES

SC&A: Dr. John Mauro, Mr. Joseph Fitzgerald, Mr. Hans

Behling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 

PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 

UPDATE ON AWE FACILITIES 

Dr. Jim Neton, NIOSH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .126 

BOARD DISCUSSION/WORKING SESSION ON PROCEDURE REVIEW

AND SELECTION OF CASES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141 

ADJOURN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 

COURT REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .234 

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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. 

In the following transcript (sic) denotes an incorrect 

usage or pronunciation of a word which is transcribed in its 

original form as reported. 

In the following transcript (phonetically) indicates a 

phonetic spelling of the word if no confirmation of the correct 

spelling is available. 

In the following transcript "uh-huh" represents an 

affirmative response, and "uh-uh" represents a negative 

response. 

In the following transcript "*" denotes a spelling based 

on phonetics, without reference available. 

In the following transcript (inaudible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

In the following transcript (off microphone) refers to 

microphone malfunction or speaker's neglect to depress "on" 

button. 

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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 

ELLIOTT, Larry J.

Director, Office of Compensation Analysis and Support

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Cincinnati, Ohio 

MEMBERSHIP 

ANDERSON, Henry A., M.D.

Chief Medical Officer 

Occupational and Environmental Health

Wisconsin Division of Public Health 

Madison, Wisconsin 

ANDRADE, Antonio, Ph.D.

Group Leader

Radiation Protection Services Group

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos, New Mexico 

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

Director 

The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental

Medicine 

Professor of Medicine 

Nashville, Tennessee 

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ESPINOSA, Richard Lee

Sheet Metal Workers Union Local #49 

Johnson Controls 

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Espanola, New Mexico 

GIBSON, Michael H.

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A.

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc.

Salem, New Hampshire 

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

Director 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund

Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I.

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired)

Richland, Washington 

OWENS, Charles Leon

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-550 

Paducah, Kentucky 

PRESLEY, Robert W.

Special Projects Engineer

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida

Elysian, Minnesota 

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 AGENDA SPEAKERS 

(in order of appearance) 

Dr. John Mauro, SC&A 

Mr. Joseph Fitzgerald, SC&A 

Mr. Hans Behling, SC&A 

Dr. Jim Neton, NIOSH 

STAFF/VENDORS 

CORI HOMER, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH

STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

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 AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS 

ADAMS, ALEX

ALLAN, LINDA

ALVAREZ, BOB

ANDERSON, LYLE

BARKER, CYNTHIA D.

BEATTY, EVERETT RAY, SR.

BENNETT, JERRY

BILLS, SHAWN

BRODSCZYNSKI, RAYMOND

BURGESS, JERRY H.

CALLAWAY, ALLEN

CARPENTER, TOM

CASE, DIANE

CHAMBERS, FRANCES

COCHRANE, BEVERLEY

COLEMAN, THAD

COLLEY, BOB

COLLINS, DALLAS B.

COOK, BETTY G.

CRUZ, ALFREDO R.

DAVID, JOHN

DEHART, JULIA

ELLINGSWORTH, DEBRA M.

FAITH, CYNTHIA

FIX, JACK

FORD, LOUIS K.

HANEY, ROLAND

HELTON, WILLIAM R.

HENSHAW, RUSS

HENSLEY, JANEL

HEPNER, RICHARD

HERBERT, NICHOLE

HICKEY, NIP

HICKEY, PAT

HOFFMAN, OWEN

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ

HOSS, LAYA

KATZ, TED

KELLEY, VIRGIL A.

KNOWLES, RANDY 

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KOELLER, LAWRENCE C.

KOON, KATHY

LAW, LANCE

MAIER, HILDA

MAST, VERN

MATHENY, SHIRLEY

MCCALMANT, GRANT L.

MCDANIEL, DIANE

MILLER, RICHARD

MITCHELL, J.L.

MORAN, TERESA

MORRIS, J.

MURRAY, BILL

NAIMON, DAVID

NESVET, JEFF

NOSTRANT, HELEN

OGLESBEE, GAI

O'NEILL, ED

PARR, RAYMOND

PRESLEY, LOUISE S.

RAY, VELMA

REEDY, CONNIE

RICHARDSON, THOMAS D.

ROGERS, MARK R.

ROSENTHAL, ISOLDE

ROSSON, ROBERT L.

SAMSON, E.R.

SCHAEFFER, D. MICHAEL

SCHMIDT, KELLY O.

SCHULTY, DENISE

SHATELL, KERRY E.

SHOOK, GAYLE

STALEY, KENNETH D.

STANDEN, JEREMY

STANDLY, RICHARD J.

STANLY, GEORGE

STEVENSON, ROBERT L.

STRAIT, RON

TATE, JOEL C.

TATE, JOHN A.

TENFORDE, THOMAS S.

TOOHEY, R.E.

TRENT, FRANK

ULLOM, ERNEST 

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UNDERWOOD, DAVID H.

WEALTHY, WALLACE

WILHELM, DEBRA

WILLIAMSON, JIM

WOLF, SAM H. 

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P R O C E E D I N G S

 (8:30 a.m.) 

REGISTRATION AND WELCOME 

 DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. We're going 

to call the meeting to order. I want to begin by 

reminding everyone here -- Board members, staff members, 

visitors -- we ask you to register your attendance. 

Whether or not you registered yesterday, we keep daily 

registration logs. So if you are here, even though you 

were here yesterday and thought you registered 

yesterday, please register again today at the table in 

the back by the entry door. 

Also, members of the public who wish to address the 

Board later this morning, please sign up there in the 

sign-up sheets that are also there on the table. 

And again I remind you there are various handouts, 

agendas and other related materials on the table in the 

back far corner over here. 

 ADMINISTRATIVE HOUSEKEEPING 

We have a number of administrative or housekeeping 

items to take care of this morning. I'm going to begin 

with the minutes of meeting number 22, which was the 

teleconference meeting held March 11th, and I now ask if 

any members of the Board have additions or corrections 

to those minutes. 

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 Yes, Roy DeHart. 

 DR. DEHART: On page three it's noted that the --

those present for that telephone conference included the 

following. My name is listed on page three. It should 

be excluded. It is noted in other places in the 

minutes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, everyone catch that, exclude the 

name of Dr. Roy DeHart. He was there in spirit. There 

may have been someone there impersonating you who -- we 

don't know that. 

Okay, we will exclude Dr. DeHart's name. Are there 

other corrections or additions to the minutes? If not, 

we'll accept a motion to approve the minutes with that 

minor correction. 

 MS. MUNN: So moved. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Moved and seconded. All in favor of 

approving the minutes will say aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Those opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: The minutes are passed. Thank you. 

Next I want to officially recognize a letter that 

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was received -- a letter dated April 6th from three 

members of Congress. This is a letter that is in 

response to a letter that I had written after our last 

meeting, informing Representatives Quinn, Reynolds and 

Slaughter of our decision on the site profile audits, 

and this is a follow-up letter that they have sent. You 

may recall also at the last meeting that this Board 

requested that in the case of Congressional letters that 

the Board be informed of them and participate in the 

response. So we want to do that this morning and we may 

wait to actually do that unt-- or do it this afternoon 

during our working session. But I want you to make sure 

you have a copy of that letter -- I believe they were 

distributed yesterday. Make sure you have a copy, and 

then be considering the manner in which this letter 

should be responded to and we'll consider that part of 

our working effort this afternoon to craft some sort of 

response to that letter. 

I'm going to ask Cori Homer if she has any 

administrative items that she wishes to relate to the 

Board. 

 MS. HOMER: Good morning. Just a couple of things. 

I did want to announce that our next meeting is June 2nd 

and 3rd. We will be meeting in Buffalo. I am working 

on a site for us to meet, and will pass that information 

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on as soon as I have it. 

We will need to schedule the meeting following that 

this morning. But one thing before we schedule the next 

meeting, I wanted to let the Board know in regards to 

travel, we've had some problems come up with travel over 

the past couple of meetings, and I wanted to remind you, 

please do not contact SADO* travel office until your 

tickets have been issued. It makes my job a little more 

difficult because the ticket and your travel order must 

match exactly or I cannot get the ticket issued. SADO 

will be more than happy to change your ticket, but if it 

doesn't -- again, if it doesn't match the travel order, 

I can't get that ticket issued and then I have to amend 

the travel order and it's double the work for me, and it 

delays you getting your ticket. 

I guess we can move on to the next meeting if you 

guys want to pull out your travel schedules -- your 

meeting schedules for the next few months. 

 DR. ZIEMER: In connection with that, there was a 

request -- it might have been from Dr. DeHart -- that we 

look ahead for the full year. Was that -- no, who --

did -- did somebody request that? No, no one --

 DR. ANDERSON: (Off microphone) At least three 

months. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, oh, okay. I thought somebody had 

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asked that we start -- and book further ahead than we 

have been. 

 MS. HOMER: That might have been me. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 

(Pause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now while I boot up my calendar --

it's ready, okay. 

 MS. HOMER: There we go. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We have a meeting at the 

beginning of June. Keep in mind that there's a fair 

probability that we will have a subcommittee in place --

that's one of our business items later today -- that may 

be authorized to act, depending on what this Board does, 

between meetings. But if we meet in June, it may be 

that we would not have to meet again till perhaps 

August. Shall we start with August? Anybody that feels 

that it would be urgent to meet in July? We may not 

know -- I mean until we see how things go today, but --

 DR. MELIUS: Anybody with -- is there any 

contractual -- task order kinds of issues or anything 

that would be coming up that -- I don't -- can't think 

of any. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think that there is one more 

piece that has to occur after we -- we're basically 

approving procedures, but then we have to go the next 

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step and select the site profiles to be reviewed, and 

that -- we'll hear from John in a little bit and we'll 

see. There is a possibility we may need to make a -- an 

additional decision shortly -- more -- more quickly 

after this meeting than August. In fact, I'm sure there 

will be. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Martha regrets that she couldn't be 

here, but she equipped me with some information on 

procurement processes. And we have a annual cycle we 

run through in procurement and so this is regarding the 

cutoff time points in that. Dr. Melius I'm sure is very 

familiar with it from his past, but cutoff for task 

order modifications where the task order for re-- such 

as the task order for review of dose reconstructions, 

task four, it will expire in August and the Board needs 

to modify the procedures review task, and the cutoff for 

that task is June 14th, 2004. Any new task orders the 

cutoff date will be July 6th, 2004. So you'd have to 

modify the one before June 14th and -- so you'd need to 

take it up today or first Board meeting in June, and 

July 6th is the last day you could effect a new task 

order this -- this fiscal year. So that complicates 

things. 

Thank you, Jim. I'm reminded that that also 

includes your independent government cost estimate 

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which, as you know, we have to do a closed session to 

arrive at, so... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I'm thinking right now that it 

might be better if we waited till later in this meeting 

to do this till we see where we are on the SCA 

contractual things. 

 DR. MELIUS: And also with the subcommittee? 

 DR. ZIEMER: And on the subcommittee. 

 DR. MELIUS: It may be that some of this we can --

 DR. ZIEMER: Can authorize --

 DR. MELIUS: -- authorize and --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- maybe the subcommittee can --

 DR. ZIEMER: And so let's agree to, after we've 

completed the regular business, to come back to 

establishing dates. Is that agreeable with everyone? 

It appears to be, and so we'll take it by consent that 

we'll return to this later in the meeting. 

 MS. HOMER: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Cori. Next I would 

like to report to the Board on several items that have 

come to the Chair in relation to our contractor. You 

may recall that at the last meeting the question arose 

as to what interaction can individuals have with the 

contractor -- Board members. And there were several 

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things that were specified or authorized for the Chair 

to take care of on behalf of the Board. I want to 

report to you those items. 

First of all, there was a progress report dated 

March 15th on task order one, a progress report on task 

order two, and a progress -- I'm sorry -- yes, and a 

progress report on task order three, all three dated 

March 15th. These progress reports really are reports 

indicating time and effort spent by the contractor on 

these various tasks, and they are, in essence, invoicerelated materials. And these come to me for me to okay 

-- I do not do any technical review, but look at these 

and give the okay to NIOSH to pay the bills. So on 

these first three, those that I just identified, I have 

approved those for payment. 

Is there any question on that? So these come to me 

simply as a cover letter, a summary of the hours and 

costs in the various labor categories for the task as it 

was done, and a report on the percent of the task 

completed. It's a simple progress report. Actually 

these can probably be made available to Board members if 

they wish. I assume they can and simply -- if you want 

a copy, just let us know; we'll make them available. 

They do not actually contain technical information per 

se. 

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Secondly, with dates of April 15th, there have been 

two additional progress reports received, one on task 

order three and one on task order four. These two --

and they're similar types of reports -- I really just 

received before I came to this meeting and I will in 

turn give the okay to NIOSH to proceed with the payment 

of these two. So in total there will be five of these 

that I will have processed. 

Any questions on that? And three of them I have 

officially signed off on the invoice. What happens 

after these come in, I think they go back and they are 

reviewed by somebody in the agency, I know not whom, to 

make sure that they match up with whatever Federal 

requirements there are, and then I'm actually given a 

piece of paper to sign to okay the payment, so --

 MR. ELLIOTT: The contracting officer reviews the 

voucher and Martha DiMuzio in my office then effects the 

approval memo that you sign, based upon the contracting 

officer's assessment of the cost in the voucher. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So those actions are taken on behalf 

of the Board -- simply report them to you. 

I believe that completes our administrative items. 

Can any-- Larry or Cori, are there any others that we 

need to address right now? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't believe so. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Board members? Any administrative 

issues you want to raise? 

 (No responses) 

CONTRACTOR UPDATE: SANFORD COHEN AND ASSOCIATES 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Then let us proceed with the 

contractor update and report. And John Monroe or --

Monroe. John Mauro's going to kick this off, and then 

we'll introduce a couple more staff members to 

supplement what he covers. 

 DR. MAURO: Morning. Is this working? Okay. Yes, 

I'm John Mauro. I'm a health physicist, for those in 

the audience. And the Board, of course, we've spoken on 

many occasions, but for those in the audience that I 

haven't met before, I'm a health physicist. I'm a 

principal with Sanford Cohen & Associates, which is a 

consulting firm primarily in the area of radiation 

protection. 

Back in January our company was awarded a contract 

with NIOSH on behalf of the Board to provide technical 

support to the Board in their capacity for oversight of 

the dose reconstruction work. Our contract is what's 

called a task order contract, which means from time to 

time the Board asks us to perform certain tasks. And 

then we prepare a mini-plan which identifies what we'll 

do, how we will do that particular task, what our budget 

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will be, what our deliverables will be, who will work on 

the project. And we have -- to date have been 

authorized to proceed with four tasks. 

I guess fundamentally our main mission is to 

perform independent technical reviews of adjudicated 

dose reconstructions. That is dose reconstructions that 

have been completed by NIOSH, they have been adjudicated 

and we will receive some sampling of those dose 

reconstructions to perform independent technical review. 

In fact, that's task four. To date we haven't received 

any cases for review, but nevertheless we've been quite 

busy on the other three tasks. 

Primarily what we've been working on are tasks one, 

two and three. Task one relates to site profiles. As 

we all know, the site profiles are a very important part 

of the dose reconstruction process, so we've been asked 

to review the site profiles. Our contract actually 

calls for us to review up to 16 site profiles over the 

course of the following year, the year beginning -- we 

were authorized on February 3rd to begin, so over that 

one-year period we're called upon to review 16 site 

profiles. Our first deliverable, though, was not actual 

review, but a procedure that we will use to perform the 

reviews. 

Now as it turns out, we delivered that procedure to 

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the Board on March 3rd, and on April 2nd the Board 

approved that procedure, with some suggestions and 

modifications which we are working on. And we actually 

began work on performing those actual reviews recently, 

on April 5th. Joe Fitzgerald, that's part of our team, 

is our task one manager and right after I'm through 

he'll be giving a status report on those activities. 

Task two is what we call our case tracking 

software. What that basically is is you can envision 

that under task four we will be receiving a number of 

cases for review. The way in which our contract is laid 

out is we expect to see perhaps two and a half percent 

of the totality of all of the dose reconstructions will 

actually undergo an audit. Now the purpose of the case 

tracking is to maintain a database. It's basically a 

relational database that will help us advise the Board 

the degree to which the cases that we are auditing are 

representative, a good cross-section, of the totality of 

cases. So in effect it's going to be a database which 

will, as we proceed through the actual audits and 

reviews, we will be loading up that database with 

information which will tell us what percentage of our 

audits were Hanford, what percentage were a certain type 

of cancer. 

It will also load up the data of the results of our 

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audits. For example, from the database should emerge 

trends where we gain some insight into perhaps areas 

where the dose reconstruction process could be improved, 

so it's also not only a system to make sure that the 

cases that we're auditing are representative, but also 

it will help us gain insight into areas where there may 

be certain places where the dose reconstruction process 

can be improved. 

The other task we've been authorized -- oh, by the 

way, we did deliver on April 3rd the software and the 

report. That's our case tracking system and I guess 

we're awaiting any comments. That -- that's a software 

program that could be -- we expect it to be revised as 

time goes on, and it's a tool to serve us. It's not a -

- it's there to basically provide information to us and 

to the Board related to the status of the audits. 

Task three, which was authorized on February 13th, 

consists of -- if you go on the web you will notice that 

there a large number of OCAS and ORAU procedures. They 

really -- that basically is the heart of the protocol 

that NIOSH and their contractors are using to perform 

their dose reconstructions. Well, we've been asked 

under task three to review those procedures. Under that 

task, though, our first deliverable was for us to write 

a procedure for reviewing the procedures. We have 

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delivered that on April 13th, just the other day. You 

folks are just receiving that. And the way this works 

is, after you review it, with any comments, we will 

finalize that procedure. 

And by the way, to go back to the point you had 

made earlier, Dr. Ziemer, once that's done, that task 

order is over. We don't -- we do not -- in other words, 

the scope of task three does not include the actual 

performance of the reviews, so that's an item where we 

would need either a mod to task three or a new -- a new 

torp to proceed. 

So that sort of captures the big picture of where 

we are right now. And what I'd like to do at this 

point, if -- unless there are any questions --

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's just take a moment for questions 

 DR. MAURO: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- if we could, and then introduce 

your colleagues. Any questions for John? Henry. 

 DR. ANDERSON: The tracking software's -- what is 

that written in? 

 DR. MAURO: It's in Access* --

 DR. ANDERSON: Okay. 

 DR. MAURO: -- and it's a relational database in 

Access* --

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 DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. 

 DR. MAURO: -- right, and it's -- the intent is to 

be compatible with Sequel*, so --

 DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. 

 DR. MAURO: -- but right now it's written in 

Access*. 

 DR. ANDERSON: It's just in Access*. 

 DR. MAURO: It's just in Access*, that's right. 

That's correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, fine. Proceed. 

 DR. MAURO: Okay. Well, with that, I'd like to 

introduce Joe Fitzgerald, who'll give us a -- Joe, you 

here this morning? There he is -- to give us a status 

report on task one. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just a question for Paul here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, hang on just a minute, Joe. A 

question here. Mark Griffon. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just for Paul, really. Did we --

those two deliverables that John mentioned, the tracking 

software and the procedure, do all Board members -- I 

don't think we got those. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the procedures are in your 

packet, I believe. 

 MR. GRIFFON: They are? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And we will be addressing those this 

afternoon. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So you'll find those -- the task three 

proposed procedures, and as was indicated, if those get 

approved or are approved with little change, then we can 

officially give the go-ahead to do dose reconstructions. 

 DR. MAURO: Yes, that's true, also. By the way, 

let me point out that task three -- there really were 

two sets of procedures, one dealing with our methodology 

for reviewing OCAS/ORAU procedures for doing dose 

reconstruction, and a separate procedure related to 

quality assurance. That is, we're going to 

independently review all of the OCAS/ORAU procedures 

that they're using for QA. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But the other point is, once we 

approve the procedure on how to review procedures -- is 

everybody tracking? -- then we can tell them to go ahead 

and review the procedures --

 DR. MAURO: Right, but --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- based on their approved procedures. 

 DR. MAURO: But we will need -- we will need a 

torp, we will need a mod. That's the one place where 

we're sort of -- once that happens, though, we can't go 

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forward until we receive a mod to the contract --

 DR. ZIEMER: That's a modification of task three, 

then? Is that what -- would this -- or it might be task 

five or something. 

 DR. MAURO: Exactly. 

 DR. ANDERSON: (Off microphone) What's easiest? 

 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) Yeah, what's the 

easiest thing to do? 

 DR. ANDERSON: (Off microphone) A new task or a 

modification? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: A mod will be easiest. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So that is one item, pending the 

outcome today, if we -- if we say go, we still have to 

define that task, and I believe there has to be an 

independent cost estimate on the task -- on the actual 

review of those procedures. 

 DR. MAURO: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So -- okay. Now Joe Fitzgerald. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Good morning. I'm the site 

profile review manager for the overall program, and 

beyond what John just covered, what we're basically 

doing is we commenced the Savannah River review on April 

5th and we put a team together in terms of the expertise 

we thought we needed for the review. And this will be 

something we'll do for each of the reviews. And just a 

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couple of comments on how we're going to do that. 

One thing, these evaluations are ones where you 

certainly have to jump right in and you have to be able 

to look at the issues with a fair amount of experience. 

It's not something that you can sort of learn on the job 

on a site like Savannah River or Hanford. So certainly 

my approach is to bring in the expertise and experience 

for these particular sites and be able to put a team 

together that can hit the ground running and be able to 

certainly add value to the process in terms of insights 

and understanding of the history of these sites. So 

certainly we have taken that approach in terms of 

putting a team together for the Savannah River review of 

what I would consider national experts on both the 

operational history, as well as the radiation protection 

programs for these sites for the history of these sites. 

I think that's certainly the precedent we want to 

set for doing the site profile reviews. We definitely 

want to see these as ones where we will add value to the 

process and provide feedback to this Board and to the 

agency, so certainly that's our approach. 

We have completed I think the first phase of this 

review. Again, we started about mid-April and certainly 

the first thing we want to do is go through the actual 

profile documentation and go through I think the 

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datasets and the information that's available at the 

sites. Now we have, I think fair to say, completed that 

first phase of what I would consider the review of 

documentation, and we've sent the Chairman of this Board 

a letter, just to sort of capsule what we think is the 

issues surrounding moving to a second phase of this 

review. And this is all covered in the procedures which 

the Board approved back in April -- early April. 

And the second phase I think is a very important 

phase, and we certainly have spent some time looking 

critically and looking at also the breadth of the 

documentation available for the sites. But what we're 

looking at in the second phase is to actually get into a 

validation, to actually start looking behind the paper, 

if you may, and looking at data sources, as well as 

individuals that would have perspectives at these sites. 

And with the goal, frankly, of looking at the 

completeness and adequacy of the profiles, which I think 

is, quite frankly, the key charter for the evaluation 

that we're doing for this Board. 

And on the second phase, timely access -- that's my 

code word -- to people and data sources is truly going 

to be the key challenge and key imperative to do a 

productive review on the profiles. I think the 

challenge with some these sites are the -- you know, the 

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breadth of information that you have to address and the 

kinds of contacts that one has to make, so we -- in 

terms of the letter, I think it was a good juncture. 

And you know, I'll be quite frank with you, we're trying 

to put a process on the ground that we outlined I think 

-- you know, sort of a -- in a conceptual way, and now 

we're actually walking through that. And in a very 

iterative sense we're trying to work this with the Board 

how we're going to proceed and actually identify issues 

as we see them in this first -- what I would call a 

prototype review. 

Savannah River is the prototype profile review and 

one where we're going to actually also try to define 

better the process that we're going to follow. So this 

validation phase, what we're trying to point out is we 

will need to work through how this group will be able to 

evaluate these data sources and have access to the key 

people that we need to talk to, and be able to do that 

in a timely way, and to work with the Board to figure 

out how we can expedite that. And I think the letter 

basically outlines some of those issues. 

And some of these issues also involve I think more 

mundane issues such as clearances where I think for some 

of the sites that's going to be the entree to be able to 

even to deal with some of the information. And again, I 

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think those are things we want to take care of from an 

administrative standpoint early on, because I think 

that's going to be a very crucial step. 

So in any case, that is the essence of the letter, 

and we wanted to go ahead and outline that for 

discussion, and I won't cover that because I think it 

covered it in pretty good detail. 

The other thing that we're going to I think do in 

the terms of next steps, and this is going -- looking 

forward, is certainly while this issue of expedited site 

access, data access goes along, we want to spend some 

time interviewing, being briefed by, understanding 

better how NIOSH and ORAU have put the site profiles 

together, understand some of the criteria and bases, 

using Savannah River as the test bed. And I think 

that's going to also help frame up specifically what 

we're looking for in terms of the evaluation, and I 

think that's going to proceed over the next several 

weeks, and we'll certainly want to report back on that. 

So just in general, I think the -- I think we've 

started off very strongly, got a good team. We've 

already proceeded with the initial part of the Savannah 

River review. We have probably a very important second 

phase to continue through that. We're exploring some 

next steps that would permit the team I think to also 

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start looking at some of the other sites, assuming that 

there may be some lag in getting all the data together, 

so we don't want to sort of do this is a serial way. 

We're waiting for maybe data to come in from DOE, but 

certainly what we're looking for is to continue, you 

know, moving ahead on these other reviews, try to get as 

much done as we can, and then to go back when this data 

comes in and to complete these reviews and be able to 

report them back to you. So we're again coming up with 

a strategy where we'll keep plugging ahead, moving 

through these reviews as far as we can go, but not be 

held up waiting for information to come in if in fact 

information's going to take some time. So that's 

certainly a strategy that we're looking at. 

In any case, I think the -- again, the letter kind 

of laid out where we stand at this point on some of the 

issues. Is there any questions from the Board regarding 

that? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me make sure that everybody has a 

copy of the letter that Joe is referring to. The copy 

itself I don't believe has a date on the top, but --

 MR. FITZGERALD: That was the e-mail version, 

right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but under the initial ground 

rules that we operated under, you may recall that in 

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order to assure some level of independence of our 

contractor, even though they're on a NIOSH contract, we 

-- the ground rule that we set up was that whenever our 

contractor had a request for information or access to 

documents or individuals, they would make the request 

through the Board Chair, and then I would relay that 

request on to NIOSH. So the nature of the letter is 

such a request. 

Now this request is a little more elaborate than 

the previous ones we've had, which have been just access 

to a few documents here and there. But this will give 

you an idea of the kinds of things that might be 

requested, and this is a fairly extensive identification 

of documents and access to individuals. It would be my 

intent to officially ask NIOSH to provide the 

information requested. But this is a case where the 

Board certainly, both in terms of the time and the 

nature of the request, if you have input on the response 

here, you can certainly provide that. 

I have also noted, as I've looked through this, 

that there are some statements in this document that 

perhaps might raise questions in terms of the program 

itself, one being that, on the very last page of the 

document, in the first paragraph it talks about -- it's 

line one, two, three, four -- in line five it talks 

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about basically determining whether there's a 

scientifically valid dose estimate made. And -- y'all 

have the paragraph I'm talking about? And I'll simply 

point out, for example, you realize in this program we 

are really interested in determining compensable doses. 

They may not be scientifically accurate. In many cases 

they greatly overestimate the scientifically accurate 

dose, but -- so understood that if in saying yeah, this 

is fine, go ahead, we're not necessarily assuming that 

every statement in here is technically correct, the 

letter's really a request for access. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, and I would like to point 

out that we wanted to provide some discussion of our 

basis for pointing to certain data sources and that was 

the purpose of the attachment, to say that, you know --

 DR. ZIEMER: This is not -- this is not a request 

for doing dose reconstruction, but --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, and in a sense, at this 

phase of the review I think it's fair to say we have 

more -- a lot more questions than we have answers. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And the intent is understood, so I'm -

- I don't want to be overly-critical in that regard. 

