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 

THIRTY-THIRD MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

VOL. III 

DAY TWO 

ABRWH BOARD MEETING
 

The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health held 

at the Knoxville Marriott, Knoxville, Tennessee, on 

October 18, 2005. 
 

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C O N T E N T S 

October 18, 2005 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR

DR. LEW WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

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CONFLICT OF INTEREST 

MS. EMILY HOWELL 

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REPORT FROM SUBCOMMITTEE: 

BETHLEHEM STEEL SITE PROFILE 13 

REPORT FROM SUBCOMMITTEE: 

SRS SITE PROFILE 60 

REPORT FROM SUBCOMMITTEE: 

Y-12 SITE PROFILE 83 

REPORT FROM SUBCOMMITTEE: 

ROCKY FLATS 122 

REPORT FROM SUBCOMMITTEE: 

SC&A CONTRACT TASK III 129 

SC&A CONTRACT TASK IV UPDATED PROPOSAL 

DR. LEW WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

DAVID STAUDT, telephonically 

PROGRAM UPDATES 

NIOSH, MR. LARRY ELLIOTT

DOL, MR. JEFFREY KOTSCH 

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237 

260 

GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT 293 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 369 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

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

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

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

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

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

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

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
 

 

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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 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D.

Senior Science Advisor 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

MEMBERSHIP 

ANDERSON, Henry A., M.D.

Chief Medical Officer 

Occupational and Environmental Health

Wisconsin Division of Public Health 

Madison, Wisconsin 

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

Director 

The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental

Medicine 

Professor of Medicine 

Nashville, Tennessee 

ESPINOSA, Richard Lee

Sheet Metal Workers Union Local #49 

Johnson Controls 

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Espanola, New Mexico 
 

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GIBSON, Michael H.

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A.

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc.

Salem, New Hampshire 

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

Director 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund

Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I.

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired)

Richland, Washington 

OWENS, Charles Leon

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-550 

Paducah, Kentucky 

PRESLEY, Robert W.

Special Projects Engineer

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida

Elysian, Minnesota 

STAFF/VENDORS 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH

STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 
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AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS 

ADCOCK, DAVID, Y-12

ANDERSON, LYNN, SRS

AUSTIN, VESTAL, HHS

BEATTY, EVERETT RAY, SR., FERNALD ATOMIC COUNCIL

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A

BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A

BOGARD, RHONDA, Y-12

BOND, GINNY, PRESENTER

BOND, JOHN B.

BOWERS, MARTHA P., Y-12

BROCK, JERRY, K-25

BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON OFFICE

BRYNESTAD, ASTRIS, Y-12

CHANG, CHIA-CHIA, NIOSH

CLELAND, REINA

COX, IMOGENE R., K-25

CRAGLE, DONNA L., ORAU-T

CROWE, BILL, X-10

CROWE, ED, X-10

DEHART, JULIA

DUNCAN, ASPASCIA, CLAIMANT SPOUSE

DUNCAN, THOMAS N., BWXT Y12

ELLIOTT, CHARLES C.

ELLIOTT, CONNIE, ENERGY RESERVE CENTER

ELLIOTT, HAZEL C., Y-12/K-25

ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH/OCAS

FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A

HALL, HUBERT T.

HALL, LAWRENCE R., X-10

HENSHAW, RUSS, NIOSH/OCAS

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS

HUMPHREYS, IDA, Y-12 X-10

ISHAK, LAURIE, OCAS

JENSEN, CAROLYN, SEN. FRIST

JOHNSON, RAY, Y-12

KATZ, TED, NIOSH

KERR, ,GEORGE, KERR CONSULTING

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 
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LAWSON, J.H., BWXT-Y12/ATLC

LAWSON, RANDY, Y-12/IGUA

LAYMAN, RANDY D., CLAIMANT

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

MCCOSH, CAROLYN, Y-12

MCNAMARA, CATHERINE, Y-12/K-25

MILLER, RELADA, NIOSH/OCAS

MUMMA, ROBBIN, Y-12 CLAIMANT

PIERCE, WILLIAM, X10-Y12-K25 K33

POTTER, HERMAN

PRESLEY, LOUISE S., WIFE OF ROBERT PRESLEY

ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A

RYAN, MAXINE, Y-12

SAMPSON, BOB, GAO

SCHAUER, DAVID, NCRP

SCHNORR, TERRI, NIOSH

SCHUBAUER-BERIGAN, MARY, NIOSH

SIMS, JOHN, IGUA

SMITH, EARL H., K-25

SMITH, KAREN D., Y-12

SMITH, THOMAS, Y-12/K-25

SNELLINGS, HOWARD

STANSBERRY, JENNIFER, CONG. JOHN DUNCAN, JR.

STEWARD, JOHN, USW/ETTP

TOOHEY, RICHARD, ORAU

ULSH, BRENT, NIOSH

WALKER, ED & JOYCE, BSAG

WHELAHAN, CHARLOTTE K.

WONG, GLENDA, NIOSH

WOODY, RUTH, CLAIMANT

WORMSLEY, PATSY E., Y-12

WRIGHT, BETTY R., Y-12

ZIEMER, MARILYN 
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P R O C E E D I N G S 

(8:45 a.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. I'd like 

to call the meeting to order. This is the 

official opening of the 33rd meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 

Let the record show that we have a quorum. Mr. 

Griffon is also going to join us in a few 

minutes. Dr. Melius will be joining us later 

today. But there is a quorum and we will 

proceed. 

Some general information and announcements 

again. My usual reminder to you, to please 

register your attendance in the registration 

book out in the foyer. Also, those members of 

the public wishing to address the assembly at 

the session this evening, please sign up on -- 

in the booklet out in the foyer, as well. 

There are a number of handouts, copies of the 

agenda and related materials, on the table in 

the back of this room. If you have not already 

done so, please avail yourselves of those. 

We will try to follow the agenda as it's set 

forth. However, the times may be adjusted 

accordingly as various discussions occur and 
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things take longer or not as long as planned 

for, so there will be some flexibility in terms 

of when certain things begin and end. But we 

will plan to follow the agenda as it's set 

forth. 

This is, as I said, our 33rd meeting. It's 

actually the second time that this Board has 

met in east Tennessee. We had a previous 

meeting in Oak Ridge, but we're pleased to be 

back in Knoxville and an opportunity to 

interact with some of the local folks here, as 

well as others who have joined us. 

Let me ask our Designated Federal Official, 

Lewis Wade, to make a few remarks, as well. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you, Paul. I'd like to 

welcome you all to this meeting, and bring you 

welcome from Secretary Leavitt and the Director 

of CDC, Dr. Gerberding, and also from my boss, 

John Howard, the Director of NIOSH. 

 The subcommittee met yesterday, had a very 

productive day, and I'm looking forward to a 

very productive meeting of the full committee. 

Just to keep you up on things, on Friday of 

last week Secretary Leavitt signed the 

determination of adding Mallinckrodt as a class 
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to the SEC, following your recommendation, and 

has sent that on to Congress. I join the 

Secretary and John in thanking you for your 

deliberations on a very difficult issue, and 

I'm pleased that the Secretary has acted 

consistent with your recommendation. 

I'd like to remind you of some things in your 

immediate future that I think sort of flow from 

lessons we've learned with regard to 

Mallinckrodt. It is quite likely that at the 

scheduled meeting at the end of January the 

Board will have to consider SEC petitions for 

Rocky Flats and the later years of Y-12. 

As you know, we're now working actively on site 

profiles related to those two facilities. I 

think it's terribly important that the Board 

considers its actions leading up to the January 

meeting to see that you are ready to vote on 

the site prof-- on the SEC petitions. We have 

available subcommittee and working group and 

other opportunities for the Board's -- the 

Board to get together. 

There is no requirement that we look at those 

petitions at the end of January, although I 

think it is right for us to do work in a timely 
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fashion. If for any reason we find we would 

not be ready to give full consideration to 

those SEC petitions at the end of January, we 

could consider moving them to a later meeting, 

although I wouldn't hold that out as the first 

option. I think the important thing to do is 

to complete all work on the site profiles for 

Y-12 and Rocky Flats so that we can look at the 

SEC petitions in a timely way in January. 

But again, we learned a lesson in Mallinckrodt 

that it is very difficult to juggle a site 

profile and an SEC petition at the same time, 

so I think it's important that we keep our eye 

on future activities and take actions 

consistent with prudent action on the SEC 

petitions. Hopefully that's not too confusing. 

I think we have the opportunity to do it right, 

and I think we're wiser by the Mallinckrodt 

experience, so thank you. 

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

for those comments and general direction as to 

upcoming events for this particular Board. 

We have on our agenda the approval of minutes. 

Those minutes were distributed to the Board 

yesterday. Some of the Board members have just 
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joined us this morning and have not had the 

opportunity to review those minutes, so without 

objection, I'm going to defer action on these 

minutes until tomorrow, so those who joined us 

today will have a chance to read through them 

before we take formal action. But Leon and 

Rich, particularly, make sure that you got 

copies of those minutes that were distributed. 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST 

One other thing that we did yesterday, and I 

think I'm going to, in a sense, repeat it for 

the benefit of those who were not with us. We 

had brief discussion from counsel about 

conflict of interest and participation in 

discussions involving site profiles, as well as 

SEC petitions. And Liz, would you be willing 

to -- oh, okay, this is -- yeah. Liz's cocounsel here, and for the record, introduce 

yourself also, please. 

 MS. HOWELL: I'm Emily Howell. I'm with HHS 

OGC, as well. We just wanted to make everyone 

on the Board aware that as the Board discusses 

site profiles you are free to discuss a site 

profile where you may have a conflict of 

interest. However, if the Board does take any 
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official action, you will need to -- not 

necessarily move away from the table, as we ask 

you to do when approving or disapproving SEC 

petitions, but avoid voting on that issue. Any 

site prof-- any site where you have a conflict 

that's in your memo waiver that you received 

from CDC, you will need to do that with -- 

regardless of the length of time that you 

worked at that site. And if you have any 

questions, please approach Liz or I. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. So the real difference 

is that you can enter into debate on site 

profile issues, even though it's a site where 

you have worked. Okay. But have to abstain 

from voting.

REPORT FROM SUBCOMMITTEE: 

BETHLEHEM STEEL SITE PROFILE 

Now we'll move into the issues relating to 

Bethlehem Steel site profile, and as we lead 

off here I'm going to call on Jason -- Jason, I 

have trouble pronouncing your last name, so 

you'll have to -- I can spell it, but I can't 

pronounce it, so --

 MR. BROEHM: Okay. Well, you're in good 

company. It's -- it's pronounced Breem (ph.). 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, B-r-o-c-h--
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 MR. BROEHM: e-h-m. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- e-h-m. And Jason is 

Congressional liaison for CDC, and he did read 

into the record yesterday one letter, and we 

have some additional ones, and I think they 

relate to Bethlehem. Is that not correct? 

 MR. BROEHM: Yes, all three do. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So this would be an appropriate 

time for you to read those. 

 MR. BROEHM: Okay. Well, yesterday I read the 

statement that we had from Senator Charles 

Schumer from New York. And since then I have 

also received letters -- or statements from 

Representative Louise Slaughter and 

Representative Brian Higgins, also both from 

New York. 

So I'll start off with Senator Schumer's 

statement. (Reading) Mr. Chairman, thank you 

for allowing me to submit testimony to the 

Board regarding Bethlehem Steel. Thousands of 

New Yorkers labored during the late 1940's and 

early 1950's in ultra-hazardous conditions at 

Department of Energy and contractor facilities 

while being unaware of the health risks. 

 Workers at these facilities handled high levels 
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of radioactive materials and were responsible 

for helping to create the huge nuclear arsenal 

that served as a deterrent to the Soviet Union 

during the Cold War. Although government 

scientists knew of the dangers posed by the 

radiation, workers were given little or no 

protection, and many have been diagnosed with 

cancer. 

Despite having one of the greatest 

concentrations of facilities involved in 

nuclear weapons production-related activities 

in the nation, western New York continues to be 

severely under-served by the Energy Employees 

Occupational Illness Compensation Program. I'm 

aware that many positive steps have been taken 

in the past few months regarding the Bethlehem 

Steel site profiles, but I do not feel that 

worker concerns are being adequately addressed, 

or that workers are going to be adequately 

compensated. 

Eddie Walker has been a tireless advocate for 

former Bethlehem Steel workers, and I share 

many of his concerns. For example, has 

residual radiation between rollings and after 

rollings been evaluated to the fullest? I have 
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a hard time believing that such a large steel 

mill could be completely cleaned of uranium 

dust simply by using a vacuum. Without proper 

decontamination after a rolling, it is likely 

that uranium dust would still be present 

throughout a plant of this size, therefore 

making residual radiation a hazard for all 

workers. 

In the latest S. Cohen & Associates report on 

Bethlehem air data released on October 14th, 

2005, an interview with a former worker states 

just this, quote, The repair and machine of the 

rollers, which would carry residual dust from 

the rolling area, was done in the machine shop 

according to the schedule of the shop. Which 

means that it was likely that it was done on 

days which uranium was not being rolled, 

unquote. 

In meetings I've had with former workers, they 

tell me that they were surrounded by uranium 

billets and/or dust all day long. Some even 

told me that they had to remove uranium flakes 

from inside their coffee mugs. Has site expert 

information and worker interviews truly been 

taken into account? S. Cohen & Associates has 
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repeatedly stated that airborne dust was 

unlikely to be the main contributor to 

ingestion dose, both in the first review in 

October, 2004 and in the last -- the latest 

document on October 14th, 2005. Worker 

interviews done by S. Cohen & Associates also 

state that workers were required to be at the 

rolling stand all day, even during lunch. Many 

workers ate their lunch in the rolling area 

because adjustments to rollers were constantly 

necessary. 

I cannot stress how important it is to speak 

with former workers and site experts to come up 

with a proper ingestion model. The bottom line 

is, this latest document from S. Cohen & 

Associates clearly supports what Mr. Walker and 

other former workers have been saying from day 

one. If an accurate dose reconstruction model 

cannot be formulated from Bethlehem Steel 

information, then these workers should be 

awarded a Special Exposure Cohort, plain and 

simple. Using air sample data from Simonds Saw 

and Steel in place of Bethlehem Steel data is 

based on assumptions rather than on sound 

science. 
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On July 27th, 2005 Senator Clinton and I, along 

with our colleagues in the House of 

Representatives, introduced S. 1506, which 

would amend the Energy Employees Occupational 

Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 to 

include certain former nuclear weapons program 

workers in a Special Exposure Cohort under the 

Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

Compensation Program. Our bill would correct 

years of injustice for western New York's 

nuclear workers. After the sacrifice these 

Cold War heroes made for our country, they have 

waited far too long. Being added to the cohort 

means that these former employees do not have 

to go through a dose reconstruction process. 

Instead, if a person has an eligible cancer and 

worked at a facility where weapons work was 

performed, their cancer is presumed to have 

been caused by workplace exposure and the 

person's claim is paid. This bill would 

finally put the former workers on the path to 

getting the recognition and compensation they 

deserve, and this is how we should correct this 

wrongdoing, not by endless bureaucratic red 

tape. 
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Again, I thank the Chairman and the Board 

members for allowing me to submit testimony on 

behalf of the former nuclear workers of New 

York. 

Next I will read a letter from Representative 

Louise Slaughter. (Reading) Dear Members of 

the Advisory Board, as you consider the 

Bethlehem Steel site profile I respectfully 

request that before you finalize this important 

document you satisfactorily investigate the 

following concerns and consider designating 

Bethlehem Steel as a Special Exposure Cohort. 

 The site profile relies on data that we believe 

is flawed. Data used to measure the air 

quality was approximately 500 feet away from 

where the rolling of uranium actually took 

place, therefore it does not accurately reflect 

the air quality breathed by the workers rolling 

uranium; hence the air data samples are 

inaccurate measures for a dose reconstruction 

formula and must be recalculated. 

Moreover, the data reflected in the site 

profile was not taken from Bethlehem Steel, but 

rather from the nearby Simonds Saw facility. 

To compare a small, out-dated facility, Simonds 
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Saw, to the state-of-the-art Bethlehem 

facility, quote, a high-speed continuous 

rolling mill, unquote, is grossly negligent and 

unacceptable. At the time of the uranium 

rollings, Bethlehem Steel was the only site in 

the country with a continuous rolling mill. 

Therefore, no other facility can provide a fair 

comparison to Bethlehem Steel, nor should data 

from other facilities suffice to reflect the 

conditions at Bethlehem Steel. 

I understand that recently air concentration 

data from Bethlehem Steel has become available, 

and I respectfully request that the National 

Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

(NIOSH) review and utilize this information in 

the site profile. 

Another failing in this process is that prior 

to drafting the Bethlehem Steel Corporation 

Technical Base (sic) Document, NIOSH had not 

interviewed any site experts from the company. 

Despite neglecting to gather the complete data 

and interviewing former workers and experts, 

NIOSH began denying claims nearly 16 months 

prior to the July 1st, 2004 site expert meeting 

in Hamburg, New York. Furthermore, at the 
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July, 2004 meeting NIOSH showed little interest 

or desire to pursue any of the information 

offered by former Bethlehem Steel workers. 

These workers could have been instrumental in 

recreating the conditions under which they 

worked. Thusly, the basic technical facts of 

the rolling procedure at Bethlehem Steel were 

not known by NIOSH prior to the Technical Base 

(sic) Document approval. 

 Therefore, I believe an accurate formula for 

dose reconstruction cannot be reflected in the 

site profile. With the inconsistencies and 

inaccuracies, despite four years of research, 

clearly NIOSH has not demonstrated that the 

dose reconstruction formula will accurately 

reflect the conditions at Bethlehem Steel. 

 Four governmental sites have already been 

designated as Special Exposure Cohorts. While 

none of these sites had to go through a dose 

reconstruction phase, many workers from these 

sites suffering from cancers identical to those 

manifesting in Bethlehem Steel workers are 

already being compensated for their illness. 

Bethlehem Steel employees worked unprotected, 

unmonitored, for the duration of the uranium 
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rollings. They and their families have waited 

far too long to be compensated for their 

important service to their country. I urge you 

as Advisory Board members to recommend a 

Special Exposure Cohort for Bethlehem Steel and 

give them the compensation these dedicated 

workers rightly deserve without further delay. 

Thank you. 

And finally, I have a statement from 

Representative Brian Higgins. (Reading) It has 

been brought to my attention that the 

Presidential Advisory Board will meet in 

Knoxville, Tennessee on October 17th and 18th. 

Among the topics to be discussed is the site 

profile dose reconstruction for the Bethlehem 

Steel site in Lackawanna, New York. 

Many western New Yorker claimants are concerned 

that the data used to develop the Bethlehem 

dose reconstruction is flawed. I was told that 

the copies of the air sampling reports 

initially used were illegible, and that only 

within the past few weeks the original records 

were made available. This actual data for 

rollings completed in 1951 and 1952 are now 

exact but the actual dose reconstruction 
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remains largely incomplete. 

 Please remember that the Bethlehem site was 

enormous, three times the size of a football 

field, and it is essential that significant 

adjustments be made to accurately reflect the 

air quality in the breathing zone as opposed to 

the tested areas. My friend and constituent, 

Ed Walker, indicated to me that Sanford Cohen & 

Associates will be filing a report for your 

review that clearly makes the case that 

adjustments to the actual records have to be 

made to fairly establish the breathing zone. 

 The inconsistencies and lack of accurate data 

in developing the Bethlehem site profile and 

dose reconstruction are the primary reasons my 

colleagues and I introduced legislation that 

provides Special Exposure Cohort status to this 

site. 

 Please understand that we will not rest until 

justice is received on behalf of the workers 

who served this nation without questioning any 

ill effects to their health. I'm unable to be 

in attendance next week, but I would appreciate 

having my concerns read into the record of the 

proceedings. 
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 Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Jason. Now 

before we get into our own deliberations on 

Bethlehem Steel, I want to give an opportunity 

for Mr. Walker also to address the assembly. 

Ed has -- as I indicated yesterday, Ed drove 

out here from New York to be with us for this 

session. He does have to return soon and will 

not be here for the public comment session this 

evening, so we're going to give -- without 

objection, give Mr. Walker an opportunity to 

make some remarks relating to that facility. 

 Ed, welcome. 

 MR. WALKER: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer and the 

Board, and I really appreciate you letting me 

speak early because I'm going to shuffle off to 

Buffalo shortly and I get a good start with 

this nice weather that you're having down here. 

Again, I -- I appreciate and I -- I thoroughly 

understand the complex (unintelligible) of this 

program, and I really -- I was a builder all my 

life. I didn't experience anything like this. 

My life was simple. Build me a house or build 

me a garage, a dealership somewhere, and it was 

simple. I took the plans, I went and I built 
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it and listened to the complaints and went home 

-- with little money, by the way. But to get 

involved in all these issues that NIOSH and the 

Board -- for as long as it's been going on and 

not being able to come to a conclusion is -- to 

me, is mind-boggling. I don't know how any of 

you do it, going through the records. My wife 

hasn't seen her dining room table in two years, 

and I'm just worried about Bethlehem Steel. So 

I really appreciate what you're all doing. No 

matter how it turns out, I really respect 

everyone in this room for it. 

Most of the issues you heard were -- by these 

Congressional people who I've obviously 

listened to them and listened to me -- they 

listened to me -- and -- and they feel that we 

do deserve a Special Exposure Cohort. And it's 

not by chance. It's not because I paid them 

off. It's because they listened to what I had 

to say and they believed that we were 

mistreated. And no matter how this scientific 

program goes and whether there was a 

(unintelligible) or whether I stuck my head 

over a salt bath and how much did I breathe in, 

or how much did every day -- what degree did we 
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lose this uranium in the air that it wouldn't 

affect me anymore, and to tell me I only 

received it the hours I worked there and if I 

was there during the week there was none there, 

to me is just unbelievable. I know they've 

tried hard and they've got all these things 

from somewhere else, but nobody came to 

Bethlehem Steel. Nobody knows. I have 

videotapes showing the conditions and I almost 

was going to call and ask if we could -- I 

could just show some of these film clips from 

the time that these people worked down at 

Bethlehem Steel, because you couldn't see 30 to 

50 feet. And there's actually -- there's 

actually photographs of rollings where men were 

standing there in coats and goggles was all 

they had on and was heating stuff and the dust 

and everything was coming up that you couldn't 

see. I -- and maybe it'll have to come to 

that. Maybe I'll have to request that. I 

don't know where the next meeting is -- I hope 

it's in Buffalo -- but I would like you people 

to actually see it, to really understand that 

these air samples -- it just isn't -- it isn't 

right. I mean it's so obvious when you look at 
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it. When you can't see -- and this was quoted 

by one of our expert witnesses that worked 

there. He was a super at the plant. He 

scheduled everybody, the 60 men, where they 

were going to be. And he said you couldn't -- 

there's times -- and not only just in the steel 

rollings but in the uranium, which should be 

less -- I've heard that mentioned yesterday. 

How much less? Where's the line? Is there 

enough dust there or wasn't there enough dust 

there. Where's the line that you draw on what 

we've sucked in? Where -- where are the actual 

data that they say we went to the salt bath and 

if you were bending over and it's 130 degrees 

or 150, that you didn't take in big gulps of 

air? Where's the logic in it? 

I hope this program doesn't turn out to be like 

the food pyramid. We all lived off information 

we got that the government said this was fact, 

this was gospel, live by this, eat by this and 

you'll live a long time. Where are these 

scientists today that were completely wrong? 

The food pyramid is no more. I didn't see any 

of them coming up saying I said it was good. 

This -- this is the type of stuff that upsets 
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me. After four years -- after four year-- it 

may be longer -- is there reasonable doubt at 

Bethlehem Steel? Is there -- if there's a 

document and I come down and I present it to 

you and it says this is what happened, this -- 

there are no records. There was -- there was 

stuff done there, but there are no records. So 

we arbitrarily take air samples or something 

and we allow you this because we know if we 

give you all these (unintelligible) where there 

are no records, you're still not going to get 

compensated. So why don't -- just like in the 

other facilities, (unintelligible) say lookit, 

there's not enough records. When I bring this 

up to certain people, they say well, that isn't 

really -- that really isn't representative that 

what was going on. That fella was really -- 

didn't know everything that was going on. 

That's the record I've got to live by. The 

government themselves in their own 

documentation says there was experimental work 

going on there before the rollings, and there's 

no -- no records and they say themselves they 

were destroyed. Where's the fairness in that 

program? I'm asking -- (unintelligible) I 
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don't expect an answer now because I haven't 

found one in four years so I don't expect 

you're going to come up with it. But I think 

it should be taken into consideration when 

you're dealing with this. 

Here -- again, here we are, four years later, 

and I can't go back to my chair and -- and 

really say well, they've treated us fair -- all 

my issues aren't going to be resolved, but at 

least I think they've made a effort really to 

be fair about this to Bethlehem Steel. I don't 

know about (unintelligible). I don't know 

their layout and I wouldn't come up here and 

say a thing about it 'cause I don't know enough 

about it unless I studied it, unless I went 

there, talked to the men and really dug into 

it. And -- and in NIOSH's case, I don't feel 

that was done. And if that isn't done, then 

information can't be accurate. And I hope you 

consider this. 

I believe it's -- it's really time to close 

this. I really think -- is -- has this whole 

program for four or five years been hinging on 

whether we find somebody in New York City that 

can come up and say I took those air samples 
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and here's what I done? Well, I furnished 

information and that's what I've done, but 

we're going to listen to him. We're not going 

to listen to you, Ed, because who are you? You 

didn't take an air sample. I worked there. 

worked with these guys that came back from the 

second World War, that put their lives on the 

line and -- good friends of mine, and in good 

faith made all this possible, where we're 

living here in this country. This, to me, 

cannot be overlooked. These men -- kids, like 

your kids, your fathers, your children -- and 

it may happen to you again, went and put -- I 

was in the Army, and when I had to be put on 

alert that I didn't know if I was going to live 

next week or not, I -- it's a hell of a 

feeling. These poor kids went over -- some of 

them were lucky enough to come back. And I 

won't go into it, but you knew about the fella 

that was captured for two years and living in 

the jungle, come back -- I worked with him at 

the plant. He -- he was shell-shocked bad. He 

died. He left I think four kids. His 

diagnosis with the doctor -- the best they 

could say was that he died probable lung 

I 
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cancer. 

This report went down to NIOSH, probable lung 

cancer. We're giving you the benefit of the 

doubt, probable. Okay? She -- children get a 

letter back -- they lost their father. Their 

mother isn't alive anymore. They get a letter 

back saying that's not enough proof. I asked 

the girl, I says Cindy, what -- what did you 

do? Didn't you have an autopsy? She says no, 

my dad went through so much, he started out as 

an orphan, he went through that capturing, he 

come back, he was shell-shocked, he worked at 

the plant, he died a miserable death of cancer. 

And NIOSH says huh, not enough proof. You 

can't dig this man up. We can't dig it up and 

find all this Bethlehem Steel dust in him, but 

common sense would say benefit of the doubt, 

claimant favorable. That's what I've been 

hearing for four years and that certainly isn't 

claimant favorable. You wouldn't want it to 

happen to anybody in this room who'd want their 

child to go out tomorrow, have the government 

expose -- and not even -- let's not go through 

the war part of it. Let's just talk about 

doing your job or going to college, and you 
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come up in 20, 30 years and your child was 

exposed and lied to by our government and -- 

and dies and leaves a family, maybe young kids. 

In one case, 15 kids in the family, the mother 

had to raise them -- denied, because we think 

our information says your father -- he worked 

there all his life -- didn't have enough 

uranium dust. What a crying shame. And I know 

you people listening to this unders-- I would 

hope that you all understand where I'm coming 

from. And I know it's a hard job for you 

people to make a decision, but I really hope 

that you really consider and take what I say as 

gospel. I'm not up here -- I apologized to Mr. 

Elliott yesterday and I think he warranted it. 

I'm not -- what was -- has been done to us for 

the last 50 years has been lying, and more than 

once, right up to this day -- and I don't want 

to get into that -- and I wouldn't want to come 

up here and tell you something that didn't come 

straight from my heart. And I felt Larry 

Elliott deserved an apology because that's the 

kind of guy I am. And anyone in here I would 

support because I think you're all doing your 

job, you're listening and for that I'm very 
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appreciative. 

So I won't take up too much -- I won't take up 

any more of your time. I know you've got a lot 

to go through, and at that I want to thank you 

for the opportunity to get up and talk and I 

hope you'll listen and take this into 

consideration when you make your decisions. 

Thank you very much again, everybody. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Ed. Now 

we're going to, in essence, review some 

materials from yesterday. Most of the folks 

here at the table were in the session yesterday 

so they've heard the presentations by our 

contractor. They heard the presentations by 

NIOSH. I want to give both SC&A and NIOSH an 

opportunity here at the front end of this 

discussion to make any additional comments that 

they may wish, or any overall summary comments. 

And John, you or your staff, do you have any 

additional words for us on Bethlehem that you 

want to make as we get underway here? And 

again, you've given us your formal presentation 

yesterday. 

 And incidentally, for Board members who weren't 

here in the subcommittee session, the 
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presentations by SC&A and by NIOSH are in your 

book, so... 

DR. MAURO: There was one thought I had 

yesterday that I thought I'd want to pass on, 

and that is something that I didn't have a 

chance to say, is that we're talking about a -- 

a one size fits all, whether it's by year, but 

it's -- really we're going to apply this 

concentration of dust, the max, to all the 

claimants. And one of the things that I think 

I have to always continue to remind myself is 

that that means that -- it's not the average 

claimant we're trying to protect or -- we're 

trying to make sure that -- there's some people 

out there that might have had some unusual jobs 

for some periods of time, and we have to strike 

that balance where we pick that concentration 

that we think captures that high-end 

individual. So it's very easy to think in 

terms of averages. But no, we're not talking 

about averages. We're looking at catching that 

elusive, high-end number that we think fairly 

represents the high-end workers. Perhaps not 

every single worker under every single 

circumstance, and that's where the difficult 
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judgments come in, where do you pick that 

number that you think is -- is claimantfavorable, scientifically plausible and 

reasonable. So I just wanted to -- so in all -

- all our thinking tries to capture that point, 

and that's a real tough number to find. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And Jim, do you have 

any additional comments? Okay -- does not. 

One thing we heard from -- yesterday both from 

NIOSH and from SC&A was that beyond the 

differences in some assumptions and 

methodologies, the actual endpoints for both 

groups appear to be coming fairly close 

together. Did we understand that correctly? 

Are we -- are we fairly close or -- or not? 

DR. NETON: I guess it depends on your 

definition of fairly close, but I think -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, both of you were -- 

DR. NETON: We've come a long way since our -- 

since the first review and now we're on Rev. 2. 

If anyone looks at the total picture, the 

difference is not that substantial. For 1949 

and '50 I think we're in agreement for the 

exposure model. For 1951 and -- in 1952 I 

think we're fair-- we're very close; '51 we 
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have some disagreement with the use of GA 

versus BZ. I think SC&A's -- at a minimum I 

think their position is 550 MAC air or 

something like that, and we're substantially 

lower. But within a factor of two or so, so 

that's -- that's the main difference. 

But these other issues with ingestion and 

resuspension are -- are important. I mean 

they're important to the individual claimants, 

but they are -- represent fairly minor tweaks 

on the individual doses themselves. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now we also heard yesterday that 

you had learned that Mr. Breslin from the 

Health and Safety Lab had been involved in the 

design of the air sampling programs, both for 

Simonds Saw and Bethlehem Steel, and that the 

possibility of speaking to him and gathering 

additional information might be helpful. And I 

do want to add this comment. I don't think 

that the idea is that we would, for example, 

believe him above Mr. Walker, but it might be 

an additional piece of information that I 

thought both groups felt might be useful. Did 

I characterize that correctly? Is that --

DR. NETON: I think that's true. I mean we --
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we have to look at a total picture, what the 

workers are telling us, what the people who 

actually took the measurement are telling us. 

We put that into a complete package and come to 

some type of a conclusion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, just to respond to your 

first question, I think that we are close, 

especially on many of the findings. I think 

Jim -- Jim pointed it out, too, that the -- the 

first finding with a question of the 

representativeness of the air sampling and the 

GA versus breathing zone sampling, I think that 

remains really -- really needs some resolution 

for Bethlehem Steel. I think several of the 

other findings, even though there were 

different approaches, which I think we -- we 

may want to explore further from a program 

standpoint, I think the -- the endpoints were 

similar for ingestion, for resuspension, for 

oro-nasal -- they were off by similar factors, 

actually a factor of two, but the dose 

consequence was much lower on those items. The 

first item, they're still around a factor of 

two or three apart, those -- the dose 
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consequence is much -- much higher, I believe, 

so I think we need to explore that one a little 

further. And -- and the other ones I think 

we're pretty close on, especially for Bethlehem 

Steel. I think they remain -- I think we as a 

-- for the program, need to -- to come to some 

resolution on those items because they're going 

to come up again and again. We've already seen 

that, so I think those remain important items 

for the program. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Items such as the oro-nasal 

breathing issue, which may have less 

consequence here but in another situation might 

be significant. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So that simply because one says 

that it has very little impact here does not 

necessarily carry over to other situations. Is 

that what you're saying? Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now one of the -- I think one of 

the things we have to do here as a Board is to 

make a determination of just where we are on 

the Bethlehem Steel site profile. We can -- we 

can in fact instruct NIOSH and our contractor 
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to proceed and gather the information from the 

Health and Safety Lab person, or we can say 

well, we have enough information now to make a 

decision on this site profile and don't bother, 

or -- in other words, what -- what do we want 

to instruct our -- our contractor and what do 

we want to instruct NIOSH, or are -- are there 

issues that we want either or both to pursue -- 

and Ed, did you have a question on this also? 

 MR. WALKER: It's not really pertaining to what 

you're asking right now but it was just brought 

up about when you were drinking and what is -- 

what did -- our intake, what was our intake. I 

can honestly and truthfully stand here and say 

our mindset -- my mindset when I worked there 

and this -- chips flew down like -- like snow, 

chips of -- we didn't know what it was. It 

wasn't -- it wasn't harmful to our system. If 

it was steel, you could dip it out, you could 

take your spoon -- you could shake it off, 

however you wanted to take it out, but -- as 

far as your ingestion, and -- and not just one 

chip. I'm -- I'm talking -- we would take them 

out and you would drink it because the 

government had not told us and we had no 
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protection, we had no idea that this was 

uranium in -- in the air. How much 

(unintelligible) small stuff, I don't know, but 

I can tell you I seen chips in the air, very -- 

very large chips where we would take out 

(unintelligible) at the mindset that we don't 

know what it is, it's not going to hurt you. 

If it was steel, it's clean, it's steel, it was 

just (unintelligible) and we drank it. So I 

really question them on air samples and your 

data and really whether that should really come 

into play and I think should be a big part of 

it, and that's just the mindset of the people 

working there at that time. Not just me, but 

all the workers (unintelligible). Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 DR. WADE: Maybe I could offer a -- oh, sorry, 

Henry? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Henry. 

DR. ANDERSON: I was just going to say I think 

we ought to instruct NIOSH and our contractor 

to meet with the fellow and see whether that 

helps with additional information since they've 

identified him and, you know, if you're hopeful 

you say maybe this will resolve the 
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differences. But if the differences aren't 

resolved, I think we need to instruct the two 

to work further together and see, you know, how 

they can resolve their differences further. 

They seem to have made considerable progress, 

and the question is can more progress be made 

or do we need to just move forward on the -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, exactly, okay. 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. I think we need to get 

that additional information. We need to --

hopefully that'll be there by our phone call so 

we can get an update on the phone call. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's not clear to me whether 

you're expressing just an idea or making a 

motion. 

DR. ANDERSON: Well, I would make a motion that 

that would be part of the instruction, unless 

somebody says we have all we need and we want 

to vote on it at this point. I'd like to hear 

what the fellow has to say. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Would you -- we're going to 

continue discussing for a moment. Would you 

craft that in some very concise words that we 

can use for a motion and we'll get some other 

comments. Dr. Wade, I think you had a comment. 
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 DR. WADE: Yes, and my comments don't go to the 

issue that Henry just raised of contacting this 

fellow. I'd just like to remind the Board that 

there is this -- there will always be this 

tension between getting the last bit of 

information collected to resolve an issue and 

the fact that there's much work for this Board 

to do, and you have to decide how you want to 

spend your time. There's no question in my 

mind that good has come of the review of the 

Bethlehem site profile. I think we have a 

better document. I think we're in a better 

position to serve claimants based upon the work 

that's been done to this point. We feel we're 

very close and maybe we need to take that next 

step, but I would -- I would ask you to always 

keep in mind the fact that there's only so much 

resource in terms of the time of these good 

people to spend on this, and if we're doing 

Bethlehem we're not doing Hanford or the Nevada 

Test Site, and we have to keep that in mind. 

So I'd ask you to bring that tension and 

understanding of that tension to -- to your 

deliberations. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And the fact that it's always a 
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sort of elusive endpoint, the feeling that 

there's some additional bit of information out 

there which if we had would shed additional 

light on something, and at some point you have 

to stop and say we've done what we can do and 

we have to make a decision of some sort. Is 

the site profile as complete as it's going to 

be and that's it, and we will proceed from 

there. And it either will be adequate to do 

dose reconstruction or, if it is not, then we 

have some other options. 

Other comments on this issue? Roy DeHart. 

 DR. DEHART: I think the Board -- I think -- I 

think the Board needs to make sure that -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not sure your mike is on. 

 DR. WADE: No, it's not. 

 DR. DEHART: Thank you. I think we as a Board 

need to make it clear to the audience that 

we're dealing with the site profile. We are 

not dealing with a qualifying application for 

special cohort. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct, there is not a 

special cohort petition before us to act on. 

Wanda Munn. 

 MS. MUNN: There's another concern. The 
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feeling, and I think misinformation, has been 

expressed from several sources with respect to 

all individuals who were involved in this work 

suffering potential harm from it. And one of 

the things we as a Board are required to do is 

to help ascertain whether in fact there was 

harm, and that's easy to forget in light of the 

individual pain of the claimants. These types 

of outcomes are painful for people, whether 

they have been a part of a U.S. government 

program or whether they've never been on a site 

or had anything to do with these types of 

activities that we have to -- to try to define. 

And we spend a great deal of time talking about 

issues which may in all probability be very 

small in the overall context of the amount of 

dose that might have been received or the dose 

that might have been harmful. And it's 

necessary for us to try to parse the fact out 

of what transpired, and would be helpful, I 

believe, if we all were able to remember that 

we are going for a fact but not absolute 

precision. I don't believe there's anyone on 

the Board who believes that we can absolutely 

and precisely calculate the kinds of doses that 
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were involved in these early, early plants. 

But we can certainly put a bounding reference 

on how far that consideration must go, for 

example. If we're dealing with low enrichments 

of uranium, which we are in this case, and we 

are dealing with limited numbers of exposures, 

which we are in this case, then the total dose 

that is possible is also limited in cases like 

these. It's hard I think for claimants to 

understand that we're not trying to say we can 

-- we're not asking our agencies to say we can 

identify precisely what your dose is. What 

we're attempting to do is identify -- I 

believe, and correct me if I'm wrong. I 

believe we're attempting to identify what the 

worst case might be for an individual in that 

condition, and that's why we're asking both our 

contractor and the agency who works with us to 

do the kind of thorough investigation they're 

doing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And I think that -- 

and perhaps amplifies the remark made by John 

Mauro that it's trying to identify that -- not 

the average, but that sort of worst-case 

scenario. 
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Yes, Ed, did you have another question? 

 MR. WALKER: In response to your statement that 

we can't -- we -- we can find the exact -- if 

you don't have the information from '49 to '51 

of what went on in that facility -- and we're 

guessing. We're mixing general air samples 

with breathing zone samples. I cannot believe, 

if you don't have the information, that you can 

do an accurate dose reconstruction. I just 

cannot rationalize how that can be done. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's basically what was said, 

that you can't. That's what she was saying. 

 MR. WALKER: Maybe I misunderstood. But how 

can you accept something as a Board who hired 

the audit team to see if NIOSH was treating 

these claimants fair, and they went out and 

done a magnificent job of information. And --

and now you ask them to see if we were being 

treated fair and after all these years there's 

still no decision except there's -- there's no 

agreement, so obviously -- obviously you can't 

make a dose reconstruction after this length of 

time if -- if with all the power -- the brain 

power that we have has not been able to come to 

a conclusion, why should the Bethlehem Steel 
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claims pay for this -- or other claimants in 

the country, not just Bethlehem, when in return 

-- and I'll throw this out and I know it'll 

just maybe not go far -- but the government 

already has -- has given awards, compensation, 

to people with no information at all because 

they couldn't -- they couldn't have -- they 

didn't have information enough to do a dose 

reconstruction. And if the money is there, as 

it was brought out yesterday, and it can be 

replenished, what is the big fight not to pay 

Bethlehem Steel when you've paid four sites, 

you've -- I don't know how many more you've got 

on Special Exposure Cohort. We just heard down 

at Mallinckrodt and Iowa Ordnance, you're going 

to pay them because you don't have enough 

information. Why, with the information that's 

brought in front of you people that there's a 

black hole in this information, are we fighting 

Bethlehem Steel tooth and nail? The first 

group that had dose reconstruction, the first 

group that had supposedly a site profile -- 

which was questionable -- and the first group 

that had dose reconst-- we're fighting tooth 

and nail, spending thousands of dollars. I 
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don't see the rationale in this. I really 

don't. Just -- think of these things that I 

said and -- well, that's all I've got to say. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We understand your point, Ed. 

 MR. WALKER: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thanks. 

 MR. WALKER: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Gen Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: I just want to make sure I'm 

clear on the motion. We are --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we don't have it yet. 

DR. ROESSLER: Oh, okay, well -- if we have the 

motion that I think Henry made, we're deciding 

whether to recommend to NIOSH that they bring 

in Breslin to provide information on the air 

sampling. If we do this, does this actually 

delay then our vote on the site profile? And 

then the next follow-on question, if it does, 

then does that delay anything on the SEC 

petition? Are we in essence -- I guess to put 

it out bluntly -- taking this step and then it 

-- it does delay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not aware that we have an SEC 

petition. 

 DR. WADE: We don't have an SEC petition. 
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DR. ROESSLER: Okay. 

 DR. WADE: There is no SEC --

 DR. ZIEMER: There is no SEC petition. 

DR. ROESSLER: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Does it delay -- the issue of 

delay is one that we define ourselves. If you 

wish to have some final action today, that's 

the privilege of the Board. If you believe 

that you have enough information to instruct 

both NIOSH and the contractor to take what they 

have and that's it, that's one option the Board 

has. If you believe that this additional 

information will be helpful to both NIOSH and 

the contractor in coming to closure, that's 

another option. 

 Yeah, Rich. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah --

 DR. ZIEMER: Is your mike on? 

MR. ESPINOSA: This is probably a question for 

Larry. We just heard that there's no SEC 

petition before the Board. Right? But has 

there been one filed for Bethlehem? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, there's not been a petition 

submitted for Bethlehem Steel. 

 DR. WADE: If I might --
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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: -- just to -- to pick up on Gen's 

point as to what's at stake, you know, dose 

reconstructions are being done. If the Board 

delays its decision to talk to Mr. Breslin and 

then makes a recommendation further on 

downstream that is then -- causes NIOSH to 

react, NIOSH would always then reconsider dose 

reconstructions in light of that information. 