But the main thrust of this is access to documents and 

individuals. And some of those documents and 

individuals I believe may be on DOE sites, not in the 

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files of NIOSH. Is that not correct, Joe? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think -- again, realizing 

that Savannah River -- the Savannah River review is the 

first one out of the box, it's the prototype, we 

understand this issue will come up again and again. So 

in a sense, we wanted to raise the question of access 

now because I think that may very well be the pacing 

element to our ability to deliver these reviews 

completed to you. And clearly anything we can do with 

you to expedite and clarify how we can do that best 

would be ideal. And actually it becomes the -- maybe 

the most critical element of actually doing a complete 

job on this. So again, we wanted to raise it early. We 

wanted to raise it in the context of implementing these 

reviews and certainly cite the kinds of questions that 

are arising out of our initial phase as reflective of 

what we're going to have to tackle in the second phase. 

 DR. ZIEMER: In that regard, let me ask Larry 

Elliott or staff to answer two questions. Number one, 

does our current MOU -- "our" being the agency's MOU --

with DOE basically cover the type of access that's being 

described? And number two, do you have any issues with 

requests for such access, as far as the agency's 

concerned? 

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the Memorandum of Understanding that we have with the 

Department of Energy does cover everything that's 

requested and by intent in this letter. We will --

you've also -- it's not been mentioned here yet. You've 

also asked to have Q clearances reinstated for people 

who held Q's before, and we will work that through. 

That's certainly covered under the MOU. We will make --

facilitate the availability of the authors of dose 

reconstructions or the authors or site profiles for your 

-- your line of questioning that you've added to this 

document. And you've also identified some preliminary 

documents that you'd like to -- and references and 

source information you'd like to have access to, and so 

we will submit that to the Department of Energy under a 

request for -- for that information. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, the one -- the one -- I 

appreciate that. I think that's very responsive. I 

think the one issue that we would sort of proffer and 

what we identified is perhaps the dynamics of what we 

see as the process of going through the documentation, 

looking at sources of information. I think maybe the 

most insidious part of this thing that may be a problem 

would be if we were to go into an iterative process 

whereby if we were to go through documentations and data 

sources identifying issues that point to perhaps other 

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data sources, if we would then have to go back through 

another cycle of official requests and what have you 

through the Department. I think -- Department of 

Energy. I think that would be a real problem. 

Now I don't have a real solution to that because I 

think that is the way things are or might be relative to 

the MOU, but I just want to point out that might again 

be a challenge that would have to be faced and would 

have to be solved if in fact, you know, we would have a 

-- an ability to actually look for information and ask 

questions and be able to receive information in a realtime basis. Otherwise, I could foresee where you could 

get into a review and it could be months and months of 

going through cycles of, you know, we saw something in 

this document; can we get DOE to serve up the document. 

Having letters go in, letters come back and having maybe 

two or three-month cycles for each piece of paper. So I 

think that can be overcome, but I'm just pointing out 

that I think these are very real challenges to doing a 

review of this kind. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, Joe, I would also observe on 

cases like that that it would not necessarily be the job 

of the auditors to pursue those documents that you 

learned about. They could be brought back and this 

could be a recommendation, that the agency look at some 

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documents that you learned about in this process. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So we want to make sure that the audit 

remains the audit. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And if things like that arise and you 

say, you know, here's something that might be or should 

have been pursued, then we go back to the agency and 

raise that as an issue. Again, and you'll hear me say 

this over and over again, I do not want our auditors to 

do the job of the agency. We want to --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- identify issues and if they need to 

be raised, we raise them and say, you know, go back and 

do something. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I didn't give an answer to your 

second question, what issues do I have. Well, the role 

that we play, that I play here now in this particular 

regard, is to facilitate your access, not to interfere, 

influence your work. I'm also, in this role, concerned 

about production and concerned about impacting 

resources. So I want to work with you all together to 

make sure that you get what you want, what you need, but 

not at the sacrifice of slowing down development of site 

profiles, dose reconstruction production. 

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I, too, think that as you go through the process of 

your audit, if you identify things that have -- you 

think have merit, we want to know about those so that we 

can pursue those. We believe that to be our job, to 

retrieve those pertinent informations and assess their 

quality and viability and utility in either a site 

profile or dose reconstruction effort. So we welcome 

the review. We welcome the audit. We want to identify 

areas that we can improve in. We want to know about 

deficiencies, and we're willing to work with you. But 

we need to -- I hope you recognize the delicate role 

that we have here. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and let me just respond while 

it's still fresh, and also to Dr. Ziemer's comments. We 

fully understand the role of this independent audit. 

And of course that's what I've done my entire life, so I 

particularly appreciate what it means to sample and to 

validate. 

Certainly one thing that we're focusing on is to 

sort of establish this threshold -- and I'm not going to 

tell you it's a crystal clear thing you can write down 

on a piece of paper, but this threshold where something 

that we observe, we review in such a way that we can 

determine to ourselves this is something that is 

significant enough and worthy enough to raise to your 

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attention collectively. And that's the kind of 

validation that we're looking at that -- you know, we 

don't want to sort of surface these 83 things that you 

should look at. We appreciate your time is very tight 

and intensive, and what we want to do is the team itself 

needs to establish the significance of something by 

virtue of looking at the information and be able to, 

among ourselves I think, determine that this is 

something that may have influence, may be of 

significance. And that's when we do the hand-off. 

That process to determine significance, though, is 

one where I think we do need to look at the data sources 

that we're identifying. In some cases we may have to 

look at information that comes to our attention. That's 

where I think we would need to have the timely access 

that we're talking about here. 

So I think we're all talking on the same thing in 

establishing these respective roles and trying to figure 

out where these thresholds are. But let me just 

reassure you that, you know, this is a sampling 

exercise, an audit function clearly, and one where we 

have to be very careful not to overstep that bound and 

be able to do the hand-off in a way that keeps things 

moving, as well as give you what you need. So we'll 

certainly continue -- particularly in the early phases -

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- to report on that and to try to make that as 

transparent as possible so that, you know, it's pretty 

clear that this is how we're doing it. And of course 

you'll feed back to us if you think we're going too far 

or not far enough. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, then Jim, Wanda. 

 MR. GRIFFON: You know, I just wanted a 

clarification between the discussion we've been having 

here and the last paragraph in the letter. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Uh-huh. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The last paragraph, you seem to be 

requesting a specific agreement between the DOL, the DOE 

and the Board. There is no such agreement right now. 

The MOU is between NIOSH and DOE. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's why I asked --

 MR. GRIFFON: Doesn't -- doesn't specifically 

outline that the Board --

 DR. ZIEMER: That's why I asked the earlier --

 MR. GRIFFON: There's no mention of that --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- question whether the existing one 

covers that. Because if we have to do another MOU with 

DOE, we're going to have a --

 MR. GRIFFON: I understand. I'm just wondering if 

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a little bit. One thing about data-gathering or 

information-gathering -- and this has been brought home 

to me many, many times over the years -- that it's --

the devil's, in this case, not so much in the details 

but in the admin support that you get. I've had DOE 

sites -- I guess I'm not speaking out of school -- DOE 

sites that told me, you know, the boxes are in that 

warehouse, go to it. And I say well, you know, thanks. 

I have no idea what the organization of the information 

is, have no idea how to search and access, and you're 

just disabled in that kind of respect -- and that's 

probably a worst-case scenario. 

So given the streamlined nature of this evaluation, 

and perhaps because of those memories, I'm kind of 

cognizant of the need to make sure that the 

administrative support that would be essential to not 

only have access but to actually collect the information 

and be able to, you know, pull that information out 

would be available. And again, I don't have a specific 

solution, nor do I know perhaps how the MOU's been 

exercised in that regard. But certainly that's the 

other side of the coin, whether there's any way that, 

either through DOE, DOL or one of the parties, that that 

kind of administrative support to both identify and pull 

out the information with the administrative support of 

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the sites. 

There's a lot of sensitivity on those sites. I can 

speak from personal experience that the first thing you 

hear from a DOE site when you want to actually start 

combing through information is where's the money going 

to come from, and you're sort of caught flat-footed 

because essentially you can't provide the money, and 

they're going to tell you that their budget doesn't 

include the money for doing this particular task, 

either. So you sort of get into this blind alley, and 

that's one thing I wanted to surface early on and this 

is -- the reference that I'm referring to is that when 

that question comes up, I'd certainly like to think 

there was somehow an answer to the question of this --

this contractor is sitting there with the keys to the 

information warehouse, who's going to actually support 

them to help us. 

And this is an old question, but one that comes up 

when you go to the sites, and so it's a two-part issue. 

One is the programmatic direction, whether it comes from 

the Secretary of Energy or from a field office manager; 

and the other is the actual -- what I would call the 

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part issue. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess the other big difference to 

me, too, is this -- this agreement between DOE, DOL --

possibly for the funding, I guess -- and the Advisory 

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points toward independence of this audit process, too, 

and I don't know if -- our current model, all requests 

would go through NIOSH and, you know, I don't know that 

that'll be a problem, but you know, it could be a 

perception problem, I think, so --

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- is it still your position that it 

should be done in that fashion or do you think the model 

of requesting through NIOSH would be achievable, you 

know? 

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think there's probably several models, and you know, 

certainly the MOU that now sits is a model that's been 

hard-fought and I certainly appreciate the amount of 

effort that went into just getting that. So I don't 

want to be sanguine about, you know, what is the best 

way to skin this particular cat. But I just want to 

point out there's two aspects that would have to be 

addressed. One is this question of program direction. 

Certainly in the Department of Energy it does matter. 

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If the senior management provides support and direction 

to the sites, to cooperate on something like this, it 

does matter. It gives one certainly the charter to make 

the request in the first place. 

But the second part of that issue is the -- you 

know, sort of the cold cash or budget support which 

enables the personnel to actually do the support. So 

with those two elements, you can get work done in terms 

of information collection at a DOE site. Missing any 

one of those two, you can't. So there may be different 

models that would allow you to get there, but I just 

want to point out the outcome is certainly one that has 

to address those two issues. And again, I suspect those 

mechanics have not been exercised for this role that 

we're playing. This is sort of a relatively new role. 

So I think it -- you know, it bears to be seen what 

would be more effective, and maybe that's what we're 

kind of laying out, that this might be a good -- good 

juncture to talk about how one could -- you know, could 

work -- you know, 'cause time -- I think -- one thing I 

heard last night was we're in a different place than 

perhaps two or three years ago when these issues first 

arose. And maybe a process now, in terms of doing that, 

would be a lot different than a process two or three 

years ago. But I think laying this on the table and 

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just putting this in this letter was to sort of raise it 

anew and ask that it may be -- be a good time to look at 

the issue anew and determine whether there might be a 

better way to do this, or may be a way we can use the 

MOU as-is, you know. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think you're going to have to 

use the MOU as-is. I don't see any issue here. Maybe 

Tom Rollow will speak to this on behalf of DOE, but Joe, 

you and I go back a ways. I know where you're talking 

from. I've been there and the difficult in getting 

access at DOE sites, and I was the one that offered the 

comment that there's been a watershed of change. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And I see that because the Secretary 

of DOE has made a commitment to compensation -- to this 

compensation program that was not --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- such a commitment made to the 

research -- health research program that we both have 

experience in. Our access under compensation has been 

substantially different because of that. 

I can't promise you that you're going to get realtime access. I can only promise you that we'll 

facilitate as best we can. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Uh-huh. 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: As far as the money, you know, 

Department of Labor's not got an issue with us 

supporting these kinds of activities for the Board. 

That's -- that's our responsibility under the delegation 

of authority and the Executive Order. So I don't see 

any issues there. 

There's not going to be a new memorandum between 

DOE and us until we have to renegotiate the one in 

place. We're not going to establish an MOU with DOL 

'cause we don't need one. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: Couple points on -- couple points on 

this issue. And I think this is what Larry's telling us 

in terms of what your intent, but I think there's a very 

-- NIOSH is in a very delicate position here because the 

worst outcome of our audit would be that we didn't --

the auditor somehow or the Advisory Board did not have 

access or get adequate information to complete an audit 

of whatever, some site profile, whatever. And because -

- you know, because NIOSH failed to facilitate that in 

some way. And I think that there -- there may be 

advantages to using the current MOU and -- as there are 

to using the NIOSH contract process to hire the group 

that's doing the audits. But it also makes it very, 

very difficult for NIOSH and for the Board in terms of 

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how we handle these issues. And I think that if we work 

through the current MOU that we have to keep a very 

careful system of tracking what requests go in, tracking 

when information comes back, making sure that however we 

set this up that the appropriate people on the Board are 

notified if there's a delay, what the reasons for the 

delay are and so forth -- or there are difficulties with 

access or clearance, whatever the issue might be. 

Secondly, I think we need to be very careful on 

this sort of resource issue. You got me a little bit 

worried, Larry, with your comments on you don't want 

this process to slow the other processes down. And I 

understand that from your program manager's issue --

perspective, but from the perspective of the Board and 

you being audited, you don't want to be -- we also don't 

want to have one saying that you didn't give us adequate 

resources to do that. And again, I think that's 

manageable from -- but if there are resource issues, we 

need to identify them up front and we need to, you know, 

make sure that they're being addressed and so forth so 

it's not --

 MR. ELLIOTT: It's not resource issues. 

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We have resources available to 

support this. If we need to go into the DOE site and 

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DOE system with our contractor to retrieve the documents 

you all want, we'll do that. 

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We've done that before for our --

this is a request -- I view this as a request for the 

Board on behalf -- a request from NIOSH on behalf of the 

Board. 

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: The resource impact I'm talking about 

is providing face time with dose reconstructors, 

providing face time with authors of site profiles and 

the manager of the site profile development, that -- you 

know, taking them away from their work setting is the 

concern I have as the program manager. And we're going 

to manage that. We're going to balance that, and we're 

not going to manage it and balance it to the detriment 

of your audit. 

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And I just want to assure you, we'll 

deal with the resource issues that come down the pike. 

We'll -- we'll talk to DOL and we'll have the funds 

available. 

 DR. MELIUS: And -- and I -- no, I understand that. 

I just think that we, as the Board -- the interface with 

you on that issue needs to be, again, managed very 

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carefully so you're not -- you and the Board is not put 

in the position of having a delay or something going 

wrong, you know, whatever, because of that or because it 

wasn't resolved and identified up -- up front. And you 

know, there's all sorts of things that can go wrong in 

the bureaucracy that can affect this, and as long as 

we're dealing with it up front and have a system to 

document what's going on, I think we'll be okay. 

The only additional question I have is that if we 

use the -- I haven't read the current MOU in a while so 

I don't remember exactly -- to what extent it speaks to 

the Board's access to issues. I know the law does, but 

I'm not sure that the MOU did. The question I have is 

is it worthwhile for the Board to write to Department of 

Energy Secretary pointing out that this function is 

starting, this contractor, that we will be working 

through the current MOU and do that, but that, you know, 

there are -- are important access issues that are, you 

know, critical to the -- to the program. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think that -- I think that's best 

answered by Tom Rollow, not me. Sorry to put you on the 

spot, Tom, but... 

 MR. ROLLOW: (Off microphone) You want me to answer 

a question? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Tom, if you want -- if you want to 

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address that, use the mike, please. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think Dr. Melius's question is 

would the Secretary of Energy appreciate a letter from 

this Board expressing its concern or urgency or need for 

access, I guess is what you're saying. 

 MR. ROLLOW: I endorse Larry Elliott's summary of 

the way that I think this process will successfully 

work, and that's to use the existing MOU with DOE. 

NIOSH has full and free access to all this information 

at the sites. The sites are well-organized to support 

the NIOSH information requests. And I think any 

documents or information that the Board needs can be 

procured through -- either through NIOSH or with NIOSH 

accompanying them to the sites or NIOSH opening the door 

for them. 

I think the sites will look at your independent 

review team no different than they look at NIOSH people 

on-site. I'm not saying you have to send a NIOSH person 

to the site with the review team, but they would go in 

under the NIOSH auspices. 

Secondly, the question is would a letter from the 

Board to the Secretary of Energy -- I don't think it's 

needed, but sure, you could send a letter to the 

Secretary of Energy and -- and to remind them in the 

import-- remind him of the importance of this, and we'll 

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take a look at that letter when it arrives. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn? 

 MS. MUNN: Actually Dr. Melius said a couple of the 

things that I was going to express some concern about. 

As an individual who no longer holds a Q clearance but 

who occasionally needs access to some part of a site for 

one reason or another, it's been very clear to me that 

since September of 2001 there's been a marked change in 

attitudes about individuals who are not currently 

employed by the agency and bearing the agency's own 

clearance authorization to be able to access even 

peripheral parts of sites. And I would hate to see the 

kind of individual definition of what constitutes 

security at each separate site influence the 

accessibility of our folks here. For that reason I was 

going to suggest what Dr. Melius had suggested, that 

perhaps it would be at least not hurtful to request the 

Secretary of Energy to please notify his -- all of his 

site managers that this activity would be ongoing and 

that -- request that they provide access as necessary 

for the records. I can't see that that would be 

harmful, and I shouldn't think that it would be 

politically incorrect to do so. My interpretation is 

that this would be the kind of thing that this Board's 

charter would expect of him. 

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 DR. ANDRADE: Okay. I don't like to bring issues 

up without having potential solutions. I'm going to try 

and provide at least a set of thoughts that could be 

used in developing a solution. 

One, having been on the receiving end of surprises 

like requests for information for the CDC or some NIOSHfunded study, et cetera, et cetera at my particular 

site, I just roll my eyes and say oh, no, another 

unfunded mandate -- which it is. Okay? I really don't 

care what DOE says about it because the funding from 

these sorts of things usually go into the -- come from 

overhead accounts, from major sources of money like 

weapons programs, et cetera. So given that situation, I 

would say the following should be part of a strategy --

an overall strategy to address this issue. 

One is that the auditing contractor use the site 

profile authors to the best of their advantage. Okay? 

They're the ones who were on site, who probably had very 

extensive knowledge of history and of practices, and 

therefore they should turn out to be the best resources. 

I'm not really sure if the auditing contractor knows 

specifically what it is that they would like to get 

their hands on once they get on site, but to minimize 

time on site, they should have an idea, and those ideas 

can come from the site profile authors. 

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Number two is there should be a general at least 

handshake agreement between the Board, the HHS or 

whomever the right level of personnel is, and the 

auditing contractor with respect to accelerated Q's or 

re-establishing Q clearances. If we can get that done 

as soon as possible and up front, then I think that 

would save a lot of time and effort. 

Second, I also agree that it's a good idea for DOE 

at some level, and I'm not sure if it has to be the 

Secretary, let the sites know that this is going to --

that this function is occurring, it will affect them and 

be up front about it. They're going to have to take it 

out of their hides because if you have to go into 

repositories, it does take time and effort. Okay? It 

takes weeks sometimes to track records down. So direct 

request to the sites, I think, is also a very good idea. 

A lot of the -- some of the items that were noted 

in the memo are available as open information, 

especially for more recent accidents and/or occurrences, 

what was noted as off-normal sorts of situations, 

through the ORPS reporting system. Others are in paper 

files. 

There should also be an agreement and a standard 

request for classified information as needed, as 

required for these people who have the Q's, that is 

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agreed to between DOE and their sites for the folks that 

will be going on site. And again, all of this with an 

effort to try and minimize the impact on the work that 

is ongoing at DOE -- at the DOE sites. And that's what 

I'm thinking about. It may be a bit fuzzy at this 

particular point in time. Understand that when these 

things come around, they are considered unfunded 

mandates by the DOE contractors. 

 DR. ANDERSON: Tony covered some of my issues. I 

just wanted to again underscore that I think, starting 

with the site profiler, you can probably gather 

information on what they did so that their process is 

fairly straightforward. And if -- you could certainly 

ask them if they went to these documents, did they also 

then pursue underlying -- you know, kind of go down the 

chain, or did they take the summary document and say 

that's -- that's good enough for what we need. And so 

you may not need to -- you could find out and then your 

proofing of well, would it have been useful to go to the 

other documents might limit how much tracing back you'd 

need to do. So I think if you start with them, from an 

audit standpoint it's important to what information did 

they use, did they use other information that was 

subsequently available to them but isn't directly listed 

on their list of documents. That -- that I think is an 

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easy trace-back. I'd start there to maybe limit, you 

know, what one has to subsequently ask for when you go 

on site. 'Cause if they say yes, we went to another 

document. It isn't listed there. You could find out 

what it is, request it when you go on site, and it's all 

there on a one-stop shop. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Just before we call on Robert, let me 

insert here and -- you know, Joe's very experienced in 

this sort of thing, and I think the fact that they've 

requested access to all of these things does not 

necessarily mean that they would actually look at all of 

these things, but you have to sort of a priori say okay, 

here's some things we may need access to -- depending on 

what you find out. You're planning to start with the 

very individuals I believe that Henry described, the 

individuals involved in the preparation of the site 

profiles, and that may lead to other things. Is that --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, let --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- not correct, Joe? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, let me add -- or respond 

that the procedures which we proposed to the Board which 

you approved had as the first phase to talk to the site 

profile authors, to even interview perhaps some site 

experts, as well as do this preliminary review of the 

profile that we've been talking about that we've 

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completed. That's all the first phase. And that 

basically enables this second phase of actually looking 

at data sources, as well as going into a validation. So 

yeah, that all sets the stage to know better what 

information we ought to take a closer look at. And I 

agree wholeheartedly that yeah, that -- you have to do 

that first, and that's part of what we kind of laid out, 

that -- you know, and I think we can do it in a way 

which will mitigate against undue burden on the profile 

authors, as well, which of course we're conscious of. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

 MR. PRESLEY: As one who works with this every day, 

day in and day out, I think the letter's great. Don't 

stop at DOE. You have to take that letter down to the 

NNSA level. DOE and NNSA don't always talk. I would 

hate to see you get to say Oak Ridge and go to --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Y-12. 

 MR. PRESLEY: -- Y-12 and they look at you like 

they have no earthly idea that you -- you know, what 

you're doing, so I'm -- I'm sorry there, but we need to 

take that to NNSA. 

Also, look at -- I would suggest that you look at 

the type of data you need. If you don't need a Q level, 

then don't go for it. It takes a whole lot longer to 

get a Q than it does another clearance, so look at your 

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clearance levels and your data needed before you go in, 

please. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now there've been a number of sort of 

general suggestions and observations. One theme that 

has sort of reoccurred here is the issue of perhaps 

sending a letter or memo to the agency or agencies. 

It's not clear to me whether those who addressed this 

were talking about a memo from this Board or from NIOSH, 

which is our access point, or from our auditors or what. 

And if you want to do something formally, we will be 

looking for a motion. Let's start with Dr. Melius. 

 DR. MELIUS: Let me describe, then I will move the 

description. We have some discussion here. I think the 

letter should come from the Advisory Board, that it 

should go I think to the Secretary of DOE, but that may 

be open to discussion, but I think that's the easiest 

one -- where -- place to send it right now, and it 

should address -- you know, description of why we -- our 

contractor needs access, how we're going to go about --

do it, the clearance issue, which is very important, as 

well as the records access issue. And then explain how 

we're working through the NIOSH MOU to be -- to be doing 

this, but again underlining how important the process is 

and how it was, you know, mandated in the -- in the Act. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And you therefore so move. 

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 DR. MELIUS: I move that, yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius has just moved that the 

Board send a letter -- such letter would go to the 

Secretary of the Department of Energy. It would be 

copied to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to 

whom we report. It would -- there might be a similar 

letter to NSSA -- N -- to another acronym. Is that the 

same letter or a different letter? 

 MR. PRESLEY: Well, it needs to be the same letter. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's the same letter. Is it addressed 

to the same -- this is part of your motion, Jim. We're 

trying to define what it is you moved here. 

This letter would explain that -- the audit process 

which we're required to do under the regulation will 

require access, that this access we would be seeking 

through NIOSH. Are there other --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, we -- I mean I see two main 

items. One is to facilitate the Q clearance issue when 

appropriate and necessary, and secondly the access to 

the site and to the -- to records as requested on the 

site. And I think we'll be requesting that the 

Secretary notify, you know, in whatever the appropriate 

fashion, all the sites of this request -- and this -- of 

this activity that'll be ongoing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Who seconded that --

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 MS. MUNN: I do. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- motion? Motion has been seconded. 

We're now addressing the motion. Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: Does the letter also need to address the 

issue raised by Tony and by others with respect to 

funding? Do we need to identify that the funding for 

this activity is occurring through NIOSH? That's a 

question --

 DR. ZIEMER: My understanding is that Larry has 

already addressed that for us. We don't apparently need 

to mention the funding. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well -- well, wait, let me -- let's 

just -- no, no, take a moment and pause here now. I 

interpreted what Wanda just said to mean will DOE have 

the funds available or will this be viewed as an 

unfunded mandate. My commitment earlier is to support 

and facilitate your access if -- in that regard, that 

means to me if you get access and you need somebody to 

do in because DOE doesn't have enough people, enough 

clerical support to go retrieve the records, we can help 

do that. But -- but if -- in your letter to DOE, if you 

wish to address funding, I think it should be address 

the funding support down through the chain in DOE to the 

sites. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Tony? 

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 DR. ANDRADE: I just wanted to clarify what I 

mentioned earlier, and that is, although these -- these 

activities are identified as unfunded mandates, one of 

the things that such a letter would help to ameliorate 

is, number one, the surprise; and number two is it would 

allow sites to prepare for a visit that would -- that 

would have minimal impact. They know it's going to come 

out of their hides. And because of the MOU between DOE 

and DOL and it being referenced, they know that they 

will do the work. However, we want to be considerate 

and provide them with a heads-up, with warning, and also 

reassure them that the impact will be minimal. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Henry? 

 DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I was just going to say as 

part of the introduction I would just say that it's 

starting. I mean they've known about the process. I 

think we need to explain it, introduce -- here's the 

contractor that's going to be contacting, and then ask 

them to facilitate, you know, along the other lines. 

But basically this is a notice that we're beginning, 

here's what it's going to entail, here's going to be the 

process and it's more FYI so they can prepare. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me -- I would be remiss if I 

didn't mention this. I think -- and maybe it'll help in 

your understanding of the agreement we have with DOE. 

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When do we -- when does HHS, NIOSH, pay for access or --

or pay for something, when do we transfer money to DOE, 

is the way to say it, I guess. And we do that only when 

we seek some technical advice, consultation or -- or 

they've got a technical expert that we need help in 

understanding a piece of information, data or whatever. 

That we -- we compensate them back for. But access to 

information and providing information and retrieving 

information we do not. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We assist, but we do not transfer 

funds for that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to call for the vote in just 

a moment, and let me advise you what you will be voting 

on. We will vote on the intent to send the letter, 

basically, that will include these concepts. If the 

motion passes, I will assign a couple of people to draft 

the letters and this afternoon you will have a chance to 

approve the actual letter as it's worded. Is that 

agreeable? Is that agreeable with the mover that the 

motion is a motion to, in essence, prepare such a 

letter, and we'll have a look at it? Is that agreeable 

with the mover and the seconder? 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. MELIUS: Or as an alternate -- I don't know if 

we'll have enough time to get it -- if Cori and everyone 

-- if we can get something written up and circulated. 

Can we circulate it after the meeting by e-mail and then 

with Paul as the final approver on it? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that depends on what you're 

willing to authorize. But if we have to -- if we have 

to -- we cannot approve it by -- we cannot take a formal 

action on it --

 DR. MELIUS: But can --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- outside the public forum. 

 DR. MELIUS: But we can authorize the Chair to send 

the letter. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You can authorize the Chair to send 

the letter. 

 DR. MELIUS: The Chair can then appropriately 

consult with... 

 DR. ZIEMER: As long as the general content is 

agreed to --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that's fine. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I would hope that we might have 

at least a draft wording today. 

Shall we proceed on that basis? Does anyone wish 

to speak against the motion before we vote? 

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 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. All in favor of the motion, 

fuzzy as it may be, say aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: All opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Motion carries. I would like to ask 

the mover of the motion -- of the motion and Tony, would 

you assist Jim to -- so that we cover those issues that 

were of concern and see if you can give us a rough draft 

this afternoon so that we have at least a preliminary 

idea of the content of the letter as it would go out? 

Thank you. You can call on anyone else for expert 

advice as you prepare it. 

Other questions for Joe Fitzgerald? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Joe. Appreciate 

the input. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: I'd like -- unless there's a need 

for a break or something, I'd like to introduce a 

colleague on task three. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me see where we are time-wise. 

How much time does Hans need? 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Hans? 

 MR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) Well, I'll need at 

least 25 minutes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's take a break. 

(Whereupon, a recess was taken.) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's reconvene. We're going to hear 

next from Hans Behling, who is going to review the 

protocol for review of procedures and methods employed 

by NIOSH for dose reconstruction. This is actually the 

task three protocol. 

Now while he's -- or before he starts, let me point 

out to you, Board members, in your packet you have the 

overheads that Hans will be using, and then in the next 

tab you have the drafts that come to us from SC&A. And 

one of those, which is called SC&A's procedure to 

perform quality assurance reviews of NIOSH/ORAU dose 

reconstruction procedures, seems to have inadvertently 

had attached to it a completely unrelated document from 

NIOSH. This is not an SCA document. They would have no 

idea what it's about. It's a highly confidential NIOSH 

document and anyone who's read it will not be allowed to 

leave today. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: My apologies and my regrets for any 

inconvenience that this inadvertent clerical error has 

caused anyone here. It is -- I think there's actually 

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maybe two documents there about position descriptions 

for a general schedule 15 person or two, and has no 

bearing on OCAS. You won't -- I don't even think you 

see NIOSH mentioned there, I'm not sure. But please 

just disregard. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We're going to shred all copies 

of that. 

In any event, you might have -- those -- those two 

documents, with the exclusion of this inadvertent 

document, are the ones that are under consideration. So 

Hans --

 MR. ELLIOTT: In our continuous improvement process 

at NIOSH/OCAS, these are the kind of things we're 

looking to avoid. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I thought they were inserted 

intentionally to see if the Board would catch it. 

 Okay, Hans, please. 

 MR. BEHLING: Okay. Just as a recap, I will not be 

talking about that second document that involves the QA 

procedures. I'm going to be confining my presentation 

to the first one, the larger one. 

Just again this morning I'd like to say thank you 

for the opportunity to come here and my name is Hans 

Behling. I'm with SC&A and I'm a health physicist by 

training. 

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Under the Energy Employee Act there's a statutory 

requirement for the Board to independently review the 

methods for dose reconstruction, and it's all --

obvious-- clear that procedures that a critical part of 

that methodology. So on behalf of task three, I was 

asked to develop a procedure that provides both an 

outline, as well as a general approach, for the review 

of procedures that have been adopted for dose 

reconstruction. 

Accordingly, the Board forward to us a disk that 

contained 33 procedures, and these 33 procedures 

represent OCAS implementation guides, technical 

information bulletins, program evaluation reports and 

procedures, as well as ORAU's plans, procedures and 

technical information bulletins. And I think they're 

all part of the package that you have that briefly 

identify them and also give you a one or two-sentence 

summary of each of those procedures. 

One thing I do want you to take note of is that not 

included in this review process are obviously site 

profiles, because they are covered under task one. 

When I briefly scanned these 33 documents or 

procedures, I realized they were quite diverse in both 

content and in scope, and I have to tell you, it took me 

a while to understand how I was going to write a 

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procedure to review 33 procedures that varied so 

differently. So I re-read the Act over and over. I reread the final rule of 42 CFR 82 and the regulations 

themselves for some inspiration, hoping that a light 

would go off. 

Well, the Act requires that the Department of 

Health and Human Services establish regulations and 

methods for arriving at reasonable estimates, and that 

was one of the key words that jumped out at me --

reasonable estimates. And the Act specifically states 

that the key objective of the compensation program is to 

provide for timely compensation, another word that 

jumped out from the pages. 

Other directives issued by the Act in the final 

rule of dose reconstruction methods state that these 

methodologies should be, one, efficient; two, 

consistently applied; reasonably and fair to the 

claimant; adequate and complete; and well-grounded in 

the best available science. And those are the key words 

that I focused on in thinking about how I'm going to 

write a procedure that will capture some of those 

elements. 

It would have been easy for me to focus strictly on 

the science of it, because as health physicists we tend 

to always dwell on infinite detail and how much could we 

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improve on this if we add this and this and this, and 

that's axiomatic. Science has to be obviously an 

integral part of this review protocol, but it's 

certainly not the only one. 

In the next seven slides I will briefly identify 

the seven objectives that came out of the review of the 

Act and the final rule, as well as the regulations 

themselves, and identify criteria that we will use to 

determine if the procedures under review meet in fact 

these objectives. So let's go to the first statement. 

Of course that reiterates what I just said. 

But the key word here is that we want to be in a 

position to -- to -- to establish a sense of timeliness, 

so that became our first objective. To what extent are 

procedures supporting a protocol that will allow for a 

very rapid analysis of doses, et cetera. 

Objective number two is that the procedures must 

also establish a sense of efficiency in those instances 

where a more detailed approach clearly would not add to 

any value. In other words, can we short-circuit the 

system. And that is a criteria of efficiency in 

instances where we already went over the top or we, 

under the worst of conditions, cannot fathom the idea 

that he will -- or that person will ever meet the 50 

percentile probability of causation. 

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Objective three, to assess the procedures in terms 

of have they exhausted all the potential exposures and 

ensured that the resultant doses are complete and based 

on adequate data. So completeness, as well as adequacy 

of data, was objective number three. 

From the beginning it was obviously clear to the 

HHS that claims would represent a wide range of exposure 

conditions that in turn not only reflect the various 

activities at the DOE sites and the AWE sites, but also 

reflect the change in times. How things were done early 

obviously is different from the way they're being done 

today or in between those periods of time. Thus 

objective number four was to assess procedures for a 

consistent approach of dose reconstruction that would 

assure some kind of consistency, both in terms of time, 

regardless of location. 

And because of the many potential problems that one 

encounters in dose reconstruction that includes 

unknowns, loss of data, missing records, unmonitored 

exposures, a fifth objective is to be sure that we 

account for all of those things, and in the process be 

fair and give the benefit of doubt to the claimant in 

cases of unknown. So that became objective number five. 

Related to fairness and giving the benefit of doubt 

to the claimant is the requirement for also quantifying 

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the uncertainty of various parameters that are included 

in dose reconstruction. And for that there has to be 

some assessment of the uncertainty, which then is 

objective number six. 

The last objective that I identify is striking a 

balance between good science and most of the parameters 

that I will collectively refer to as being efficiency, 

as a matter of efficiency. To what extent can we, for 

instance, get to where we want to go and get the process 

moving as rapidly as possible; still retain good 

science, defensible science, but not go to the level of 

detail where it's timely and costly and slows the 

process down. So the last objective is, in essence, do 

the procedures provide a proper balance in terms of the 

guidance it offers for doing the -- doing dose 

reconstruction efficiently, without sacrificing the 

quality of science that goes into them. 

So let me identify the parameters by which we 

intend to assess these various objectives. The first 

one, again, was the issue of timeliness. And in each 

case here, the objective is stated as 1.0 and the next 

one will be 2.0, and underneath each of these are 

various criteria by which we will assess the procedures. 

In the first case of timeliness, it's clear and it's 

obvious that the procedures should be written in a style 

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that is unambiguous. Does the procedure -- does it read 

easily, does it cause people to question what am I 

reading, how do I interpret this. Is the procedure 

written in a manner in which the data is presented in a 

logical and sequential manner. 

Is the procedure complete in terms of the required 

data. In other words, you don't want to have to go to a 

-- yet another reference if it's possible that that 

information can be already incorporated into that first 

procedure. 

And is the procedure consistent with others. We 

know that, for instance, the procedures as we see them 

starts with the regulations. That's really first order 

document. The second order documents, obviously the 

implementation guides. And third order documents are 

those that support the implementation guides. And there 

is a need to show that these procedures are in fact 

consistent and basically offer the same or at least 

align themselves to each other in that sequence. And 

that is also part of the hierarchy that is 1.4. 

And lastly, is the procedure sufficiently 

prescriptive, because it's very important that the 

individual -- and I don't know how many people will 

actually engage in dose reconstruction, but it would be 

nice to say that if you were to give the same set of 

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documents for dose reconstruction to 100 people, they 

would consistently end up with the same number, using 

the same logic, using the same arguments to say, in the 

case of unknown, this is what I'm going to apply here or 

assume here. So there has to be a method by which the 

number of subjective assumptions are minimized so that 

the procedure remains fairly prescriptive. 

For efficiency we already talked about the need to 

be able to cut the system or short-circuit the system at 

an instant when you know the dose is going to be 

sufficiently high, where you don't need to go on and 

need to invest any more, where you know you're over the 

top and you can obviously at this point call it quits. 

And the same thing in the reverse, when there is so 

little chance that the cumulative dose will actually 

reach the 50 percentile mark, where you simply say use 

the worst-case assumption. However, for this procedure 

to have any -- or for this approach to have any merit, 

one has to know what is the dose for a person who -- for 

a claimant who has a given cancer. So one has to at 

least have some mental idea as to what it is that you're 

looking for when you talk about a thyroid cancer or some 

other cancer. And so the procedure should provide the 

dose reconstructor with a means or some -- somewhere 

that dose reconstructor should have an understanding of 

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what it is that he's looking for that would allow him to 

make that judgment call that says we're over the top, 

even the first few years of exposure pushed me over the 

top. And for that to be the case, he would have to know 

what that number is in terms of the dose to that tissue 

that gives you that greater-than-50-percent probability 

of causation. 

The issue of complete and adequate data, I have two 

components to this. One involves the interview process, 

and for the interview process I have listed several 

items here that we will look at. That is the quality of 

data collected via the interview, the scope of 

information, the level of detail sought and relevance to 

dose reconstruction, and the objectivity and lack of 

bias by which that information is obtained from the 

interviewer, the sensitivity to the claimant, and of 

course protection of the claimant under the Privacy Act 

or the last issue that we will look at. 

For objective number three, that is the second 

half, the adequacy and use of the site-specific data, 

here's where we get into site-specific profiles. And as 

I mentioned earlier, we're not going to be looking at 

that. However, many of the procedures of the 33 will 

obviously demand that we make reference to site-specific 

data, and therefore there is going to be an assessment 

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of those procedures and say do the procedures call for 

the site-specific data in instances where we have, for 

instance, a TLD or a film badge, and what is the 

potential frequency of change-out, what is the potential 

limitations of those personal dosimeters, et cetera. 

Those are the issues that will be contained in the site 

profiles, but the procedures will direct you to those 

site profiles in instances where such data is needed. 

So that's objective number three, the second half of 

three. 

Again, the objective number four is to assess 

procedures for their consistent approach to dose 

reconstruction. And I'd already mentioned the need for 

a prescriptive approach whenever possible, and also a 

hierarchical process that are well-defined in 42 CFR 82. 

As we know, there are certain types of data that have 

priority over other types, and do the procedures require 

this to be... 

Objective number five, fairness and benefit of 

doubt. There are really three major areas where that 

comes into play -- in instances of missing dose, in 

instances of unknown parameters affecting the dose 

estimate, and instances where claimant was not 

monitored. Those are the three areas where the issue of 

fairness and benefit of doubt come into play. 

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Objective number six involves the uncertainty, and 

here we're going to be looking at one of our in-house 

statisticians to support that particular issue because 

I'm not qualified to necessarily deal with the issue of 

uncertainty. But SC&A has several staff statisticians 

who will be looking at the various types of issues that 

involve the need to select a distribution for a given 

dose estimate, as well as the number of iterations that 

might be needed, et cetera. 

And lastly, objective number seven, and that's 

perhaps the most important one, and I started talking 

about the issue of trying to balance precision and 

maintain efficiency in the process. And when it comes 

to precision in details, as I mentioned, there is a 

tendency among health physicists to always add another 

level of detail that refines the precision, but this is 

really not what's needed here. We're not doing a dose 

response or we're not doing research on dose response. 

We're trying to resolve claims. And so a critical part 

of this process of trying to balance precision and 

efficiency is to say is this step in the dose 

reconstruction process really going to significantly 

alter the final dose, and will it make a significant 

difference, given the investment that we need to make in 

order to reach that additional level of precision. And 

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so we have two elements here that we will look at -- and 

it's a subjective call. But I've already looked at some 

of the procedures and I realize that in certain options 

where you have to select A, B or C, the differences are 

at the fraction of one percent. And you have to ask 

yourself, in context with the larger uncertainties that 

are sometimes there, does it make any difference to 

necessarily make a selection process as opposed to 

defaulting to a higher value when in fact the difference 

are so marginal. 

So that concludes my presentation and I'll try to 

answer any questions you may have. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, and we are going 

to have more detailed discussion on the document itself 

later in the meeting, but let me ask if any of the Board 

members wish to raise any questions now with Hans in 

terms of the material he has just covered. Again, we 

will have a chance, in a sense, to deal with this in 

depth when we look at the document. This is a good 

summary of what is contained in that main document that 

we will be looking at. 

 (No responses) 

 PUBLIC COMMENT 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. The next 

item on the agenda I'm going to delay briefly because 

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one of the items, the public comment period, I would 

regard as a time-certain, insofar as we have individuals 

who have come specifically for the public comment 

period. We are perhaps just about five minutes ahead of 

that schedule, but I think we can proceed. A number of 

the individuals who wish to speak are here and ready to 

address the Board, so we will proceed with -- with the 

public comment period and simply ask Dr. Neton to 

postpone his presentation till after that period, if 

that's agreeable. 

Now I have -- I have nine individuals who've 

requested to speak. Our scheduled time is somewhat 

limited, so we ask the speakers to be cognizant of their 

fellow speakers and -- in terms of the time, and not to 

-- not to monopolize the time available. So please 

confine your remarks, if you're able to, without being 

repetitive. 

Let's begin then with Teresa Moran from Richland. 

Teresa? Perhaps she's stepped out. 

Carol -- is it Wilson? Olson. No? From 

Kennewick, Carol -- I'm having a little trouble reading, 

looks like O-l-s-o-n, Ols-- no. Anyone named Carol sign 

up to speak? Let's start with the first name, having 

trouble with the last. 

Beverly Cochrane? Beverly Cochrane, thank you. If 

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-- it would be probably helpful if you used the mike in 

the front, then everyone in the room can see you. Are 

you willing to do that? We won't insist on it, but as I 

pointed out last night, it also gives you something to 

lean on, so... Beverly Cochrane's from Pasco, 

Washington. 

 MS. COCHRANE: Yes. My name is Beverly Westerfield 

Cochrane and I'm a survivor of my father, Frank 

Westerfield. My father worked out at Hanford during my 

growing-up years, and he worked from 1948 I think it was 

till he retired about 35 years later. So he worked 

there when the most dosage probably was received by the 

workmen. 

My father was a steam fitter welder. He was a 

small-built man, and therefore used -- was used by his 

employer and his fellow workers to do the things -- do 

what -- get up in the pipes that other people couldn't 

'cause he had a smaller stature and he was a very good 

welder. He was -- he taught it at college, in fact, 

welding. 

Well, anyway, my dad led a very full life, but he 

got sick in his early seventies and he had cancer. And 

in the dose restruction (sic) part of the report it did 

state that he had lung cancer, and we were sure of that, 

too, but -- and he had prostate cancer and he had liver 

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cancer. And this was due, in my belief, to the fact 

that my father was -- worked so much extra. 

He wore these white uniforms. I remember one time 

he -- or more than one, came home because he'd had a 

dosage and they sent him home in a white -- coveralls. 

And this wasn't unusual. He had a meter, he had a 

pencil meter type thing. He'd take that off because he 

was needed to go back up in the pipes and do welding. I 

mean this was common knowledge. 

A fellow worker who was his boss, I put in pages of 

anecdotal notes about my father's working and the 

situation of his fellow workers, and also I'd listed his 

coworkers down there, the few that are still living. 

But his supervisor said that he -- they -- he remem-- he 

worked with Frank, my dad, and he said Daddy did 

everything. I mean he was a very good worker and he was 

very responsible to the point that he could be, because 

he did what was expected of him. And so I have living 

proof. The notes say that my father went through these 

things. And then he ended up having cancer and he died 

-- very miserable death. 

Last time I saw him -- I mean last months, he was 

in a fetal position. Now that -- that is agonizing 

death, and I believe that my father is entitled -- his 

survivors are entitled to any kind of compensation that 

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might come. And I also believe you're studying this 

thing to death. You're studying the studies. 

Now this is going on -- this is the third year 

since I made my claim, had my documentation, received 

not-- letters saying this is the status of what's going 

on, and it has gone on -- nothing's been -- so to speak, 

that I know of, since my last -- November, and they just 

call and say this is the status. Well, when is it going 

to be settled? Why spend money on you coming out here 

to have meetings and having 22 other meetings to do the 

same thing? We, as the public, don't understand that, 

even if we sit here and tell you about it. 

(Applause) 

 MS. COCHRANE: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much for your comments. 

Let me check again. Teresa Moran is -- did Teresa come 

in? Carol -- we had a little trouble with the last 

name, Carol. You can introduce yourself for the record 

here. Oh, this is -- is this Teresa? 

 MS. MORAN: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MS. MORAN: You want me to introduce myself? 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, Teresa Moran, okay. 

 MS. MORAN: Yeah. I just wanted to let you guys be 

aware that a lot of people are coming in or writing 

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complaints because a lot of people are still working out 

in the area and are afraid to lose their jobs or get 

some type of retaliation in return for making a 

complaint against the government. And you know, I don't 

have the facts in front of me, but I -- I hear, here and 

there, that people have -- that have complained have had 

somewhat -- little tal-- retaliation on them, you know. 

But there's no proof of that, but you know, I've just --

from hearsay. 

And why I'm here today is my grandfather was a 

Nebraska farmer, and he was poor and he had a family, 

and he got offered a job and a house here in Richland to 

work out there and -- in the mill to -- to help build 

the bomb or whatever he did. And he'd come home every 

day -- 'cause he was like my parental figure. He'd come 

home every day with a metal box that they would 

determine his levels of chemicals that he had been 

exposed to 'cause he was in the area that he was getting 

con-- you know. 

Anyways, he first got these big lumps on his neck. 

And he was in his middle thirties. He'd been working 

out there for I-don't-know-how-long, but he started 

getting these big lumps on his neck and had those 

removed. And then after that, then he started getting 

sick with cancer. And he was afraid to say anything, 

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that he thought it was caused by chemicals he had been 

exposed to, because that was the only means of support 

for him. He was worried about his pension and all that 

other stuff, so he was afraid to come forward to try to 

get any kind of retaliation or get some help. So he 

suffered very badly. I had to see him every single day 

suffering from the cancer eating away at him. And it 

really affected me because he was a father figure in my 

life and -- and I feel that our family got short-changed 

when he passed away, 'cause when he passed away, my 

grandmother could barely make it and she didn't want to 

cause any problems, either, because she wanted to 

receive the pension money. And so she was afraid if she 

made waves that somehow that money would be cut off. 

And the same thing with another family member that 

has had cancer, and I believe also due to being exposed 

to harmful chemicals, still works out there and is 

afraid to come forward at the -- at the -- you know, 

worrying about their jobs. So a lot of people are 

worried about their jobs and they're worried about, you 

know, retaliation and they're worried that they're just 

going to open up a big can of worms and everything's, 

you know, going to fall apart, you know. So I just 

wanted to say that -- that that is, in my opinion, the 

reason why a lot of people aren't coming forward. 

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And I don't know if there's a safety net for these 

people that's available or what. I just came to this 

meeting today, but if there isn't a safety net for them 

to be in, you know, there should maybe be some kind --

some created so that these people feel secure about 

discussing their problems without worrying about losing 

their jobs. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

(Applause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me call again for Carol -- I'm 

still puzzling over the last name. Looks like perhaps 

Osonofor. No Carols? Frank Trent? And Frank is from 

Richland. 

 MR. TRENT: My name's Frank Trent and first of all 

I'd like to thank the Board for -- for coming to 

Richland and listening to all of the complaints. And if 

it's within your power, you should listen very carefully 

to what's going on here and get the word back to the 

White House or wherever to get DOE or whoever is in 

charge of this off the stick and moving. 

I came here in 1950 in the United States Army, and 

was stationed here at Hanford. We was in tents living 

out there with all of the iodine stuff coming through 

the stacks, and we were -- we were living in that, and 

it did come down. 

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Later -- years later I went to work at Hanford and 

worked in the 200 areas, first-hand knowledge and sight 

of what happens when you get a down-draft from those 

stacks. Now this is before the new filtration went in. 

That iodine came right down around the buildings, 

contaminated the grounds, and they had to actually come 

in and move three or four inches of topsoil, and we was 

in that, too. And the guys also had to come and go from 

the buildings in SWP* clothing and drop them off at the 

guard shacks before they got on the bus. That's one 

incident. 

Another incident was in 224. I believe it was U 

plant. And we were in the lunch room eating dinner and 

one of the RMU* guys was with an operator going down the 

whole corridor to take a sample. And as he was walking 

he was -- CP meter was swinging in his hand and he 

looked down and it was off-scale. He didn't even know 

it was on. So he stopped and he looked up and flipped 

it to the next scale and it was off-scale, also. And he 

flipped it to the third scale, which is the highest 

scale, and it was still off-scale. So he run everybody 

out of the lunch room, and myself included, and -- and 

got people in there with SWP clothes on and they found 

the problem. This stuff was oozing through the wall 

into the corridor right next to the lunch room, and this 

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corridor was a clean area. And so was the lunch room, 

of course. 

But anyway, they come in and put a new wall of 

high-density concrete over that wall. Now that's 

another incident, and I believe that's where I got a 

direct ingestion of plutonium and uranium 'cause we were 

working with uranium in that building. That was 30-some 

years ago. 

There's another thing I would like to mention, 

also. My father-in-law, Cecil Imercrary, came here in 

'43, and he went through a very painful death, suffered 

terribly, from beryllium exposure and he finally died at 

83. But he suffered for years because of this, and he 

spent most of his life here working. 

I left the project myself, but I just thought maybe 

these few comments may help. But I don't know but what 

some of the records, like the people have said here, 

have been expunged from the files 'cause I've seen my 

files and they don't represent totally what went on out 

there, and I've got a stack about that thick 

(indicating). So -- but I got a feeling that most of 

the stuff that could be -- cause them a problem in later 

years has been removed. 

Now there's a records building right here in the 

712 building or 713 and 12 -- 712 is the printing and 

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713 I believe it was is where the records were kept, and 

they go back a long ways. So -- but anyway, that's my 

spiel and I want to thank you guys for coming and 

listening. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

(Applause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Frank. Next 

we'll hear from John David, who represents sheet metal 

workers Local 66. John's from Kennewick. 

 MR. DAVID: I had an opportunity last night when I 

was talking with you to remind you about a member that I 

represent -- he was retired -- that gave you an offer 18 

months ago to exhume his father's body so that you could 

see that he was contaminated with plutonium, which the 

records have no -- nothing of, as he tells me. And I 

just got a chance to talk with him, I -- to get ahold of 

him, and he still wants to make that offer for you. His 

dad's name is Justin Schweitzer. 

And there's another lady who I had hoped would be 

here today that I talked to, that spoke last night, and 

I'm going to pursue her 'cause she -- she's going to 

tell you that she's willing to let you exhume her 

husband's body. 

And my point in bringing this up is to help you 

understand how severely this is important to them for --

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not for them, but for everybody. This isn't a me or an 

I deal, this is a we. And so again I'd like to 

reiterate to you, take your information back to whoever 

you got to go to and tell them that -- what the process, 

how it's evolved today is not working, regardless of the 

efforts of the individuals that have been involved with 

that. It's simply not working. And so we need to have 

this site as a special cohort site, period. This was 

granted to these other places, and supposedly we're 

supposed to have the best records that there is. And if 

that's the case, if we've got the best, boy, I'd hate to 

see the worst because I think it's pretty evident --

from all the testimony that you continually seem to be 

having an opportunity to hear -- that it just doesn't 

add up. So please, please, for everybody in this 

community -- and this is a great community, and I want 

to continue to live here and I want my kids to continue 

to have an opportunity to live here, we want to continue 

to have an opportunity to work out here in a safe 

manner. And so we're asking you to please help those 

people and please help us that work here today. 

There's an article in this morning's paper that 

talks about that there was a tank farm issue where they 

said there was no problem -- just real recent, by a 

company called CHG, and they said hey, no problem. You 

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can be out there, breathe and everything, you don't need 

any supplied air. Well, I'll be danged if it came out 

in the paper this morning that yeah, you do. Okay? 

Now I want to applaud them for realizing that they 

made a mistake. And maybe that's because of the climate 

today where people can come out and speak. And I 

certainly hope that there isn't anybody that's suffering 

any retaliation whatsoever because of this, because this 

is supposed to be a free country and people are being 

asked to come forward with this information. If they're 

suffering any retaliation because of that, that's an 

absolute criminal. So thank you very much for your time 

and all the efforts you're putting forth here. We'd 

appreciate that you'd continue to come back here and 

visit us. And I would like to give you an opportunity 

so the next time you come here that you can be our 

heroes, 'cause I really believe that you want to be our 

heroes and you want this to be -- to work, so you don't 

have to go here and you don't have to go across the 

country and have to listen to these horrific statements. 

So do everything you can, because believe you me, we 

want you -- we want you to be our champion. Thank you. 

(Applause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, John, for those words. 

Let's go next to Gaye Shook -- Gaye Shook? Gayle -- is 

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it Gaye or Gayle? 

 MR. SHOOK: Gayle. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Gayle, yeah. 

 MR. SHOOK: I'm Gayle Shook. I've worked on the 

plant for 38 years. I came here in 1950, right out of 

school, went to work in nuclear projects -- and the 

field is nuclear research that we were in. The reason 

I'm here to air my gripes, I guess, today is to make you 

aware of the problems that we all have. And we all 

surely have problems that are here today that's going to 

eventually terminate our life earlier than what we had 

expected. 

I have had cancer removed from my neck and my ear 

and ear, my chest. I've had -- been diagnosed with 

berylliosis, and that is making life very uncomfortable 

right now. I would like to have been here yesterday, 

but yesterday was a down day. I was not here. 

But I'm like the rest of these people. I'm just 

setting here hoping that you will be more attentive to 

our problems and to maybe -- I don't know how you can 

make it go through any faster to either say yes or no or 

whatever. And I -- that's about all I've got to say. 

I'm here -- want to thank the Board for listening to 

this and hope you'll really act on these problems for 

all of us. Thank you. 

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 (Applause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And thank you, Gayle, for your 

comments. 

Roland Haney? Roland Haney. Roland is a West 

Richland resident. 

 MR. HANEY: My name's Roland Haney. I've lived 

here since 1950, and I'm going to tell you about all my 

problems after working five years at Hanford as a 

serviceman. Serviceman's a laborer, and he does all the 

dirty jobs they got out there. 

Okay, I'm going to tell you the things that's wrong 

with me that happened after I left there -- before I 

left there. The first thing, my tonsils swelled up so 

big that I'd drink water and it'd run out my nose. The 

next thing that I had them removed. The next thing that 

happened to me, a lump come in my neck and my thyroid 

was removed, cancerous. Then after that, let's see --

my pituitary gland went bad. A good healthy guy like me 

was 185 pounds and my pituitary gland, gone, so I took 

testosterone every two weeks every since then and that's 

been since about 1956 or '57. 