So I think really what's at stake here is just 

the resource of the Board and the resource of 

those serving the Board in terms of putting 

their energy to this or to something else, and 

the desire of the Board to be complete. And I 

think that's the tension. But there's not an 

SEC petition. There is nothing there, if the 

Board does it subsequent to this next meeting, 

that won't have the same impact. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Larry -- Larry Elliott. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Just for the Board's information, 

I want to add this for your consideration. I 

believe the -- the number's right now about 94 

percent of the claims for Bethlehem Steel have 
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gone through dose reconstruction. A little 

greater than 45 percent of those claims have 

been found to be compensable. As Dr. Neton has 

presented to the Board before, we see a bimodal distribution of the POCs, the probability 

of causation for those claims. There's a --

there's a blip on the right-hand side of that 

spectrum close to the 50 percent mark or above 

it, very few claims perhaps will be affected by 

any change at this point, whether it's 

ingestion, inhalation or a -- coming up with a 

higher maximum point estimate to calculate by. 

And then the blip that's on the left-hand side 

of the spectrum, those aren't going to be 

affected at all by any change, we believe. 

Typically in an SEC class experience, we see a 

60/40 split. The 22 cancers yield 60 percent 

of cases being compensable, 40 percent not 

being compensable. So just add that for your 

deliberation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think there often is a 

common belief there -- out there, just in 

general, that an SEC means that everybody that 

gets cancer gets compensated, and that's not 

the case. 
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 MR. ELLIOTT: I think -- my point is is that we 

haven't stopped processing cases. Anything you 

do at this point in time to revise the site 

profile, typically and traditionally our 

practice has been to go back and look at all 

the cases conducted and dose reconstructed 

under a prior document, evaluating those cases, 

determining if any change has been made. And 

if so, we'd make that change and pass it on to 

the Department of Labor. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Okay. Yes, Mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Notwithstanding what Larry said, 

I still think that that one item -- and what I 

would say is -- is let's -- let's -- Henry has 

a motion, but let's carry it through the 

interview process and try to come to some 

resolution on that issue. 

For the other findings, I would offer maybe to 

take -- take these back to the workgroup and 

have -- have us develop a Board action for 

those and -- and what I'm thinking -- as we're 

talking here out loud, I'm thinking that many 

of those actions are going to be, you know, 

acceptable for Bethlehem Steel site profile, 

program-wide policy should be developed by 
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NIOSH and reviewed by SC&A, something like 

that, but I would offer that we could -- we 

could do that and not have them -- not have 

SC&A or NIOSH spend much more time on -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: On the other --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- on those other items. I think 

we've -- we're -- we're fairly close on those 

items. I think this one outstanding one is a 

big enough difference that I think we need to 

sort of hash it out a little further, and the 

interview might help that process. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda, you have a comment? 

 MS. MUNN: Just to agree and to re-emphasize 

what Mark has to say with respect to the really 

-- need that we should see as acute to help 

both our contractor and NIOSH come to some 

agreement about process in future claims. 

We're not going to be able to expedite any of 

these things unless we agree that the 

appropriate process for approaching this type 

of issue is generally agreed upon. 

 DR. WADE: Just for the record, I -- I mean I 

find Henry's pending motion to be quite 

reasonable. I don't want you to misinterpret 

my comments in any way. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: You haven't heard that motion. It 

sounded reasonable when he talked about it. 

DR. ANDERSON: Let me put it (unintelligible) 

move on. I think it's pretty -- NIOSH and SC&A 

should continue to review the 

representativeness of air sampling data for use 

in dose reconstruction at Bethlehem Steel, 

specifically clarifying the issue of general 

air versus breathing zone samples. In part, 

this should include interviewing Mr. Breslin. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is there a second? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Discussion? So it -- the 

intent of the motion -- and I assume we don't 

have to go through the Secretary of HHS for 

this. This would be some guidance for our 

contractor and hopefully for NIOSH to proceed 

on that issue and --

 DR. WADE: Right, you don't need to go to the 

Secretary with this motion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And Larry, a comment? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I would like to suggest that Mr. 

Walker be included in any conversation that 

incurs. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think the intent there would be 
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-- in fact, we talked a little about it 

yesterday -- that the interview with Mr. 

Breslin would include someone from NIOSH, our 

contractor, Mr. Walker and the Board. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Without -- without maybe 

overwhelming him with a large -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, no, but --

DR. NETON: I think that's a great 

recommendation, but we do have to favor Mr. 

Breslin's wishes and we're not sure how 

overwhelmed he would like to be by an 

interrogating style of committee. At least it 

would be his discretion, so -- 

DR. ANDERSON: No kleig lights. 

DR. NETON: No kleig light. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, we do want the opportunity for 

those four groups somehow to be represented, if 

possible. 

DR. NETON: If possible. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Otherwise, I think for the Board -

- and we can ask Ed -- we could stipulate that 

a record be kept and the information be 

provided. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I'm --

 DR. ZIEMER: Where would the interview with Mr. 
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Breslin occur? 

DR. NETON: I don't know. I sort of liked John 

Mauro's suggestion yesterday. He lives close. 

I suspect he's within an hour's drive of Mr. 

Breslin's home. I thought that we would do at 

least an initial interview at his home, if he 

was agreeable to that, to get him -- I get the 

impression his health is not tremendous at this 

point. So if we could do it in the convenience 

of his house, maybe with SC&A represented, that 

-- that's kind of what I had in mind at this 

point, but we're open to other -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think the Board would be 

agreeable that we not necessarily have someone 

there as long as a record is kept and SC&A will 

be our representative. Ed, I don't know 

whether you want to be there or not, but we'd 

certainly let you know -- and it'll be up to 

Mr. Breslin also as to whether or not he can 

handle a large crowd, but we'll keep you 

informed and then work it out. 

 MR. WALKER: I was just going to mention 

Buffalo's half-way if there's any consideration 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think Mr. Breslin's health 
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is going to be the deciding factor, but -- or 

he might hop at the opportunity to go to 

Buffalo. I understand that. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) In the winter, 

yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: In the winter. Okay, Wanda, 

comment on the motion? 

 MS. MUNN: Just commenting on the potential for 

the interview. Perhaps he would not be averse 

to the idea of having a conference call spider 

in -- during the interview so that 

(unintelligible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: Or just recording the interview? 

How about recording it? 

 MS. MUNN: That -- that would certainly be 

helpful. I know -- I suspect the working group 

would be more than a little bit interested in 

the results of that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we'll leave that somewhat 

open. The intent is to -- to carry it out with 

whatever is most suitable for Mr. Breslin. 

 Further comments on the motion? 

 (No responses) 

Are you ready to vote? After this motion we'll 

entertain a second motion, Mark, along the 
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lines of what you just said. Are you ready to 

think about that? 

Okay. All in favor of this motion, aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

Those opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 And any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

Okay. Now with respect to the other issues at 

Bethlehem, your suggestion is -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I guess I -- I'm not 

prepared to give a Board action for each item, 

but I was --

 DR. ZIEMER: No, no --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- rather going to say that -- 

that --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- how to proceed. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, I make a motion that a 

workgroup be assigned to -- to develop Board 

action on the remaining findings -- I guess 

that's three through six -- in the SC&A report. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And this would only require the 

working group's action to put together 

recommended formal --

 MR. GRIFFON: Or any working group. I don't 
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know how we're doing this. 

 DR. ZIEMER: A working group, yes, right. And 

we'll assign such a working group if the motion 

carries. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Second the motion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The motion is seconded. Any 

discussion? This would serve to bring closure 

to the other issues at Bethlehem Steel in terms 

of what the Board's position is on each of the 

findings. Wanda. 

 MS. MUNN: And I assume would occur following 

the conversation with Mr. Breslin that we just 

discussed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm reading into this an intent 

would be to be able to, say at our next 

meeting, have closure on all the issues on 

Bethlehem Steel, one way or the other. 

 MR. PRESLEY: (Unintelligible) at our telephone 

conference that we have set up. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Or at our telephone conference 

call which is scheduled for December if it's 

completed by then. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes, yes. 

 DR. WADE: I do think we're going to put some 

things in the bin for a working group over this 
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next day and a half, so I think there will be a 

need for a working group and this will be one 

of the items. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We will wait till later tomorrow 

to appoint the group. 

Okay, all in favor of that motion, say aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 Any opposed? 

 (No responses) 

 Any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

Thank you. The motion carries, and we will 

proceed. 

Thank you very much. 

REPORT FROM SUBCOMMITTEE: 

SRS SITE PROFILE 

Next we have on our agenda the Savannah River 

site profile. Again, for the benefit of those 

who were not with us yesterday, you should have 

two documents in your folder. One is the 

presentation by our contractor. The other is a 

presentation by NIOSH. In the case of Savannah 

River, this is -- basically we're at the first 

-- at the front end of what we've come to call 

the six-step process. NIOSH has made some 

initial responses to the SC&A findings. SC&A 
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had seven findings and seven observations, and 

we're basically at the early end -- early stage 

of this so-called six-step process. I think 

there is an underlying assumption by the Board 

that we should proceed with the resolution 

process that has been developed in previous 

cases, and perhaps we need to confirm that 

expectation with some sort of formal action. 

But before we do that, let me ask again -- SC&A 

and also NIOSH -- if they have any additional 

comments pertaining to the Savannah River site 

profile. 

None by SC&A, any by NIOSH? None by NIOSH. 

Okay. Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess I -- my comment is -- I 

think it pertains to the next three items we're 

going to discuss, really, but my -- my concern 

I guess in our six-step process is that where, 

you know, we've got SC&A's report reviewing 

Savannah River, but it was a fairly old draft. 

I can't remember the dates on it. And I -- I 

guess my fear -- I think I said this yesterday 

-- is that in -- at the end of the day, are we 

going to be spinning our wheels to some extent 

reviewing some issues that are in the site 
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I 

profile but not necessarily related to how 

they're finally doing dose reconstructions. 

think -- I think there certainly is some basis 

in the site profile for how dose 

reconstructions are done, but -- I mean let's -

- let's turn the clock back a little bit to our 

review of Mallinckrodt and I -- I reflect on 

this that it seems to me by the last meetings 

for Mallinckrodt I wasn't doing much 

referencing to the site profile anymore. In 

fact, it seemed that the entire method laid out 

was not in -- or I shouldn't say the entire 

method, but a lot of it was no longer in the 

site profile. So I think -- and I was looking 

at some of this last night. There's several 

new Technical Information Bulletins associated 

-- at least with Y-12; I'm not sure about 

Savannah River. I don't think some of them 

were -- some of them may have been reviewed by 

SC&A, some may not have. There's certainly 

some workbooks and -- that -- that my 

understanding is SCA has not looked at those. 

So I'm not sure if -- if we want to sort of 

insert those in our six-step process. Before 

we go too far and try to come to some 
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conclusions on a site profile, should we not 

look at these key elements that are part of 

that -- of the dose reconstruction process. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, maybe we should raise the 

question in a more formal way as far as we -- 

we don't want to be reviewing and trying to 

resolve things that are either out of date or 

no longer used. I believe the review was of 

Rev. 2 of Savannah River. Is that correct? 

And how up-to-date or out of date is Rev. 2? 

Or another way of saying this is are the 

findings -- are the issues raised in the 

findings still pertinent in the sense that they 

-- for example, you had the -- well, the 

characterization of the radiological conditions 

at the F and H area tank farms. Is that still 

an important issue, regardless of what Rev. 

we're in? 

DR. NETON: Yes, Jim -- Jim Neton from NIOSH. 

Some of the issues are still relevant, some of 

them have been addressed in Technical 

Information Bulletins or reports. For example, 

I mentioned yesterday Savannah River, there is 

a Technical Information Bulletin being written 

-- drafted to address -- handle thorium 
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reconstructions at Savannah River, so that -- 

that would tend to address that finding. So 

it's a -- it's a little bit of a mixture. I 

mean I think -- I think the key issue that I'd 

like to focus on is that -- is there anything 

that is just technically wrong in the site 

profile. I mean are -- you know, there have 

been some issues raised in a site profile about 

using different solubility classes and that 

sort of thing, and those are key technical 

issues that if -- if SC&A believes that we're 

technically wrong, we need to address those. 

Where there are identified data gaps and things 

of that nature, then is that really relevant to 

us -- preventing us from doing dose 

reconstructions, because are they indeed 

captured in these workbooks and other Technical 

Information Bulletins. So you know, I think we 

need to maybe sit down and strategize where 

there are technical issues that are wrong 

versus where there are perceived data gaps in 

the profile and -- and work from that 

perspective. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Process-wise, does this involve a 
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face-to-face session? Is that what you're 

suggesting? 

DR. NETON: I guess that's what I'm suggesting 

is we need to sit down and come to some 

agreement as to -- really much like the 

procedure reviews going, as Stu Hinnefeld spoke 

yesterday, which issues are really key and 

which issues are yeah, that's a very nice 

comment; we agree that we should address these 

incidents at some point, but in reality we 

believe the workbook is sufficiently bounding 

in the way we do these things so that it's not 

at this point worth our while to go and 

research 500 volumes, or something of that 

nature, of incidents to continue on with the 

dose reconstruction process. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So this could lead to a kind of 

matrix of the type that we've had on some of 

the others where we identify those kinds of 

issues and -- and their impact and whether they 

need to be pursued or not. Comment? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I guess partially what -- 

what I was raising was what I talked about 

yesterday, was the notion of not looking at 

this in a vacuum, maybe to have a couple of 
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these examples that -- I think that really 

helped shed some light on things when we looked 

at Mallinckrodt is okay, you've got all this 

information in the site profile; how exactly 

are you going to apply that for an individual 

dose reconstruction? Give us an example when -

- where it's used for best-estimate or worstca-- you know, or overestimate techniques. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And I don't recall -- I wonder, 

SC&A -- either Hans or Kathy, do you recall 

what you already looked at in terms of Savannah 

River --

 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

cases --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- cases? 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- they've been all... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Were they all worst case -- yeah, 

there's Hans. Do we -- do we need some other 

representative cases of some sort to -- for -- 

for you or would that be helpful? 

 DR. BEHLING: I think to date we have had 

nothing but maximized cases or those that are 

minimal cases, so right now we have not had 

best estimates in the -- in the classical sense 

of best estimates, and that includes -- we've 
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had plenty of Savannah River Site audits at 

this point, but none have been anything other 

than either min or max. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, you're suggesting that there 

-- that (unintelligible) -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, that -- that's the only 

reason I -- I mean the rea-- and part of the 

reason I raise it is, as Jim presented this 

yesterday, it gives -- it does have some deja 

vu aspects. I mean there's a lot of thorium 

air sampling, but how exactly do you apply 

that, what areas -- how do you know where 

people worked, how do you know by job title -- 

until -- and I think when you see how that's 

carried through, maybe in a best-estimate 

example, that's -- that helps to clarify it 

instead of just raising a bunch of issues on a 

-- on a document without seeing how it's 

carried through in practice. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah, yeah, and --

 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda. 

 MS. MUNN: Especially if they are now being 

addressed by workbook issues. I mean that --
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my major concern, as a member of the working 

group, is if these -- if NIOSH is already 

addressing these through TIBs and workbooks 

that have not yet been reviewed by SC&A, then 

having this long list of issues with respect to 

the site profiles is counter-productive if the 

workbooks have already addressed it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask this question, and 

either Jim or John, you can help my recall. 

Didn't -- didn't we, at one of the previous 

workgroup meetings, actually as part of the 

exercise, work through some sample cases with 

SC&A to show how some things were being done? 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah, we did four. 

 DR. ZIEMER: In Cincinnati. These were cases 

outside the audit, just -- it may be deidentified cases to show how you were carrying 

things out. Is this something that could be 

done in connection with the Savannah River 

issues, or -- or does it need to be done in 

connection with identifying those issues? 

That's sort of what I'm asking. 

DR. NETON: Right. My recollection was that 

early on we did a briefing of SC&A on sort of 

the efficiency process, how we went about 
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bracketing claims that were well below 50 

percent and well above 50 percent, and that 

sort of gave them a flavor for how we're doing 

these. And in fact, most of the Savannah River 

cases I think have been done that way. But it 

would be I think instructive for us to go 

through and -- and do another briefing maybe on 

these Savannah River cases that, if we can 

identify them, that have been done using a more 

detailed, you know, dose reconstruction 

process. That -- that might be useful. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm really asking whether we can 

do this outside the audit process where -- 

where they're not trying to identify, for 

example, whether the process was done 

correctly, but simply learning how you're doing 

it with some real samples, maybe de-identified 

sample cases, that may not even be closed cases 

yet -- as long as they're de-identified. 

Didn't -- didn't we do something like that 

before? 

 MS. MUNN: We did. 

DR. NETON: I think we did. What I was 

thinking, though, was that they could -- you 

know, they -- they have raised a number of 
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findings that are related to completeness of 

the profile, and I think it was very useful to 

that degree, that SC&A has gone out and 

identified all of these issues that could 

affect the outcome of a dose reconstruction. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And for those you don't need this 

-- what we're talking about. 

DR. NETON: Well, no, I think -- what I'm 

suggesting then is that they would look at a 

dose reconstruction that's been done now and 

say okay, yeah, we -- you know, NIOSH 

acknowledges that these things are missing and 

they're very useful pieces of information to be 

knowledgeable about, but have they been 

addressed in a -- in a claimant-favorable 

manner in the dose reconstruction -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Already. 

DR. NETON: -- so that it really, at the end of 

the day, makes very little difference in how 

the case was dispositioned. I think we need -- 

we need to start getting there because, again, 

the profile will never cover every single 

nuance that happened at the site. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: It's just not possible. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: And John, you have a comment? 

DR. MAURO: When you were making reference to 

where we actually let the rubber hit the road, 

let's do some cases, that really was toward 

Mallinckrodt and that was essential. We went 

through some real cases. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Some Mallinckrodt cases. 

DR. MAURO: Right. Now I think we're in a 

situation -- I mean it's very clear to me that 

the workbooks are where the rubber meets the 

road. That is, in a funny sort of way, we're 

only maybe three-quarters of the way home. We 

reviewed the site profiles. We reviewed as 

many of the TIBs that go with the site 

profiles. We reviewed -- these are the ones 

you've looked at already, the nine we've looked 

at and the six that we're about to look at. 

And a recurring theme is that, you know, very 

often we're not really sure what you're saying 

here or it appears to contradict here, and you 

didn't address this issue -- like the thorium 

issue -- so that -- yes, all of the -- you 

could almost start to sort out the big picture 

and -- of categories of things that we really 

can't get our arms around. And I think a large 
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portion of that is going to be cleared up when 

we engage the workbooks. And the first 

workbook that's before us right now, that we've 

put on the first burner -- on the front burner 

has been -- is Rocky Flats, and there's a 

similar workbook -- now there may be more. The 

one that we identified was on the O drive. If 

there's more than that that are forthcoming, 

it's important -- but I guess what I'm getting 

at is that there's no escaping it, we're not 

going to achieve closure until we get these 

workbooks behind us. Working simply with the 

paper TIBs and site profiles won't -- I think 

it gets us maybe three-quarters of the way 

there, but it's not going to get closure. How 

many of the issues that we've already 

identified in Savannah River have effectively 

been resolved in the workbook? Jim is probably 

in a great position to right now say he thinks 

that well, the thorium is about to be resolved 

and -- but this one won't be -- hasn't been 

resolved. And I think -- so until we do that, 

I hate to say this, but the workbook is part 

and parcel to the site profile and they have to 

be done. 
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 DR. WADE: If I could add to the complexity, 

but maybe also to the solution, there are a 

couple of things that -- that I'd remind you 

of. As we look at next year for Task IV, the 

individual dose reconstruction reviews, John 

made a very strong plea to the group to focus 

that on best-estimate dose reconstructions. 

And he's going to present a proposal to you 

this afternoon where there'll be an attempt to 

focus on best-estimate dose reconstructions. 

Also in SC&A's extension of Task III, which is 

the procedures review, we've identified the 

fact that we need to now start to focus on 

workbooks. So I think there are a number of 

things that will unfold next year that will 

start to get to the issue that John brought to 

us, and that is there is very little benefit in 

simply reviewing minimizing and maximizing 

situations. So I think holistically we need to 

start to look at these things, but I think the 

-- the mechanisms are in place to start to make 

this a much more relevant, although a slightly 

redesigned, concept of review. 

DR. MAURO: And I agree with that. And it puts 

us all in a difficult spot. We'd like to 
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achieve closure on many of the reviews that 

we've performed on the pa-- the one -- the nine 

that we've already completed or -- and the two 

we're about to complete this month, but I have 

a funny -- for many of those, getting closure 

is going to be a little bit off-balance until 

we get through the workbooks. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. WADE: But Jim did sort of lay out a 

solution, which is there are certain issues you 

raised in the review of the first nine that are 

now still germane to NIOSH's consideration. We 

need to define what they are and reach closure 

on those. There are other mechanisms in place 

for dealing with some of these other things. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any other comments? Does 

anyone wish to make a formal motion relating to 

Savannah River? 

 MS. MUNN: Go ahead, Mark. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're all looking at Mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think you made it already, that 

we start --

 DR. ZIEMER: You had the idea --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- the six-step process -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- in mind. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: -- right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the general approach would 

be to ask NIOSH and our contractor to take the 

next step, along the lines that Jim described, 

and I think that's -- that's fairly -- we know 

how to do that. I think my question is how do 

we work into that process the issue relating to 

workbooks and so on, or do you want to have any 

formal instruction at this point or will that 

arise naturally as you discuss issues and 

identify that as a next step? That --

 MR. GRIFFON: I think that's --

 DR. ZIEMER: I think Jim is saying that will 

arise naturally. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think once we have our first 

face-to-face with the workgroup and -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Then they can define those -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- start looking at papers and 

handing them around -- I mean I -- just in 

reviewing this, I noticed the list of TIBs, and 

I don't know how many of them have been looked 

at by SC&A and stuff, so we can bring that up 

at the workgroup level, sort of go through 

that, see which TIBs, which workbooks are 

appropriate to -- to look further into. And if 
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we need sample cases, I think all that can be 

sort of fleshed out at the workgroup level. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Henry? 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, it seems to me that NIOSH 

hasn't had a lot of time -- or hasn't been able 

to devote the time to -- to look over the SC&A 

in detail and I think what we need to sort out 

from that -- if they can look through some of 

those comments and say we believe this was 

addressed in this workbook or this TIB, that 

would help point us in the direction of where 

we may want to look there. And other issues, I 

think it's just helpful to say interesting -- 

you know, useful piece of information, but you 

know, we move on from there. So I think the 

face-to-face and NIOSH looking through and 

sorting these of -- these they have -- just as 

we've heard, this is important, it's still 

important. Then we need to focus on those and 

we can leave some of these others -- it's in 

the report, it's been mentioned, but really 

this is just done to inform the Board, as well 

as NIOSH, as to an outside audit of these. We 

don't necessarily have to resolve each and 

every issue, I don't think. 
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 DR. WADE: I think the matrix approach has 

served this group --

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. 