The next thing that went on me was a lump in my 

side. They call it a belt tumor. That was removed. I 

don't know whether it was cancerous or not. The next 

thing that went on me was three lumps in my back. They 

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were removed. I don't know if they were cancerous or 

not. I'm awful nervous. 

And let's see, then my esophagus started giving me 

trouble. I went to Seattle and they checked it and said 

if I didn't have it removed, I'd have cancer within two 

years, so I got that esophagus fixed. 

The next thing went was 14 inches of my colon. I 

don't know whether it was cancerous or not. And my 

appendix went. There ain't much left of me, after 

working at Hanford. And doing the -- and I can't tell 

you how many time that I went home in a bus with a pair 

of coveralls on where I got hot enough -- they even took 

my wedding ring. And just stuff like that'll happen to 

me out there. 

And when I got bad enough, you know, they made it 

so rough on me that I just quit and left there. I only 

worked there seven years. And I just wanted to tell 

you, there's a lot of people around that's probably as 

bad off as I am. Today I have defibrillator cost 

$77,000 to keep my heart going. And nervous as a --

I've shook ever since I left Hanford. 

I got into beryllium -- I'm forgetting a few 

things. I have beryllium now. I have asbestosis. And 

it just showed up about six weeks ago when I was in 

Harbor View. So you talk about getting it, I got it. 

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And I feel very bad about working at Hanford. 

After I quit Hanford I could only work half days 

because of the beryllium. I spent eight -- when I got 

beryllium I was a spotter for the truck when they hauled 

a load of beryllium scrap to the hot burial ground. You 

had to take a spotter with you because they didn't want 

the truck in the hole, so I stood at the back of the 

truck and when they dumped it, all that dust come and 

got -- I got a heck of a load of it. 

The next day was Friday. My vacation started. I 

went on vacation. I was home eight days. And I woke up 

about two hours after I went to bed. I was sweating 

like a fiend and the wife changed the bed. She changed 

it three times that night, and we had to come back to 

Washington, so I said well, I'll go down and get me a 

shot of penicillin and head for home. 

Okay, I go down and go in to the doctor, and this 

is in Pittsburgh, Massachusetts, and I asked the doctor 

-- you know, he checked me and I said can I get a shot 

of penicillin? I have to be back at Hanford in five 

days. And he said I'll tell you what, you go for that 

door I'll call the cops on you. I said why, what'd I 

do, you know? He said I want you to stay right here. 

He called the wife and told her he thought I had polio. 

And so he quarantined me, naturally, and everything and 

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next thing I know he come in and he said well, I think 

you've got pneumonia. 

And I -- pneumonia, well, that -- probably I have -

- and he said check -- I'll check you out tomorrow and 

you can head for home. And so I got up in the morning 

and went down there and he told -- he gave me a stack 

about that high (indicating) of what he'd done and what 

he thought and everything, and he said hell, he said I 

don't know what you've got. You'd better go back there 

and find out what you got into. 

It was the beryllium that caused this, and it took 

it till now to show up on me. And they call it chronic 

beryllium. There's three types of beryllium poisons, 

and that's a lot of things -- I probably could talk here 

all the day -- all day about Hanford, but -- like 

working in the discharge tunnel when the ties* come down 

and they -- that's the only time I ever wear -- wore a 

fresh air mask out there. Those -- we worked out there 

like this, with a pair of blue coveralls and a baseball 

hat. And I look at them guys doing the same work we did 

and they're only wearing -- like they're -- stuff like 

they're going to the moon, and that's all we wore out 

there and them plants was running. 

When Frank told you about the -- I guess they call 

it the green stuff was discharged out there, the iodine, 

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a guy pulled all of -- all the filters out of the -- the 

stack and that's the reason that went over into the --

and 100-H is where I worked and it was right in the path 

of that, and I was right there when it happened. 

So I don't know, I could talk all day about this, 

so I'll just give up. Thank you. 

(Applause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Roland, for sharing that 

with us. 

Jim Knight from Richland. Jim Knight? Yeah. 

 MR. KNIGHT: My name is Jim Knight and I thank the 

Board for being here and this opportunity to talk to 

you. I didn't start on the Hanford project until 1963, 

so I don't know what the story is on all these horror 

stories and stuff you've heard previously. I can just 

tell you my own experience from '63 on. 

I started in fuels manufacturing and went from 

there out to PFP and worked in fuels and for the 

plutonium processing weapons manufacturing for several 

years, worked in tank farms for a while and testing, 

drilling and safety and health. 

Now not knowing the record of your other stories 

here, but I -- in my experience out there and all the 

exposure I had, I was in tank farms, went out, opened 

several of the tanks there, the worst exposure I had out 

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there was being stuck in an office with two chain 

smokers. That was the worst situation I faced in my 

entire Hanford project, including being in the fuels 

where we manufactured the raw uranium and PFP where I 

worked with the plutonium and tank farms where we had 

the waste product. Any my experience with this, I 

developed coughs there. It took me ten years after 

retirement before I cleared up the cough. I filed a 

complaint with my supervisor, Steve Smith, at the time 

and he said we will not process this because we don't 

want to rattle anything up the ranks here on 

discrimination or whatever he called it. So I don't 

know, there might be a lot of horror stories here. I've 

been exposed to plutonium, beryllium, asbestos and right 

now I'm probably in the best health I've been in in a 

long time and I think it's -- like I say, my biggest 

exposure was being exposed to the cigarette smoke in 

that office for several hours a day. And you'll hear 

all kinds of horror stories. 

I know plutonium's an alpha emitter, which 

penetrates less than two cell molecules thick, so you're 

going to have all kinds of stories here, but as I said, 

with my experience being on the project, in safety and 

going over the whole project, all the labs, the 

reprocessing, the separations, the fuels manufacturing, 

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the weapons manufacturing, by far the worst experience I 

had was having to stand in that room with those two 

cigarette smokers. And thanks. 

(Applause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jim. Ron Strait. Ron 

Strait. 

 MR. STRAIT: Good morning. I worked particularly 

for contractors and so on out there. Most of the time I 

thought they run a rather safe, stable type work site. 

However, there were several incidents, like in the 300 

area we were replacing a motor, myself and another 

gentleman, on the americium line and they told us don't 

stir up the dust. I thought we had adequate dosimetry 

and so on, but we were working alone in there. We only 

had a few minutes to work. It was rather hot. And this 

fellow -- I can't describe exactly how it worked, but 

there's a -- two lines in there -- one line over dropped 

a piece of plywood off of a scaffold, and the dust just 

flew. And I remember the HP folks telling us that we've 

got -- you stir up the dust, if anything comes off the 

conduits, whatever, you come out through the step-off 

procedure immediately and so on and so forth. 

Well, it hadn't got to us, but we could see the 

dust boiling around in the room with the air handling 

equipment. The room was at somewhat negative pressure, 

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obviously. And I yelled at my partner, let's go, and we 

just dropped our tools. You can't take your tools out 

of there. Dropped our tools and I ran for the door. He 

looked at me kind of stupidly and finally it dawned on 

him I was leaving for a specific purpose. We ran out 

through the door just as this great big what, 20-ton 

door was starting to go shut, and the induct detectors 

evidently had spotted this radiation dust, radioactive 

dust. 

So we ran out there -- run clear beyond -- I was 

really scooting, run clear beyond the step-off 

procedure, so we contaminated the room and we had to be 

cleaned up and we lost our clothes and so on and so 

forth. 

My dosimetry, as they were trying to reconstruct my 

overall dose, showed virtually nothing. Well, I know 

better than that. I really got a blast in there. And I 

have a bone to pick with the way they kept our records 

or observed our records, our dosimetry. 

Another time I was working for Tri-City Electric. 

The shop had rewound a big motor out there on -- that 

keeps a negative pressure on some of the crypts across 

from the 200 area in the burial site. The motor 

wouldn't run. It'd either burned up or something, so 

they sent me out there -- no dosimetry. 

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I walked out there, took the connection block on 

the side of the motor apart, and it looked okay, but it 

did smell burnt. And I noticed nobody else would come 

down there where I was. So I went back up to their 

shop, got ahold of one of their dosimeters, And while 

I'm not trained or qualified to run them, I did -- you 

know, I knew how to run them because we had, in the 

past, kept track of a lot of our stuff. And I went down 

there and it went off-scale. It was over five R where I 

had been standing. 

Well, I got back in the pickup -- you know, left. 

I just got back in the pickup. I had no dosimetry on, 

which was -- really I think would have really registered 

some very high rad. Went back up to the shop. We went 

through -- oh, cleaning my feet up and so on like that, 

and I was allowed to leave. I don't know what all I had 

on me, but I had a lot. 

And several other instances I don't think our 

dosimetry can -- our dosimeting (sic) can be 

reconstructed properly. I don't think I was properly 

covered in those particular areas. 

Most of the rest of it was pretty benign. We --

I've worked in some commercial plants and I thought they 

were a lot more careful with us. Like over here at 

Columbia Generating and down at San Onofre and so on 

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like that, but they're commercial. They're not relative 

to this. But even that, they kept real careful track of 

our dosimetry, and we'd have to log into an area with 

our badges and the badges tied to the computer system 

kept control of our doses. And sometimes I'd get a red 

screen, meaning I'd had more than they wanted me to 

have, and it just -- it kind of dawned on me over a long 

period of time that I don't think I was -- oh, what 

would you say -- covered properly out here. And I think 

I've gotten a lot more radiation than I should have, and 

probably -- I've had a lot of skin cancers removed and 

so on like that. 

Working out at 100-N as we were doing stress 

relieving, I was working for Foothill Electric, which is 

one of the contractors under Kaiser, and we worked in a 

lot of asbestos, a great deal, 'cause we'd wrap these 

large wells to be stress relieved with asbestos, wrap 

them with the coils, and then we went in and tore them 

down. We'd be working in a cloud of asbestos dust and -

- oh, it won't hurt you, it's fine. Just, you know, get 

in there and get out, get the work done. 

Well, for Pete's hat sake, you know, years later I 

find out that I was really exposed to asbestos. I've 

had the checkups. I don't seem to have any beryllium in 

me. I've had the B type X-rays out here and they say 

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that -- couldn't find any mesothelioma or whatever they 

call it, asbestos -- asbestosis. But a friend of mine 

who was doing the same thing, working with me part of 

the time, does. 

So, matter of time? Thank you, folks. 

(Applause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And we thank you, Ron, for being with 

us today. 

L. K. Mitchell -- or J. -- J. R. Mitchell, maybe it 

is. Mr. Mitchell. 

 MR. MITCHELL: I'm J. L. Mitchell. I worked on the 

project for 31 and a half years. I won't take much of 

your time because I had a little time last night, but I 

overlooked some things because I didn't know I was going 

to get to speak. But when I transferred from 

Westinghouse to -- from Atlantic Richfield to 

Westinghouse, I was transferred on paper because I had 

so much foreign objects in my system that I wasn't 

supposed to have, so they transferred me on paper. I 

signed the paper and I never have seen it since. 

The next beef, when we was -- we got trapped up in 

a explosion and we never was checked after we retired 

and they said they were going to monitor us, and I been 

retired 15 years and I never been back for a chest X-ray 

or no kind of examination at all. And this was 

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something that they told us that we'd go through. And 

there was seven or eight of us and we got -- the 

radiation we got exposure that night, as much as it was, 

it didn't go any higher than 40,000 dpm and what I -- my 

beef is wondering is that high as a scale that they had, 

was that high as it'd go, did we actually get more than 

that and that's as high as the machine would read. And 

I know I've -- bad as I hate to say it, I have cancer 

and I been -- had some colon problems lately and some 

kidney problems, but I haven't got the analysis yet on 

those and I'm not too anxious to go back and see, but --

and some of the paperwork that I missed out on because I 

was living in Arkansas taking care of my mother and she 

had Alzheimer's a little bit worse than I thought she 

did and some mail I'd get and some mail I wouldn't get, 

but there's nothing we can do about that. But I'm just 

here to let you know that I know that I got more 

exposure out there than I should have. And the night of 

the explosion, instead of warning everybody to stay away 

from 912, there was never a signal to stay away from 

912. We knew McCluskey was in 912 alone, and I had 

previously ran the samples that was too hot reading out 

a spec, and we went in there to -- to get him out. It 

was myself, Chet Mize and Ron Lavelle. We went in there 

to get him out, but when we opened the air locks, it was 

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just like a tornado. The black smoke was just rolling 

and we knew right then we was in trouble so we backed 

out, and that's where we got a deposition and I never 

could find out how much we got. Nobody would never tell 

us how much we got. But they said it went -- some was 

in your head and to your lungs and possibly in your 

bones. So this is what I'm living with. But I'm doing 

as good as you can, but every time you go to the doctor, 

you think they first thing they say, well, your cancer's 

spreading or something of that sort, but hopefully it 

won't spread. But I really appreciate you guys for 

giving me a chance to talk and explain myself. And I 

could go on for quite a bit. If any of you want to talk 

to me after the deal, you might -- I'll be -- feel free 

to talk with you. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, thank you. 

(Applause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And Gai Oglesbee has requested -- Gai 

I think spoke yesterday, as well, so -- you have 

additional items for us, Gai, from yesterday? 

 MS. OGLESBEE: I sure do. Hi, good morning again. 

I work at this almost every day for at least six hours, 

so -- and sometimes 12, with breaks in between, of 

course. But anyway, I didn't think -- don't think I 

mentioned that I was the site and facility at large here 

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at Hanford from 1992 through 1996 when I took early 

retirement, voluntary. 

I will not be a bionic person. I've already told 

my physicians and they want to do some -- some surgery 

that is preventative and I've already -- I -- I deal 

with cancer, forming cancer all the time. I won't take 

radiation. I won't take chemotherapy, so what you see 

here, my physicians see every -- every month or so is 

what's going to happen, so I've already got it 

legalized. 

So my physicians say now in my records that they 

don't know what to do for me next. That's because I 

refuse to be a bionic person, and that's very clear to 

them. So they're doing the best they can, and I'm in a 

process -- and I'll tell you how dire it gets for some 

families. I'm in a process of donating my body to a 

university, maybe to my experts, who will take care of 

it and I'm going to be cremated now, which was -- I was 

absolutely against in the beginning because there've 

been so many bodies that have mysteriously disappeared 

for a while, so I'm making legal arrangements for all 

that. 

With that said, 'cause I hate to talk about my own 

issues when there are so many other people that are 

worse off than I am, I want to read this first in case I 

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don't have enough time left, but I think Owen Hoffman, 

who's sitting in the audience, is a nice person and I've 

met him twice, once in Spokane and once here. But his 

methodology is criticized by people on the other side, 

Owen. And I don't think your methodology's the only 

methodology in the world that can be referred to in this 

EEOIC process. I have expert witness, they use Star CD 

-- CD, which is a licensed methodology. Also we were 

taken to a secret place. I have a cohort that was 

matched up to me as well as possible and so do the other 

people that came forward, and the experts are very good 

at what they do. They're high profile, and you know 

that 'cause you know the person I was talking about. 

Okay, here's what I was challenged to bring forward 

today, and I'll read it first because this is a -- the 

9th Circuit Court of Appeals on June 18th, 2002, and 

what Owen might not understand is that Judge Fremming 

Nelson has already recused himself. He hasn't told 

anybody yet 'cause he has conflicts of interest, just 

like Judge McDonald, who was tossed out and condemned. 

So this was a decision made by the 9th Circuit and 

they had a lead judge who's Mary M. Schroeder. She is a 

chief judge, and I want to read you some of the experts 

-- or excerpts that tells about F. Owen Hoffman's 

methodology that's being used. So we have -- already 

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have a Federal court involved in this IREP methodology 

issue. 

As we explained in Hanford -- they start in this 

one position. (Reading) As we explained in Hanford, 

reliance on that standard was error because the doubling 

of the risk is a measure courts use to determine whether 

a substances is capable of causing harm in the absence 

of any evidence other than epidemiological evidence of 

toxicidity (sic). Here we deal with a substance, 

radiation, that is known to be capable of causing harm. 

Indeed there is no threshold harmful dosage level for 

radiation because it can cause harm at any level. 

In re Three Mile Island Litigation -- which is what 

they reference, which is more in tune with what happens 

at Hanford. (Reading) What difference -- what 

differentiates these plaintiffs' causation cases from 

Hanford is that the evidence relied upon by the 

plaintiffs. Plaintiffs in this case submitted a report 

prepared by Dr. F. Owen Hoffman, Ph.D. Dr. Hoffman's 

report established a generic methodology that was 

intended to be used to estimate doses and risk to 

specified individuals. Dr. Hoffman, using 

representative plaintiffs, also provided ranges of the 

estimated probability that certain diseases were caused 

by the radiation exposure, depending upon the gender, 

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year of birth, age at first exposure, time since first 

exposure and whether the exposure was acute or chronic. 

That's why this methodology is failing with NIOSH, 

because it doesn't take into consideration any of these 

issues other than what they believe. 

(Reading) For example, according to Dr. Hoffman's 

estimates, a woman born in 1945 and living in Richland, 

Washington who ingested milk from a back yard cow and 

was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1955 has a range of 

PC estimates from 59 percent to 99 percent. The median 

of that range is 94 percent. A man born in 1945 and 

living in Spokane, Washington who ingested milk from a 

back yard cow and was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 

1945 -- in 1995 has a PC estimate for thyroid cancer 

ranging from 1.6 percent to 71 percent. The median 

estimate is 15 percent. Under the district court's 

holding, only the woman proved generic causation because 

her median, or central value estimate, exceeded 50 

percent. 

And this is talking about -- well, what took place 

in the prior hearings that's been a 14-year undergoing. 

(Reading) Dr. Hoffman's report was offered during 

the generic -- genetic (sic) causation phase of 

discovery and was intended as a general methodology that 

would take into account a few individual-specific 

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factors to arrive at a PC estimate. According to Dr. 

Hoffman, to determine a specific individual's PC, the 

individual's sex, age, eth-- ethni-- I can't say that 

word -- family history, type of (sic) duration of 

exposure and actual mass of target organ must be taken 

into account. 

That hasn't been done on me. 

(Reading) Plaintiff never intended, nor was it 

understood from the district court's discovery orders, 

that Hoffman's report and the other epidemiological 

evidence would be the only evidence that would be 

allowed to present to establish causation. Nor is 

epidemiological evidence the sole method of establishing 

causation. 

And I think the other side, your peers, would agree 

with that, that I talked to. My experts would certainly 

agree with that. 

(Reading) Court imposes no absolute epidemiology 

requirement. In deed, Dr. Hoffman actually stated in 

his report that his methodology was not the only way to 

prove causation, knowing (sic) that differential 

diagnosis or clinical evaluation may also establish a 

causal link. As in Hanford, the district court's 

determination at this stage that meant (sic) that 

plaintiffs had to provide evidence that is more likely 

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than not that exposure to Hanford emission caused their 

individual illnesses, blurred two-step causation inquiry 

in (sic) genetic (sic) and individual causation. Thus 

we conclude that the district court erred in dismissing 

plaintiffs' personal injury claims on summary judgment. 

And they went on to tell about why the individual 

causations were different from the generic causations. 

They had many specific reasons why you cannot combine 

the two. One of them is emotional stress, which pays a 

lot of money to -- for damages in Federal court. That 

isn't even considered here. Emotional distress is a 

very viable causation when you're injured and it can be 

proven. That was not in this whole thing. I have not 

been approached to talk about my emotional stress for --

for -- by anybody. 

Thus (reading) plaintiffs' claims for emotional 

distress because they -- they arose out of the bodily 

injury, sickness, disease or death that the plaintiffs 

allegedly suffered from as a result of excessive dosages 

of radiation. 

That's a precedent. The costs were awarded to 

plaintiffs/appellants. That's very unusual. 

Now if I have time, I'll give my presentation. I 

don't know how long it'll take me to read it so --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we're overdue already. What --

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how long will it take? 

 MS. OGLESBEE: It's just very short. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, please proceed. 

 MS. OGLESBEE: Okay. The EEOICPA claimants to not 

deserve anyone -- any more broken promises. They've 

heard for four years and been promised these things that 

have never happened. And I don't care what the 

statistics say, I don't know of anybody that's been 

paid, except for one person, at Hanford. And I know a 

lot of people's been paid in Special Exposure Cohorts 

issues back east. 

Hanford is a Special Exposure Cohort site because 

you can't find the records. I know where the records 

are. I went through that before. There aren't any 

records, folks. They're all hidden. I know where they 

are and -- a lot of them are and they put "Privacy Act 

protected" on them and it takes -- a court of law 

couldn't even get these records. So I know that the 

former contractors take these records away for the DOE. 

I issued from my group, two of them, three Special 

Exposure Cohort petitions that represent over 7,600 

people. Those were submitted in September of 2002. 

None of us has gotten any word or recognition of 

receiving those Special Exposure Cohorts, but Senator 

Cantwell has copies of those now and she's looking into 

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it. You know, that should have been a default by now. 

In a real adjudication process that wouldn't have gone 

on. I hope you realize that. 

With so many deserving claimants dismissed before 

compliance with this American public law 106-398 is 

observed by all agency delegates, is there a ways and 

means to correct the unconstitutional problem that 

denies due process for the EEOICPA purpose. Senator 

Grassley, Senator Murkowski, Senator Cantwell and 

Senator Kennedy receive a copy of my testimonies and 

supporting evidence as often as I can provide it. 

The USDOE had already used, abused, harassed and 

threatened the people that in 2000 they said we were 

wrong, we will now take care of our own. Before 2000 a 

redundant statement made by the cohort agencies and/or 

traditional agency defendants was no harm done to the 

environment, personnel or off-site populous. That is 

recorded in hundreds of investigative reports, 

occurrence reports, radiological problem reports, et 

cetera, which is part of my EEOIC evidence. My name is 

one of five on many of those records because I was at 

large here. 

The following excerpts is but one record that has 

come to my attention in the past months and the 

attention of the senators who are investigating. I must 

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also consider the following findings in my quest for the 

truth. Reportably (sic) USDOE Rick Cutshaw uses the 

verbiage "nut case" when he refers to certain patients, 

a term used to describe the EEOICPA Subtitle D 

claimants. That was the statement I made to Tom Rollow 

that said I was -- could be charged with libel. Well, 

he's -- should go talk to an attorney, because I didn't 

say the words. There's witnesses that have come forward 

and the senators have come forward. I'm just trying to 

react to whatever I know for my own personal thing 

because I was involved in it. 

The President defines us as being courageous 

veterans. See Executive Order No. 139 -- 13179 filed by 

the -- in the U.S. Federal Registry. 

To ponder as I am doing, begin witness excerpt 

quotes which are before the senators. Again, these are 

not my statements. This is a witness's statements. 

(Reading) We would like to see the qualifications of the 

doctors that you have working at SEA and the final 

physicians panel doctors. The docs at DOE are not 

allowed to make a decision or sway the decision of the 

civilian non-occupational health certified and no 

military background. 

(Reading) How many of the high -- the paid nurses 

who the entity is making 300 percent profit -- profit 

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for the DOE know what a glove box is. They don't know 

what a glove box is. For none are familiar with 

military medicine. They are so -- there are no inservices so the ignorant say -- stay ignorant. 

This is somebody else's words, so it's hard to keep 

up with it. 

(Reading) About the claimants who sought true 

professional help out of desperation, their personal 

records and comments, letters, et cetera, got put in the 

back of the chart. Who decides the chart order? This 

is the order the chart gets put in before it goes to 

panel. Shouldn't this be considered public knowledge 

that can be FOIA'd. This chart order is clearly not in 

the favor of the claimant, for when a non-occupational 

and non-military doctor reads it, the fifth and the last 

inch of the chart, he is also tainted with DOE's docs 

and DOE's nurses notes. How many claims does Admiral 

Rollow have on file? He said there was 30,000 with 100 

per week coming in in November, 2000 (sic). 

(Reading) Rick Cutshaw gets $400,000 to make it 

appear he had organized the effort. 

And I won't go on any further with that. 

(Reading) should the bill have been named NRNP, No 

Records, No Payment. 

Now this is what Senator Murkowski, Chairwoman of 

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the Water and Power Commission, said in a senate hearing 

to Mr. Card. 

(Reading) So what you are telling me is that we are 

putting the victims through a bunch of hoops that, even 

if they get to the last on (sic), they get nothing. 

Card's response, (reading) Yes, Madam, this is 

true. 

Senator Murkowski then says, (reading) Well, don't 

you think we should inform the victims about this? 

Card said, (reading) Yes, Madam. 

(Reading) Why did the Chairper-- woman responsible 

for appropriations of the EEOICPA bill money define the 

DOE program as a cause -- catastrophic failure. It 

appears this public knowledge may have caused two DOE 

top officials to resign three days after the Senate 

hearings. Why is it that the medical assistants are 

getting bonuses from Rich Cutshaw when no claims are 

being processed. Are bonuses supposed to be allowed for 

this EEOIC purpose. After all, Senator Grassley did 

request the release of DOE records. 

And I understand he was turned down. Why don't the 

Congress find these people in contempt of Congress? 

That's not very clear to me after all this is happening. 

Is -- if Rick -- I have just a little bit more to go. 

(Reading) If Rick Cutshaw is making about one-half 

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million a year, the EEOIC Subtitle D program -- program 

should have been well-managed. Shouldn't this project 

manager and perhaps Admiral Rollow be compelled to 

forfeit their positions by now. According to Senator 

Grassley's testimony, didn't the USDOE contract Navy in 

a suspect manner because the agency was in jeopardy of 

losing its contract. This thing that has happened to 

the deserving victims is ongoing for four years. The 

flawed EEOIC agency rules caused this human rights issue 

to evolve. When was the Constitution amended to allow 

the agency delegates to dictate what is or is not 

applicable to the freedom of choice, freedom of speech 

and the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. 

I didn't see any changes in the Constitution that 

would take my rights away for this EEOIC purpose. 

(Reading) Was it ever intended that Dr. F. Owen 

Hoffman's IREP theory replace all other methodologies in 

the world for this EEOIC purpose. Yes, the agency 

delegates dictate that their codes undermine the 

Constitution and all other American laws for this EEOIC 

purpose. 

I'm sorry if I'm slow at reading, but I've 

developed cataracts and it's very much more difficult 

for me to see these days, but I keep plunging on. So I 

thank you for being here because -- I didn't do that 

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yesterday -- because you're here and that's important. 

It is very important to these people's future. Thank 

you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

(Applause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: The last person I have on the list is 

Richard Miller. 

 MR. MILLER: I promise to be briefer. My name is 

Richard Miller. I work for the Government 

Accountability Project in Washington, D.C. I've had the 

pleasure of following the Advisory Board around the 

United States or on their telephone conference calls 

since they've been initiated. And I would like to just 

offer up some comments. 

First and foremost, one of the nicest things about 

having this Advisory Board meet as often as it does is 

that it provides an opportunity and a forum, at least 

for those that are interested, to hear the program and 

the plans. Whether we like or we don't like the plans, 

as members of the public, at least there is some measure 

of transparency with this program and -- and for that we 

should be grateful because without information we can't 

even analyze or figure out what needs to be fixed. And 

so transparency is also sort of the cornerstone of my 

comments today. 

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If this program, as convoluted as it is, with as 

many agencies involved as it is, is to succeed, at least 

on the Subtitle B side, it has to succeed because there 

is a check and balance in the system. And the Advisory 

Board obviously serves as that check and balance and 

with the support of their contractor. And although I 

was encouraged today to hear Tom Rollow's remarks that 

there would be full and open access to records -- and it 

was an unqualified statement, which was remarkable, 

coming from the Energy Department, and it wasn't to the 

extent practicable or to the extent we can fit it around 

other program activities or consistent with whatever 

directive and policy I receive subsequent to this 

meeting. It was -- Tom said I'm here, we're -- we're 

ready to move forward and give full access to the sites. 

That was a breath of fresh air. That was terrific. 

And so now the question becomes, if the Advisory 

Board and its experts, through its contractors, need 

documents and records, we've heard today that the 

process will be that the existing memorandum of 

agreement between DOE and HHS will be used as the 

vehicle for securing those records. And in and of 

itself, one understands that this Advisory Board, if one 

followed its proceedings, asked for almost 18 months, 

where's your MOU with DOE, Mr. Elliott? And every 

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meeting Mr. Elliott would say we're working on it. And 

then the Advisory Board would say well, can we write a 

letter encouraging it? And so eventually an MOU was 

formulated and -- and -- and it was a hard-fought MOU 

and it was hard to pull together, and let's hope it was 

negotiated in good faith, because it's going to be not 

the words that are in it, but its spirit that will carry 

us forward to the next step, which is the audit phase. 

And in the audit phase I guess the question that 

comes to mind as a matter of policy -- and I know Larry 

is intensely sensitive to this question -- is the 

question of appearances and substance with respect to 

full and unfettered access of the Advisory Board and its 

auditor to the records they need to get their job done, 

and to drill down vertically, as Joe Fitzgerald -- I 

think those were the words he used at the last Advisory 

Board meeting. And when I think about drilling 

vertically, unfortunately it feels like going to the 

dentist without anesthesia -- and it may be like that 

for NIOSH, as well -- that there's a -- there's --

there's a certain amount of pain involved with having 

somebody look over your shoulder. 

Now Larry probably has not experienced that in his 

position, but for some of us who have had jobs where 

we've had people lean over our shoulders, we know what a 

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drag it can be. And to basically have professional 

second-guessers -- which is in effect what the Advisory 

Board and its auditors are doing in a responsive fashion 

to the purposes in the statute. 

Having said that, here's the challenge. The 

challenge is that the requests for records be full and 

transparent; that the -- any questions about the -- the 

-- that -- that what the auditors need, if they're wellreasoned, should be provided. The question is if it has 

to run through the funnel of NIOSH, which is the entity 

being audited, does it put them in an awkward posture of 

basically prioritizing, whether it's the pace, the 

energy level that's dedicated, the policy direction 

that's given to their support service contractor, ORAU, 

in securing these records. And so I'm only expressing 

not that there's a problem that's evident, but that the 

only remedy to a system where the entity being audited 

controls the flow of information to the auditor -- and 

we know what's happened in corporate America where that 

has happened -- the only remedy for that is full and 

broad transparency in that respect. And so I don't have 

any specific criticism to offer, but I'm raising for you 

a sensitivity factor that the NIOSH staff and its 

contractor, ORAU -- which serves to be scrutinized in 

its work by Sandy Cohen & Associates and this Advisory 

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Board -- all stand in an awkward spot, having being 

looked over the shoulder and nobody wants to kind of 

show what might be incomplete reasoning, incomplete 

documentation, perhaps even unsupported statements or 

suppositions, or you missed the boat. And so I want to 

just be -- get some assurances, I guess, perhaps in some 

forum or form, that there's going to be full and 

unfettered access to that information, without 

reservation and without a whole lot of balancing factors 

that get in the way of it 'cause balancing factors sound 

to me like somebody's got a hold card they're going to 

drop and say "well, but". And if you have that full and 

unfettered access, I think the confidence level in the 

audit process goes up, so that would just be my first 

recommendation. 

The second response has to do with the 

presentation we heard on health studies. And there's no 

criticism that -- that -- that you all have had to get 

up and running a program based on the atomic bomb 

survivor cohort, by and large. And the statute clearly 

calls for consideration of worker studies. And what we 

heard in the presentation from NIOSH with respect to 

further research in this area is we're going to look at 

further refinements to the atomic bomb survivor cohort 

with respect to the re-analysis of the Pierce studies on 

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smoking -- right? That was the first priority that Owen 

Hoffman seems to be working on. We've got some 

additional work going on in the DDREF area, the dose 

rate effectiveness. And then after that, it looks like 

there's a long horizon before we ever get to all of the 

worker epidemiology questions that the statute directed 

you to incorporate in the model -- meaning NIOSH and 

HHS. These include the age at exposure question, which 

is apparently now being postponed. 

And for those of you in the audience, the age at 

exposure debate is are -- is the older you get, are you 

more or less radiosensitive. And the way that this 

model is structured for a number of the cancers -- but 

not all -- is that the older you get, the less 

radiosensitive you are. And there are studies which 

contradict that. 

And the challenge that has been put forth -- and 

articulately, in fact, by Owen Hoffman -- is does this 

model, IREP, capture the full state of scientific 

knowledge. We know the answer to that, I think, many of 

us, in our hearts and in our heads. This model does not 

capture the full state of scientific knowledge. And 

Larry Elliott properly has directed his staff to start 

moving that ball. 

But let's say this. It's three and a half years 

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since the law was enacted. And with the exception of 

the radon and lung cancer model, there's no worker 

epidemiology built into this, and it looks like we're 

years down the road before we're going to start to see 

any incorporation of those considerations in this model. 

And I would just offer to you that the agenda that you 

got laid out by Russ Henshaw -- and no criticism 

whatsoever of what he proposed -- but that it looks like 

it's as slow as molasses. You all came up with an 

agenda a year ago on what you wanted studied in terms of 

the model development, and it doesn't look like a very 

aggressive or energetic schedule in that area. 

Finally I have two small technical points to bring 

to your attention. One has to do with what gets done 

with the testimony the people give here, aside from the 

fact that it's put on your web site. Do substantive 

fact-based -- facts that are offered here get rolled 

into your process in any way? Do these transcripts get 

given to Mr. Toohey and then -- for the sites that are 

being addressed, the folks doing the site profiles and 

the dose reconstructions, do they look at these 

transcripts? Is the relevant information distilled? 

And the reason I ask that is at the last hearing we 

had in St. Louis, Missouri we had a group of workers get 

up and say they worked 48-hour work weeks, not 40-hour 

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work weeks. And that's such a simple question about 

what are your assumptions in calculating dose. Is that 

or is that not going to be addressed in your 

Mallinckrodt review, and are those kinds of issues that 

get brought here, but not through some formal web-based 

comment process, incorporated or are they just simply 

offered here and they stop? And my sense is -- well, I 

don't know the answer to the question. Do -- I mean is 

there even a process, because you have to obviously sort 

through the facts -- right? -- from the opinions. But 

there are some important relevant points and that was a 

very, very, very valuable one. I think y'all, you know, 

make assumptions about work week length. You only know 

that by talking to people who worked there at the end of 

the day 'cause you won't have the wage records. 

So I guess my question to you is, is that 

incorporated in any respect and can you answer that now 

or at some point in the future? 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, I think we need to come up with a 

more formal answer. There are individual cases where we 

have asked staff to address particular people's issues 

because they have a case-specific -- in the case of 

issues such as the time issue, this is one where we may 

-- we may want to have a more formal tracking system. I 

should let Larry answer on behalf of the agency, though, 

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in terms of issues like that that arise, or one of the 

other staff. Perhaps Larry would --

 MR. ELLIOTT: We certainly have staff here and we 

have ORAU contractor staff here. They observe, they 

hear, they consider, and so this is not taken lightly. 

 MR. MILLER: Well, I'll leave that to the Board to 

deal with that response. It -- it -- it -- it -- it --

it -- I -- I think -- I think that's -- that's --

 DR. ZIEMER: Your question is understood. 

 MR. MILLER: I think it's -- yeah, and I appreciate 

that. 

Lastly, one of -- and then my final point today is 

if you all, as you're aware and you heard in the 

presentation, chronic lymphocytic leukemia of course is 

the one cancer not compensable under this program, 

largely due to the absence of data from the Japanese 

atomic bomb survivor cohort. Not necessarily due to the 

presence, that it is not a non-radiogenic cancer. And 

of course NIOSH, through the HERB branch, is now 

undertaking research in this area. 

Yesterday we heard there were approximately 180 

claims -- I think that was the number, roughly, that was 

thrown up -- that are then basically returned back to 

the Labor Department as non-compensable cases. It would 

be very useful -- just a suggestion -- given that CLL is 

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the only cancer not so identified, to do two things. 

One, to make clear and break out publicly so we can see 

how large a claimant base there is of CLL cases out 

there that have applied under this program. I mean we -

- we know from the atomic bomb survivor cohort, which is 

a very large cohort, they found three cases of CLL, but 

that's because it's an Asian population, which -- in 

which it's not terribly prevalent. So the question is, 

how prevalent a question is it here? How big an issue 

is of this, and that -- and I -- and -- because it seems 

to me a lot of claimants may or may not get an answer 

down the road on this and whatever risk coefficients 

develop. 

The second question follows from that, which is to 

the degree and extent that NIOSH is now undertaking 

research in this area, would it be worth notifying the 

claimants that further research is being undertaken and 

that you'll get back to them at some point in the 

future. Because it seems to me it -- there's no 

assurance that you're going to get back to them with any 

specific answer, but there does seem to me to be this --

this letter that claimants get that says there's a zero 

probability of causation that your illness arose from --

from the course of employment was probably a bit 

puzzling to a lot of people who get it. And I think 

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that, given that Congress and NIOSH are now responding 

to that question, that y'all may want to think about 

notifying them. 

So those are my comments. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Richard, for your 

thoughtful comments. 

(Applause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'd like to thank all of those who 

came today specifically for this public comment period 

and for the comments that were offered to us. We do 

take them seriously. 

We invite you to return this afternoon, if you're 

interested. We have more deliberations. There is not 

another public comment period, but all of the sessions 

of the Board are open to the public, so we're glad to 

have you join us here. 

We're going to break now for lunch, and we will 

reconvene at 1:30. 

(Whereupon, a luncheon recess was taken.) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. There was a slight delay 

after I gaveled us, but we have corrected the problem 

and are ready to go. 

UPDATE ON AWE FACILITIES 

We have one carry-over item from the morning 

session. That's a presentation by Dr. Neton on AWE 

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facilities -- I was looking at the wrong part of the 

agenda. Here we go. Jim? 

 DR. NETON: Okay. Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. For some 

reason, it's your lucky day. It's not only my third 

presentation, it's the second one in a row after lunch, 

so I promise I'll be fairly brief. I only have seven 

slides and I won't take too much of your time because I 

know at the time there's a lot of deliberations the 

Board needs to undertake in this afternoon's session. 

I am going to talk about AWE facilities and where 

we are with the profiles and the status of our dose 

reconstruction efforts at those facilities today. This 

is a companion piece that goes along with the DOE 

profile update that I gave yesterday. 

As the Board may know, we have about 2,000 AWE 

cases in our possession, and what I've outlined here are 

the top ten sites as far as number of cases that we have 

in-house. By far, Bethlehem Steel is the largest number 

of cases with 518, and we have completed the bulk of 

those cases through the process because the Bethlehem 

Steel site profile's been out for a while and those 

cases are -- most of them are already back at the 

Department of Labor for final adjudication. 

But what you can see is the top ten comprise 1,195 

cases, which is over 50 percent of the cases that we 

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have in-house, which is interesting, given that we have 

AWE cases from 124 different facilities. So once you 

get past the top ten, there's sort of a point of 

diminishing returns about developing profiles for those 

cases. You get down into the 30, 40 range, one needs to 

examine the sanity of developing an entire document to 

move five or ten or sometimes one case out. 

I'd just like to take a little time pointing out 

the fundamental difference between an AWE profile and a 

large DOE site profile. The most noticeable difference 

is these are all single documents. We don't have the 

six chapters like you would see in a DOE profile. As 

well as we have very little personnel monitoring data 

for AWEs. 

We do have caches of information that we've 

obtained. Much of this information came from the 

Environmental Measurements Laboratory archives -- record 

archives in New York City. As many of you know, the 

Environmental Measurements Laboratory, formerly the 

Health and Safety Laboratory of the Department of 

Energy, served as -- what I like to think is served the 

corporate health physics office for a lot of the AWEs. 

Many of these facilities didn't have -- they were 

uranium foundries and general commercial activities. 

They didn't have health physics support, so the 

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Environmental Measurements Laboratory provided that and 

did much of the urine monitoring that we have on these 

facilities. 

Of course, using our hierarchical approach that 

Hans discussed earlier in the day, we would use urine 

sampling data and TLD to -- if we had it, preferentially 

for those individual claims where it existed. That 

tends to be a challenge. These bioassay records are on 

these yellow onionskin sheets of paper all over the 

place in boxes, but ORAU has done a very good job 

capturing these bioassay records, coding them, putting 

them into spreadsheets. And there's actually now an 

automated function that exists that one can incorporate 

these data through a searchable database into a dose 

reconstruction, if they exist. So we're -- we want to 

make sure that we do use the bioassay data if it exists. 

For the majority of the claimants, however, there 

are no bioassay data and so we are in the situation of 

developing an exposure model, much like what we talked 

about with the Bethlehem Steel situation. You have some 

air sampling data, some knowledge of the processes, that 

type of thing. So we would generate a best-estimate for 

the intake for the workers at that site and put some 

type of uncertainty distribution about it, and then 

apply the model to almost all the cases, with allowances 

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for work history, cancer type and diagnosis date. Where 

we know the work history and maybe something about what 

people did at the sites, we could partition it. If we 

don't know, we would take the claimant-favorable 

approach and assume that all the workers breathed in the 

entire -- the same amount that was indicated by the 

best-estimate and the uncertainty distribution. 

We have issued four -- four AWE profiles. I 

sometimes tend to think there's six because I talked 

about Huntington Pilot Plant and Mallinckrodt yesterday. 

Those are AWE-type documents, even though technically 

they're DOE facilities. So for technical accuracy, I've 

only listed the ones that are officially AWEs on this 

list. 

Bethlehem Steel came out in March 31st of 2003, 

followed by Blockson Chemical October 10th -- and I gave 

a presentation, I think it was either last Board meeting 

or two ago, about the AWE complex-wide document. That's 

I guess officially not an AWE profile, but it is a 

profile-type document that allows us to do dose 

reconstructions at many AWEs using very conservative 

upper estimates of exposure. It is based on our 

knowledge of exposures at some of the highest potential 

exposed AWE facilities. 

A new one that's on here is Tennessee Valley 

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Authority, Muscle Shoals. It is a fairly small 

document. This actually only covers five facilities. 

This is after I just said that we wouldn't do one for 

about a five-facility -- five -- I mean five claims, but 

this was essentially -- this was a uranium development 

plant. They made uranium from phosphate ore, very 

similar to the Blockson Chemical process, so it was an 

easy adaptation to do to estimate those exposures. And 

in fact, I think this facility, in its entire operating 

history, made five kilograms of uranium from phosphate 

ore, so they're a very small operation. 

We are in the process, just like at the DOE sites -

- the AWEs and DOE sites -- the profiles at DOE sites, 

of revising some of these documents. The Bethlehem 

Steel site profile is currently undergoing revision to 

include an ingestion pathway model. There are some who 

criticized our document for not including that pathway, 

and it is correct, it was not included in that document. 

So we have a draft on the table right now that we are 

reviewing to incorporate the ingestion pathway. We 

don't anticipate that it will add a tremendous amount of 

exposure because the ingestion of uranium in particular 

has an absorption factor of two percent in the 

gastrointestinal tract, so 98 percent of the uranium one 

would ingest in a facility would not be absorbed into 

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the body by our ICRP models. 

Blockson Chemical, at the last meeting, we 

discussed had a section on radon issued -- listed as 

reserved. We are still deliberating on how to 

characterize that radon exposure at that facility. That 

section still remains reserved today. 

There's another -- a number of AWE site profiles 

under development, pretty much going along the lines of 

the number of claims at those sites. Linde Ceramics I 

think has about 120 cases. Harshaw probably 50 or so, 

in that range. This is pretty much the lower limit of 

where we need to start deliberating. 

There are nine official sites that ORAU is looking 

at that represent 132 cases. We need to figure out how 

best to approach those AWEs. Once you get below these -

- and I mentioned we have 124 different sites -- you 

really get into the situation where you have one or two 

or three claimants -- or cases per site. 

There are a large number -- not a large. There are 

a number of data capture efforts underway to try to 

secure information on these facilities. There have been 

five major capture efforts this calendar year. There's 

been two trips to the DOE Germantown offices to capture 

records. There was one to the Atlanta National Archives 

Record Depository, and there's been several attempts --

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or several record -- ongoing record capture activities 

at the Oak Ridge -- the ORAU vault in Oak Ridge, 

Tennessee. There's a large repository of about 150 file 

drawers full of records that are undergoing right now 

classification review, I believe. So at those 

facilities I think this year so far they've captured 400 

additional documents. And then whatever comes out of 

the 150 file drawer review -- the classification review. 

We tend to obtain information from a lot of 

different sites. Many of these are AWEs, but not all of 

them. You'll notice some of the larger sites -- Los 

Alamos is on here, Pinellas is on here, Battelle 

Memorial Laboratory in Columbus, Weldon Springs -- so 

you really kind of never know what's going to pop out of 

some of these data capture efforts. All of these were 

scan-captured, put on our site database. And in 

particular, any relevant bioassay data or TLD data is 

extracted and put into this other database that the 

health physicist has access to. 

As I mentioned we have 2,200 -- about 2,200 

different cases from AWEs representing 124 facilities. 

We've conducted 650 dose reconstructions thus far out of 

the 2,200. It's a pretty good record. That's somewhat 

consistent with the percentage that we've done of DOE 

facilities, surprisingly. I thought that these would 

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lag further behind, but they are moving forward. And 

we've managed to do them for 43 different AWE sites. 

That is by virtue of the complex-wide AWE profile 

that I mentioned. And I gave some examples a couple of 

Board meetings ago how we would go about doing those. 

That complex-wide document allows us to do dose 

reconstructions for sites that had uranium principally, 

natural and very low enriched uranium, no other 

radionuclides on site -- and there was one other -- and 

the time frame had to be after a certain time period. I 

forget the exact dates that it applies to, but there are 

some limitations on the use of that document. 

The majority of the AWE cases, of the 650, we've 

done 470 from Bethlehem Steel, so it's a little bit 

deceptive to say we've done 470 out of 650. So we've 

done a number, 180 or so, from other sites using the 

complex-wide, and some from Blockson Chemical, as well. 

I think that sums up where we're at with AWEs. I'd 

be happy to answer any questions if there are any. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Let's open the floor then 

for questions. Start with Jim. 

 DR. MELIUS: I just have -- first I have a followup question, if it's permitted -- it'll be brief, I 

believe -- from your presentation the other day. And 

that was the -- I think you mentioned that in your site 

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profiles for the DOE sites that you're starting work on 

developing a separate chapter on construction? 

 DR. NETON: That's correct. 

 DR. MELIUS: And that -- and I think some of the 

comments we heard today from some of the people 

speaking, and then people last night, I think sort of 

point out some of the issues that come up with -- in 

some of the construction works and questions of 

monitoring. So I guess my question is sort of what's 

your schedule for that and I would I think request to 

you that -- that if we could have a briefing on what 

your plans are for that at our next meeting, I think it 

would be -- would be helpful and should be appropriate 

in terms of -- I hope it's appropriate in terms of a 

time process. Again, you know, what -- what approaches, 

what difficulties, not a question -- not as much, again, 

what -- a completed site or something, you know. 

 DR. NETON: I understand. The first one that we 

are going after to complete is the Savannah River one 

since we were there in November and got some fairly good 

feedback from the folks. And we have some information 

from the Center to Protect Workers Rights, who did a 

study for us that catalogued a fair amount of 

information for us, and that's the one we're working on 

now. It may indeed become the prototype for -- for 

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future profiles. 

As far as schedule, we have a team of people 

working on this. We've been having trouble identifying 

two conditions -- HPs with free time because they're 

working on other dose reconstructions, and in particular 

HPs who have construction-related experience. But I 

would hope to have some -- some draft out in the next 

month or so. And I'd be more than happy at the next 

Board meeting to -- to discuss our progress and where 

we're at. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, 'cause I think the related 

issue, if I understand right, is that the lack of such a 

chapter or, you know, part of your site profile is going 

to hold up individual dose reconstructions from the --

from the sites, so --

 DR. NETON: That's correct. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. NETON: Oftentimes construction workers are 

unmonitored and -- and as you can see, if we have no 

bioassay data and no good handle on how to do it, it'll 

be held up until we can get a chapter done on that, 

you're right. 

 DR. MELIUS: And I can't resist this comment. I 

think the discussion can be more informative since we'll 

have our SEC rule out next time and we'll sort of 

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understand this -- issues with lack of monitoring 

information and how we handle those situations, so that 

-- that's another -- that's another story. But if we 

could put that on next time I think that would be --

 DR. ZIEMER: When was that next meeting going to 

be? 

Okay, Charles Owens, otherwise known as Leon. 

 MR. OWENS: Dr. Neton, in regard to the sites that 

have a few number of claims that have been filed, what 

are your thoughts relative to site profiles for those 

particular sites? 

 DR. NETON: My guess is that we won't have 

individual site profiles. It makes -- it doesn't make 

sense, from an economy scale, so we will -- we will 

essentially end up doing individual -- what we kind of 

call in the office hand-crafted -- dose reconstructions. 

But they would rely heavily on the information, to the 

extent possible, from the other profiles. Many, if not 

most, of the urani-- of the AWEs are uranium facilities. 

They handled uranium in some shape or form and some 

amount. We tend to know what happens when uranium is 

either ground, turned into rods, that kind of stuff. So 

we can put some -- we feel like we can put some limits 

on the - the airborne exposure, and we also have 

ingestion model, so I think we can deal with it. We 

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just need to know how much and when and kind of what was 

done. We have that type of information. 

There are some, for example, the Dana Heavy Water 

Plant. We've just completed all the dose 

reconstructions for that plant. There's no radioactive 

material there. Heavy water is deuterium. It's not 

radioactive. They extracted deuterium from -- from 

regular water supplies, so the only real source of 

ionizing radiation exposure would be medical X-rays, 

which we tried to account for in those dose 

reconstructions. 

So I really doubt for sites less than 20 people 

that we would have individual profiles, although there 

may be exceptions. If it's an easy adaptation of 

another one, we may -- may do that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Another comment? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, actually a -- one -- one other 

question was just along those lines, and that's the --

have you ever looked at -- has anybody looked at these 

sites or the number of potential people that were --

worked there during these -- the appropriate time 

periods? 'Cause it seems to me that the number of 

requests from these sites is going to be dependent -- to 

the only extent of the outreach as the Department of 

Labor does more outreach in some of these areas. I mean 

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I'm thinking there's a small one in Albany, a national 

lead facility, that there's a fair amount of -- of 

community interest in it in terms of -- there was a 

clean-up issue a number of years ago, so there's --

there are -- I'm aware of a number of people that --

with cancer who worked at that site and there's been 

some effort to track and involve those. But one would 

think that there's the potential for a number of others, 

you know, to come forward at some of these sites and if 

-- sort of in your planning process or whatever that 

might be taken into account. 

 DR. NETON: Yeah. We have not looked at the 

potential number at these sites, but there have been 

some outreach efforts. I know in western New York State 

the Department of Labor has done some fairly intensive 

outreach efforts. I can't speak for where else they've 

done this, but I think you're correct. Awareness is an 

issue at these smaller sites and the workers are hard to 

locate. 

 DR. MELIUS: But I mean I'm even impressed here 

with the number of people in the early years of the 

facility that are -- have come forward, and it's -- you 

know, it's getting -- as the word gets out to them and -

- about this. Now clearly in this community it's -- may 

be different, but Bethlehem's a good example of how -- I 

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mean it's -- a lot of people have applied from --

 DR. NETON: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- that -- that site. 

 DR. NETON: Yeah. I was just looking -- I have a 

listing of all the AWEs that we have claims from, and I 

don't have any listed from National Lead, but in 

retrospect, I'm not sure if it's an AWE. 

 DR. MELIUS: Maybe it's --

 DR. NETON: They made primarily depleted uranium; 

I'm familiar with the site. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. NETON: It may have been mostly for defenserelated production of penetrator shells for tanks, but -

- interesting, 'cause it -- or counterweights. I mean 

it was all depleted uranium that was made there, as --

to my knowledge. It was pretty much a sister type 

operation to Fernald. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me --

 DR. MELIUS: DOE's doing the clean-up. Does that -

-

 DR. NETON: Okay, that would count, then, once the 

DOE goes in -- we'll take a look at it --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'm just using that as an 

example. I'm not trying to... 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Just to respond to your question from 

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my perspective, we never tried to exhaust our effort or 

resources in trying to estimate or prognosticate as to 

how many claims might come in for a given site. We're 

not good prognosticators, anyway. But I think it goes 

back to eligibility, too. And we're not in that part of 

the game. So I don't know if Pete wants to talk about 

that from this perspective or not, but you know, 

Bethlehem Steel, the records would say that there'd been 

-- there were only a handful of people that were ever 

involved in that particular set of rollings, and yet 

from the determination of eligibility for a claim, you 

know, we saw over -- about 500 claims. So we never --

we never used any -- any resources to try to judge or --

or guess on how many claims we might see from a site. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Pete does have a comment here. 

 MR. TURCIC: Larry -- Larry's correct, one of the 

big problems -- unlike -- you know, with a Bethlehem 

Steel, you had a facility that was there for a long 

time, so you had, you know, generations of people that 

worked at that facility. Most of the AWEs are not like 

that. You know, they were small operations and it's 

very difficult to try to find these people. And I mean 

we're -- we're working real hard at it and we'll 

coordinate with NIOSH so that, you know, if -- if -- as 

we do the research on a facility and find potential 

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claimants, then, you know, we would coordinate with 

NIOSH so that if there should become a necessity to do a 

site profile, then there would be ample time to do that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Another comment? Yeah, 

Jim. 

 DR. MELIUS: My usual question, Blockson Chemical 

and some of the similar sites, I take it that there's no 

determination made yet on the parts that are --

exposures that have been reserved, I guess is what you -

- are you --

 DR. NETON: That's correct. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- referring to it, do --

 DR. NETON: I don't know if Larry --

 DR. MELIUS: -- timetable --

 DR. NETON: -- wants to add to this, but that's 

true. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- or update on that? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can only say that we're actively 

considering how we need to reconstruct those doses. 

We're -- we're fully engaged in that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any other questions or comments for 

Jim? 

 (No responses) 

BOARD DISCUSSION/WORKING SESSION ON 

PROCEDURE REVIEW AND SELECTION OF CASES 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jim. Now we have a number 

of items that we need to address this afternoon. In 

fact, we may end up being squeezed for time, but I guess 

the first one we may want to work on is the task three 

document. We had the summary by Hans earlier today. 

You've received the document. It's in your booklet. 

And Hans or John Mauro, could you delineate for the 

Board the difference in the two documents, the -- the 

one is basically a QA document. You want to clarify to 

the Board members the difference in these two? 

 DR. MAURO: Sure. The way I distinguish them is 

one is more of an administrative audit. That is, there 

are QA procedures that are on the web that are being 

used by ORAU to ensure the quality of their work 

product. We're going to review the procedures that they 

are following from the perspective of -- the way I -- a 

good way to give an example is we've done a lot of work 

-- many of the folks that work with me have done a lot 

of work on quality assurance reviews related to the 

design of nuclear power plants. And what you do is you 

check to make sure that all of the analyses that are 

being performed -- in the case of nuclear facilities, 

it's safety analyses -- are being performed in a way 

that has procedures and that there are separate groups 

of people that are auditing those procedures so that 

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there's a system of quality control and quality 

assurance. And that's well-documented in the ORAU 

procedures. 

Now what we're going to do is look at that -- their 

procedures that they're using -- and use our judgment 

regarding our experience in the application of QA/QC --

to safety-related calculations, for example, in the 

nuclear industry -- as to the degree to which their 

procedures are consistent with the philosophy of what 

compromi-- what -- what constitutes a good QA/QC set of 

protocols. So it's an administrative review. 

The other one, the larger document, is a technical 

review, which is -- which I think we all understand. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Which Hans talked about. 