 DR. WADE: -- very well. 

DR. ANDERSON: I think so, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Was -- was that a motion, 

Henry? 

DR. ANDERSON: No, I -- I think we just 

proceed. I mean --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I want to get it on the 

record that -- that this is the consensus of 

the Board that -- and therefore to do it by 

vote. I will interpret it as a motion that -- 

that we instruct -- or we request that NIOSH 

and our contractor proceed along the lines 

described in your preamble -- 

DR. ANDERSON: Soliloquy, right? 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- soliloquy, which in fact is to 

have a face-to-face meeting and take the 

initial steps toward identifying issues, 

resolving issues where possible, and bringing 

back to us a recommendation on proceeding with 

issues that need further clarification. Now 

that -- my wording of your motion -- 

DR. ANDERSON: I accept your --
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 DR. ZIEMER: -- is probably about as vague as 

the original motion, but I think the intent is 

clear. 

DR. ANDERSON: I accept your... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is there a second? 

 DR. DEHART: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Comment, Lew? 

 DR. WADE: No. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So the motion, if it 

passes, will ask -- will basically ask the two 

groups to proceed. We may very well have a 

workgroup involved with them to -- we want to 

have a Board presence there when those face-toface things occur. 

All in favor, aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

Those opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 And any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

It is so ordered. John, did you have an 

additional comment? You're still wondering 

what the motion was or are you -- 

DR. MAURO: No, I understand the motion well, I 

-- I have a request --
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 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe you can explain it to us 

then. 

DR. MAURO: -- a request. We've been looking 

of course at the list of -- of workbooks, and 

there's one for Rocky Flats, there are three 

for Savannah River, there are several for Y-12. 

So you know, there's -- that we know of. We 

are -- so they're all before us. You know, 

they're -- that we -- and it sounds -- my 

understanding is -- we're probably going to 

have to start thinking in terms of priorities. 

My understanding right now is Y-12 and Rocky 

Flats are probably on the front burner, so if 

we're going to -- as opposed to Savannah River. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, and we will be driven in 

part by the SECs that Lew mentioned before, and 

we have not put a timetable on this last 

motion. I think the priorities, as far as site 

profile work, are going to certainly be 

dictated in part by completion of some things 

before we have SEC petition reviews. So --

 DR. WADE: I think you have the priorities 

right from my point of view. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

DR. MAURO: Okay. So a little -- a little 
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guidance along those lines -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

DR. MAURO: -- as we (unintelligible) through 

the process --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

DR. MAURO: -- would be helpful. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: Something else, very procedurally. 

I'm going to ask LaShawn to get out some 

calendars for you to mark availabilities 

between now and the spring of next year. I 

think there's going to be lots of work to do 

and we need to start to really put our shoulder 

to it. So you'll see calendars and I'd ask you 

to mark -- you know, follow the instructions 

LaShawn gives you as to how to fill them out. 

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

15-minute break now. Actually it shows up as a 

30-minute break, but most of our 15-minute 

breaks take 30 minutes, so however it works 

out, we will recess. 

 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 10:15 a.m. 

to 10:45 a.m.) 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're ready to reassemble. Board 

members, if you'd take your seats, I guess the 
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most are back already, Lew Wade has a couple of 

comments here at the beginning of this session. 

 DR. WADE: As you mark out your calendars, it 

would be a great relief for me if we could 

consider -- we had talked about a conference 

call in the first of December, and I asked you 

to hold that. If we could change that, at 

least in our preliminary discussions, to the 

29th of November, that would be very useful for 

me. So if I could ask you to consider that. 

Probably about a four-hour -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: This would be Tuesday, November 

29th rather than Thursday, December 1st as a 

possible conference call date, but you need -- 

just -- do you want to know now, Lew, or -- 

 DR. WADE: Is there anybody who's -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Has a conflict. 

 DR. WADE: -- with that? 

MR. ESPINOSA: What about the times? 

 DR. WADE: Well, it's -- well, we have two. 

What about the --

DR. ANDERSON: How long a call, is the 

question? 

 DR. WADE: I would assume four hours. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Maximum four hours. 
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 DR. WADE: How about the Monday of that week? 

DR. ANDERSON: The 28th? 

 DR. WADE: The 28th. That's --

 DR. ZIEMER: You're following Thanksgiving 

weekend, I believe. 

 DR. WADE: The 28th? 

DR. ANDERSON: The 28th's all right. 

 DR. WADE: Okay, if I could ask you in your 

mind, when we talk about that early meeting, 

let's talk about a meeting on the 28th -- we 

haven't committed to that yet, but I have a 

sense we're probably going to want to get 

together for some hours as a Board. I would 

ask you to talk about the 28th. Larry? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: November? 

 DR. WADE: November. Okay, thank you. That's 

a personal favor I asked. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, and then --

 MR. PRESLEY: That's about 8:00 o'clock in the 

morning --

 DR. WADE: I would est--

 MR. PRESLEY: -- Eastern Standard Time? 

 MS. MUNN: Don't you dare. 

 DR. WADE: Well, no, no. 

 MS. MUNN: Don't you dare. 
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 DR. WADE: It would be about -- a fashionably -

- maybe 11:00 in the morning, Eastern. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, if you would mark 

your calendars, we'll have -- we'll collect 

them later today. Mark your -- the times when 

you're not available over the months ahead. 

REPORT FROM SUBCOMMITTEE: 

Y-12 SITE PROFILE 

The next item for discussion is the Y-12 Plant. 

We had a presentation yesterday by Joe 

Fitzgerald on the review of the site profile 

for Y-12, and then comments by NIOSH and Jim 

Neton relating to the findings of SC&A. Those 

materials are in your notebook. There's a fair 

amount of detail in the SC&A report -- or in 

the -- in Joe Fitzgerald's slides detailing the 

five main findings, and then identifying the 

five additional findings. And then responses -

- initial responses by NIOSH to those various 

findings. Again, I want to ask John Mauro or 

Joe -- is Joe still here? Do you have any 

additional comments this morning on your report 

to us yesterday, or on -- on Y-12, any 

additional overall comments or statements you 

want to enter in the record right now? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: No, except to affirm the value 
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of now go-- moving forward and actually looking 

at the data and exchanging information in a 

more formal sense. I think we've certainly 

heard from NIOSH, and particularly Jim, in 

terms of what his thoughts are. I think that's 

the process we're in now. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And Jim, any 

additional comments? Okay. 

 Board members, comments or discussion on the Y12 materials or recommendations for proceeding? 

And I want to give Le -- Leon and Rich 

opportunities, if you have any questions 

relating to those materials that you have or 

things that were discussed yesterday. Do you 

want anything elaborated on relative to Y-12 

that you see in your packet? I'll give you 

that opportunity. No? 

Leon? 

MR. OWENS: Dr. Ziemer, would it be possible 

for just a overview? I mean I don't want to -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MR. OWENS: -- take time away, but that would 

be beneficial to me. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we can certainly do that. 

And if -- if you would first take the SC&A 
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materials, review of NIOSH site profile for the 

Y-12 complex, it may -- in your booklet under 

Y-12, it may be the second set of materials. 

And Joe, if you wouldn't mind returning to the 

mike and -- kind of puts you on the spot, but 

let me -- there were five main issues that were 

raised, and maybe we could, one at a time, 

identify those and if you'd just make a couple 

of brief comments, Joe, on each one. The first 

one, the site profile does not clearly address 

support workers who were not routinely badged, 

and maybe identify for Leon and Rich who those 

workers were and any related issues that might 

be salient points here. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. On finding one we did 

spend a great deal of time talking to workers 

at Y-12, interviewed 40 to 50 of them, and 

about half that number were maintenance staff, 

support workers for the site, and this finding 

really stemmed from that, as well as some other 

documentation. We didn't think the site 

profile really got into the issue of support 

workers as opposed to process workers. In this 

case we felt there were a group -- a subset -- 

of these maintenance workers, ones not assigned 
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to specific facilities, which -- for which 

there were not monitoring records, they weren't 

bioassayed before '94 in any great sense, and 

of course the external badging didn't -- wasn't 

complete until '61, so we're raising a question 

of -- of unmonitored workers, which we 

determined from the interviews and other 

information were probably exposed not quite to 

the level of process workers but certainly 

substantial enough that you'd want to address 

that as a group and ascertain whether or not 

they -- what -- what kind of approach you would 

take to assign doses to them. So this is 

certainly identifying a population at the site 

that we think should be addressed by the site 

profile in a more significant way. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And while we're on that particular 

one, and perhaps this could be clarified, we -- 

I think we heard yesterday that it appears, I 

think NIOSH asserted that there was a kind of 

process or procedure at Y-12 whereby a 

determination was made as to the probability of 

different groups receiving ten percent or 

greater of the -- of the existing limits, and 

if it was determined that it was unlikely that 
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the exposures would be -- and I believe it was 

ten percent, you can correct me if I'm wrong -- 

would exceed that, they were likely not 

monitored. It wasn't clear to me if that 

applied to these -- this category of 

individuals or just to the regular workers. Do 

we know --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, certainly --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- either Jim or --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, certainly --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- or Joe? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: -- it applied to the regular 

workers, and I think --

 DR. ZIEMER: Do we know if it -- was it us-- 

was that process used on these people? Do we 

know that? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, that was the question 

that we kind of raised with the workforce 

themselves directly, as well as the health 

physics staff. And it appeared that in the 

earlier years the support workers who weren't 

assigned to process operations, weren't in the 

operational staff, were not monitored before 

those time frames. And --

 DR. ZIEMER: Was that based on just an 
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assumption that they didn't need to be, or was 

there -- do we know if there was a formal 

determination made that there was -- 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Best we could gather was they 

weren't felt to be involved in the radiological 

operations --

 DR. ZIEMER: And therefore --

 MR. FITZGERALD: -- nonetheless, in talking 

with the -- interviewing the workers themselves 

and looking at accounts, they did do a lot of 

the cleanup, they did do a lot of the 

maintenance, and they did get in fact certainly 

exposed to activity levels that, again, would 

not probably approach the day-to-day routine 

workers, but nonetheless appear to be 

significant. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: There wasn't very much 

information, I guess that was our conclusion, 

just by virtue of trying to locate records as 

well as look at the documentation that was 

available. I think that's certainly a concern 

from our standpoint. 

DR. NETON: I don't have much more to add to 

that other than, you know, we -- we have looked 
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at these special classes of workers such as 

welders, pipe fitters, plumbers and that sort, 

and we do have monitoring data for them. I 

mean they were -- I think they were monitored 

with about the same frequency as the other 

workers that we had data for in the early 

years, but SC&A has raised this issue of this 

sort of auxiliary set of workers that we need -

- we need to run to ground. We're not quite 

certain about them, but we'll look into that a 

little closer. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So it's really not clear at 

this point what the policy was on those other 

than they weren't monitored. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, and this just came out 

of the give-and-take, that there was a subset -

-

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: -- that looked like it might 

have been unmonitored and may not have been 

treated the same way in the early years. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask if there's questions -- 

Mark, you have a comment? 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mr. Presley and then Mr. 
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Griffon. 

 MR. PRESLEY: As stated in the past -- this is 

Bob Presley -- we did have a group of 

construction workers that worked construction 

for M. K. Ferguson, Rust Engineering, another 

contractor, some of the others, that that might 

have -- that that might have -- have been the 

case of. Their records should be somewhere. 

Not disputing what you said, but there was a 

subset of -- of welders and pipe fitters and 

carpenters and -- but they were construction 

workers that worked for a construction 

contractor and you might go back and see if you 

can find the records for those construction 

contract groups that -- that did work at all 

three plant sites. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Would -- would they have been 

monitored separately from the standard 

monitoring process --

 MR. PRESLEY: That's what --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- at a lab by their own? 

 MR. PRESLEY: That's correct. They were given 

a number of dosimeters and things like this and 

they ran their own programs and -- and passed 

out their own dosimeters. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: So they would not have had the 

ORNL or the Y-12 badges themselves. It might 

have been a separate contract for -- 

 MR. PRESLEY: No, it was the same badges. Our 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, same badges. 

 MR. PRESLEY: -- our -- our -- if I remember 

correctly, somebody out there from Oak Ridge 

help me, we -- they were given the same 

monitoring badges that we all wore. They're 

just -- if they were working in an area where 

it may have been outside the site and they 

deemed that either it wasn't necessary for them 

to wear a film badge or maybe they only 

monitored a certain percentage back in the 

early days. 

DR. NETON: I was looking for some paperwork 

when Mr. Presley was talking, but I think -- 

were you referring to these separate building 

trades type contractors that were there? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Ferguson and Rust and -- 

DR. NETON: Okay. Yeah, that -- that's a 

separate issue that we are -- we talked a 

little bit about this yesterday -- trying to 

deal with through a contract with the Senate to 
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protect workers' rights where we currently have 

on hold dose reconstructions for building 

trades workers who were not part of the prime 

contractor's work force. In other words, they 

were covered by a separate monitoring program, 

or at least not to the same degree that the 

prime contract workers were. And we -- we 

acknowledge that that's an issue and we're 

trying to work through that. Right now we're 

close to resolving that issue at Savannah River 

and hope to move that on to other sites soon. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Just -- just to close -- close 

this issue out, I certainly acknowledge what 

Bob is saying, and we looked into the issue. 

The report basically suggests that the 

personnel records would be the way to delineate 

this clearer. Now from the interviews, it 

certainly wasn't the case that these workers 

identified themselves as working for Y-12 but 

not being in the group that was dedicated and 

assigned to particular facilities, but more or 

less freelancing for the site -- which actually 

makes some sense. But again, given the amount 

of time and resources, we couldn't search down 

the personnel records and actually do that kind 
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of verification. So what we're suggesting is 

that -- that would be the next step to really 

nail that down a little better in terms of 

figuring out, you know, was it -- you know, who 

was this group and how -- how was this group 

monitored and the rest of it. Now in general 

they were monitored, in terms of bioassay, 

maybe once every four or five years. Again, in 

'61 they were all badged, but before that it 

was intermittent. So you know, certainly the 

history is rather spotty for that group of 

workers. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, did you have a comment on 

that? 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, I'll hold my question till 

after -- if Joe wants to go through all the 

issues --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, ready to go on to finding 

two? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, let me go to finding 

three, that was -- well, I'm sorry, finding 

two. There was a related issue, as Dr. Ziemer 

mentioned, that -- you know, this -- this 

question of using the coworker analysis for the 

pre-'61 workers, we -- it's not so much 
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questioning that process 'cause I certainly 

think that is a process that can be used, but 

trying to assure ourselves -- and this is not a 

new issue -- that in fact these are the maximum 

exposed individuals in terms of the ten 

percent. And what gave us some pause certainly 

was some documentation and interview feedback 

that, you know, the supervisors were very 

strongly in line in terms of deciding who would 

get badged. I think the new information that 

Jim is talking about yesterday would be very 

helpful, which sort of suggests maybe it was 

more of a collaborative affair, which would 

shed more light on -- we're all trying to 

reconstruct the -- the management of that 

process and trying to figure out can you really 

have confidence that these were the maximum 

exposed individuals if in fact that's going to 

be the cornerstone of how you assign your 

missing dose on the pre-'61 era. That's a 

pretty big issue, so we certainly want to be 

sure about that. 

And a sort of related issue on that is -- when 

we get to the internal section is if -- in 

terms of applying probabilities, I think it's 
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very helpful to nail down these sub-groups. 

You know, we're going to assume that, you know, 

we have a number of people that were 

unmonitored, but they were not part of this ten 

percent or were more administrative in nature, 

we just I think need to make sure they weren't 

subgroups such as these maintenance workers 

who, you know, really weren't administrative, 

were in fact sort of in between, were exposed 

more but not quite as much as process workers, 

so just trying to be a little careful about 

that. 

Finding three I think was a collection of 

issues in the internal area. Leon, we had 

Joyce Lipsztein on the phone, who had written a 

section -- a number of questions, issues, 

clarifications. I think our point was it 

wasn't clear from -- for us on the TBD, you 

know, why certain things were the way they were 

in the internal section. These have, in our 

view, some implications -- the use of Type F 

uranium compounds we felt wasn't considered 

adequately in the -- in the assessment; 

particle sizes in terms of measured versus 

assumed on the five micron we felt were some 
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measurements that should have been considered 

in some cases may be more claimant-favorable. 

For a plant like Y-12 we felt certainly 

ingestion needed to factor in. I understood 

that there might be some bounding equations 

where ingestion's accommodated, but because of 

the history certainly we felt that needed to be 

treated more specifically -- more prominently 

in the site profile. 

And I think we're going to have some lively 

exchanges in the issue resolution process on 

issues such as the 40-hour delay, the 

solubility questions and the 50th -- 50th 

percentile. Again, I think these are areas 

where it wasn't as clear in the site profile. 

We didn't really disposition those in some of 

our conference calls. I think those are issues 

I'd like to tell the Board I think we really 

can converge and understand where the technical 

chips fall on those and come back and give you 

a clear idea of what those mean. But they will 

have, in our view, a fairly strong implication 

of the results in dose reconstruction. We felt 

these are important points. 

Finding four -- I think this is actually an 
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issue where we and NIOSH are in agreement that 

the -- this revision of the site profile is a 

fairly old one, one of the original -- going 

back two, two and a half years ago, and there 

were a number of radionuclides that were in 

fact obviously handled at the site, not 

addressed in the site profile, thorium being 

perhaps the most prominent. They had a very 

major thorium operation, but there was other 

nuclides that came into it from recycled 

uranium and other sources, and I don't think 

there's really a disagreement that -- that, 

beyond uranium, there needed to be a broader 

treatment of these additional source terms. 

And I think NIOSH is in the process of doing 

that. 

The last -- well, I won't say the last finding, 

but the -- the fifth one of the five that we 

wanted to highlight, deals with, again, a 

rather familiar issue that seems to crop up -- 

a lot of -- a lot of reviews, but NTA film 

response. We -- the question here is not so 

much the response capability. I think we've 

debated that and I und-- you know, certainly 

NIOSH has the -- has the guidance document. 
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It's more that there were -- confident that the 

spectral measurements at Y-12 are such that -- 

that the -- the neutrons you're measuring are 

in fact over 500 keV or not. We have some 

concerns that there's some source terms that 

we've identified in the plant that -- and we've 

listed them here -- that would perhaps give you 

some pause as to whether those -- a neutron 

source term that might not be as easily 

detectable by the NTA film and, you know, how 

can we accommodate that. I think that would be 

a call for, you know, do we have any additional 

information on neutron spectra that would give 

you more confidence that your NTA film in fact 

is adequate to the task. So that's another 

question that we'd like to pose. 

The other issues, not to diminish them, but 

really are scope issues, ones that I think 

we've mentioned before that -- certainly these 

are areas of potential exposure. Just want to 

go ahead and raise them, but I think the other 

five are the more prominent ones. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Board members, any 

additional comments on Y-12? Yes, Mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just this -- this is going along 
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toward the process rather than specific 

comments, but I just wondered if for all three 

of these sites -- Y-12, Savannah River and 

Rocky -- if we can -- before the next workgroup 

meeting, which I'm assuming is going to happen 

in the near future, could we get a listing of 

the relevant TIBs and workbooks that would be 

associated with dose reconstruction for these 

sites, for best estimates, I guess, or -- 

primarily. And -- and also along those lines, 

I think -- as I'm looking through items on the 

O drive, I find these interesting and I'm not 

sure what to call them. They're not TIBs, 

they're not procedures or anything, but other 

supporting documents developed by ORAU or -- or 

OCAS. For example, for -- for Y-12 I think 

there's some very relevant documents. There 

were documents that -- that basically describe 

the validation process for the dosimetry data 

that you used from the CEDR data, I guess. I 

think the were generated sometime in 2004. But 

anyway, there's some of these other documents 

that are out there that sort of support the 

models, and I think those'd be helpful to 

expedite the process in the workgroup. And I 
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see John's going to say how many workbooks. 

DR. MAURO: No, no. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: John Mauro. 

DR. MAURO: Yes, just to help out a little bit, 

in our proposal for -- which hasn't been 

approved -- for Task I and Task III, you should 

all have copies, there was an attachment to it 

which listed all of the new procedures, all of 

the new TIBs, all of the generic workbooks and 

all of the site-specific workbooks that we're 

aware of and are within the scope of our 

responsibilities in this fiscal year. It would 

be very helpful if there are others -- these 

are the ones that were on the O drive, listed 

for us at the time we wrote the proposal. Now 

I sense this is a living process. The extent 

to which some of them have been deleted or 

replaced, new ones are coming up, I think there 

should be an ongoing interaction with the 

working group, with NIOSH, as to the relevance 

and the current -- the currency of any one of 

those documents. 'Cause that's where we're 

starting from --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 
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DR. MAURO: -- and if -- when -- so that would 

be very helpful. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I think that there's a 

spreadsheet that's updated pretty regularly, I 

think, by ORAU on the approved procedures or 

the -- I think there's even one that says 

pending and approved procedures, so -- I've 

also looked through there, and I think a lot of 

them are on there. There's some of these other 

supporting documents that don't -- they're not 

really procedures or TIBs that might also be 

included, so I just thought it might be helpful 

to narrow that for us so we don't have to go 

searching if -- if -- if that -- if that's easy 

enough to do. I mean the people that are doing 

the work probably can pull this together fairly 

quickly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and Jim. 