 DR. MAURO: Exactly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So we want to begin with the larger 

document, which is the 33-page document. And I'm going 

to propose -- what we want -- let me tell you where I 

think we need to -- we want to end up. We want to end 

up either approving this set of procedures, approving it 

with minor modifications, or -- if we believe there are 

major changes needed -- then we would so identify those 

changes and ask the contractor to come back with a 

revision. That basically outlines our options here. 

If I might, I'd like to step us through the 

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document so that we can focus on what I think we need to 

focus on in -- 'cause there's a lot of stuff here. 

First of all, the first two pages, pages 2 and 3, 

beginning with Purpose, are simply -- it's simply a 

reiteration of what this review is about. It's really 

not a procedure, simply reiterating why the review is 

being done. 

Pages 3 and 4 reiterates the scope, and the scope 

is described in terms of the hierarchy of documents, 

starting with the Title 10 -- Title 42 CFR 82 and so on 

and down through the implementation guides and the 

technical basis documents. So that's more a --

descriptive again of what they're planning to cover. 

Then on -- starting on page 4, the bottom of the 

page where it says Procedures To Be Reviewed, and going 

through page 10, you have an enumeration of the 

procedures that they have identified need to be 

evaluated. This is, in a sense, kind of a laundry list. 

It identifies the procedure by title and a brief 

description. So again, these are not the procedures, 

but simply an identification of the procedures to be 

reviewed. Now -- and where I'm going with this is that, 

unless somebody finds something missing, up through page 

10 there's nothing here for us to do in terms of 

approval. We -- at this point they've not talked about 

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anything that they're going to do other than simply laid 

-- laid the background here. Everybody with me so far? 

Okay. 

Now beginning on page 10, section 3.0 -- is there a 

question on the paging or anything? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Just a quick comment, Dr. Ziemer. 

I've actually gone through the document all the way up 

through page 23 and found that basically the description 

of the review objectives, the documents -- the listing 

of the documents that will be reviewed, the 

implementation plans, more detailed descriptions of the 

objectives are almost verbatim --

 DR. ZIEMER: From the task order. 

 DR. ANDRADE: -- described -- they're -- they are 

written descriptions of the briefing that was presented 

to us this morning. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. ANDRADE: And so I would say where it really 

starts to get substantive is about page 23, where it 

starts to talk about select technical issues subject to 

SC&A review. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. I do want to point out 

that, starting in section 3.0 on page 10 there is a 

discussion of the seven criteria that were presented to 

us. And as a prelude to the section you just identified 

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there, Tony, it may be that the Board may wish to 

address those criteria because that becomes the basis 

for which the review will be evaluated. And to the 

extent that the review can be objective, I think it's 

very dependent on the criteria. So if there's no 

objection, we will have -- ask the Board if they do wish 

to comment on the criteria, either -- any concerns or 

questions or additional criteria that the Board believes 

should be added or any that need -- do not need to be 

included. In any event, that section simply covers the 

review of those various criteria. 

And then beginning -- well, after the seven 

criteria, then you have the review objectives and the 

approach, and then these technical issues beginning on 

page 23 that Tony referred to. 

And it seems to me that the things that we need to, 

in a sense, sign off on are the review criteria, pages 

10 to 23, and then address the technical issues, pages 

23 through 32, and make sure we're comfortable with both 

sides of that. Is that -- everybody okay if we proceed 

on that basis? 

Okay. Let me then begin with -- well, I'll ask the 

question, is there anything prior to the review criteria 

that anyone wishes to address or raise? 

 (No responses) 

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 DR. ZIEMER: If not, let's focus on the review 

criteria, section 3.2 and following, beginning on page 

11. Again, you -- you heard the seven criteria 

described this morning. Any concerns, issues, 

questions, comments? 

 MS. MUNN: Yes, I have a comment. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Comment, Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: Before we started through this, 

completeness was a real concern for me. I could not 

personally get a very firm hold on how one determined 

whether there was a complete record or not, and I wanted 

to compliment the authors of this document because my 

personal review led me to believe that they had 

considered every item that I would have been concerned 

with in identifying completeness. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. While others are looking 

for items, I would like to raise one question, and this 

could be addressed either by John or by Hans. In 

section 3.4, which is after the discussion of the seven 

points but still part of that section on the review 

criteria, in -- in the first paragraph there -- actually 

it's a -- I guess it's still discussing the timeliness -

- I guess it's discussing timeliness, I'm sorry. Review 

protocol in behalf of objective one, our evaluation --

it says in the second sentence (reading) Our evaluation 

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of procedures for their support of a timely 

reconstruction process is, to a large extent, subjective 

in nature. 

And I understand that there is a fair amount of 

judgment in -- 'cause you're doing a scoring system. I 

guess my question is, is there a way to make this, and 

maybe others, more objective? And I don't know that 

there is, but I'm always a little uneasy when an 

evaluation is wholly subjective or largely subjective 

because it -- it causes questions as to whether it's 

just one person's opinion versus another that the -- you 

know, and you understand the nature of what I'm saying. 

Is there any way in which we can have a higher level of 

confidence in the objectivity so that if -- it's sort of 

like the same question with -- even with the dose 

reconstructions. If I have 100 dose reconstructors, do 

I come up with largely the same answer or do I get 100 

answers that are so different that I don't know which 

one to believe? And it's sort of that kind of question, 

how dependent is this on which of your people does it --

in terms of the review -- or not? 

 MR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and please use the mike 'cause 

we need to record this. 

 MR. BEHLING: I realize that the scoring method, as 

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you see at the bottom of the table there on page 18, is 

obviously just there for a quick overview. But the 

outline allows for comments, and this is where I think 

we would explain in thorough detail why we believe that 

there are certain deficiencies that could then be looked 

at and say is this a credible evaluation. So it's not 

so much in the zero to five that I would expect you to 

look at in terms of our evaluation, but in the comments. 

And just because we have a box here doesn't mean we're 

limiting ourselves to that little square. We would 

probably write a fairly detailed explanation as to why 

we gave it a score of three or four or five -- or any 

other value -- based on our observation, and clearly 

delineate the reasons why we chose a particular rating. 

So it would still be somewhat objective. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. BEHLING: We would give a clear explanation as 

to why or how we came to that number -- or evaluation 

number. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. John, did you want to add 

to that? 

 DR. MAURO: Add one more point. We -- in the 

scoring system we originally were going to go with 

yes/no. That is, does it meet, in our judgment, a 

certain threshold of adequacy or not. And -- and then 

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explain why. I think after additional thought -- and we 

caucused on this -- we felt that more of a scoring 

system would serve our purposes better to capture the 

degree. You hate to say something is no, because it's 

just too black and white and it's -- things are never 

that way. And so -- now -- but yes and no could make it 

a less -- in other words, if a person comes to the 

conclusion that no, they really -- it did not meet my 

threshold of what I consider to be sufficient, and then 

explain that, you're likely to have less of a debate. 

That is, the scoring system lends itself to debate 

-- three versus four, I mean, you know, what do you do 

with that? Or two versus three. So it's -- there are 

trade-offs. The yes/no -- most of the time there'll 

probably be very little debate. It's well, we agree, we 

see the reason why you gave it a no, and I see and I can 

understand that. But you can see there could be a lot 

of debate if you say well, I give it a two, but I --

someone else may have given it a three. So we -- quite 

frankly, we ended up coming out with the continuous 

approach being the preferred method and to disclose our 

rationale. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is it your thought that the scoring 

system -- the gradated scoring system lends itself to 

being somewhat more objective insofar as you explain the 

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reason for the score? 

 DR. MAURO: Yeah, it captures nuance. I think it -

- it better captures nuance and aspects that might be --

of the particular issue in a better way than yes or no. 

And that's -- but that's the extent -- the -- really 

when we looked at the issue, that -- those were the two 

options we entertained. I'm not -- and we're certainly 

prepared to accept -- to discuss if there are other 

strategies to come out of this type of issue. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, and I'm certainly not claiming 

that this is a precise science that would have a very --

necessarily an objective way of doing it. Certainly 

there's -- there's professional judgment that comes into 

play, and indeed once you make your evaluation, the 

Board itself will have to judge its -- in its own way 

your judgment, as it were. So I understand that, yeah. 

 DR. MAURO: It's more dialogue. And it was --

we're hoping that the score and then the commentary 

develops a dialogue for improvement. I guess that's 

what it comes down to. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thanks. Okay, Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. I would also think that some of 

these criteria are -- are -- I mean it's a balance 

between timeliness and, you know, completeness and --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and he talked about that balance 

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 DR. MELIUS: Right, right, and so --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and that's in --

 DR. MELIUS: -- the scoring system, to me, lends a 

better way -- you don't want it to have five in terms of 

a timeliness and, you know, one -- you want -- you know, 

have they picked a -- you know, it's a -- a good balance 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- in terms of addressing all -- all 

these issues, and I think the approach they're taking 

seems to me to be a -- a better way of communicating 

that --

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- you know, rather than a yes or a no 

or -- you know. It's not going to be the best in terms 

of timeliness or the absolute best in terms of some 

other criteria. It's going to be what's the right 

balance, and I think that's what NIOSH has tried to 

achieve. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Gen? 

 DR. ROESSLER: While we're talking about the 

scoring, and I was looking through these tables this 

morning when John was talking and thinking okay, is zero 

good or five good? And the closer you get to five is 

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the higher ranking, apparently. But then I got kind of 

confused when I looked at -- and maybe it's because it's 

nap time, I'm not sure, but on that page where we have 

3.4 and just above it is a table, and then there's a 

column 7.0. And if you look at 7.1 and 7.2, I get 

confused on those two questions, because on those two 

questions it seems like the right answer is no, or 

infrequently. If you're going to strike a balance 

between technical precision and process efficiency --

and John mentioned that as health physicists we try to 

be too detailed sometimes -- then the question -- okay, 

here's the question. (Reading) Does the procedure 

require levels of detail that cannot reasonably be 

accounted for by the dose reconstructor? I think if you 

say yes on that one, that's bad. Isn't that kind of 

putting a reverse... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, they may have to do some doc-- I 

think -- we know what the intent there is. You may have 

to --

 DR. ROESSLER: I think it's got to be --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- may have to reverse the question. 

 DR. ROESSLER: Or am I just confused? I'm trying 

to understand it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You're right, right. 

 DR. ROESSLER: Turn it the other way around. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: So that there's consistency and a --

 DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, and that might --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- low score is desirable or high 

score --

 DR. ROESSLER: That one just struck me. I think 

they need to go through and make sure that they're all 

going in the same direction. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Consistency in the scoring process. 

 DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, exactly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Hans? 

 MR. BEHLING: Can I just -- the scoring system is 

not a continuum. If you see there's -- there's no 

reason that -- or -- the NA or zero is it doesn't apply. 

I mean not all procedures will have certain aspects to 

it that require the issue of timeliness. And so it's a 

continuum from one to five, but -- but not -- not zero. 

So if -- if something is not applicable, then it's NA. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, but she was asking if it's one to 

five or five to one, which way are you -- it seemed like 

it might have been reversed in terms of comparing it 

with other scores. It's just something you guys can 

look at and -- that's an easy fix, just to be consistent 

in what does a high score mean -- or a low score. Are 

you playing golf, or what are you playing here? 

 Okay, Roy DeHart. 

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 DR. DEHART: I certainly encourage the use of the 

range. Yes and no, at least in my profession, tends to 

be very precise and very absolute, and it's much easier 

to work with a range, I think. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments on the seven 

objectives session -- section? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: There do not -- oh. There do not 

appear to be major concerns then, with that part. 

Okay, let's go ahead and look at the section on 

technical issues subject to review, beginning on page 

23. And are there -- okay, start with Gen Roessler. 

 DR. ROESSLER: I think this is just a minor picky 

one, but the very last line on that page, should that be 

calcium or californium? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Which page are you on? 

 DR. ROESSLER: On page 23. I don't think calcium 

is pertinent here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Page 23. 

 DR. ROESSLER: C -- Cf. I just wanted to let you 

know I read it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: My paging is different then, for some 

reason. 

 DR. ROESSLER: Oh, it's the last line on that page 

under 4.0. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: I think I have a version that came out 

of -- oh, my marked-up version came over e-mail so --

 DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, I don't have page numbers on 

mine. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, okay, yeah. 

 DR. ROESSLER: I think they know where it is. Oh, 

there's the page, at the top, yeah. 

 MS. MUNN: It is Cf. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, I found it. Did we get the answer 

to the question? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes, yeah, I think the --

 DR. ZIEMER: What was the answer? 

 DR. ROESSLER: I think it's californium. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Correct, of course, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It should be Cf then, huh? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Paul, as long as we're 

getting a little picky, can I go back to page 18, just 

for a second? No, I -- I -- and this is only -- I 

mentioned this yesterday, this bullet number 5.3 -- and 

I'm probably defining this a little bit different than 

Jim Neton, but the idea of unmonitored -- the claimant 

was not monitored, versus the unmonitored exposure. In 

other words, the person could have monitoring records, 

but they might have not monitored for certain things, so 

I think it's a fine line. I think they have the concept 

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of, you know, any potential -- I think we're including 

all that in unmonitored, if people know what I mean, you 

know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So you're saying that should probably 

say in instances of unmonitored --

 MR. GRIFFON: And it might be a separate bullet --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- exposure? 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- unmonitored claimants or -- or --

I think in our original task we had a couple of 

different caveats for that, unmonitored -- the worker 

was not monitored at all, the worker may have not been 

monitored for things he was potentially exposed to -- he 

or she was potentially exposed to, that sort of thing, 

so -- I think as long as it's consistent --

 DR. ZIEMER: Unmonitored and missed dose or you 

want to cover the waterfront there? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Hans, you caught that? Okay, that's -

- making sure that that bullet -- or that 5.3 is allinclusive, yeah. Thank you. That certainly was the 

intent, but it doesn't hurt to clarify it. 

Other comments or concerns? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: I want to raise a question on page 30. 

Well, no, it's going to be on a different page for --

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let me get the correct page out of the one in the 

notebook here. It's the paragraph that starts out with 

the words (reading) For internal exposures, we will 

question use of ICRP --

 DR. ROESSLER: That's page 30. 

 MS. MUNN: Top of page 30. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, it occurs on the top of -- yes, 

very top of page 30 in the packet that's in the 

notebook. (Reading) we will question use of ICRP 30. 

And the next sentence says (reading) We will 

question the use of surrogate radionuclides. I think I 

understand that you're saying you are going to evaluate 

those. A priori, you are not questioning their use. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You need to speak in the mike, 

please. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, yeah, use the mike, John, 

please. 

 DR. MAURO: It's basically acknowledging the ICRP 

guidance that we're drawing upon, and it's taking into 

consideration that -- that from particular 

radionuclides, which guidance that's used doesn't always 

-- whether you work with ICRP-30 or the ICRP-60 series, 

or it turns out there are even upcoming ICRP 

developments, a lot of the material we're looking at 

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here is -- that we're looking at, by the way, came from 

Joyce Lipstein, who is very active in preparing ICRP 

documents. And she's pointing out that we are -- we're 

going to be careful to note in places where the 

procedures that are currently being used or that have --

that have been embraced by -- in the -- for example, in 

42 CFR and in the OCAS documents whereby you cite 

specific ICRP guidance, there may be situations whereby 

that guidance isn't always necessarily the limiting 

pathway or the most claimant-friendly. And so that --

the point that's trying to be made here is that we're 

going to be cognizant of that, and when we find that, we 

will reveal it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MAURO: Okay? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think the thrust of what I was 

saying is that this sounds a priori that you are already 

questioning the use of those documents, as opposed to 

your -- sort of evaluating the use of them and so it's 

in that paragraph where that is sort of stated three 

times, I -- it would appear to me that it might be a 

little less pre-judgmental to say we will evaluate the 

use of those. 

Jim? 

 DR. NETON: I'd just like to ask a question, or 

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maybe a point of clarification, but in our -- in our 

regulation, I believe we cited the use of -- I forget 

the exact terminology, but recent ICRP models. There 

was no value judgment made on that phrase to determine -

- or which one was most claimant-favorable. And what I 

sense here is there is going to be a value judgment made 

that a more recent ICRP model would be less claimant 

favorable. That was never really our intent of vetting 

those against claimant favorability. We were merely 

going to adopt the most recent model. So I just want to 

make that clear. That was our intent. Now what you 

guys do in your assessment is... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MAURO: The way we've been thinking about this 

is to take advantage of the fact that we have access to 

information from -- what I would say the cutting edge of 

where things are thinking in internal dosimetry through 

-- through Joyce. Unfortunately, Joyce isn't here 

today; she couldn't join us, but I would have liked her 

to have joined us. And basically it's a -- what -- the 

way we are looking at it is to keep the Board informed 

of these types of developments. The degree to which the 

-- there is any actionable item here -- that is, the 

fact that there may be certain developments that are 

going on or have recently gone on related to ICRP 

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internal dosimetry -- that shows that yes, there are 

going to be certain revisions moving down the pipeline, 

I think that we think it's important that we keep you 

apprised of these developments. The degree to which 

they're actionable, that's a different question. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Exactly, because the fact that she may 

be working with the ICRP folks and some model has not 

yet been adopted, in essence would sort of tie our hands 

in saying well, we think they're going to adopt it next 

year and therefore we would use it. 

 DR. MAURO: Yeah, we're not making a judgment on 

it. We're just simply keeping -- letting you know that 

there are these -- these things are in the offing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Thanks for the 

clarification there. 

Other items? Yes, Tony. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Same paragraph, very last sentence. 

Again, it appears to be a value judgment that's being 

made a priori with respect to the term "arbitrary 

fractions of the maximum permissible body burden". I 

mean, you know, changing the word for another word's a 

minor -- a minor change, to "different fractions" might 

be much more appropriate here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, there is a rationale behind the 

fractions that are actually used, so they're not 

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completely arbitrary. Hans, did you have a comment on 

that? 

 MR. BEHLING: Yeah, I think the wording is somewhat 

strong here when we say we will question --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that's the same issue I raised 

on that sentence, but he was raising the issue on the 

word "arbitrary", I think. 

 MR. BEHLING: And I'll take part of the blame. As 

many of you know, Joyce is not an American. She's -- in 

South America. English is her second language and I 

probably should have edited out some of these words. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's all right. 

 MR. BEHLING: It is strictly a question of 

familiarity with terminology that is probably less 

sensitive than it should be. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any other items, issues? 

 (No responses) 

DR. ZIEMER: If there are none, I would accept a 

motion to approve the document, with those minor 

changes. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: So moved. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And seconded. 

 MS. MUNN: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now an opportunity for any further 

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discussion on the document. 

Now keep in mind, all this does is tells us how 

they will review the procedures. This does not give 

them permission to review the procedures. That will 

require a separate task. Their task was to develop 

these procedures. Once we approve that, then we are 

ready to take the next step, which would be to develop a 

task order which allows them to go ahead and use these 

procedures for evaluating the NIOSH/ORAU procedures. If 

that gets confusing, you'll have to read the -- the 

notes. 

Okay. All in favor of the motion to approve these 

procedures, say aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And those opposed? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And the record should note that Henry 

Anderson had to leave the meeting, so is not here to 

vote. 

Now we have the QA document. I believe we have to 

approve this, also. 

 DR. DEHART: Is it a subtask to task three? I 

would think so. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, it is, and so we -- we do need to 

approve these. They're rather brief. Let me open the 

floor for questions on anything in -- in the other task 

three Q and A (sic) review procedure. 

The procedure itself that they will use is 

summarized with four bullet points under 3.0. They have 

their -- their sample questions on the last page. It 

appears to be fairly straightforward. Any comments, 

questions or concerns? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: The deliverables described in 5.0 I 

believe are deliverables that will result from the next 

task. They don't result from this task, per se. This 

again is how they will do the QA on the procedures. 

(Pause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, a motion to approve will be in 

order. 

 DR. DEHART: I'd move to approve. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Move approval? Second? 

 MR. PRESLEY: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Further discussion? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: All in favor, aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Opposed, no? 

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 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Abstention? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: So ordered. Thank you. Now I need a 

little help -- maybe staff help -- on time sequence for 

the next task order. The task order would be to 

actually do the reviews that are based on this 

procedure. What is needed and when? If -- for example, 

if we have to develop a task order and do an independent 

government cost estimate. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You will need to follow the process 

you followed on these four task orders that you have 

finished to this point. That is, sit together and 

discuss what the scope of the task should be, define it 

-- and you can do that in open public forum. Then you 

need to develop an independent government cost estimate, 

and that has to be done in a closed session. Both of 

these items would have to be submitted by -- if you 

recall the -- I mentioned this yesterday morning, or 

this morning; I'm lost in my time frame here, but new 

task orders are due in to procurement by July 6th. So 

essentially you would have to do this at your June 

meeting. We could -- I think you witnessed our 

experience today of about a week turnaround once you 

give us what you want done, it's in the hands of 

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procurement and action's being taken. So it's feasible 

that between June meeting and July 6th, if you need a 

teleconference, you should schedule that. I don't know 

what that would accomplish, because you can't talk --

that's not a closed session, you know, so -- you may 

need another face-to-face, I don't know. If you can't 

get it all done in June and you want to award this task 

and see it submitted by July 6th, you've been through 

the process. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, a question. 

 DR. MELIUS: I probably have asked this before and 

I'm sure you've answered it and -- but remind us. Can -

- can we -- what -- which -- which of these can be 

delegated to a subcommittee? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Cori, you want to answer that for --

at the microphone, please? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I almost know the answer to that 

already, but... 

 MS. HOMER: What are we looking at delegating? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Authority to --

 DR. MELIUS: Develop a task order, develop an 

independent cost estimate. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It would still have to come back to 

the Board? 

 MS. HOMER: It would still have to come back to the 

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Board --

 DR. ZIEMER: The subcommittee would have to meet in 

open session. Is the -- how detailed does the task 

order need to be? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It can simply be a paragraph, three, 

four sentences. 

 DR. ZIEMER: My thinking is, it seems to me we can 

do a task order here today that says go review these 

documents. 

UNIDENTIFIED: In accordance with. 

 DR. ZIEMER: In accordance with this. And then the 

independent government cost estimate would have to be 

developed in --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Closed session. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- closed session, and we can decide 

on --

 MR. ELLIOTT: You can't do that --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- a time and place --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- here today, unfortunately. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, can't do that here today. That 

has to still be announced in the Federal Register and 

scheduled in advance. But it seems to me we would be 

ahead of the game to at least get the task order done 

today. And the content of the task order would be to 

have the contractor carry out the review of these 

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identified documents in accordance with the approved 

procedures. And there might be a time line on that, as 

well. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And you should consider a 

deliverable. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And the deliverable would be a report 

to the Board --

 MR. ELLIOTT: X number of procedures reviewed or --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- a report of the review of 

procedures completed in time frame X --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- or -- there's a number of ways 

that you can -- you can write this in two or three 

sentences and have a scope of work and have a time line 

developed and a deliverable developed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. What I'm going to do is call 

for a 15-minute break. I'm going to ask -- I'm going to 

get a couple of wordsmithers to help us put something 

together here that we can project on the board and look 

at, so we'll reconvene in 15 minutes. 

I need -- who wants to volunteer to help with this? 

Okay, Mark, Tony? Okay, let's -- and Roy, let's sit 

right now and --

 DR. MELIUS: You each get a sentence. 

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(Whereupon, a recess was taken.) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're ready to reconvene. The 

Chair recognizes Mark Griffon for the purpose of making 

a motion. Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I'd like to make a motion to adopt 

the procedures review task as presented on the front 

projector. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, the motion is for the Board to 

approve a new task, which will be task 3-A, or some 

other appropriate number, which will be called 

Procedures Review Task. Is there a second to the 

motion? 

 DR. DEHART: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Seconded motion. The -- what does 

that say after 3-A, task order --

 MR. GRIFFON: That task order technical monitor, 

that was in the little template. I don't know that we 

specified a name before. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We do that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Huh? 

 DR. ZIEMER: NIOSH would add that. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We have to do that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: There would be -- that would be added. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, that's just the template, 

though. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: That's the template for task order --

(reading) purpose and description of work: To conduct 

reviews of all procedures adopted by NIOSH and its 

contractors for performing dose reconstructions under 

EEOICPA and as identified in SC&A task 3 report dated 

April 12, 2004. 

So we're basically identifying those procedures 

that were identified in the document that we just 

reviewed. And we'll go through this and then it's open 

for any amendments or changes. 

Period of performance, the task will be a fourmonth task. Contractor will provide monthly progress 

reports to the Board. Priority should be given to OCAS 

implementation guides. Final report shall be provided 

to the Board at the completion of the task. 

While we're discussing this, I would also 

appreciate hearing from SC&A on the time frame. We 

don't want to be unreasonable. On the other hand, we 

don't want to give you so much time that the task 

doesn't get done, so --

 DR. MAURO: The only suggestion I would have is the 

four months would be for the delivery of the draft 

review document, and then -- then we would deliver a 

final at some appropriate time period after receiving 

your comments. So it would stretch out a little bit, 

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but -- so the -- in other words, have a draft 

deliverable date and then a final deliverable -- maybe 

the final deliverable within two weeks after receipt of 

the comments, that sort of thing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, that's very helpful. But 

the four months itself is not --

 DR. MAURO: Well, I was -- I'd like the four months 

to be for the delivery of the draft. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 DR. MAURO: We could -- now, you know, we could 

push it up a month, say the draft would be in three 

months and the final -- but it's getting -- there's a 

lot of --

 DR. ZIEMER: You're not insisting that it be done 

in two months and --

 DR. MAURO: Oh, no, no, no, four mon-- I'm just 

suggesting that the four months -- you understand. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. So with that in mind, 

perhaps someone could propose a friendly amendment that 

the last sentence say that a final -- a draft final 

report be provided at the completion -- or af-- at four 

months, with the final report due two weeks after 

receipt of the Board's comments. 

 DR. DEHART: So moved. 

 MS. MUNN: Second. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're taking this as an 

amendment to the motion then. Any discussion on that --

on the amendment, as proposed? No? We'll vote on the 

proposed amendment. And are you in a position to make 

those changes? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I can't change it on the board but I 

can change it on my hard drive. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. All in favor of that amendment 

-- a draft final report shall be provided to the Board 

at -- I think we should say four months here, four 

months following -- four months following -- what's the 

word I want -- awarding of the task, with a final report 

due two weeks after receipt of the Board's comments. 

That is the motion. Ready to vote. 

All in favor, aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any opposed? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Back to the main motion, which is the 

document as now revised. Gen Roessler. 

 DR. ROESSLER: I think somebody has to clean up 

that last paragraph with regard to the wills, the 

shoulds and the shalls, and I guess NIOSH knows what 

that means and how to do it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Help us do that, Gen, you're 

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(Inaudible) --

 DR. ROESSLER: Well, I don't know, I think it's a 

legal thing. Liz probably -- is gone, but I think they 

have different meanings, will and shall and should, but 

I don't think that's -- maybe that's more like copy 

editing. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I would just offer that you need to 

decide this, not us. 

 DR. ROESSLER: Oh, well, somebody needs to tell me 

the difference between will and shall, then -- and 

should. 

 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

 DR. ROESSLER: Oh, there you are. 

 DR. ZIEMER: This shall be mandatory? 

 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) Will be 

mandatory. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So it doesn't -- both of them are 

okay, sounds like. 

 DR. ROESSLER: All three of them. If Liz doesn't 

object to it, then I think it must be all right. 

 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

 DR. ROESSLER: Okay. Well, I'm just -- I guess I'm 

just wondering why in one place it will say will and in 

the other place it will say should and in another place 

it says shall. 

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 DR. DEHART: I would omit -- change the should to 

will, priority will be given. Well, priority shall be, 

then. 

 DR. MELIUS: Why don't we just use "will" 

throughout? 

 DR. ROESSLER: All the way through. Yeah, I'd be 

happier with that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Will be given -- final report will be 

provided. 

 DR. MELIUS: All in favor of three wills. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any objection to changing those so 

they all read "will" and we -- consist -- friendly 

amendment and take it by consent that that's acceptable. 

Any other changes or modifications? Are we ready 

to vote on this task? Mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I know I -- I just -- I think one 

clarification might be worthwhile, and it's definitely a 

friendly amendment since I proposed the motion. The 

reviews of all procedures -- I was thinking a 

parenthetical might be worthwhile there saying --

stating latest revisions of all procedures. I mean I --

I know -- or is that just accepted, you know. I mean 

this is our baseline review. I think we want to sort of 

say whatever the latest revision of the -- of a certain 

procedure at the time when they're doing the reviews is 

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the one that's subject to this --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think your --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- this baseline review, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- point's understood. So that if 

they've -- they've identified it here, but in the 

meantime ORAU changes it... 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: What about procedures that might be 

added after this task is --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that was a question, too. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- on an ongoing basis. There could 

be new procedures developed by ORAU. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think current procedures at the 

time of the award of this task ord-- you know, and 

that's our baseline, kind of. That's what we said this 

was going to be about, if that... 

 DR. ZIEMER: What's a good word for current 

procedures? It's the procedures that are in use at that 

time. All active procedures or... Somebody help us on 

the wordsmithing. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Mark used the word baseline 

procedures. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, those aren't all baseline. They 

are... 

 MR. GRIFFON: I was -- I was just going to say --

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 DR. ZIEMER: I think we all know what it is, but 

it's current procedures. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask sort of a legal point here. 

If we name these procedures related to this document, 

does that mean that if ORAU revises one so the title of 

it changes a little bit that you need a new work order? 

That's what we're -- we don't want to have a new work 

order to -- for --

 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: That would be a contract 

question (Inaudible). 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) How about the 

phrase "current and in place" as a paren? 

 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Let the record show there's a caucus 

going on without use of the microphone and we can't 

capture it for the transcript. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. The Chair is duly 

chastised. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That was not a chastisement. It was 

just for the record so that we know what was going on. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think that clarification -- it will 

nevertheless be helpful to have the words "current or in 

place" or some such modifier there so that there's no 

doubt if something gets revised -- Jim, did you wish to 

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speak to that issue? 

 DR. NETON: I was just going to say I noticed in 

the task three report that there are no revision numbers 

associated with the procedures as indicated, so there's 

nothing inconsistent with, you know, them reviewing rev 

2. I think it would just be well understood that that 

would be the current procedure, so I don't see an issue. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Any other questions or 

comments? Are you okay, Mark, then? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'm okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) As long as it's 

(Inaudible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: So it stands as it's shown then. Are 

you ready to vote on this task? 

All in favor, aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Those opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Motion carries, we have a new task. 

We will have to have an independent government cost 

estimate developed, I think before we ask the contractor 

to actually submit his bid or quote. And that will 

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affect our scheduling, which will come up shortly, as 

far as future meetings. 

Okay, other items that we need to look at. We have 

a draft of a proposed letter that would go to the 

Secretary of Energy. Do all the Board members have a 

copy of the proposed draft? This draft was generated by 

Jim Melius and Tony Andrade. Does the recorder -- do 

you need the letter read into the record? You have a 

copy of it. You have a copy of it. 

Let me just pause a minute and make -- give 

everybody about a minute to read through it. Shall I 

read it -- do members of the public have a copy of this 

letter? 

 MS. HOMER: I made some additional. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We'd be glad to read it if anyone 

wants it read. Otherwise, just read it to yourself. 

(Pause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: This morning we had a motion to send 

such a letter. That was in essence a motion of intent 

or a motion of the concept. This is the specific 

letter. I would ask for a motion. Jim, do you -- would 

like to make a motion that we send this letter? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I make a motion that we send 

this letter to the Secretary of Energy --

 DR. ROESSLER: Second. 

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 DR. MELIUS: -- and a parallel letter to -- I don't 

know who this -- Assistant Secretary -- yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So moved and seconded. Gen Roessler 

has seconded the motion. Now discussion. Tony Andrade. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Some of the -- some of the comments 

that were scribbled in are mine -- or all of the 

comments that are scribbled in are mine, with the 

following intent: That the letter be signed by Paul on 

behalf of the Board; that the letter be written through 

the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary --

the Secretary for DHHS; and then to the Secretary of 

Energy. I really do believe it should be a cabinetlevel communication, and I think the way it reads --

except for perhaps more English editing by an expert --

should suffice to carry it through at that level. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Tony, could you clarify? Are you 

suggesting that it not be sent to --

 MR. PRESLEY: NNSA? 

 DR. ANDRADE: A copy can go to Ambassador Brooks --

okay? -- who's the head of NNSA and who's got oversight 

over the DOE complex, such as it is, for the weapons 

complex. Okay? But this is -- because the -- the 

umbrella agreement -- okay? -- or MOU exists between HHS 

and -- or is it DOL? 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's DOE. 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: It is HHS, both Secretaries signed 

the MOU. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, HHS and DOE, it really should go 

to Spencer Abraham first, with a copy to NNSA. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) offer 

some clarification? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

UNIDENTIFIED: The National Nuclear Security Agency 

reports directly to the Secretary of Energy --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

UNIDENTIFIED: -- and is in that chain of command, 

so there doesn't need to be a separate missive sent to 

General Brooks or Admiral Brooks, whatever he is. He 

needs to be cc'd. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that -- and that's how I've 

indicated on my copy. I think that's what Tony was 

suggesting. 

 DR. ANDRADE: It's Ambassador Brooks. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Thank -- okay. Any other 

comments or suggestions? Gen Roessler. 

 DR. ROESSLER: I -- in the second to last 

paragraph, third line from the bottom, I wonder if 

there's a stronger word than "communication"? We 

believe that this direction or --

 DR. ZIEMER: Directive? 

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 DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, I'd like something like that. 

"Communication" is a little wimpy. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Also if I may interject, having 

served in -- having written directives for the Secretary 

of Energy, "directive" is the word. You know, 

respectfully request that you issue a directive. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Any other modifications? I 

take it by consent that you're agreeable -- we would say 

we believe that such a directive from you would help 

ensure -- and so on. 

 Yes, Roy DeHart. 

 DR. DEHART: It's just an editorial comment, but 

the letter format, of course, will not carry just 

abbreviations. The full law will be identified, et 

cetera, et cetera, through the documentation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: Including the -- however the MOU's 

formally referred to. I don't know exactly how it's --

how it is, and obviously the contractor's name would be 

spelled out and so forth. Written under duress. 

 DR. ZIEMER: If you'll allow the Chair to take care 

of those editorial things, are there any substantive 

changes? If I find any dangling participles, I will 

remove them. 

 DR. ROESSLER: We assume that's a part of your job. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Point of clarification. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Huh? Point of clarification, Larry, 

yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Just to make sure, you -- you had DO-

- or DHHS struck out in the second paragraph and DOL 

inserted. It should be DHHS. And then just for my 

clarification, mutually legally -- our mutually legally 

-- what does that mean? 

 DR. ANDRADE: To our mutual legally-mandated... 

 DR. ZIEMER: What sentence is that? 

 DR. ROESSLER: I kind of stumbled on that one, too. 

 DR. ANDRADE: I don't know if putting a dash 

between the two words might clarify it. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Where is that? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: This is right down here. So while 

you're pondering that, I'll just offer this. The memo 

format is the appropriate way -- the suggestion you 

offered -- to go from one Secretary to the other, and I 

think that would be appreciated in this case, that you -

- you do need to cross through the Secretary you advise 

to get to the Secretary you're requesting access from. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is carbon -- or cc to Tommy Thompson 

sufficient to do that, or do we need to write to Tommy 

to ask -- I wasn't sure what you're saying here. 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Andrade portrayed it very 

accurately. It's to -- you have a To: -- it's a memo 

formatting approach and it has a To: line, it has a 

From: line, and that's where you put from the Board, and 

it has a Through: line, and the Through: line up at the 

top would be where you'd put Secretary Thompson. He 

would see it first, he would sign off on -- initial it 

first and then make sure it gets transmitted over to the 

other Secretary. Then at the bottom you would have any 

cc's, like if you wanted to copy me, if you wanted to 

copy whoever, that's where you would add that, so that 

the recipients of this document would see who got copies 

of it, as well. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Anything else? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Ready to vote? All in favor, aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Motion carries, thank you. We'll take 

care of that. 

 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) Can I ask a -- just a 

(Inaudible). 

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(On microphone) If you want me to, I will make 

these changes -- show what we've talked about, e-mail it 

to you? 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's okay, give me an electronic 

copy to work from --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- yeah, that's good. 

 DR. MELIUS: Paul, we also have the letter regard--

the Quinn letter regarding Bethlehem --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: Is that -- I don't -- what -- the 

right timing was on that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We -- this is a good time. The Quinn 

letter that I mentioned -- did I mention it yesterday? 

That must have been yesterday. Time is flying when 

you're having fun. I need to generate a reply to this. 

The Board has asked that letters -- Congressional 

letters of this type come to the Board to assist in the 

generation of a response. This letter is prompted by 

the last letter that I wrote to the three individuals 

following our last meeting where we -- the Board asked 

that I let them know that we were in the final stages of 

completing our site profile review process and to also 

inform them that we had selected as one of the sites to 

be audited the Bethlehem Steel site, and that was done 

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in that letter. 

This letter has a couple of items in it that appear 

to call for some sort of response. First, in the second 

paragraph, (reading) While we are pleased that this 

needed action will be taken -- that's the audit of the 

Bethlehem Steel site profile -- we respectfully request 

that a detailed description of the scope and methodology 

for the audit strategy be made available to us prior to 

the commencement of the site audit. 

Now we had already committed to providing our audit 

procedures to these individuals. That was indicated in 

the initial letter, that we would provide that. There 

is an implication here that they think there may be a 

very site-specific audit process for reviewing this 

particular profile, whereas the procedures that we've 

approved are in a sense generic. I mean they would be 

adapted as the audit occurs. But at the present time, 

the commitment is to provide the audit process or 

strategy. The -- and we need to perhaps talk about 

that. 

And then the other thing has to do with the list 

that's appended to the letter, which is a num-- which 

constitutes a number of questions that they would like 

to see asked. 

I had indicated I think in my initial letter that I 

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felt that it had been -- it would be more appropriate 

for them to ask these questions first of the contractor 

-- or actually of the agency, NIOSH; that NIOSH, which 

is doing the site profiles to start with, could provide 

the direct answers to those questions. 

Now it may be that our audit process will indeed 

answer these questions. I personally have a concern --

this is a conceptual concern -- of a group, whoever it 

may be, whether it's Congressmen or a special interest 

group, in a sense a priori asking that we shape an audit 

to meet their needs. In fact, one could argue that 

there's a very much of a conflict of interest there on 

the part of the requesters who are trying to shape the 

audit. So I have that kind of concern. 

But I'd like the committee to address that and --

and help us determine how to respond here. We want to 

be sensitive to their concerns, and yet we want to be 

faithful to the process and not compromise the process. 

Tony, you have a comment to start with? 

 DR. ANDRADE: I hate to say this, but let's not be 

coy here. There's definitely an agenda behind this. 

The types of questions that were asked reek of 

micromanagement of the Board's work, and I think it 

would be inappropriate for the Board to respond to those 

quest-- those detailed questions. I would say a 

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description of the efficiency process that is currently 

taking place, a copy of the site profile that has been 

developed for Bethlehem Steel, along with statistics of 

some of the cases -- or the cases that have been 

accepted and worked should be sufficient. Any further 

drilling down, if you will, or answers to these 

questions should be directed to another agency. It 

should -- it should not be directed to the Board. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, I disagree with that in part, 

but -- but I guess some of that I think depends on where 

NIOSH stands in terms of their responses. I don't know 

if NIOSH has received any similar communication. I know 

there's an issue related to the residual radiation 

report that has led to the raising of some of these --

some of these issues that are in this letter. So I 

guess -- and we already heard today that NIOSH has 

already decided -- I believe since the letter's been 

sent or, you know, not necessarily in response to the 

letter -- to address -- to modify the site profile to 

take into account the ingestion pathway. It's question 

number four on the back. I'd like to hear what NIOSH is 

doing, but depending -- or to some extent modifying a 

response based on that, but I mean I would -- I'd rather 

suggest that we -- we send them the procedure that we've 

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adopted, the general one; that we -- I believe they 

request for the -- an estimated time frame, which I 

think is -- we might be ab-- we should be able to 

provide them, at least within some -- though, and then I 

-- I don't think we can predict specifically whether all 

these questions will be answered doing that, but I don't 

think we can rule it out, either. And I think some 

general statement that, you know, we believe that many 

of the -- these issues will be addressed in the review, 

but until the contractor gets ready to do it and is 

doing the review and, you know, and we have our 

response, we -- we're not saying that these will be 

specifically addressed. So I guess what I'm suggesting 

is -- is, you know, to be responsive, but without 

necessarily saying that we will specifically address all 

-- all these issues. I mean I -- 'cause I don't think I 

can predict at this time whether we would or wouldn't 

answer these questions -- whether -- whether or not 

answering these questions is an appropriate part of --

of the review. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and the review might very well 

answer some of these questions, and my concern is a 

process one, really -- a priori to have an outside 

group, whoever the group may be, to come in and say 

here's the questions that you need to address for this 

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audit. That is a concern in terms of the credibility of 

what we do, would -- it makes audits subject to 

whoever's got the game in town. 

 Okay, Roy DeHart. 

 DR. DEHART: My question is one -- I suppose it's 

political, but it's the question, for whom do we work? 

This is a Presidential Advisory Committee, I understand. 

And if that's so, now we have Congress -- members of 

Congress giving us direction. Next do we receive the 

Tennessee delegation's letters of query? We could be 

very distracted if -- if that were to go -- go forward. 

I think we need to make sure, legally and politically, 

where we belong in the way we answer that letter. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: Further, I believe our response to that 

letter needs to state precisely what Dr. DeHart has 

said, that we are responsible to the Administration and 

that we will of course consider the questions that have 

been raised here in our interactions with the agencies 

that are doing the work. But it's a serious mistake, I 

think, for us to establish a precedent of responding to 

itemized requests for information and process to anyone 

outside the authorities that have appointed us. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: I just -- I believe this is true for 

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the record is that -- that we are not respond-- we chose 

Bethlehem Steel for other reasons for a review of the 

site profile, so we're not responding to -- to a request 

from, you know, Congress or some outside group to 

review. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No. 

 DR. MELIUS: So it's -- that -- that's not the 

issue. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No. 

 DR. MELIUS: I think the issue of the -- the 

question's -- there. I think, for the political context 

-- and Larry can comment on this more -- these 

Congressmen and Congresswomen are extremely upset and --

about a problem with a posting of the residual radiation 

report on the NIOSH web site that had some dates wrong 

on it and have been extremely critical, have done a 

press release to -- saying how NIOSH has little 

credibility -- scientific credibility because of this --

this inadvertent error, and I don't understand all the 

details of it or whatever. But I think there is -- is 

an issue that -- you know, I think being responsive may 

actually be more helpful in this situation, within -- in 

a political sense, and helpful for NIOSH in -- in its --

long as it's done within what our role is. I also don't 

think we want to -- believe we want to put NIOSH in the 

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position of telling us not to be -- not to be --

respond, that we're not going to do this. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, did you have a comment? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Just for clarification, and out of 

due respect, Dr. Melius, this -- the first letter came 

to us before the issue with the residual report 

surfaced, so I don't know how much correlation there 

really is between these series of letters, their concern 

expressed therein, and the residual rad report with 

regard to the clerical error that appeared on Bethlehem 

Steel. 

And just so that everybody understands what 

happened with that particular report, there was a cutand-paste error that occurred in moving a section of 

text from one site description to another site, and 

Bethlehem Steel was one of those sites. So -- and 

inadvertently that never got caught in the review 

processes that we had and it got sent out. And then two 

weeks after we delivered it to Congress, Dr. Neton 

identified the error as he was preparing to interact 

with some New York constituents -- claimants -- and we 

took immediate steps to identify how the error occurred, 

did the research again to determine what the source 

documentation supported as far as a determination on 

Bethlehem Steel, and further examination of the 

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remainder of the report to determine whether any other 

clerical errors had also been incorporated into that 

draft. 

We are now -- completed all of that, reported back 

to the Congressional leadership delegation there that 

had the concerns on this, and are preparing a full 

revised report to correct this -- this error. So -- but 

I -- you know, I don't -- I don't know if there's a 

connection or not, but I just offer that for clarity. I 

don't offer it for any judgment from my -- my own 

perspective here. 

 DR. MELIUS: And again for clarity and not to -- I 

think the other thing to understand what happened is 

that Quinn and Slaughter offered legislation based on 

some of the information that was on the posted report 

and so were, to some extent, embarrassed by the fact 

that they had introduced this legislation and -- and 

based -- you know, based on the report, so I think 

that's some of the -- some of what's happening and -- in 

this context. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Tony? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Since everybody's clarifying their 

statements, then I'll clarify mine. I did not mean to 

imply that we should not be responsive. The Board 

should respond to the letter, state our responsibilities 

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-- state our roles and our responsibilities, and -- but 

it -- it's really up to the Board as to how much 

information should be provided. I suggested that we 

send along generic documents that are being used at --

now, and statistics about what their concerns might be. 

However, answering that last list of detailed 

questions really should be deferred in the letter to the 

appropriate agency, and that way it makes it clear, this 

is the way we do business. And that appropriate agency 

is probably NIOSH. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The original letter that I sent 

indicated that I would transmit to NIOSH that list of 

questions, which indeed I did, and basically sent Tommy 

Thompson a copy of the letter, as well, with a statement 

that it seemed to me that the agency was in the best 

position to answer those specific questions dealing with 

a site at that time. And this is one possible continued 

option, to do something like that, or to suggest that --

it seemed to me it would still be appropriate to suggest 

that, in light of our responsibilities which derive out 

of the -- really out of the White House and the 

assignment to Health and Human Services -- that we would 

prefer to have the audit done independently, as its 

designed, without, you know, specifying specific items 

that our contractors must use coming from an outside 

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group. But that we believe that it's quite likely many 

of these questions will probably be answered by the 

audit and that the results of the audit certainly can be 

made available. They will be -- they're public 

information. And we could couch it in that way, but --

but, you know, there's a lot of nuances here. 

We want to be sensitive to those -- to their 

concerns, and yet I -- I -- as I indicated before, I 

have this overriding process concern that I think the 

integrity of the audit has to be preserved in some way, 

and -- whether it's from a Congressional group, a 

special interest group, whatever it might be. Any 

number of groups can come along and say here's my set of 

questions for this site; please assure me that you'll 

ask them. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, my only concern about being to 

recalcitrant about it, whatever, is that -- again, if 

you're in Congress, you were -- they drafted legislation 

that gave -- set up this committee that gave it its role 

to do an independent review, so -- you know, their 

option to be well, have -- you know, some -- National 

Academy of Science do this, have -- you know, Government 

Accounting Office -- I mean there's lot of different 

things, but they used the -- you know, what's in the 

current legislation, what's being implemented and --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Right, but the key is --

 DR. MELIUS: -- that when --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- independent review. 

 DR. MELIUS: Right, and -- and I think if we --

again, I don't recall in detail the first letter. I 

think we state that that's, you know, what we're set up 

to do, that we have the process in place, that we have 

the general procedure, we have this site scheduled to be 

done. And then your -- you know, your statement, which 

I agree with, is that we believe that, you know, most of 

these questions, or many, will be covered but we, you 

know -- but we'll do that through the -- the process 

that's been established. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now does anyone wish to make -- I 

don't think we can craft the letter today, but I can 

certainly take the input and craft a response, and I'd 

certainly be glad to share it with the committee, even 

before it's sent so you have a look at it. But the 

general tenure -- tenor of it, following what I'm 

hearing here. Do you want to make any specific motions 

that would outline parameters or -- you just -- would 

you like me just to proceed on that basis? This is 

certainly open to -- just to proceed? You want to --

 DR. MELIUS: I think if you proceed on that basis, 

you'll be fine. You'll have -- address Tony and I, who 

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came from opposite ends of this letter, and we've got 

towards the middle --

 DR. ZIEMER: I think -- I think you're not so far 

apart, so I will -- if there's no objection, I will 

craft a response -- can I do this legally? Can I 

circulate it to the Board for input before sending it? 

 MS. HOMER: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Does it have to be approved in 

open forum? It does. We --

 DR. DEHART: (Off microphone) How did you handle 

the last letter? 

 MS. HOMER: Unless the Board gives you --

 DR. ZIEMER: The Board gave me authority to send 

the last letter, just instructed me to let -- let them 

know that we had chosen Bethlehem Steel. 

 MS. HOMER: As long as they specifically give you 

the authority to do that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I'd like a motion then. Oh, 

Wanda, you have a comment first? 

 MS. MUNN: I would like to move that our Chair be 

given the authority to draft the letter, submit it to us 

for our -- our scrutiny and then be authorized to send 

it on our behalf. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: With the understanding that the letter 

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would be crafted, taking into consideration the comments 

that have been made here in our discussion. 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. All in favor say aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: All opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: No? Okay. Thank you very much and 

we'll proceed on that basis. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I will have to make sure that --

there's one question we have here that I don't think has 

been clearly answered yet, in my mind, and that is can 

you distribute -- even given the authority, can you 

distribute a draft like this and get a Board decision 

out of that process. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's what I was asking. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: So we may -- we're going to ask you 

to work closely with us on this and OGC will have to 

weigh in on this, I think. 

 DR. MELIUS: Could you clarify that? I don't --

 DR. ZIEMER: He's saying that can -- if there's a 

final letter -- even though you've authorized me to send 

it, can we, without having it available in the public 

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forum first, finally send this letter, I think is --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, yes, that's -- authorizing the 

Chair to do something is not the problem. It's -- we 

want to make sure that the process that the Chair uses 

then in carrying out that authorization is appropriate 

under FACA. In other words, the particular piece I'm 

concerned about is sharing this draft and then all of a 

sudden it become a decision. Can we make that -- can 

you make that happen. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and you'll have to advise me --

 DR. MELIUS: But I think we assume that -- I guess 

operate under -- that Paul -- the Chair will send the 

letter --

 DR. ZIEMER: If the --

 DR. MELIUS: -- in drafting it, do that in 

accordance with --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, if -- if they say legally we've 

got to do an additional step, which is to bring it back 

to open committee, then we'll do that. It delays 

sending the letter. It might even be done at -- in --

well, we could do it with a teleconference, but that's 

not easy to do, either. We'll have to find out. 

 DR. MELIUS: I just -- again, this isn't a legal 

opinion, but I've been on many, many FACA advisory 

committees. I've never heard where the chairman 

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couldn't be authorized to send a letter on --

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's not the issue. The issue is 

not authorization to send a letter. The issue is how 

you develop the final letter, can you do that in a --

 DR. ZIEMER: It's a process. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- in the dark or do you do it in the 

light, and under this authorization, we've got to check 

with FACA to make sure that we don't -- we don't violate 

that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm looking -- I'm looking to see 

whether we have additional action items before we look 

at calendars -- oh, we do. We have a major action item. 

You have in your booklet subcommittee discussion 

documents. At the last meeting we -- we had assigned a 

workgroup to prepare a proposed charter for a 

subcommittee. And you recall under the FACA rules, a 

subcommittee has to be duly established with a --

basically a charter or a statement of responsibilities. 

It is an ongoing subset of the main committee. Its 

meetings have to be announced in the Federal Register. 

It has to meet in open forum. It would -- it just 

entails a smaller group of the total committee. It may 

or may not be authorized to actually make final 

decisions, depending on what -- what level of authority 

it is given by the main committee to act on its behalf. 

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So Mark and Tony and I have collaborated since the 

last meeting to develop a proposed structure for this 

subcommittee, with a list of responsibilities or 

charges. And so -- and attached to that we have a 

separate page which is called issues for discussion, 

some items that the Board may wish to consider as you 

think about setting up this subcommittee. And the 

function of the subcommittee basically is described in 

terms of that -- the list of charges, that this is a 

subcommittee that will be -- our dose 

reconstruction/site profile review committee that would 

be involved in the ongoing basically dose reconstruction 

review process, determining perhaps which -- which cases 

would be reviewed and identifying which Board members 

might be assigned to groups of cases to -- to review 

them prior to Board meetings. 

This subcommittee is -- as it's proposed would have 

four members and would have also a non-voting government 

representative. So you see the structure as proposed. 

Let's see, I guess, Mark, I'll just ask you to move the 

-- the draft of the subcommittee structure and charges, 

and then we'll discuss it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I make a motion to adopt the 

subcommittee charter and charges outlined in this draft 

document. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Second? 

 DR. ANDRADE: (Off microphone) Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Moved by Griffon, seconded 

by Andrade. 

Let's start with structure. Our thought was four 

individuals is probably about the right number. There's 

no magic number, but it's about a third of the Board. 

We need to have a Federal official involved. If -- if 

there are any who believe it should be a different 

number, then this would be the time to bring that up. 

We have an estimate of the number of meeting times 

per year, but this does not mandate that. It's strictly 

there to give an idea that this committee might have to 

meet on a monthly basis, keeping in mind that these 

would be announced meetings. They would be open to the 

public. There might be cases, if it involved such 

things -- things similar to the cost estimate issues 

that we have with the contractor where you're required 

to meet in closed session, but otherwise it would be 

open-meeting situation. And all the actions of the 

subcommittee report back to the Board for consideration 

and whatever action's needed. In some cases the Board 

would have to take final action, in other cases they 

might authorize the committee to take the action, but it 

still would be reported back. 

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Cori has some additional input for us on the 

legalities here. 

 MS. HOMER: If I could, I'd like to suggest -- on 

line two you have identified that the subcommittee will 

consist of a minimum of a chair plus three members of 

the Board. I'd like to suggest something about balance 

or expertise covered. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. We talked about whether to put 

this in or not. We certainly want to have some degree 

of balance. 

 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) Why? 

 MS. HOMER: Because we're required to. Balance is 

absolutely essential for all -- balance is essential for 

all areas of expertise or interest to be covered. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So we should reflect that in the... 

 DR. MELIUS: But -- but -- can I ask -- can that 

just be a specific statement there rather than trying to 

designate specific numbers? The one draft had --

 MS. HOMER: Certainly. 

 DR. MELIUS: Huh? 

 MS. HOMER: Certainly it can be. It's entirely up 

to the Board whether you want to specifically identify 

particular expertise or if you just want to strive for 

balance. With four members, I'm not sure if every area 

of expertise you're looking for can be covered, but 

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you're going to want to strive for some level of 

balance, if you can. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We actually edited that out in this 

process because we didn't want to restrict ourselves the 

other way. You know, we still -- we are looking for 

balance on the -- on the subcommittee. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we probably have to add back a 

sentences -- a sentence that simply said the membership 

shall reflect an appropriate balance --

 MS. HOMER: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- of -- an appropriate balance of 

Board perspectives? 

 MS. HOMER: Absolutely, that's fine. That sounds 

wonderful. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, anything else on 

structure? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's move on to the charges. This is 

-- some thought was given to the items that we thought 

would be most likely to come up early on, including --

it says serving as a point of contact between the 

Board's audit contractor and the Board -- that is SC&A. 

Now currently for certain things this Board has already 

authorized the Chair to be a point of contact on things 

like invoices, and I -- I suspect we would continue 

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that. We don't need a subcommittee to -- to okay the 

invoices. But there may be other things along the way 

where the contractor needs some level of interaction. 

Now keep in mind we're not talking about the 

contractor getting on the phone with the subcommittee 

and asking some questions, because that can't happen 

without an announcement in the Federal Register. But it 

may be that the contractor does need to move -- or we 

need to move more rapidly than we can get a full group 

together, and so we would say okay, between the next 

meeting -- or before the next meeting, this group needs 

to meet to do some particular thing. So point of 

contact is in that sense where there's some level of 

urgency. 