DR. NETON: We could certainly do that. I 

might suggest that we could put a separate 

folder out there that's accessible by the 

working group and put those things out there so 

they're easily identifiable as these meetings 

occur and work products are developed. 

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things more efficient. 

The other thing along those lines is for 

several of the workbooks on the O drive, at 

least from my access standpoint, the macros are 

disabled so I can't really look at -- at the 

workbook, and I'm not sure if that can be 

resolved. There might be specific reasons for 

certain ones being disabled or -- 

DR. NETON: We can -- we can accommodate that. 

I don't think that's a problem. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, if -- I've just got a 

couple more. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Some are along the same lines. 

There -- there's -- there's also, too, on the O 

drive -- at least for the Board's access 

standpoint, you know, I'm seeing this come up, 

especially for Y-12 and Savannah River, maybe 

for Rocky -- I'm not as familiar with that -- 

but there's a -- there's a coworker folder that 

we have -- "access denied" comes up when I try 

to go into that coworker folder, and I don't 

know if that's -- does that have the coworker 

model data? Is that something that the Board 
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can get access to, or is that just not relevant 

at this point? I -- I don't -- I don't know -- 

the same goes for -- there's another folder 

which I think is labeled "uncertainty analysis" 

which is also -- can't be accessed by the 

Board. But I think of -- of immediate 

relevance I thought was this coworker folder, 

especially if -- if it has any of the -- maybe 

that's in the separate site folders and it's 

irrelevant --

DR. NETON: Yeah, I'm not honestly familiar 

with what would be in that coworker folder. We 

-- we could look at it. You know, I would be 

reluctant to release to the Board preliminary 

work products where we're developing models and 

such like that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe that's what it is, maybe -- 

DR. NETON: It may be something like that -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- it's preliminary --

DR. NETON: -- but I'll look into it and see, 

and if it's -- if it's something that makes 

sense to -- to put in this workgroup folder, we 

have no problem doing that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It appears that there's already 

tacit agreement between the contractor and 
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NIOSH to take the next steps on Y-12. I would 

like to ask, though, if the Board wishes to 

formalize this in any way, again, either 

specific directions or general directions? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Do we need a motion for each one 

of these? I think we're going to take all of 

these through the same six-- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

 MR. GRIFFON: --step process. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- that may be. I --

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- think it's, again, probably 

good to have it on the record as the sense of 

the Board so that there's no question that it's 

not just the Chair's opinion or Mark's opinion 

this is what we should do -- or Leon's or 

anybody else's. 

 DR. WADE: My only opinion is the timing. I 

would like to see the Board address itself to 

the issues of the timing, as I would hope we 

could be in a position to deal definitively 

with an SEC petition for Y-12 at the end of 

January. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And the implication of that is we 

would like to have some level of closure on the 
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site profile so that we're not in the midst of 

reviewing a site profile while trying to deal 

with an SEC petition -- 

 DR. WADE: Correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- is your -- is the implication 

of what you (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. WADE: Yeah, that's what I bring. I mean 

we all -- we all -- we're through Mallinckrodt. 

I think we reminded ourself after Mallinckrodt 

that there was a lesson learned there that we 

wanted to heed, and I think that was the 

lesson. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Roy? 

 DR. DEHART: Would that then imply that we 

would provide a -- an instruction or priority 

as to which to be performed? I -- I would feel 

that that would be the case. Y-12 would become 

the number one priority. 

 DR. ZIEMER: There actually are two SEC 

petitions that we need to deal with. There is 

also a Rocky Flats -- 

 DR. WADE: Let me spend a moment talking about 

dates, and I apologize for this being 

confusing, but I think it's important for the 

Board to have the sense. For Y-12, the later 
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years, that particularly is Y-12 from -- is it 

'44 to '57 is the dates we're talking about? 

That petition qualified on April 29th of '05. 

NIOSH has 180 days to get an evaluation report 

before the Board. That would take it to 

sometime next week that NIOSH would be 

submitting to you an evaluation report on Y-12. 

Again, remember we've dealt with issues of Y-12 

before, so the exact form of that evaluation 

report is something under discussion with NIOSH 

and counsel. So let's say there's an 

evaluation report in front of you the end of 

this month. 

Then the next full Board meeting is in Jan-- 

the end of January that we have scheduled. 

Common sense would say you would take up that -

- that petition then. There is no legal 

requirement that you take it up then. I think 

there is the common sense requirement to want 

to do it as quickly as possible, so keep those 

dates in mind. 

With regard to Rocky Flats, the dates are more 

kind. Rocky Flats qualified on June 16th, '05. 

That means you could expect something from 

NIOSH in the middle of December of '05, where 
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again we could hope to work the SEC petition 

the end of January, or we could leave it for a 

subsequent meeting. So I think in terms of 

your setting your priorities, I would put the 

highest priority on Y-12, second on Rocky 

Flats, and third in this discussion on the 

Savannah River Site. 

But again, if the Board was to come before the 

January meeting and say we need more time to 

finish our business on Y-12, you could have 

that time. There is no clock that runs on the 

Board's action. There is a clock on NIOSH's 

action to get an evaluation report before the 

Board 180 days after the petition qualifies. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That answers your question I think 

that, by implication, the Y-12 SEC petition 

would have priority and therefore the need to 

complete the site profile in a timely fashion 

also then takes priority. 

 DR. WADE: If I could even speak just another 

minute --

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

 DR. WADE: I mean I'd like the Board to put 

itself in mind of what it would like to have 

before the Board -- let's say we're going to 
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vote on the Y-12 SEC petition at the end of 

January. Would you like to have statements 

from NIOSH and SEC (sic) that they've reached 

closure on all major issues? Would you like 

them to go beyond that? Would you like to see 

the implications, as Mark has raised this 

morning, of some sample dose reconstructions? 

I guess now is the time for us to think about 

what we would like. We have three months, but 

those three months will go by very quickly and, 

you know, the end of January will be upon us. 

I think it's prudent to think about what you 

would like to have in front of you as you 

approach the making of an SEC petition 

evaluation judgment. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Of course it's rather easy to say 

that we would like to have closure on all major 

issues before we meet. That -- that may or may 

-- we can't mandate that, of course. That's 

always an endpoint that you would like to 

reach, but -- Henry? 

DR. ANDERSON: I mean certainly if we're going 

to -- hey, what do we need closure on -- it 

would be those major issues that maybe are 

related to the SEC petition and dose 
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reconstruction. I mean there may be other 

issues and -- I mean this is a complex site, so 

I'm not sure we can expect to have everything 

resolved. But if there are key issues related 

to the petition, we certainly don't want to be 

arguing those in the -- or not have resolved 

them in the site profile and be dealing with 

them in the SEC petition. So I -- you know, 

without -- if we're going to know pretty soon 

to see what the decision is, that also, you 

know, becomes important. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now we took an earlier action on 

Savannah River, which was to request the next 

step in the process, without putting a 

timetable on it. In the case of Y-12, you -- 

you may wish to have a similar action but in 

fact to indicate priority-wise that that should 

proceed with highest priority. Something 

somewhat analogous could be done with Rocky 

Flats, which is another discussion. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Can I --

 DR. ZIEMER: Robert Presley. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Can I ask a question, please? 

Number one, counsel, can I speak to a SEC 

submission evaluation? 
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MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) For 

(unintelligible)? 

 MR. PRESLEY: Y-12. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) No, you 

have (unintelligible). 

 MR. PRESLEY: I have a conflict with Y-12. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: No, for SECs and dose 

reconstructions you would have to recuse 

yourself from them completely. If you wanted 

to offer comments during a public comment 

session as a member of the public, you could do 

that. 

 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: This is a sidebar. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we're trying to determine 

whether Mr. Presley can legally make the 

comment he wants to make. 

(Pause) 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Okay. The rule is, for a 

Special Exposure Cohort and a dose 

reconstruction, you have to recuse yourself 

completely. For a site profile, you may make 

comments, but you cannot vote on 

recommendations from the Board to the 

Secretary. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: So if your comment pertains to 

site profile issues, then you may make such a 

comment. Okay, Richard Espinosa. 

MR. ESPINOSA: I'm a little bit under 

confusion. I -- I already thought there was an 

SEC in front of us for Oak Ridge, I mean in 

this document right here that -- SEC tracking 

number 28, I already thought that was before 

us. 

 DR. ZIEMER: There is an SEC petition. The 

evaluation by NIOSH for that petition is due on 

 DR. WADE: Well, we have to turn back the 

clock. The Board has acted on a Y-12 petition 

for the early years. 

 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) the early years. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. WADE: And that the Board has recommended 

action and the Secretary has taken that action. 

Now we're looking at a subsequent year petition 

that is not yet formally before the Board. It 

has been received by NIOSH on the date that I 

mentioned. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we got the evaluation -- 

what is it called, Larry -- the evaluation 
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process that NIOSH will use. We're normally 

given a copy of that when the petition comes 

in. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: The evaluation report that you 

handled meeting before last on Y-12 early years 

is part of one petition. We part -- we handled 

and in evaluation report to you the early years 

at Y-12. We presented that evaluation report 

and concluded it, that a class should be added 

for the Calutron operators. We -- and we 

concluded at the end of that that we were still 

examining the remainder of the petition, the 

remainder of the years at Y-12 and trying to 

determine whether or not there was a -- an 

additional class that either should be added or 

should be denied, based upon this one petition 

-- one -- this same petition that we're dealing 

with. So you've already handled part of that 

petition. We're still working up the remainder 

of it, and that's what we want to bring forward 

to you in the future. 

MR. ESPINOSA: And the years of that were the 

'44 through '57? 

 DR. ZIEMER: '44 through '47, I believe, right 

-- right? 
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MR. ESPINOSA: '47? 

 DR. WADE: My notes are '44 to '57. 

 DR. ZIEMER: '57. 

MR. ESPINOSA: '57, okay, that's what I wrote 

down, too. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't have them right in my 

head right now so I'm -- 

 DR. WADE: We can verify that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And then that recommendation from 

NIOSH is the one that is due actually later 

this month, which then comes to us for our 

action. Okay. Jim? 

DR. NETON: Just some clarification. The years 

under evaluation currently are '48 to '57. If 

you recall, the Y-12 early years, '43 to '47, 

were already granted by the Advisory Board. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We stand corrected, it's 

apparently '48 to '57. 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think they were split, yeah. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, those -- the early years 

were already handled as a separate group. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Thank you, Larry. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Roy? 

 DR. DEHART: Yes, I'd like to move that the 

Board instruct NIOSH, to the degree we can, and 

the contractor, SC&A, to give priority to the 

Y-12 site profile, with the intent to have as 

much information and resolution as possible for 

January. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Seconded. Now discussion. Rich, 

you have another comment? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Oh, no, I'm sorry. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Any comments relative to 

the motion that's before us, pro or con? Are 

you ready to vote on the motion then? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Was it seconded? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, I believe --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I --

 DR. ZIEMER: I think Mark seconded the motion. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Sorry -- if you have a 

conflict for Y-12, then you can't -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: You cannot vote on -- 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- make motions, either. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- any motion. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: And you can't vote on 
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motions. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Roy, I -- is Y-12 or only X-10? 

 DR. DEHART: No, Y-12, as well. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so you can't make the 

motion. 

 DR. DEHART: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The motion that --

 DR. ZIEMER: Did anybody overhear the motion 

and --

DR. ANDERSON: I'll adopt the motion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The suggested motion. The 

suggested illegal motion, the motion -- Henry, 

are you making the motion? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I'll still second. I'll second 

Henry's one, too. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) You can't 

second a motion (unintelligible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: Do you have a --

 DR. WADE: Mark seconded. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

MR. ESPINOSA: I'll second the motion then. 

DR. ANDERSON: And then we don't have a quorum. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, before we vote, I want to -- I 
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want -- is -- is there a conflict for Mr. 

Griffon at Oak Ridge? 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, there's not. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: According to his waiver 

that's current right now, there is. What we 

asked was anyone who -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: There is not. There -- there is 

not. We went through this with several 

conference calls. I'll talk to you outside, 

but there's none. We put very specific 

language in there about this. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right, for the SEC there's 

very specific language -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- but what we -- when Wanda 

and us discussed this and we discussed it with 

Ethics, for the SECs you can be involved in the 

discussion, but if you have any type of 

conflict there, then you don't vote. 

 MR. GRIFFON: But this is not an SEC we're 

talking --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I'm sorry, site profiles. 

DR. ANDERSON: So who can vote? 

 MS. MUNN: I can vote. 

 DR. WADE: Okay, let's put a (unintelligible). 
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Who is conflicted for Y-12? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Roy DeHart --

 DR. WADE: Mr. Presley --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- is conflicted. 

 DR. WADE: -- Dr. DeHart, and under -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the Chair needs to know 

whether he's conflicted -- 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- for Y-12 since I've spent time 

there myself. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) the list, don't you, 

(unintelligible)? 

DeHart, Griffon, Presley and Ziemer -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are conflicted. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- that according to the 

waivers that you currently have, are conflicted 

for voting on an SE-- a site profile. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Let me just say for the record, I 

disagree with that interpretation, but I'll -- 

I will work with them more on that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Also -- I'm not sure the 

Chair can even hear the motion then. I think 

we need -- well --

 MS. MUNN: You have five people here. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: I guess I can recluse (sic) 

without voting, right? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Can I still Chair the motion? 

 DR. WADE: Can he be in the Chair when the 

motion is made? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) Probably 

should appoint someone else (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. WADE: Okay. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- (unintelligible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: Can I appoint the Federal Official 

to Chair the -- Lew, would you see if there's 

any motions dealing with Oak Ridge? 

 DR. WADE: I would be pleased. Just for the 

record, on Y-12 at Oak Ridge, apparently the 

waivers would conflict DeHart, Griffon, Ziemer 

and Presley, so let's do the arithmetic now. 

With those four excluded, we have one, two, 

three, four, five, six members that are here. 

That constitutes a quorum and we can conduct 

business. Okay? 

Is there a motion to be made by those who can 

make motions on Y-12? 

DR. ROESSLER: Henry made the motion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Henry's -- Henry --
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 MS. MUNN: Right, Henry made the motion. 

DR. ROESSLER: I seconded it. 

 MS. MUNN: She seconded. 

DR. ROESSLER: I don't know --

 DR. WADE: Okay, so the record will show that 

Henry has made the motion and it was seconded 

by Gen. Discussion? 

 (No responses) 

Let's take a vote. All in favor indicate by 

saying aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

Opposed? 

 (No responses) 

The motion carries. I've done quite well. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. I think we 

have concluded our morning business -- 

 DR. WADE: I'd like to talk a little bit in the 

realm of fantasy, so (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's what we've been doing for 

the last two days, some people think. 

 DR. WADE: No, not at all. Not -- I'm not one 

of them. So you can imagine a working group 

meeting that would take place quite quickly; a 

Board call that could consider, among other 

things, the result of that working group on the 
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28th of November. You could imagine another 

working group that would take place before the 

Board meeting. You could also imagine another 

ball -- another Board call that could take 

place early January. So I would ask you to 

consider all of those things as we sort of lay 

out the realistic plan. We're all very good at 

sort of fantasy planning and imagining that 

things are going to go well, but given the 

importance of this -- I mean we have a number 

of bites at the apple, and I think we want to 

lay out our plan to try and get this thing 

done, so -- I mean consider that as you do your 

-- your consideration and deliberation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 DR. DEHART: Lew, a question. On the working 

group, any of us from Y-12, if that -- if we're 

going to be discussing Y-12, shouldn't be on 

the working group. 

 DR. WADE: I think there's a judgment to be 

made there. A working group doesn't really 

vote anything out. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The working -- I think since we 

can discuss -- working group can discuss site 

profiles, you should be able to also be in a 
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working group. 

 DR. WADE: Right. I think so, so I would make 

the judgment that it's really value you bring 

to the discussion. I would include yourself. 

Again, the working group will not normally be 

voting anything out that might be -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now before we actually appoint a 

working group, which will probably occur 

tomorrow, we can get a definite ruling from 

counsel on that later as to whether that would 

preclude it. I --

 DR. WADE: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Since we're allowed to actually 

enter into the discussion, I see no problem 

with it. Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: And I would actually point out that, 

for the sake of the working group's 

constitution, individuals with actual site 

experience might be extremely valuable in the 

interaction between NIOSH and SC&A. 

 DR. WADE: I would agree. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay. And I think we 

have concluded our morning session. We're 

scheduled to recess for lunch until 1:00 p.m. 

It's now 11:30, a few minutes past, so we're 
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pretty much on schedule, so I'll declare that 

we're in recess until 1:00 o'clock. 

 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 11:30 a.m. 

to 1:05 p.m.) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're ready to begin the 

afternoon session. If you will take your 

seats, we'll get underway. 

REPORT FROM SUBCOMMITTEE: 

ROCKY FLATS 

The first item on our afternoon agenda is a 

report from the subcommittee on Rocky Flats, 

and let me report that in the case of Rocky 

Flats the -- the site profile review for Rocky 

Flats has not yet been issued by our 

contractor. Of course you have the -- the site 

profile itself that NIOSH prepared. 

Also you're aware, as previously indicated, 

that there is in process a SEC petition for 

Rocky, and the action on that petition -- NIOSH 

has to make a recommendation by mid-December on 

that, so that, priority-wise, is coming up. 

But we at this moment do not have a review from 

our contractor. 

They did, however, make a kind of a preliminary 

presentation of some issues which were 

emerging. Initially there was the issue of 
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high five plutonium, but I understand from a 

later exchange that Joe Fitzgerald had with -- 

with others that the high five plutonium may 

not be quite the issue that they thought it was 

initially, but there are some other initials -- 

or some other issues emerging at Rocky. And 

Joe, if you -- you or John, probably you would 

be best prepared to do that -- just very 

briefly summarize the issues that SC&A sees 

with respect to Rocky. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I am looking back 

'cause I think Hans Behling is right behind me 

and I want him to spend just two minutes on 

this subject because he had summarized it. In 

general we did want to look at the high five 

issue in some detail. We started out looking 

at that, and I think we came around to 

appreciating that a bigger issue in -- 

respecting this site profile is the question of 

how the MDA was being handled in terms of the 

assignment of doses. 

 (Off microphone) Hans, I -- we're just going to 

take a couple of minutes to talk about the MDA 

issue at Rocky. I was going to 

(unintelligible) --
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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Hans. Thank you. 

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, the issue that we're 

addressing is what MDA is applicable here, and 

I looked through the TBD and I assessed the 

method by which the median value of the MDA 

were derived and that MDA is really based on an 

(unintelligible) standard and incorporates 

about four different variables. And I believe 

the median value assumes a couple of parameter 

values that I consider relatively 

unconservative, such as the yield and the 

counting efficiency and a couple of others. 

And at the same time, the TBD also has a table 

on page 47, I believe, that says what if one of 

the four variables is either at the 5th or 95th 

percentile value, what would that do to the 

MDA. And also what if two out of the four and 

three out of four of those variables were at 

the extreme end and what would that do to the 

value of the MDA, and you realize that the MDA 

value is going to be a critical component in 

dose reconstruction because I suspect that many 

of the people who were working in an 

environment where there was plutonium are 

likely to be assayed for urine that will result 
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in a what's called either a background -- noted 

as background or zero. And so now the question 

is what do we do as a surrogate value when you 

have either BK for background or zero, and the 

options are several. That is, you can use the 

central value or median value. You can use one 

outlier or two outliers, one of the parameters, 

or even three. In addition to that, there are 

reportable levels. Apparently there was a 

period of time when the urinalysis data were -- 

were looked at and said well, if it's ten 

percent of the guidelines, then we're not even 

-- if it's less than ten percent, we're not 

even going to -- to record it, and so those 

numbers could also very well reflect either a 

background or zero value. And it turns out 

that that value of reportability is somewhere 

around 0.088 or 0.9, I think, rounded off. So 

those are the options. And when I looked at 

the users workbook or the guidance given to 

dose reconstructors, the median values were 

identified as the recommended to use for -- for 

using when a individual's bioassay turns out to 

be either background or zero. And we discussed 

it with NIOSH and they recognize that this is 
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an issue that needs to be looked at very 

carefully, and so I think we're in the process 

right now in establishing a dialogue and 

finding what it is that we think might be the 

recommended surrogate value in instances where 

the urine data will either be defined as 

background or zero. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So although the report itself is 

not out, the dialogue has already started with 

-- with NIOSH --

 DR. BEHLING: Yes, yes, we started that last 

week. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- on some of these issues. 

 DR. WADE: John -- John Mauro, when will we 

receive the -- will the Board receive the Rocky 

Flats report? 

DR. MAURO: Both Rocky Flats and a Nevada Test 

Site report, both of which we were hoping to 

deliver to you by the end of September, the end 

of first fiscal year, are going to be delivered 

by the end of this month. So you'll have Rocky 

-- I actually have a complete draft in my 

briefcase of Rocky and -- and Nevada Test Site 

is a little behind, so -- but both of them will 

be delivered by the end of this month. And 
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that would basically close out what I call our 

fiscal year 2005 scope of work, all nine 

reports will have been delivered. Of course 

many of them are still in the stage of expanded 

review, but that's a part of the budget for 

Task I for next fiscal year. So the -- the 

only thing that's really outstanding that we 

owe you right now for FY '05 -- 2005 are Nevada 

Test Site and Rocky, and you will see them by 

the end of the month. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. At which time NIOSH will 

also have the official report, so they've not 

really officially had a chance to respond to 

it, in any event, even though you've started 

some dialogue, raising some questions and 

trying to define some of those issues. 