Okay. Track audit contractor performance with 

respect to Board initiatives and scheduled deliverables. 

That would simply be a -- something that this 

subcommittee would report back to the Board at its 

regular meetings on what's happening with the 

subcontractor. Now the subcontractor also does such 

reporting, but the subcommittee presumably would sort of 

try to keep on top of that on a close basis. 

Review, approve or disapprove audit contractor 

procedures relating to dose reconstruction/site profile 

reviews as appropriate. Now their procedures now, so 

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far, have already been approved. But one might 

anticipate that some -- the contractor might get into 

things and say, you know, we need to change something 

and -- we can't anticipate everything here so we're 

trying to reflect here, but you understand what we're 

saying here, yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: And I don't know -- I mean some of the 

stuff you can word it, you know, upon, you know, 

referral from the Board. But some of the things you 

want to have the subcommittee do 'cause you don't have 

time for the Board to meet and then refer. I mean it 

would delay things --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, and a subcommittee might say --

or it might be authorized to give temporary approval or 

interim approval until the Board -- so that the 

contractor can move ahead, something like that. 

The fifth one was the one that we had originally 

focused on a great deal, and that was selecting the 

cases for individual dose reconstruction review, where 

the Board would give guidance on what that distribution 

should be amongst, you know, the various sites and the -

- the characteristics, but the actual selection of cases 

then might be left to a smaller group. 

Insert an item here. Cori? 

 MS. HOMER: Just a suggestion, going back to 

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structure. The nomination process may not be something 

that you considered with the subcommittee structure. 

You may want to consider placing a caveat in the 

structure that you can rotate members of the 

subcommittee. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. I had assumed that the Chair 

would appoint the members --

 MS. HOMER: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and that means that you could 

change membership at any time. If somebody said they 

could no longer serve, you'd appoint someone else or --

 MS. HOMER: That's true, but --

 DR. ZIEMER: But do we need to have specific terms? 

 MS. HOMER: Well, it could also cover balance. It 

could be very related to balance. If you don't have 

appropriate balance for a particular area you're working 

on, then that would allow you to rotate a member or it 

would give the --

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, at any given time. 

 MS. HOMER: At any given time. I mean it would 

just be a matter of resubmitting or letting committee 

management know in a formal fashion, which is easy --

 DR. ZIEMER: Who the new member is. 

 MS. HOMER: -- who the new member is, but it would 

also let -- it would be documented that you could do so 

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without -- without -- I guess I'm considering public 

viewpoint, that if they were to all of a sudden see a 

new member on the subcommittee, they might wonder why. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So the issue is -- the broader issue 

is change in membership --

 MS. HOMER: Absolutely. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and how that is done. 

 MS. HOMER: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Cori, can I ask -- does this charter 

have to have a -- like the committee's, the full 

committee's charter has a time set for it. Do we have 

to abide by that, as well? 

 MS. HOMER: I don't believe so. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: So this doesn't have to be renewed; 

it can stand --

 MS. HOMER: No, it stands. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- as a subcommittee until --

 MS. HOMER: It stands. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- they're -- till they're --

 MS. HOMER: Until we terminate that subcommittee, 

uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. 

 MS. HOMER: And just as a piece of information, we 

would formally terminate the subcommittee when the work 

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is done -- or it's no longer needed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry, I missed a little bit of 

the interchange between you two about the nomination. I 

took it to mean the nomination process might influence 

who was sitting on this subcommittee at some point in 

time and you needed the ability to replace. But I think 

you're right, Dr. Ziemer, that you -- the Chair has the 

authority to appoint, so if you lose a member --

somebody says they can't serve -- you could appoint at 

any point in time. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Or if some -- if -- if there was some 

need for, at a particular time, a -- an individual with 

a certain expertise, the membership could be altered --

 MS. HOMER: Yes --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- even if temporarily, that for the 

next so many months, Roy DeHart will replace so-and-so 

on this committee or something like that. 

 MS. HOMER: And what I'm trying -- I'm going 

through my experience with charters, and I -- if I 

remember correctly, there is one charter that I have 

experience with that allows for exchange of membership 

with ex officios. But it's entirely up to the Board how 

they want to address this, if you just need a simple 

statement or don't care to insert the statement about 

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rotation or replacement. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MS. HOMER: I mean it depends on how specific you 

want to be. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Hold that thought then. We're 

going to come back -- I just want to finish up this 

other list and then --

 MR. GRIFFON: Just one more -- one more thing on 

that that I guess we really didn't consider was if there 

are -- if you have four members and there's any 

conflicts that people have to recuse themselves on, I 

don't know if there'd be a need for alternates or if 

there'd be allowable alternates for the -- you know. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's an excellent point 'cause I 

was thinking about that just before you brought it up, 

and I was also thinking about burnout on this committee. 

I mean I'm looking at both of those things, conflict of 

interest and how we balance that in this subcommittee. 

And I'm also thinking about if you're going to meet --

this subcommittee's going to meet every month, that 

means an additional day when this committee meets, plus 

every month you're meeting. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Huge -- huge commitment. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Richard has a comment. 

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 MR. ESPINOSA: Just along the same lines with the 

conflict of interest, I'm just wondering if number five 

also needs to have taken into account Board members' 

conflict of interest --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: -- under the case selection. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that -- and that's sort of 

understood, but we could add it here, taking into 

consideration conflicts of interest. 

And then number -- number six is related to five, 

and that is assign individual reviews to Board review 

panels. Remember we talked about having subsets of the 

Board be review panels. Now a review panel would look 

more like a working group. It's ad hoc, like a one-time 

thing. And our thought was here, for example, there 

might be a group of cases -- I don't know how many it 

would be, but maybe a half a dozen cases -- and we would 

say okay, we would like Rich and Tony to sit down with 

the contractor and learn about those cases and then they 

would present them to the Board with a recommendation. 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) Or actually to the 

subcommittee (Inaudible) we were saying --

 DR. ZIEMER: Or to the subcommittee, it may be. 

But in any event, that was the idea here. Or it may 

just be one person, or two. But the idea here is an 

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idea that we talked about early on, having review 

panels. But these, insofar as they are ad hoc, like a 

one-time thing for that particular set of cases, we 

think those workgroups can meet with -- you know, in 

private -- 'cause they're going to be looking at 

specific cases -- with the contractor. The contractor 

basically would be presenting their findings to a couple 

of members of the Board, who would be preparing for the 

presentation and perhaps even preparing a recommendation 

for Board action, based on those --

 MS. HOMER: (Off microphone) That sounds -- I see 

no reason why (Inaudible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: That was our idea here. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And we think that would work. 

Working groups don't have to have a public meeting. 

There's not a quorum. They're not taking action on 

behalf of the Board. You can work with Privacy Actrelated data at that level. You can then turn to your 

summary of the review of that information and not speak 

about the privacy or the confidential information and 

avoid the Privacy Act problem from that point on. So we 

do think it -- this will work. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Rich? Thank you. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: I might be a little bit confused on 

this, but I thought in the prior meetings we talked 

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about de-identifying a lot of this stuff prior to the 

review panel. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Certainly be de-identifying the 

identity of the individuals. I'm not -- I'm not sure 

the extent to which the site would be unidentifiable. 

We --

 DR. MELIUS: We had -- go ahead, Larry. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, we -- yes, there's been a lot 

of discussion, Rich, over the course of time here on 

this point, and we've wrestled with this, and that's why 

I made this comment a moment ago that I think this will 

work where your work panels are actually dealing with 

real information on the cases in a private setting. And 

you know, it's like the closed sessions you have to come 

up with your independent government cost estimate, 

you're bound to protection of that information. 

We don't -- we have a great difficulty in figuring 

out how we can redact all information from all these 

case files to the point where an individual's privacy is 

protected. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: So it's --

 MR. ELLIOTT: In some cases, your reviews are going 

to touch on very few cases from a particular site, 

perhaps even targeted to a certain type of cancer, and 

all of a sudden -- it doesn't make any difference if you 

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don't have a name, Social Security number and address; 

everybody in the community might know who you're talking 

about. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I was just going to make a -- that's 

a much bigger point. I was just going to make a minor 

suggestion on number six that we -- just to be 

consistent with the top paragraph, that you just say and 

ensuring a balance of perspectives, especially since you 

may not even have three members on the panels, you know. 

I don't know if you can -- just a balance of 

perspectives instead of scientific, medical and worker. 

That's consistent with the top --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the other part was the conflict 

of interest part in number six, the parenthetical part. 

Oh, you have the balance in here. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, you're just saying a similar 

statement earlier. 

 MR. GRIFFON: As you did earlier in the top 

paragraph of this, yeah, in the charge -- or in the 

structure part. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, okay. And then seven, compiling 

recommendations and findings for submission to the 

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Board. 

And then the eighth one would cover things similar 

to what we just did on the letter from the Congressmen. 

It would be the first point of maybe preparing a 

response and bringing it to the Board type of thing. 

So there -- there you have it, and I -- there are 

still some issues in terms of change in membership, 

conflict of interest --

 MR. GRIFFON: Alternates. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Wanda, then Cori. 

 MS. MUNN: I just had a suggested language for the 

problem with respect to replacing and appointing. I was 

suggesting at the end of the second line, right after 

ABRH (sic), adding "appointed and/or replaced as deemed 

necessary by the Chair". As long as the Chair doesn't 

burn out, then that should work. 

 DR. ZIEMER: There are no guarantees. 

 DR. ANDRADE: I'm sorry, Wanda, could you repeat 

your words, please? 

 MS. MUNN: Yes, after ABRWH --

 DR. ANDRADE: Right. 

 MS. MUNN: -- "appointed and/or replaced as deemed 

necessary by the Chair". That leaves the Chair all the 

latitude necessary for special circumstances where he 

needs additional expertise for --

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 DR. ROESSLER: You're speaking of this -- this 

Chair? 

 MS. MUNN: The -- the Chair. 

 DR. ROESSLER: You've got two Chairs in that --

 DR. ZIEMER: The Board Chair. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah, the Board Chair. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Other items? Oh, Cori, yes. 

 MS. HOMER: Just a suggestion on number eight. 

There is nothing in number eight that says that it was -

- that it would be for submission or approval by the 

Board. And correspondence would be either approved by 

the Chair, signed by the Chair -- and the word 

"policies", I'd like to suggest that we use the word 

"practices", because the Board doesn't have an official 

policy on this, unless you'd care to develop a policy on 

that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Board practices. I --

 MS. HOMER: Or by standard practices or... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I understand -- a policy may 

have a very specific meaning in -- in --

 MS. HOMER: In the government, yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- in the government, and practices 

would be fine. For example, the Board, on these 

Congressional things, said that we would like these to 

come before us. That -- I'm interpreting it as a 

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policy, but you would say well, that -- that is a 

practice then. 

 MS. HOMER: Uh-huh, a little wordsmithing, but --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. So prepare responses for the --

for the Chair's signature is what you said here. 

 MS. HOMER: Well, the Board -- either the Chair's 

signature or submission to the full Board for their 

approval. I'm just kind of throwing terms out for you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. I think out intent here was 

that this -- this would be to prepare a draft for the 

Board's --

 MS. HOMER: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- action. So we have a number of 

items here, and I sit here looking at the time and I'm 

wondering if -- do we need a subcommittee before our 

next meeting? Because if we don't, I think I would like 

to see some cleaned-up language for our final action, 

'cause this becomes a fairly important entity as we go 

forward. I want to make sure that we have it properly 

structured. I think we're going to have to meet as a 

full Board to do the independent cost estimate, unless -

- although that is something I guess could be delegated 

if this were in place. 

 DR. MELIUS: I thought I asked that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But the limiting factor was that you 

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still have -- you still have to go through all the same 

steps. You just --

 MR. ELLIOTT: The subcommittee could develop it, 

but you'd still have to meet to approve it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You'd have to meet to approve it. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, so it doesn't -- it doesn't 

eliminate a meeting. 

 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right, so we might as well meet 

and do it --

 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) Yeah, yeah, okay, 

(Inaudible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: And that would be the most pressing 

thing. 

 DR. MELIUS: Why don't we continue with the working 

group to -- I mean you, Mark and Tony --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we --

 DR. MELIUS: -- continue to --

 DR. ZIEMER: That's what I was actually suggesting, 

that we take this input and come up with a revision to 

for a final look at the next meeting. I think we're 

okay time-wise in terms of not needing to have the 

subcommittee in place before our next meeting. Is -- is 

that agreeable? 

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 DR. MELIUS: Can I just mention one thing now 

'cause it may help. When I chaired the ATSDR board of 

scientific counselors we had -- we had a subcommittee 

structure set up. It was a little bit more complicated 

because it had special consultants and so forth, but 

there's some language from that charter that may be --

 DR. ZIEMER: That might be helpful to --

 DR. MELIUS: -- useful 'cause we included it when 

we --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- renewed the -- the charter. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So we're taking most of these as kind 

of friendly amendments right now, but what I'm going to 

suggest here, and we'll hear from Cori again, is a 

motion to remand this document back to the working group 

for additional work. In effect it tables it to the next 

meeting. Cori? 

 MS. HOMER: Just a couple of things very quickly. 

For the Buffalo meeting, if you want to get me your 

travel plans as quickly as possible. 

Also for those who are attending the tour of the 

Hanford facility tomorrow, dress comfortably, no 

electronics. And if you've read the agenda, you see 

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that we're meeting downstairs prior to 8:00 a.m. The 

Federal Building is directly across the street, but due 

to Wanda's management we have been able to add the B 

reactor to the tour. But we have to be over to the 

Federal Building by 7:00 a.m. So if you want to meet 

downstairs no later than 6:45, if you miss 6:45, you're 

going to miss the tour. 

 MS. MUNN: Don't forget picture I.D. 

 MS. HOMER: And bring a picture I.D., absolutely. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Now back to our 

document here, I'm -- the Chair's calling for a motion 

to refer this back to the committee -- the working group 

for additional work for consideration at our next full 

Board meeting. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: So moved. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So moved, and seconded? 

 MR. PRESLEY: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any discussion? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Perhaps not, since it's in effect a 

motion to table, no discussion allowed. 

All in favor, aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Opposed? 

 (No responses) 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Motion carries, and we will refer that 

back for input and additional work. 

 DR. MELIUS: I just want to thank Tony, Paul and 

Mark 'cause I think this was a -- really moved us along 

a lot on these issues, so --

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

THE COURT REPORTER: Dr. Ziemer, who motioned and 

seconded that? I didn't --

 DR. ZIEMER: Did Rich make the motion? 

 MR. ESPINOSA: I made a motion, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And who seconded? 

UNIDENTIFIED: Bob Presley. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Bob seconded it. 

 DR. MELIUS: We have the next meeting date, also 

(Inaudible) work out? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now we're up to our final item here I 

think today is calendars. Do we have anything else 

besides our calendars? Okay, time to boot up. I'm 

ready. 

Now I want to ask about the -- the task. The task 

is ready. We need the independent government cost 

estimate. So if -- if that doesn't occur till June, 

then we're into July before the document reviews begin. 

UNIDENTIFIED: So you're looking at a one-day Board 

meeting? 

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 DR. ZIEMER: On the other hand, if we -- if we can 

have a meeting earlier -- and this would be like a halfday meeting, I think -- we -- we could take care of that 

item of business. This would be a closed session. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: If I may, I'd propose you do it like 

you did last time, come to Cincinnati. We'd hold it at 

that hotel by the airport, a nice place, and... 

 DR. ZIEMER: What has to happen before -- we have 

to have the Federal Register notice, which -- what do we 

need, two weeks? 

 MS. HOMER: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) days 

notice. I have to give it to (on microphone) committee 

management 30 days prior to the meeting. We can rush it 

through if it's --

 DR. ZIEMER: If it -- if we --

 MS. HOMER: -- three -- or two weeks prior, but I 

also need the determination to close, and --

 DR. ZIEMER: Today --

 MS. HOMER: -- OGC needs to be able to review that, 

so --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, and today is the 21st, so we're 

talking about roughly third week in May, huh? 

 MS. HOMER: Roughly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let -- let me start out with May 21st. 

 MS. HOMER: Okay. 

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 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) On Friday? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Friday, May 21st -- oh, Rich. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: I agree with what Larry is saying, 

you know, is take it to Cincinnati. I think it'll be, 

you know, convenient for everybody. However, I really 

believe that this meeting should be held in the 

afternoon to where people can fly in on the same day and 

not -- the last meeting that we had in Cincinnati, I 

believe it was held in the morning and --

 DR. ZIEMER: It's really difficult for those who 

come from a distance, yes. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, so if we can hold it in the 

afternoon, I know myself can make it there by 12:00 or 

so. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any reason why it couldn't be 

afternoon? 

 MS. HOMER: No reason. 

 MS. MUNN: I'd have to come the night before --

 DR. ZIEMER: Anyway, but a lot of -- lot of folks 

could come in that morning. I could do that, myself, 

but -- thanks. 

 MS. HOMER: Oh, I have a meeting in Washington I 

have to be at that day. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so the 21st is out -- 20th or --

 MS. HOMER: I'm there on the 20th, as well. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, that's out. How about the 24th 

-- week of the 24th, let's start there. Is that a 

holiday? 

 MS. HOMER: What about the 25th? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

Memorial Day? 

 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) No, the 24th is not, 

the 31st is --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 31st is Memorial 

Day. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The 24th is Victoria Day in Canada. 

We can't meet then. 

 DR. MELIUS: No, I have a -- the holiday's the 31st 

'cause I have a -- I have a conflict most of that week, 

but --

 DR. ZIEMER: The week of the 24th is bad? 

 DR. MELIUS: For me it is. 

 MS. MUNN: It's bad for me. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Bad, bad, bad. Okay. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: Can we go back to the beginning --

 MS. HOMER: What about the --

 MR. ESPINOSA: -- of May --

 MS. HOMER: -- 17th? 

 MR. ESPINOSA: -- or to the --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, okay, Cori, going before the 30 

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days? 

 MS. HOMER: 

 DR. ZIEMER: 

 MS. HOMER: 

 DR. ZIEMER: 

Sure, I think we can manage that, yeah. 

Okay, earlier in the -- how about --

It's close, but we can manage it. 

-- Monday the 17th? For whom is it 

bad? Okay, 18th? The entire week is bad. 

 MS. HOMER: Well, we'll just have to rush, won't 

we? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me also point out that we -- not 

that everyone isn't valuable, but if we can do this in a 

quorum, we can do it. If one person can't come, I would 

say -- and the rest can, we probably should go ahead. 

We need to get this done. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: Well, Cori and Tony are in 

Washington, why don't we take it to Washington? 

 DR. ZIEMER: 17th -- Tony, you're bad all week. 

Right? Anyone else bad on the 17th? Any preferences 

for later in the week -- 18th? 

 MR. ESPINOSA: The 18th would be a lot better for 

me. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The 18th is better. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: The 17th will work. 

 DR. MELIUS: The 18th you lose me. 

 DR. ZIEMER: 18th --

 DR. MELIUS: 18th, 19th and 20th. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: 17th's better. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So we start to lose more people --

17th's still doable with some effort? 

 MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Afternoon of the 17th, Cincinnati. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: Well, since it's on a --

 MS. HOMER: From 1:00 till --

 MR. ESPINOSA: -- since we're flying out on --

since it's a holi-- since it's a weekend the week before 

or the day before, we can do it in the morning. I don't 

 DR. ZIEMER: You want to do morning then? 

 MR. ESPINOSA: It doesn't matter if we do it in the 

morning if I have to fly on a Saturday -- or a Saturday 

or Sunday, you know, but if we're going to do it in the 

week, I would rather --

 DR. ZIEMER: I gotcha. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: -- do it in the afternoon. 

 DR. ROESSLER: You can leave in the afternoon. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Late in the afternoon. 

 DR. ZIEMER: All right, we're back to morning, 

Cori. 

 MS. HOMER: We're back to mornings. What time did 

you want to start? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think a 9:00 o'clock is fine. Those 

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coming from the west coast, it's pretty early. Even 

9:00 o'clock is early. 

 MS. MUNN: 9:00 is fine. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: 9:00's fine. 

 DR. ZIEMER: 9:00 o'clock. Now we still have a 

June meeting in Buffalo, June 2nd. 

 MS. HOMER: Yes, you do, June 2nd and 3rd. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Full-fledged meeting in Buffalo. 

 MS. HOMER: Full meeting. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Do you want to go beyond --

 MS. HOMER: That would be helpful. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- June? We were talking about 

August. 

 MS. HOMER: We'll need dates and a location. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's -- let's look at August and see 

what we have. 

 DR. MELIUS: Can we do location first, 'cause that 

-- given -- if it's on the west coast or east coast it 

makes difference --

 DR. ZIEMER: It makes a difference --

 DR. MELIUS: -- in some of our calendars. 

 DR. ZIEMER: What did we have on the list of --

 MS. HOMER: The last time we had Buffalo and Idaho 

Falls on the list. There are a few places we haven't 

been to yet. I believe Texas, Nashville, San Francisco, 

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 MR. ESPINOSA: I'd like to make a suggestion of San 

Francisco. 

 MS. HOMER: -- in addition to Idaho Falls. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: You guys are going to let me watch 

Barry Bonds play, so... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Actually if we're going to do Idaho 

Falls, that might not be a bad time to do Idaho. 

 MS. HOMER: That would be a very good time to be in 

Idaho Falls. 

 DR. ROESSLER: It doesn't snow in August then? 

 MS. HOMER: Not yet. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Get early August, you might be all 

right. 

 MS. HOMER: Early August it should be okay. 

 DR. ROESSLER: I should talk. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's see how the calendars look and 

give -- give Cori some -- some dates. Week of August 

2nd --

 DR. MELIUS: Week of August 2nd and 9th, I'm bad on 

both of those. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You're bad on both weeks? Okay. 

 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) I'm (Inaudible) 

those two weeks, too. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And actually Anderson is bad the first 

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week of August. How's --

 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) fishing 

may be in Idaho, so --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- August -- week of August 16th, how 

are we looking there? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's not a good week. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Not a good week for anyone in NIOSH? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Not for me. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, week of the 23rd. Okay, who --

who has conflicts August 23rd, 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th? No 

conflicts? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) earlier 

on in the week. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, on the 25th and 26th it's kind 

of iffy for me, so very late in the week --

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's -- let's look at 23rd and 24th 

or 24th and 25th, depending on what Cori can find for 

arrangements then. 

 MS. HOMER: Okay, let me pose a question, though. 

If you have a subcommittee in place by that time, will 

you require additional time? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think the answer is going to be yes, 

so let's meet on the 24th and 5th and the subcommittee 

could come in on the day before, if needed, 'cause the 

subcommittee would have to meet first to prepare things 

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for the main meeting. 

 MS. HOMER: Okay. Idaho Falls is your primary. Do 

you have a secondary choice? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: In August? 

 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) San Francisco. San 

Francisco. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Amarillo in August. What were the 

other ones? 

 MS. HOMER: Let me think. Let's see, we have --

there's Texas, Nashville, San Francisco, south Florida, 

I guess -- did I mention Pinellas? Pittsburgh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But there's really nothing to see in 

Pinellas anymore. Are there many people -- I mean that 

 MS. HOMER: I don't know if there's interest at 

Pinellas or not. 

 DR. ZIEMER: There was really not very much 

radiation work done at Pinellas. It was primarily a --

 MS. HOMER: Is there another site that has had 

renewed interest or a spike of interest lately, since 

we've already been there? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I would offer this, that Denise Brock 

always wants us back in St. Louis, and we -- NIOSH is 

committed to go back there at some point in time, but 

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whether the Board wants to or not, that's another story. 

But... 

 MR. ESPINOSA: I'd like to extend the offer to New 

Mexico, as well. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we've been to -- we've been to 

Albuquerque, though -- or Santa Fe, actually. 

 MS. HOMER: Santa Fe. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So we've been near the Los Alamos 

site. 

 DR. ROESSLER: How about San Francisco? 

 DR. ZIEMER: San Francisco as --

 MS. HOMER: As an alternate? Okay. 

 DR. MELIUS: Booking that in August will be tough. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, probably. I suspect Idaho Falls 

won't be a problem getting in, but see what you can find 

out. 

 MS. HOMER: We might, there's a contract renewal 

going on right now, so -- but if we have any difficulty, 

I'll pose the question again. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: You know, it might not be the time of 

year, but there might be -- Washington, D.C., we haven't 

had a meeting there in a while, and there's other people 

that show up at those meetings that are interested in 

this process. And we might have an SEC rule to look at, 

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you know. Who knows? 

 DR. ZIEMER: True. 

 MS. MUNN: Let's don't do that in August. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it's nice and warm -- like a 

sauna. Yeah, I know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that can be a tertiary site, if 

necessary, Washington, D.C. Thank you. 

Do we have other items that need to come before 

this Board today? Rich, please. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: I like the way the schedule's being 

set up as the public comment -- to where the public can 

come in in the later evening. However, coming in at 

9:00 and then breaking for three hours, I just don't see 

the need in it. What I would like to see is maybe the 

Board starting at 1:00 or 2:00 o'clock and deliberating 

throughout to where the public can come in as they get 

off of work, hear what we have to say, and then make 

public comments based on the Board's deliberation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So your suggestion would be a 

meeting that started closer to midday and then went on 

through with a supper break or -- maybe start it right 

after lunch and went through to --

 MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- supper break. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: -- exactly. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: How do others of you react to that 

idea? 

 MR. PRESLEY: I'd rather have a break in the 

afternoon. I hate to say that, but I would. 

 DR. ZIEMER: What about the rest of you, pro or 

con? 

 DR. MELIUS: It's -- yeah, there's no easy way of 

doing it is the -- is the problem. And as I say, it was 

-- started to think, well, if we have a subcommittee 

meet in the morning, but then by 8:00 o'clock they'll be 

worn out and -- which isn't fair to them, though -- I 

mean in terms of scheduling. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it's an idea to consider in the 

future, and we appreciate that recommendation and --

 DR. MELIUS: And it actually may depend on where 

we're --

 DR. ZIEMER: Where we are and --

 DR. MELIUS: -- where we're meeting and --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the local conditions, yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- yeah, and do that. 

 MS. HOMER: Just from a logistics point of view, 

setting up for an evening session, depending on the 

interest that we receive in the area, that -- that 

dinner break gives us some time to clean up, reset and 

expand if we need to. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Which was the case here, yes. Thank 

you. 

 DR. MELIUS: But I -- my understanding is correct, 

for -- like for Buffalo, Larry has a -- there's a public 

meeting of some sort up there in May? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, so a month before our meeting, 

so I'm not sure there'll be as much interest in an 

evening -- there may be more, I don't... 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, so I don't -- I don't know if we 

can --

 DR. MELIUS: No, I'm just saying it's --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- prejudge that. Let's make the 

opportunity available and see how it goes. Thank you. 

Any other items to come before the Board at this 

meeting? Anything for the good of the order? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: If not, we stand adjourned. 

(Meeting adjourned 4:50 p.m.) 

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234 

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2 C E R T I F I C A T E 

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7 STATE OF GEORGIA )

8 )

9 COUNTY OF FULTON )

10 

11 

12 I, STEVEN RAY GREEN, being a Certified Merit Court 

13 Reporter in and for the State of Georgia, do hereby certify 

14 that the foregoing transcript was reduced to typewriting by 

15 me personally or under my direct supervision, and is a true, 

16 complete, and correct transcript of the aforesaid proceedings 

17 reported by me. 

18 I further certify that I am not related to, employed by, 

19 counsel to, or attorney for any parties, attorneys, or 

20 counsel involved herein; nor am I financially interested in 

21 this matter. 

22 WITNESS MY HAND AND OFFICIAL SEAL this _____ day of May, 

23 2004. 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 ___________________________ 29 STEVEN RAY GREEN, CVR-CM 

30 GA CCR No. A-2102 

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