DR. MAURO: What's been very helpful is that as 

we see these is-- the important issues, as I 

mentioned, we bring them up, inform the Board, 

the working group, perhaps even have a 

telephone conference call regarding some of 

these -- this has happened on Rocky, but it has 

not yet happened on Nevada Test Site. Probably 

would be a good idea to maybe move that 

forward, too. We -- I would say Rocky is a 
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little bit more mature down the line than 

Nevada Test Site. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So actually there's no 

action we actually need to take on Rocky since 

we don't yet have the site profile, but it's 

understood that -- that initially there will be 

the opportunity for NIOSH to look at the 

findings and prepare their responses. And as 

our working group is -- has an opportunity and 

as we have an opportunity in telephone 

conversations to review the progress, then we 

can make more definite plans from there. But 

at least we are aware that this has also a 

priority, since it is related to the upcoming 

SEC petition from Rocky. And Lew, do you want 

to add to --

 DR. WADE: Well, just -- you know, thinking 

about this realistically, again, you will 

probably receive a petition evaluation report 

from NIOSH the 16th of December. It's possible 

we won't take up the Rocky Flats petition until 

the meeting after the January meeting. I don't 

think we need to make that decision today, but 

given the fact that we don't have the report, 

we have lots to do. I mean I would hold open 
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that possibility. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Okay. So are there any 

additional questions or comments on Rocky 

Flats? This is more in the line of a progress 

report today. 

Okay. Thank you, then we'll continue on our 

agenda.

REPORT FROM SUBCOMMITTEE: 

SC&A CONTRACT TASK III 

Our next item is a report from our subcommittee 

on the SE-- SC&A contract -- Task III contract, 

which is the procedures evaluation. And for 

that part of our discussion we need to make 

sure everybody has a copy of the summary of 

Task III procedures finding matrix. And as we 

indicated yesterday in the subcommittee 

meeting, there are three versions of that. The 

initial version has the findings of SC&A. The 

next version has NIOSH responses to the 

findings. And the third version has our 

working group's recommended Board action on the 

responses, and it's that third one which we 

want to address since it contains everything 

that the other two contain, plus the output 

from our working group. 

 Now that recommended Board action comes from 
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the Chair of the working group, who is Mark. 

Yesterday in our subcommittee meeting we simply 

summarized what had been done, but we did not 

look at the individual findings. We have the 

opportunity to do that now. We have --

basically have an hour if we need it, Mark, to 

go through these. But in any event, why don't 

-- why don't you lead us through these findings 

and the recommended outcomes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I --

 DR. ZIEMER: Or recommended actions. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I was wondering if -- if Board 

members have had a chance to review this. We 

might -- it might be easier just to go down 

somewhere -- I was -- where there's an issue on 

the Board action that I proposed. There's some 

that I have highlighted or put a question mark 

next to because I was unclear in my notes and -

-

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, and if necessary we -- we 

can simply work through these and delay action 

till later, if you wish. But --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But let's at least work through 

them and see what questions and issues -- 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, if you want to go through 

item by item, that's -- 

DR. ANDERSON: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) let's just take the ones 

you've highlighted or the question mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That was what I wanted to know. 

Do you want to go through item by item or go 

through the ones where there's questions? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, a lot of these have the same 

outcome recommended, but I think you at least -

- we should take a couple of those to -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and then we can say okay, this 

follows that previous pattern, but -- for 

example, recommended NIOSH modify procedure, 

low priority. Sort of what does that mean and 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and when it turns up again, 

then we'll know what that means. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. All right. Yeah, for the 

first item it's -- it's for OCAS IG-001, and 

Board action there is recommend NIOSH modify 

procedure, low priority. There are several of 

those -- as Paul stated, several of those types 
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of recommendations -- low priority, medium 

priority and high priority for those kind of 

things, and in general, for this first 

procedure especially, they -- they -- several 

of them appear. This is the implementation 

guide for external radiation dose 

reconstruction, and -- you know, in a -- 

several of these cases, the low priority items 

are ones where -- to some extent, it was a -- 

it was a stylistic comment, too much background 

information, should be rearranged to highlight 

the other information and put the background 

information in appendices, things that -- that 

-- that I don't think are priorities to -- to 

make the changes. NIOSH said they -- they 

would change them, as their schedule permitted, 

that sort of thing, you know -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, Stu Hinnefeld -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- and we agree with that, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Stu Hinnefeld indicated yesterday 

on these kind -- most of these are ones where a 

change doesn't affect what they actually do -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- in terms of the use of it. It 

simply lays it out in a more convenient way, 
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but doesn't change the technical use of it and 

the -- most of the dose reconstructors are used 

to the old layout anyway, so -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- it's more, as you say, a 

stylistic thing. This would read better or 

look better if it was reorganized, but it 

really doesn't affect the -- the final outcome 

of anything; therefore it's low priority in 

actually making the change. Why spend time and 

effort when it doesn't change how the work is 

done. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So I can move down to -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Whenever we have one of those -- 

recommend NIOSH modify, low priority -- it 

tends to be one where actually -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, it would affect a dose 

reconstruction --

 DR. ZIEMER: It wouldn't affect 

(unintelligible) --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- much at all, right, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And the next one is in that 

same category. Right? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Then I was going to move 

to the third one, just to make sure that I -- 
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that I summarized the workgroup discussion 

correctly here. I think where we came down on 

this was that we -- there was no action 

necessary. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and go -- maybe go through 

the example here, what it is -- the finding, 

inadequate guidance. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, and the finding in this 

case, you know, inadequate guidance for 

classifying a case that has potentially less 

than 50 percent or greater than 50 percent. 

NIOSH's response, basically they're saying, you 

know, yes, we agree this issue has to be 

addressed, but it's in Proc. 6. It's not in 

the broader implementation guide. So if -- if 

it is included and spelled out properly in 

Proc. 6, I think there's no action necessary 

for this finding. 

 The only thing I would ask, as I'm thinking -- 

thinking about this in real time is that -- 

that four pages from now we come to that Proc. 

6 -- the thing I mentioned yesterday -- where 

they said all the findings are the same for 

Proc. 6, and this is one example where I was 

thinking to myself as I was putting this 
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together, well, is this -- and I'll ask SCA and 

NIOSH -- is this spelled out in Proc. 6 and 

does SCA find it acceptable in -- in Proc. 6? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Hans, you have a comment to that? 

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah. Proc. 6 really gives you a 

summary capsule of what's in the implementation 

guide, but it also gives you something that is 

not in the implementation guide, and that is 

the various attachments that follow the main 

body of Proc. 6 where they by and large define 

what methodology needs to be applied in dose 

reconstruction involving a case where the 

probability of causation, based on Task II 

review, is less than 50 percent/greater than 50 

percent. They talk about methodology of the 

dose reconstruction involving a case where 

shallow dose is a key component of the dose 

reconstruction, so forth. So they're not 

exactly duplicates of each other, except that 

the core component up front in Proc. 6 is a 

summary component of the implementation guide. 

And our comments that pertain to Implementation 

Guide 1 does in fact apply to the up-front 

component of Proc. 6 and -- and we do not 

address the issue of the attachments, which are 
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step-by-step guidance, unlike the 

implementation guide, which is sort of a -- a 

foundation. The Proc. 6 actually does provide 

step-by-step guidance for dose reconstruction. 

That is not part of the implementation guide. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Am I understanding this right? I 

mean you -- you can't tell me right now if this 

issue is adequately addressed in the 

attachments in Proc. 6. Have you reviewed 

that? 

 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: What I'm asking is is this issue 

adequately addressed, in -- in your opinion, in 

the (unintelligible)? 

 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. BEHLING: Yes, in fact the Proc. 6 -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's what we want to get at. 

 DR. BEHLING: -- the first time actually 

identifies the task group review group, which 

apparently is -- is a group of individuals at 

NIOSH who actually do a screening of the claims 

and say this is likely to be a -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. BEHLING: -- a -- a maximized claim, and 

when the dose reconstructor gets it, he already 
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has been told whether this is a -- a -- likely 

to be less than 50 percent POC claim, and so he 

comes already geared to doing a dose 

reconstruction that is a maximized. Or, in 

other words, also a -- a best estimate. But 

that is part of Proc. 6, that initial 

screening, and that's not identified in the 

implementation guide. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So -- so I think he's 

answered my question, no action necessary. 

 MS. MUNN: He's happy with the answer. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, proceed. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Fourth one, you'll notice a 

similar language, except medium priority, and -

- you know, this is sort of a subjective call, 

but uncertainty and -- and the clarification on 

how the uncertainty analysis is done, I -- I 

sort of thought that was -- it's not just 

simply wording changes, maybe. I think there's 

-- at least we have to make sure that there's 

consistency in the way it's described in the 

implementation guide and the way it's being 

carried through in the workbooks, and I think 

that's -- at least -- maybe it's not a high 
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priority, but it's somewhere in the middle. 

It's medium priority. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask Stu Hinnefeld here at 

the moment, NIOSH has also used different 

language here than you did in the first one. 

Does that imply that you agree that this one 

not only needs some revision, but probably 

would be done at least sooner than the -- the 

top one on the page? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, that's correct. I've been 

following my notes against Mark's notes and 

we're pretty much lined up. There are a --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- few that --

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- we're not exactly lined up, 

but --

 DR. ZIEMER: And medium priority, what -- what 

we're saying here I think -- I want to make 

sure that what we think it means and what you 

think it means are the same thing. It means 

probably that it doesn't have to be done on an 

urgent basis, but you can't put it off 

indefinitely, either. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Correct. Correct. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: That's still a lot of latitude, 

but -- okay, I think --

 MR. HINNEFELD: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think we're on the same 

page here. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Hans has a comment. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Hans. 

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I also want to make comment 

because the fourth item also goes -- ties into 

the second item, and I have to say the response 

NIOSH gave is, at this point, something that 

I'm not convinced of is the case, which says 

that the implementation guide is really not to 

be used for dose reconstruction purposes. But 

it turns out that it is the only document that 

I've seen to date that actually provides you 

with some kind of a methodology by which 

uncertainty for recorded photon and neutron 

doses are even provided. I have not yet seen 

any other document, whether it's a procedure or 

a TIB, that actually identifies the methodology 

that's to be used. In fact, in looking at all 

of the dose reconstructions that we've audited 

to date, you will see usually a reference to 

the implementation guide as to the methodology 
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for doing uncertainty -- with the exception of 

TIB 8 and 10 where there is a maximized 

uncertainty that says multiply all recorded 

dose by a factor of two, and that exempts you 

from doing the uncertainty. But if you are 

looking to do best-estimate, which mandates the 

need for defining the recorded dose plus some 

measure of the sigma value, there is no other 

document to my knowledge that defines the 

method or the mathematical formula that one 

might be used -- that may be used in defining 

uncertainty. So the -- the -- comment number 

two has to be somehow or other introduced into 

another document that looks at the methodology 

for uncertainty -- unless it's incorporated now 

into some method that Crystal Ball makes use of 

and is part of a workbook, and I think that may 

very well be the case, but I haven't seen it 

and I haven't really looked at it. And I think 

probably Stu might want to comment -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: This is -- this is where perhaps 

the language was not clear, even though the 

usage may be. Stu, can you --

 MR. HINNEFELD: One of the -- one of the things 

that I did note that my notes were different 
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than Mark's is that two of the three -- there's 

a three-part comment on IG 1-2, there are three 

parenthetical parts to that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I had -- for parenthetical one 

and two, I had that as an intermediate or 

medium priority as part of the uncertainty 

preparation -- description of what uncertainty 

is doing, and I only had number three as a -- 

as a low priority, so that was -- so I -- I 

think I'm agreeing with what Hans said there. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and to Hans's second part 

of -- of his comment, are -- are these fleshed 

out in the workbooks more or is this the only 

guidance for... 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, certainly the workbook 

does the calculation. I think --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- it would be relatively 

difficult to discern from looking at a workbook 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- what's behind that, so my 

intent here is to describe the -- the 

uncertainty approach that is being utilized -- 
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 MR. GRIFFON: But there --

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- not the uncertainly approach 

that's currently --

 MR. GRIFFON: So there --

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- (unintelligible) -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: There are no procedures 

prescribing how to do uncertainty -- IG 1 is 

it. Right? Is that correct, or -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: As -- well, I don't know them 

all by heart. I -- I won't dispute that. That 

could very well be the case. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Clarify for us then, this second 

item that you're saying there's really two 

parts to it or three? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Two. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Looks --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Three. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Three parts. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Looks like (unintelligible). 

 MR. HINNEFELD: There are three parts. I put 

two -- the first -- parenthetical one, two and 

three in the actual finding itself. There are 

three -- I consider that three parts. Okay? 

Parenthetical one and two both deal with 
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uncertainty, I believe -- hang on 

(unintelligible) --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, that's correct. Yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, both deal with 

uncertainty and therefore should be addressed 

in the write-up about uncertainty. 

Parenthetical --

 DR. ZIEMER: Wait a minute, are we all -- when 

you say parenthetical one and two, what are you 

referring to? 

 MR. GRIFFON: On the second finding. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Finding IG 1-2 in the finding -

- finding description column. 

 DR. ZIEMER: 1 dash --

 MR. HINNEFELD: IG 1-2, that would be in the 

second column, finding number -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, in the finding 

description column --

 MR. GRIFFON: There's three parts. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Those three parts, okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: One and two I believe should be 

addressed with intermediate priority in the 

write-up of uncertainty that we have promised 

to prepare. Item three we believe is the one 
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that's the low priority (unintelligible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: So --

 MR. GRIFFON: And I would agree the uncertainty 

part is probably, you know -- just like four, 

it should be a medium. That was my oversight 

on that. I don't know -- I guess we can 

separate the finding into two, medium and low. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So items one and two would be 

medium and item three would be low in that sec-

- the second item. Is that correct? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think so, yeah. I agree with 

what Stu said, so... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, rather than the whole thing 

being low. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So we can move on to the 

second page, I think. That's pretty fast, 

compared to last meetings. 

Okay, first two items, five and six, deal with 

limit of detection. And I think what --

reading quickly, but I think it was that these 

were illustrative in the IG 1 document, whereas 

the specific LODs are going to be in the site 

profile documents or site-specific TIBs or 
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whatever, so -- but this is a -- no action 

required here, unless there's an action to 

indicate more clearly that these are 

illustrations or examples, not -- I think Stu 

mentioned that yesterday, possibly that there 

might be a clarification -- if there's a table, 

that it's only for illustrative purposes or -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I had recorded these as a low 

priority edit that's probably fairly easy to 

do. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: You know, insertion of some 

text, so that's how I'd recorded 

(unintelligible) --

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess I might change -- change 

those to low priority, but they're -- they're 

basically simple -- make sure you list them as 

examples rather than -- yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Finding number 1-7, I listed this 

as a medium priority, and it -- it is the issue 

that we've heard about a little yesterday as 

well on the NTA film that -- detection limits 

at various energies, and I -- I think this 

one's in a -- you know, it's coming up again 
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and again at many sites. I think we -- we -- I 

think it deserves to be addressed more quickly 

and it's -- it's -- it is a technical issue, 

not just a simple editorial issue, so I judged 

it as a medium. 

I'm also not sure what medium means in terms of 

time frame, you know. 

 DR. WADE: You need to do that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. And I don't know if we 

want to put any -- associate any kind of times 

with these. 

 MS. MUNN: It might be a wise idea for some of 

these, like this one that we see as a fairly 

important technical issue, for us to identify a 

recommended early addressment from NIOSH. 

 DR. ZIEMER: One way to do this would be to 

specify a date at which we would simply ask 

NIOSH to report on the status of these, what 

changes have been made. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah. Yeah, that would be good. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And then you could determine your 

level of comfort with that. If they say well, 

actually we haven't made any changes and six 

months has -- and I don't know when you would 

want that report. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I suspect it may be a little early 

to ask for that for the next meeting since on 

even the medium and low priority things we're 

not really wanting them to spend a lot of time 

on those till we get our high priority stuff 

out of the way, but would you want to -- and we 

can -- we can do this at the end, if you wish. 

But would you want them, for example, to report 

back in a certain number of months on the 

status of what they've done on these? It could 

be that we've made the following changes, or we 

didn't do anything, or whatever it is, and then 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, I think that's a good 

idea. Let's get a status report and maybe 

think about the time when we get -- let's get 

through the matrix, then -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: After we're through this, then 

we'll -- we'll do that, so have that in the 

back of your mind. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. WADE: Right now I'll (unintelligible) in 

the meeting after the January meeting and we 

can talk about it. 
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 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. That seems... 

 DR. ZIEMER: I do want to ask, though, what are 

we asking be done when we say modify the 

procedure here? What are we asking that they 

be done? There's some literature values. Are 

we asking NIOSH to select a different threshold 

value, or what? What is being asked for? It's 

not clear to me. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: The note I recorded, which may 

or may not be the definitive word, but the note 

I recorded was that the question of a threshold 

for NTA film is sort of a -- it's not a clearcut -- there's a threshold -- there's a 

particular threshold at which you can start to 

see the recoil and so the film be-- starts to 

become sensitive, but it is particularly 

sensitive to the energy of the neutron -- you 

know, your tracks per fluence -- until you get 

up to around one MeV. And so from this 

original cutoff, whether it's 400 keV, which is 

the lowest number in the table, or whatever 

number it is in there from that very lowest 

part where you can register a track up to about 
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one MeV, there is an energy dependence in terms 

of tracks per fluence. And so what we had -- 

what I thought we would do is we would insert 

language into the site profile to reflect that, 

that there is no -- you know, that there is no 

hard and fast lower cutoff. You start to see 

tracks at this energy. It's energy-dependent 

up through this energy and that -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Into the --

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- and that you need to have 

some knowledge about particular spectra at the 

site and calibration procedures in order to 

interpret it if -- if we say, you know, 

something like that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: You said -- you said insert 

language into the site profile. You meant into 

the IG? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I meant the IG. I meant into 

the IG, I'm sorry. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I agree with that, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So you're simply telling the dose 

reconstructor that here -- here are the values 

and -- and use them in connection with the 

spectral information to make a judgment on 

that. 
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 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. As long as we understand 

what it is they're changing. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, number eight -- again, a 

medium priority, and it was because -- I think 

this is really dealing with neutron to photon 

ratio issues, and again, it's because it's come 

up at several sites and I think it's a issue 

that's ongoing at several sites, so... 

 DR. BEHLING: Actually this goes beyond the 

neutron to photon ratio. This actually 

involves reconstructing neutron dose from a 

source term. And --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. BEHLING: -- I think we discussed it and I 

think the answer was the following: If you're 

trying to reconstruct a neutron dose on -- on 

an individual who was around let's say a 

reactor, this methodology is virtually 

impossible. On the other hand, if you're 

dealing with a californium 252 source and you 

have some understanding of the moderation that 

may take place, a -- the approach that has been 

outlined by taking the neutron source -- the 

strength of the neutron source and so forth can 
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be used as a surrogate for dosimetry data, but 

it would be highly selective for the individual 

in terms of how you define his neutron dose 

based on the source term. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, so I guess the key 

language in NIOSH's response is better describe 

-- describe more achievable methods, right, and 

that's -- that's how they're going to modify 

their procedure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And this would be an example -- 

now at the point at which NIOSH reported back 

and said we now have made a modification in 

this process or procedure, at that point the 

Board could say well, we'd like SC&A to review 

that, or we could say no, that's fine or 

something -- we could react in some way to it. 

'Cause there could -- you could agree to make a 

change, but it might not be useful. Well, I --

I don't want to prejudge, I'm just -- this is 

theoretically, you understand. Okay. Wanda. 

 MS. MUNN: It would seem to me that as these 

changes are made, SC&A would automatically be 

advised of those changes. Right? So what --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it's the Board that needs to 

be advised, and one of our options would be, as 
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part of the regular status report, is to report 

changes that have been made -- if you want to 

do it that way as opposed to at a specific 

time. I don't think we have to decide that at 

this moment, but that would be an option. You 

know, here -- here are changes made in our 

procedures since the last time we met. I --

did that not address what you -- 

 MS. MUNN: No, I understand what you're saying. 

I'm just thinking that in simple terms of 

expediting all the processes that we can 

possibly think of, if NIOSH is going to issue a 

change in their procedure, minor or major, it 

seems to me that -- that it will become a 

public document -- right? -- and as such, would 

not our contractor see it at the same time we 

did? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Only -- well, they -- it would be 

available to them, but I don't think -- unless 

we task them to automatically review all 

changed procedures, I don't think they would -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's what we're trying to 

avoid, not to have to review the next rev of 

something, you know, just to specifically have 

the action done on these items, yeah. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: At some point we may elect to go 

back and -- and task -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the contractor, but we 

shouldn't automatically expect the contractor 

to have to review everything that NIOSH does, 

so --

 MS. MUNN: No, I wasn't thinking of reviewing. 

I was thinking if they had it -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: They certainly -- it would 

certainly be available to them, as it is to 

everybody, and they would be aware of it. And 

in fact, and would end up using it as they 

reviewed dose reconstructions, perhaps, so -- 

okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Number nine -- number nine is a -

- addresses the neutron to photon ratio, and 

also -- the reason I put a recommended action 

as described in NIOSH response because it's 

kind of two parts to this. One was the neutron 

to photon ratio question, and the other was 

just deleting this general reference to the 

neutron doses being 20 percent. And -- and 

NIOSH has agreed to remove that language in -- 

'cause -- in the generic document. And the 
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other part of that I think is also a medium 

priority, so I might want to clear that up. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Questions on that? 

 (No responses) 

Okay, go ahead. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Number ten is the -- the question 

of the dose conversion factors that we've 

discussed at several meetings, and the reason I 

highlighted this -- it doesn't show up that 

well on the copy, but I -- I wasn't cl-- it 

seems to me that NIOSH agreed to investigate 

this further, but I don't know -- again, this 

is one where I don't know if there's a time 

line on this or -- it -- it's clearly not going 

to be a simple -- it doesn't seem like a simple 

switch, but I think it's a higher priority, so 

I -- I don't know what research further means 

and if NIOSH has any sense of how long this 

might take or Hans -- Hans wants to... 

 DR. BEHLING: I think you're -- you're slightly 

ahead of yourself because the issues I think 

you're about to address are in -- in issues 12 

and 13. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, 12 and 13, you're right. 

 DR. BEHLING: Number ten is really confined to 
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a single set of DCFs that involve the bone 

surface, and I think we talked about it and I 

agree with NIOSH. They looked at ICRP-74 and 

ICRP-4 (sic) acknowledges that the electron 

equilibrium where you go from surf-- from soft 

tissue into bone and you encounter high Z, a 

high atomic number value of 20 at bone, we're 

going from atomic number of 6 to 7 for soft 

tissue to 20, accelerates the electron 

equilibrium to a much higher dose. And if you 

look at, for instance, in -- in EPA guidance 

document 11 and look for bone dose, you will 

see that it's represented there. But ICRP-74 

does not, so they're correct in saying that if 

we adhere to ICRP-74, the bone surface dose for 

low energy photons, which is driven by the 

photoelectric interaction, is not necessarily 

one that they acknowledge or is somehow or 

other diluted. And I concur because I'm 

familiar with ICRP-74. At the same time, other 

documents -- like the Federal Guidance Report 

11 -- will in fact, if you look at those 

values, acknowledge the bone surface dose to 

two -- factors of two or three higher. And so 

for -- for special cases such as bone cancer, 
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that may make a significant difference. But 

again, it's an arbitrary decision here. 

(Unintelligible) go with ICRP or with other 

potential documents. 

 MR. GRIFFON: You're right, I -- I was -- I was 

thinking about 12 and 13, but I guess what 

threw me here on -- as to what to put for a 

Board action was the last statement, that says 

-- in NIOSH's response it says (reading) but 

might consider alternative values, with 

sufficient reason. 

So I guess the question I had was do you -- do 

you currently have, based on what S-- based on 

our discussions with SC&A, do you have 

sufficient reason now or -- or, you know, what 

-- what -- where does this stand? Are you 

sticking with the ICRP values or... 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, we have a -- we have a 

prejudice toward ICRP values. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: You know, we tend to accept -- 

you know, accept those. I believe the ICRP 

description specific to bone surface where they 

talk -- there's an excerpt that I included in 

our initial responses. As I understand that 
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excerpt, it says that the -- they don't bother 

dealing with the transition from soft tissue to 

mineral bone at bone surface because they 

assign the dose to the bone, the mineral bone, 

as the dose to the bone surface, and that this 

is an overestimating approach. 

Now that's the way I interpreted this excerpt 

out of ICRP-74 so that bone surface doesn't 

seem to be a -- you know, that since they 

consider the dose to bone surface the dose to 

mineral bone, which is the higher dose, and our 

dose correction factor for bone surface is 

quite a lot higher than soft tissue dose 

conversion factor in our own table from -- for 

that, so it seems to have been accounted for, 

is -- is what I think. But certainly this may 

require some additional discussion. We -- and 

you know, we can -- we can either do it e-mail 

and copy the Board, we can do it however. This 

may involve a little more understanding of each 

other's positions, I think, to resolve it -- to 

know if we're going to change something or not. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I guess --

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm just thinking, it seems to me 

at a bone surface you're virtually always going 
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from a lower Z to a higher Z. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are there any cases where that 

wouldn't be true? 

 MS. MUNN: I can't imagine. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe -- maybe if you had an 

artificial knee or something it might be true, 

but -- but in fact if that's the case, 

electronic buildup is always going to give you 

a bigger value a little deeper into the bone 

than the surface. So if that's the value you 

use, you're overestimating bone surface values. 

 DR. BEHLING: No, I think it's the other way 

around. If you're going from a -- a -- at the 

interface --

UNIDENTIFIED: That would not (unintelligible) 

 DR. BEHLING: -- obviously at that very -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Dose at the interface is going to 

be lower. 

 DR. BEHLING: At the very point of the 

interface, but within the range of osteoclasts 

which are the source for bone cancers, you 

would probably end up with a mean free path of 

a beta or electron that is relatively short, 
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but you would go to a very steep rise -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

 DR. BEHLING: -- at the interface. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- let me ask then, what is ICRP74 using? Are they using the peak of the 

equilibrium point? 

 DR. BEHLING: I think they use a volumetric 

dose. In other words, they say what is the 

average (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. BEHLING: -- (unintelligible) mean dose -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. BEHLING: -- and you -- and you realize 

that -- I think in my write-up I actually took 

a figure that comes out of Hine and Brownell 

that identifies the -- the conversion of dose 

to -- to absorbed -- of -- of -- the absorbed 

dose as a function of tissue depths, and 

there's a steep spike at the point of the 

interface. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 

 DR. BEHLING: And so if, for instance, you were 

to take a film badge or a TLD that measures an 

HP-10 dose, that's really a dose that you'd 

expect to see at a depth of one centimeter in 
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soft tissue. And of course as the equilibrium 

-- electron equilibrium is established in 

mineralized bone based on the high Z value of 

mineralized bone, you end up with a 

significantly higher dose than actually the -- 

the air dose at the entry. In other words, if 

you have even a shallow dose, an air dose entry 

level -- kerma dose -- and look at the bone -- 

mineralized bone dose, you -- you will actually 

see the dose, even though there's some 

attenuation that has taken place. But based on 

the Z value of bone for low energy photons, you 

would actually see a higher absorbed dose. 

Again --

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we -- we may have to get 

some debate on this. I don't think an HP-10 

dose is necessarily at ten. Usually it's not. 

I believe it's the highest value between the 

skin -- what's -- what do we use for skin now, 

is it --

 DR. BEHLING: A shallow dose, a zero -- it's a 

seven milligrams --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, from seven milligrams to 

ten, the HP-10 dose is the highest value in 

between there, is it not? And it's assigned. 
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No? 

 DR. BEHLING: I was under the impression it's 

1,000 milligrams per centimeter squared, which 

in soft tissue is (unintelligible) -- 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: The actual value at -- at ten? 

 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's what I (unintelligible). 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I guess I want to look at 

those definitions again. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. BEHLING: It may be a moot issue, but it's 

one that I brought up and it is brought up 

also, as I said, in Federal Guidance Report 11. 

If you look at the dose conversion factors as a 

function of photon energy, you will see a big 

spike that occurs at the surface, and then of 

course it goes exponentially down based on 

attenuation. But the transition between soft 

and mineral bone is a very steep rise and the 

actual dose at the interface can be a factor of 
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two or three times higher than actually as the 

entry dose. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, I -- sure, we're --

 DR. BEHLING: And it would affect bone cancers, 

that's -- that's my point. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So I -- I think maybe my Board 

action was correct in the first place. We --

we should leave it as more research is needed 

on this and -- you know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That refreshes my memory of the 

workgroup discussion, too. 

DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I may be thinking of the 

absorbed dose or the dose equivalent index, 

which is the highest value between -- rather 

than the -- in ICRP-74 they're -- they're using 

the -- the depth -- or the H sub ten as the 

actual value at ten. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think they are, yeah. 

I'm not sure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But I think the absorbed dose and 

dose equivalent indices where you take the dose 

equivalent sphere with a ten centimeter radius, 
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the value given for HP-10 index is the highest 

value in the sphere. It's not the value at the 

center. It makes a big difference. If not, 

I'm going to have to go back and give a lot of 

students credit for wrong answers. Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Number 11, I think, again, this 

is an uncertainty question, and medium priority 

assigned. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Then number 12 and 13 were the 

dose conversion factors -- the issue I was 

thinking of before, which I -- I put them as 

high priority because again and again there -- 

this question has come up on dose 

reconstruction reviews we've done and -- and it 

could have an effect on past DRs that have been 

done, although I'm not sure what assumptions 

were made in terms of geometry and things in -- 

in the past DRs that were done, but I thought 

it was a high -- high enough priority we -- we 

should resolve this issue 'cause it's going to 

come up in --

 DR. ZIEMER: And (unintelligible) -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- in most (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- what does high priority mean. 
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Is NIOSH -- is it NIOSH's position that indeed 

it's important to change these sort of right 

away? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, we -- we are engaged in 

the evaluation of the effect and our 

contractor's also doing their evaluation of the 

effect. We have some intermediate products, 

but nothing really ready to put our imprimatur 

on yet, so it's (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: So it's already underway? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: It is underway. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Okay. 

 DR. BEHLING: And let me just make comment. 

think interim fix is to use AP geometry, which 

is -- may not solve the entire problem, but 

surely is a step -- a far step in the right 

direction. And to date most of the audits that 

we've done and assuming that the represent the 

ones that have already been adjudicated, do in 

fact involve maximized doses where AP geometry 

is the rule of thumb for applying a DCF. So as 

far as I'm concerned, no harm has been done up 

to this point in time, even if it turns out the 

DCF need to be corrected. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

I 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I just qualify that 'cause 

I wasn't sure that that's true -- true for all 

the cases that have been done, so -- the one's 

we've looked at, though, you're right. Okay. 

And number 14 falls into that same category, I 

think, with the high priority. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: This is one where I wasn't clear 

where we came down on this as far as whether we 

had consensus between SC&A and NIOSH, whether 

SC&A accepted NIOSH's response on this, and I 

just wanted to hear more before we decided on 

an action. That's why I have a question mark 

there, so maybe you can... 

 DR. BEHLING: I think this may require a 

dialogue between us and NIOSH because I'm not 

quite sure what has happened here. If you look 

at, for instance, the Savannah River Site TBD, 

they will tell you that in 1985 or thereabouts 

they converted a -- their -- their calibration 

methodology to include (unintelligible) phantom 

calibration. Now I'm not sure I know what 

necessary (sic) that means, especially when we 

talk about the older methodology of -- of film 

badge dosimetry. It's clear if I have let's 
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say a point source here and I put my TLD over 

here or my film badge here, that I'm going to 

get a certain response based on the source 

strength of my -- my calibration source. If --

under the same condition, let's assume I expose 

it for one solid minute, with or without a 

phantom, it's clear that my dosimeter's going 

to get a higher reading if I put a phantom 

behind it because you're now introducing backscatter. And on the other hand, that's going 

to be recorded, so what you're dealing with 

here when you take a person's film badge is, in 

essence, a person who is -- who himself has 

served that purpose of a phantom and -- and 

whatever the -- the film blackening or the 

response of a TLD takes that already into 

consideration. And so I'm not sure I 

understand exactly what the 11 percent 

correction factor for pre-1985 is for -- for 

Savannah River or the three percent for the 

year 1986. And I guess it does require us to 

sit down and get some clarification. 

In my write-up I had cited some information 

about the difference between a phantom and a 

not a phantom, and based on photon energy and 
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the dimensions of the phantom, you can get a 

back-scatter factor that at some instances can 

contribute 40 percent of the total dose. So 

with or without phantom can make a difference 

of 40 percent in your -- in your film 

dosimeter. 

On the other hand, like I said, you do in fact 

have a dosimeter that is worn which takes that 

into consideration. And I'm very uncertain at 

this point what the 11 percent as cited in the 

Savannah River Site TBD actually accounts for, 

and it does I think require a dialogue between 

us and NIOSH. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, agreed. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't have anything to offer. 

I just agree that we'll share -- there's a 

number of things that went into that 12 percent 

reduction. It wasn't strictly the -- the backscatter wasn't the only change that occurred, 

so we'll reconstruct that, so to speak. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So I think I should change that 

from no action to further discussion necessary. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Now this -- this is for 

Savannah River specific question that's been 
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araised -- has been raised. The -- we believe 

that the discussion in IG 1 -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- doesn't necessarily need 

action or -- or change. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe that -- that -- maybe that 

was my confusion. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: That's probably what happened. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's why I was -- I thought -- 

yeah. Okay. So as far as IG 1, no -- no 

change necessary there. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So the application for Savannah 

River is what's the question, but the procedure 

itself... 

 MR. GRIFFON: How -- how do we -- how do we 

capture this as a action to follow through 

with? I mean that's --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Medium. 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no, but I mean it's a 

Savannah River-specific comment. If we're 

going to --

DR. NETON: This comment is addressed or 

covered in the Savannah River site profile 

review --

 MR. GRIFFON: That's what I was going to say. 
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DR. NETON: -- as one of the issues. Matter of 

fact, there's a fairly detailed analysis of all 

Hans's diagrams --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: -- with and without phantoms and -- 

and that sort of thing, so -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think -- I think -- 

DR. NETON: -- it would be resolved under that 

-- that pathway, I think. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think that's agreeable to 

everybody, that we resolve that under Savannah 

River profile discussions. Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But in general, is there a backscatter issue that has to show up in this 

procedure as far as the dose reconstructors are 

-- is there -- in -- in procedure 15, if a dose 

reconstructor's using this procedure, is there 

something they need to do specifically to make 

sure that back-scatter is accounted for? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Procedure? You mean IG 1? 

 DR. ZIEMER: In IG 1-15. 

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, we're still talking about 

implementation guide 1. This is just item 

number 15, and --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 
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 UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. BEHLING: -- the implementation -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: The implementation guide 

(unintelligible) --

 DR. BEHLING: Yes, it doesn't really address 

back-scatter, and maybe it shouldn't. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. That's what -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So no action is --

 MR. GRIFFON: No action. 

 MS. MUNN: No action. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The next one, I think -- it's an 

uncertainty issue and I think it should 

probably be consistent with the other 

uncertainty issues, unless I'm mistaken, as a 

medium priority instead of a high. I listed it 

as a high priority. I don't know if Stu and 

Hans agree with that. 

 DR. BEHLING: I think what happened in the 

implementation guide is that there's reference 

to environmental uncertainty, and there is -- 

somehow or other was a mix-up in terms of what 

that means. If you look at the NRC-89 

document, they talk about uncertainty as being 

defined by -- laboratory uncertainty, that is 
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how you process the film, how do you 

manufacture the film. The radiologic 

uncertainty that includes among other things 

such as the angle of sensitivity. And lastly, 

environmental uncertainty, meaning high 

humidity, temperature and other factors -- 

physical factors that may somehow or other 

affect the performance and dose response of a 

dosimeter. In the implementation guide they 

somehow got things mixed up by identifying 

environmental uncertainty as meaning 

environmental dose, when you walk from Building 

A to B, and that was my concern here is that 

the concept of environmental dose was 

misrepresented in the implementation guide and 

I think it just needs to be deleted there. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think the -- I think the 

key here is that it -- it -- NIOSH's response, 

the second -- I mean the -- basically 

indicating that -- that it'll be revised, or 

reflect what's going on in the program, so no -

- you know, there's no statement in here that 

therefore things are being miscalculated in the 

dose reconstructions. In fact, it was just a -

-
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 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, I'd captured this as a 

medium --

 MR. GRIFFON: A medium (unintelligible) -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- (unintelligible). 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's why it's a medium, because 

it's not affecting any dose reconstructions. 

Right. 

Again, the next item's also uncertainty and 

medium. Then we're on to Proc. 6, which we've 

heard the description of that, that it's -- 

very much extracts the information from IG 1, 

except for the attachments. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

Okay, we're ready for PR 3 then? 

 MR. GRIFFON: PR 3, and I guess there's -- one, 

two, three of these, and the -- the Board 

action -- I mean this -- the indication here 

was that it seems like NIOSH is going to cancel 

this procedure, but it was unclear to me, at 

least, listening in, where -- where the 

components of this or the key elements of this 

procedure were going to end up. That's why I 

said we should probably review the changes in 

replacement procedures or -- procedure or 

procedures. 
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 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I suspect they've already 

been reviewed. I suspect they're part of this 

body of procedures that have all been reviewed. 

This procedure's more than three years old. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: It was written very early on, 

and there's more specific guidance been 

delivered. But we can, as a matter of course -

- during our cancellation one thing we want to 

make sure is there's nothing in there that's 

not proceduralized anywhere else -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- and then cancel it so it's 

not anywhere. So as part of that we'll make 

sure we find it where it's currently developed 

-- the better, more recent procedure -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- and make sure everything's 

covered. We can point those out just as a 

matter of the (unintelligible) -- 

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

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- (unintelligible). 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- be able to cross-walk these 

would be useful for us, I think. For each of 
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those findings I'd like to know where -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- those components were 

addressed, what procedures, you know. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That was the only thing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Stu, while you're at the mike, are 

these replacement procedures likely to be in 

one-to-one correspondence, or are they captured 

in different ways in different procedures? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: They'll be different ways in 

different procedures, I suspect. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So the issue of having SCA review 

the replacement procedure sounds like a one-toone -- here's that old one you're getting rid 

of, here's the new one. I think what you're 

going to hopefully tell us is that it's been 

replaced by this other one, which perhaps has 

already been reviewed or (unintelligible) -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's why I -- that's why I put 

the slash-S, because procedure or procedures, 

if it's in a couple of different areas, he -- 

Stu could just tell me -- tell us where they 

are. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I really believe they've 
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probably already been reviewed as part of this 

population of procedures (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm really asking if we're 

developing a new task here as part of this. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know if this --

 MS. MUNN: It sounds like it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, maybe we -- maybe we -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, maybe once we identify where 

they are, we can decide whether review 

(unintelligible) --

 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe we can just say NIOSH 

identify where changes are, you know. That 

would be an action. 

 DR. ZIEMER: How about the action recommend 

canceling procedure and identifying where its 

replacement appears, or something like that. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Would that --

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess so. My -- my concern was 

that if it -- I mean if all those have already 

been reviewed, that's one thing. But if it's 

in newly-developed procedures, then you know, 

do we still have the sa-- I mean we don't know 

if we have the same issue that was in the 
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finding, you know, if -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, but --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- so (unintelligible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- (unintelligible) identify where 

they are, then we can decide, I think, whether 

 MR. GRIFFON: And then review as necessary, I 

guess, is -- is -- you know, have SC&A review 

as necessary. Because if they've already 

reviewed it, we're not going to do it again. 

Right? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. BEHLING: I guess to answer your question, 

my recollection of procedure number three is 

that it was an old procedure and I think just 

about everything that it contains has been 

replaced in other procedures, including the 

implementation guide, Procedure 6 and TIBs, so 

if -- if -- if I'm -- unless I'm mistaken, I 

don't believe there's a need for rewriting this 

procedure. It has just been assimilated into 

other existing procedures which are procedures 

which we already have looked at and -- and -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: That was the --

 DR. BEHLING: -- and audited. So my feeling is 
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that nothing needs to be done other than to 

cancel the procedure. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, that -- that's the 

question, Hans. If we're sure -- I think we 

can just say, you know, canceling the procedure 

and then recommend NIOSH indicate where the 

changes are located, period. And if Hans is 

confident that all those have already been 

reviewed, then we don't -- we're not going to 

review something we've already looked at. 

Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So it would read recommend 

canceling procedure; NIOSH indicated -- 

indicate where --

 MR. GRIFFON: Changes are located. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Where changes or replacements 

appear. 

 MS. MUNN: Or replacement appears. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And that's true of the next 

several here --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- coming down. 
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 MS. MUNN: All the way -- all the way to page 

six. 

 DR. ZIEMER: All the way through that whole 

section. 

 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So that takes us up to --

 MR. GRIFFON: That was a quick one, huh? 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- up to --

 MR. GRIFFON: Page 6 --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- (unintelligible) ten. 

 MR. GRIFFON: TIB 10, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Now here -- here's where I might 

have -- I was trying to read my notes on these, 

and I -- I think there was a consistency issue 

here between a few procedures, TIB 10 and 8, 

and I'm not sure if that's true on this 

particular finding, but I think -- what I put 

on the recommendation was to check for 

consistency and modify as necessary, but I 

might have -- that might not be true for this 

first finding. I'll just ask Hans or Stu to 

clarify. 

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I -- I think if you look at 
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TIB 8 and 10, one's for film dosimeters, others 

for -- the other one is for TLD -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. BEHLING: -- and there are a couple of 

tables in each of those TIBs that provide 

default values. And I think in both instances 

the default value, for instance, for missed 

photon dose, is to assume a monthly changeout 

or 12 cycles per year, which may not necessary 

be the desirable approach. There were 

obviously instances where perhaps the frequency 

is greater than 12, maybe up to 52 a year, or 

perhaps only on a quarterly basis, which means 

four. And I think perhaps the approach would 

be to say if the information's available that 

defines the number of cycles, be generous with 

your LOD -- in this case the default value of 

four -- defining missed dose is to use N times 

LOD instead of LOD divided by two, but leave 

the value of N open so that it can be anything 

that is reasonable. And it may be defined by a 

site profile that says during that year we 

changed out 52 times a year, or just quarterly, 

et cetera. The table on TIB 8 -- and it's a 

complex-wide document to be used for 
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overestimating. In some instances, if it turns 

out that the person was only monitored on a 

quarterly basis, you would certainly 

overestimate by using an N value of 12 when it 

should be four, or in some -- in the -- 

alternatively, you could underestimate it if it 

turns out the person was monitored on a weekly 

basis or in the very early years, so that -- 

that comment is strictly a reference to the -- 

this deterministic value of 12 as opposed to 

leave it as N and make a decision what that may 

be based on the time and the site-specific 

practice. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So I'm not sure that if that -- 

it's simply a consistency question on this one. 

I mean there is a consistency question between 

8 and 10, but also, Hans, there -- there is a 

more substantive point there that -- that -- 

you know, instead of saying 12, should you just 

replace that with N cycles or whatever, and I 

don't know if NIOSH agreed with that suggested 

change or not. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I think the -- the intent 

of these was to be applied only in cases where 

the frequency was monthly or less frequent. 
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And so as an overestimating approach, to assign 

12 missed dose -- 12 zeroes, regardless of 

whether it was all missed or not, assign 12 

zeroes in the missed dose calculation, you're 

providing an overestimate of the missed dose 

since he's got -- he doesn't have any more than 

that, certainly. So -- now having said that, 

there's quite a lot to be clarified in both 8 

and 10 that -- so there's some revision that 

has to be done to this. This specific issue I 

don't know -- from our standpoint, it's not 

particularly -- you know, I -- we don't really 

understand why it's necessary to do that. You 

know, we think that if you have an 

overestimating approach and you do an 

overestimate and you rec-- you get to a -- a 

dose reconstruction that you can use, that it's 

okay to have more than one overestimating 

approach, you know, for either -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Where does the question of -- of 

the weekly come up, the 52 -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: This shouldn't be used for a 

weekly exchange, so the idea was -- you know, 

there's a time frame on utilization of these. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 
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 MR. HINNEFELD: They only go back to a certain 

date. And certainly these should not be used 

for a site where there's potential for a weekly 

exchange or even -- or any more frequently than 

a monthly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that actually appears to be 

the issue, that maybe -- maybe we're only 

talking about clarifying that this procedure is 

only applicable to 12-month or -- or -- 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Less. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- less frequency exchange. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Then -- then it always is an 

overestimate. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: As I said, there's a lot of 

clarification that's required to 8 and 10 

because of the -- the other things that are 

listed yet to come, and so we can -- we can 

take a shot at -- see if we can come up with 

something more clear there. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. BEHLING: And I do want to make a comment 

here. For those people who are looking to use 

that, there are some conditional aspects to the 

use of these TIBs, and -- and they do def-- 
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they do define a time frame, which is not 

oftentimes abided by. I think the -- the film 

dosimeter says only after 1970, I believe, and 

yet people use it throughout. And -- and I do 

have one case where in fact this complex-wide 

overestimating approach was used way back in 

time when in fact the person was monitored -- 

and I have records of that -- 52 times in a 

year. And so obviously I'm not saying this is 

the fault of the -- the procedure, but it was 

not followed by the dose reconstructor in 

saying you should not use it during a certain 

time frame when this procedure's not 

applicable. But we have already found a couple 

of cases where in fact it was used during time 

periods that are not prescribed for this 

procedure. 

 MR. GRIFFON: What I -- what I would offer as -

- as modifying this -- this Board action is 

recommend procedure be checked for consistency 

with TIB 8 and language clarified regarding 

when this is -- when this procedure is 

applicable -- when this TIB is applicable. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. Okay. Okay, proceed. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The next one really -- I think 
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that TIB needs to be modified as described in 

the NIOSH response. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is this -- what priority is this? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know. Let's see --

 MS. MUNN: Uncertainty. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think it's probably a 

medium, in my opinion, 'cause -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I recorded --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- it's probably being done in 

the ord-- yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I recorded it as a medium. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I had recorded it as a medium. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Glad we agreed on that. All 

right. 

This is a -- has too much background 

information, should be modified, low priority 

certainly on this kind of thing. 

Yeah, the next one is the same, low priority. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Where are we here? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're at TIB 10-05. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. I initially put recommend 
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change as described in NIOSH response, and then 

my parenthetical is just my own question, which 

was that I thought the IG 1 -- they're saying 

current plan is to include it in early revision 

of -- of OCAS IG 1, but I thought that 

primarily included examples, not necessarily 

specific guidance. And this seemed to me to be 

specific guidance, so -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it's -- it's sort of 

general instruction. IG 1 is -- you know, 

these are the general rules you follow, and it 

would seem like there would be a general rule 

for treating a recorded dose that's less than 

what we believe to be the detectable amount. 

So it could go there or there's probably other 

places it could go, too. I mean that was just, 

you know, what came to mind, that if you have a 

guidance document that guides -- supposed to 

guide all dose reconstruction, the policy for 

how to deal with a recorded number that's less 

than what you believe the limit of detection to 

be is a universal policy, and so that was the 

thought for -- but --

 MR. GRIFFON: I -- no, I accept that. I -- I 

misread that. I was looking at the 
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parenthetical with the 40 millirems, but that -

- that was just your -- i.e., you said there, 

and I was thinking you were going to give 

specific -- yeah -- LO -- LODs, but you -- 

you're saying that --

 MR. HINNEFELD: No, generally the policy for 

what to do with a recorded dose that's less 

than what you believe the limit of detection 

(unintelligible). 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so strike my parenthetical 

there and just recommend using the NIOSH 

response. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Priority? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Probably a low priority, I 

believe, 'cause it's not affecting any dose 

reconstructions. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: This is the same, recommend the 

change described in NIOSH response, and it's 

applicable to both TIB 10 and TIB 8, as they 

noted in their response. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Priority? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Medium. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Here's -- this is just a 
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consistency question between Proc. 6 and TIB 

10. I'm asking to recommend -- or review for 

consistency and make changes where applicable. 

Priority -- I know you're going to ask me -- I 

would say medium again. 

I'm assuming if -- if Stu or Hans disagree, 

you'll step in. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Stu? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I just want to comment 

just briefly here that -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- I don't necessarily disagree 

with making this -- you know, but there may be 

-- may be the case that it would be okay to 

have more than one overestimating approach, you 

know, that may-- and I don't know when that 

would occur. I'm saying if you have an 

overestimating approach and it's -- you apply 

it, and you just go ahead and apply it. Why 

have more than one? But we don't know that 

it's particularly a conflict to have two 

different approaches that provide an 

overestimate, as long as you're confident that 

it's an overestimating approach. So while I'm 

-- I don't know that -- I can't think of any 
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situation where it would be a particular 

advantage to do -- to have two available to 

you, I do want to see what kind of perturbation 

-- since they're out there now -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- and they're available now, I 

would like to see what perturbation that causes 

to say choose one that is going to the 

overestimating technique and we will use that. 

See, I just don't know what perturbation that 

causes in what we're doing now. So with that 

caveat, I'd say yeah, I agree with how you 

categorized it, with the idea that we may find 

that doing that causes significant work that we 

had not planned on doing or makes some things 

harder. I just don't foresee what that is, but 

it's possible. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I don't -- I don't think 

that changes our --

 DR. ZIEMER: No, the changes as needed gives 

you a bit of flexibility. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. That was intended, 

though. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think we're on number TIB 10-8. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: 08. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. And it's the same -- same 

Board action recommended. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And medium priority? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Actually, I'm not -- I'm 

not -- that might be a low priority, but if 

they're changing -- if they're looking at 

those, they'll probably do it all at the same 

time, but --

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- they could do that either way. 

Maybe that's a medium, I guess. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, 09? 

 MR. GRIFFON: TIB 10-9, this is where we didn't 

quite -- I think we needed more discussion on 

this one between SC&A and NIOSH. 

 DR. BEHLING: Well, I -- I kind of -- after 

having a discussion with Stu and Jim, I 

withdraw that comment, and I believe that their 

assessment's correct. I formulated my idea, as 

stated in the finding description, on the basis 

of a single event. In other words, for 

instance, if you look at the NRC study, they 

will show you that doubling the recorded dose 

is about the 95th percentile value, which is 
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not an -- unusual -- highly unusual. But it 

would be unusual if you have 12 dosimeter 

readings in a given year and each time you 

assume it's a 95th percentile value, and so I 

concur with their assessment and I think that 

comment should be withdrawn. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, so no action on that one. 

 MS. MUNN: Good, I like those. 

 MR. GRIFFON: If everybody accepts that, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: TIB 10-10, I need a little help 

here. I'm not sure where -- if we resolved 

this or not. 

 DR. BEHLING: In TIB 10 it says this is a 

default value, LOD of 40 millirem. On the 

other hand, and I think I'm correct, in many of 

the TBDs if you look at the early years, 40 

millirem is in fact the recommended LOD. So I 

don't know if that requires any -- any change 

or -- or the comments here are correct that 40 

millirem for at least the early years is not an 

unusual or a highly conservative LOD value. It 

is in fact an LOD value that in many of the 

TBDs is cited as such. 

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is for post-'70. Is that... You were talking 

about the early years. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, this goes back to the 

applicability of 10-10 and whether it's being 

used within its range of applicability. It's -

-

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- only supposed to go back to 

about that time. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: So that's what the response is 

based on. My notes from the 6th -- meeting on 

the 6th was that we were to evaluate the 

information that's presented in that NRC NAS 

report that's referred to a couple -- on a 

couple of other responses. There's an Appendix 

3, according to my notes, that describes what 

might be a more favorable -- favorable LOD or -

- you know, not necessarily a realistic one, 

but one that's somewhat favorable. And so that 

was my note. 

Now we've not done that since the 6th, but 

that's what I recorded. So this would be like 

an additional research and decide what to do or 

something like that. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Hans, is that... 

 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Additional research. I 

didn't have that NRC report cited for that 

finding, but you had that? 

 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I won't dispute it. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I wrote -- it's in my 

handwritten notes from the 6th, so that's my 

word -- only place (unintelligible) -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: So additional discussion 

necessary, yeah. 

 MS. MUNN: Research and discussion. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We're on to TIB 8. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry, what did we -- did we 

have a priority on that? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know that we prioritized 

these discussion items. We might just cover 

that in our status reports, I think. It might 

-- I guess we can... 

 DR. ZIEMER: The action here then is additional 

research and discussion? Again, though, I mean 

 MR. GRIFFON: I know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- is that in five years or is 
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that next week or -- how pressing is this issue 

as far as actual dose reconstructions are 

concern? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, in our view, like in our 

response, this is a -- a value for LOD that is 

used in a maximizing -- maximizing number of 

zeroes approach, so we believe there is 

sufficient overestimating in the selection of 

more zeroes than were really there in order to 

be able to continue to use it. I mean that's -

- that's our view of the situation where we 

are, that, you know, if you -- if it's -- for -

- it -- maybe it -- a better number would be 50 

or 60, but in every case -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's not going to have much effect 

(unintelligible) --

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- in every case we assign 12 

zeroes, regardless of how many zeroes the 

person actually had in a year, we believe that 

we are still overestimating. I mean -- and so 

we don't believe there's a critical need to fix 

it before it's used. 

 DR. BEHLING: I agree with that, and perhaps 

this issue should be withdrawn, for the simple 

reason that it's really not -- the overestimate 
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is not governed by the LOD value but the fact 

that we're not dividing it by half. In TIB 10 

and TIB 8, both procedures define a maximized 

approach that takes LOD times N. We do not 

divide it by two, so even if it's a -- maybe 

not a upper-bound value, the fact that we're 

not dividing it by two makes it a maximizing 

attempt to estimate exposure that's missed. So 

I think perhaps these -- that this issue should 

be dropped. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And the LOD values proposed in 

the NRC report are not that much higher than 

the 40, so it wouldn't -- right. So that's why 

I had the question marks in the beginning 

'cause I thought (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) action then. 

 MS. MUNN: No action. 

 MR. GRIFFON: No action, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Okay, so we're up to -- now 

we're into TIB 8, right? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: TIB 8, Procedure 1. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, this one --

 DR. ZIEMER: Or item one. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: This one where -- I'm 

anticipating that Stu might disagree with me a 

little bit, but I put it as a medium priority 

only because it's come up in our dose 

reconstruction reviews very, very often that 

it's been misapplied. 

 DR. BEHLING: Yes, and --

 MR. GRIFFON: And I thought that -- for that 

reason alone, it should be a medium priority. 

 DR. BEHLING: Eight and 10 are -- basically 

parallel each other. One's for film and one's 

for TLD, and they read almost identically 

except you read the word "TLD" instead of 

"film". And so the comments that we made in 10 

apply to 8. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. BEHLING: And so I think we don't really 

have to spend a lot of time -- the difficulty 

we've had in our dose reconstruction audit is 

that people have essentially misinterpreted the 

intent of this document, and in specific a 

table that comes at the end of each. And I 

think Stu fully understands what the 

difficulties are for dose reconstructors in 

their interpretation. I think it's something 
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we can readily fix. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The only rea-- I don't disagree 

with you, Hans, that they're -- you know, TLD 

versus film, they're the same thing. But the 

findings, as I go down them, aren't the same. 

So we'll try to step through them quick, but I 

think we should go through them. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I did record a medium for 

this revision, and I think this is a -- you 

know, the revisions in 8 and 10 are parallel. 

I mean the same kinds of things need to be done 

in both, so if you'd like, you know, we -- we 

agree that this is a medium revision to clarify 

those two TIBs and just go through to the 

bottom of this -- this one without going 

through them one by one. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, that's fine with me. I 

guess if everybody's happy with that, we can 

assume that the others on TIB 8 are medium 

priorities and we'll -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, your very next one shows up 

as low. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Low, I know, I just --

 DR. ZIEMER: You're saying go ahead -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: We're going to do the whole 
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thing, is what Stu's saying, I think, so... 

 DR. ZIEMER: The next one you don't have a 

priority, but you are suggesting we list that 

as medium? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Medium, right. Then we're down 

to the bottom of the page there, TIB 7. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The action here is to withdraw? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I believe so, in this -- Stu, 

you're saying withdraw this and all of it's 

going to be included in site-specific profile 

documents (unintelligible) -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, that's our intent. This 

-- this is a procedure that's been out there 

for a while. It's complex-wide. It addresses 

an issue that's better addressed site by site. 

It was put out there as a way to deal with 

environmental dose -- you know, early on -- and 

so I suspect, you know, that's what we'll be 

able to do is -- so we just don't really need 

this anymore 'cause it's being dealt with site 

by site. So that's what I believe we'll be 

able to do. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Were -- were -- was this 

procedure used in the early dose 

reconstructions? 
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 MR. HINNEFELD: Uh-huh. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Would it have affected past cases 

at all or -- or... 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I mean it -- it could. 

There's -- theoretically we'll -- well, we will 

look at that and see if, you know, any of these 

sites, you know, that -- where we have sitespecific information now are -- where the site 

information is actually more favorable that was 

used in TIB 7, we would have to look and see if 

that's the case. I -- I -- I'd have to just go 

look. I don't really know what the status is, 

but that would be part of it. It was used in 

some when -- you know, if you don't -- when you 

don't have a site profile yet you want to do 

the dose reconstruction, how are you going to 

deal with the environmental dose; this says 

well, here's a nice big number to use, use 

this. So this is kind of what it was. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess the -- the same 

recommendations carry through all the way for 

this TIB 7. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 
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I 

 MR. GRIFFON: You know, the -- the only 

question I would have is how to -- I guess we'd 

deal with these on the site profile reviews. 

don't know that we can track these findings 

through in any fashion to make sure 

(unintelligible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: But as far as -- as far as it 

being an approved procedure, it's going to 

disappear, so --

 MR. GRIFFON: It's disappearing, right, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So from a procedural point of 

view, that takes care of the item. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. I -- I guess I -- when I 

was writing this up I was thinking well, I hope 

the same errors aren't being repeated in the 

site profile guidance. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: But I don't think that'd be the 

case. 

 DR. BEHLING: Well, I think -- and I may be 

speaking out of turn here and making a 

statement that perhaps is best made by -- by 

NIOSH, but this issue of (unintelligible) is a 

very difficult one. What you're talking about 

is potentially subtracting background dosimeter 
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data when in fact you don't even have that 

data. But one way to compensate that would be 

a very easy one. If you suspect that there 

were periods of time when dosimeters were used 

to measure background and then were subtracted 

from individually-assigned dosimeters, one 

could simply go back and say what does the 

ambient environmental dose look like and, as a 

default value, simply add that on as a 

claimant-favorable way of accommodating that, 

to just simply look at the years during which 

perhaps that practice prevailed. Look at the 

data that's already contained in the 

environmental on-site section of the TBD and 

simply add that back in there. That would be 

one quick way of fixing it and be very 

claimant-favorable on top of it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That doesn't sound like what 

NIOSH is proposing. They're proposing to do it 

on a site profile basis rather than -- rather 

than establish a new procedure with general 

guidance, I think they're going to just wipe 

this one out and do it site by site. Is that 

correct, Stu? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, that's our intent. Now 
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if -- if we change from that -- for instance, 

if there's a site without the site profile done 

yet, is there a way to deal -- you know, and 

this is our only way to deal with the ambient 

exposure -- the subtraction of ambient exposure 

from a measured dose on a badge, if they did 

that or not -- we may want to retain it. So 

that's why I'm saying I think that we would 

like to deal with it site by site, but I'd like 

to make sure what -- see what I -- what that 

does to us bef-- you know, before I just say 

well, we're going to cancel it and then find 

out that now we don't have a way to do 

environmental dose for, you know, a half-dozen 

sites where we would -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: But that's --

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- otherwise we can do dose 

reconstructions. So I guess my preference is 

to deal with it site by site, but if we need to 

retain it, we can get back with specific 

responses to the -- some of the issues here. 

think --

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess that's why I -- I didn't 

want to --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. 

I 
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 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, I just wanted to 

make sure we weren't going to lose these 

findings if in fact --

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- you ended up using this for 

some sites where you don't have site profiles -

-

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- or whatever, yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, we'll --

 MR. GRIFFON: That was my concern. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, we'll come back 

specifically with these then if -- if in fact 

we have to retain this, we'll come back with 

some specific responses and a status report in 

the future. Is that acceptable? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, we can -- yeah. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We can follow through on a status 

report with it. 

TIB 6 -- I'm almost out of time, huh? 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're doing good. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. This was more of a -- a -- 

the first one is kind of a stylistic thing, I 

think, and low priority. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Low priority, right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And here I think -- I think 

qualifications were unnecessary. I think Stu 

agreed that some change in language for 

clarifying what the procedure was saying were -

- were necessary, and then NIOSH will do this. 

I'm not sure of the priority on this. You have 

any sense... 

 DR. BEHLING: I -- I think maybe -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) a wording issue 

again? 

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, it's basically something 

that Stu and Jim had comment on. At this point 

most of the people have read it. They have 

waded through the up-front data. They know 

that the real stuff is in the back of the 

document. Whatever, you know, time has been 

spent in going through unnecessary data has 

already been invested and at this point people 

know that they have to go to Table 4- -- 4.1 

and -- and look up the numbers and -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: So it's probably a low priority -

-

 DR. BEHLING: It's a low priority. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- low priority, yeah. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Then you've got three 

cancellations coming. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, this is what confused me 

last time, too. This next one is OCAS TIB 6 as 

opposed to ORAU TIB 6, so it's OCAS TIB 6-001 

is the finding. 

DR. ROESSLER: Did you skip one? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Did I? 

 MS. MUNN: No, the two --

DR. ROESSLER: What happened with --

 MS. MUNN: The two were the same, number one 

and number two. 

DR. ROESSLER: Number one and number two were 

both the same? 

 MS. MUNN: Well, I mean the action is -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: The action is both low priority -

-

 MS. MUNN: Recommend --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- make the changes, low 

priority. 

So OCAS TIB 6, finding TIB 6-1. This is a 

Savannah River-specific TIB. Is that correct? 

Yeah. And I think they're deferred to the site 

profile -- making the changes in the TBD. 

 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: I don't -- I don't -- anyone has 

any problems with that? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Stu --

 MS. MUNN: No. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- comment? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I think the findings are 

that there's -- the instructions aren't 

particularly clear in -- in the TIB. I mean 

exactly what am I supposed to do as a dose 

reconstructor? There's a lot of -- sort of up 

in the air, it's not clear. So we need to 

decide clearly what people should do, and then 

whether we cancel TIB 6 or put it in the site 

profile, which may be a better -- is better 

suited to be in the site profile. But 

certainly there's a clarification of this. 

It's information that needs to be provided, 

either in a revised TIB 6 or in the site 

profile. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I guess the -- the same would 

apply for the last one you discussed, which was 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- give us a status report, you 

know, if -- if TIB 6 is going to remain, then 
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we need specific ways that it's going to be 

modified. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is now our recommendation then 

clarify or cancel? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Sure. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Clarify or cancel? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Is that okay? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yep. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And that carries through for all 

three items, I believe. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And the last but not least -- 

 MS. MUNN: What priority? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, what priority? 

 MS. MUNN: Well, if we're being concerned with 

SRS now, it seems to me it's fairly high. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, medium to high, I would say 

-- I think leaning toward high since we don't 

want things up in the air with the site profile 

and a TIB at the same time, so I would lean 

toward having this a high priority. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I think in the next -- TIB 7, 
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NIOSH has agreed to -- that they'll revise and 

clarify it. Again, this is Savannah River, so 

I think it probably should be a high priority. 

 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Now Stu, on this one you're 

saying revise and clarify, but not roll into 

the site profile. Did I get that correct? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, that's -- that's how we 

prepared it. I think, again, we would want to 

have the flexibility to decide that should -- 

should it be in the site profile and it could 

be -- maybe it should be there so we can get 

all this instruction in one place rather than 

having it in others, but --

 DR. ZIEMER: So (unintelligible) would revise 

it --

 MR. HINNEFELD: There is some clarification 

that's required --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: -- in the instruction that's 

given. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So I'll make the find-- the Board 

action the same as the above ones there, 

recommend NIOSH clarify or cancel, and make 
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changes in site TBD as necessary, you know. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Fine, that's -- that's good by 

me. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And that's -- that's it, 

'cause the remaining findings are the internal 

and I think the CATI interview procedures. The 

only thing I would ask is at some point we have 

to decide when we're going to address these, 

probably at a workgroup level, but -- 

 DR. WADE: I think tomorrow on the agenda we 

have an hour to set scheduling issues. We'll 

have to set some schedules for the internal and 

CATI reviews. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now if you would like at this 

point, we could entertain a motion to accept 

these actions, as we've gone through them 

individually. We can --

MR. ESPINOSA: So moved. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- act on them as a group. Motion 

to do so. Second? 

MR. OWENS: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Second. Any discussion or further 

clarification needed? 

THE COURT REPORTER: Who made the motion? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes -- yes, Roy? 
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 DR. DEHART: I would --

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry --

 DR. WADE: Richard. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- Rich made the motion. I 

believe Leon seconded. Roy DeHart, comment? 

 DR. DEHART: Yes, I would like to suggest 

perhaps adding to the motion that this topic be 

an open item on the agenda, ongoing -- in the 

quarterly meetings specifically. That would 

mean that --

 DR. ZIEMER: And to ask --

 DR. DEHART: -- every three months we -- any 

changes, modifications, et cetera be addressed 

in that --

 MR. GRIFFON: In a status report, yeah. 

 MS. MUNN: That's one way to do it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So we would simply ask that NIOSH 

include in their regular reporting the status 

of any changes on the matrix -- 

 DR. WADE: And I'll put it on --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- as an update. 

 DR. DEHART: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is that considered a friendly 

amendment? 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Leon -- okay. So the motion is to 

accept these Board changes as we've gone 

through them individually, and to request that 

NIOSH give us a regular update on the progress 

of the procedural changes as they occur. 

All in favor, say aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

Any opposed, say no? 

 (No responses) 

 And any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

The motion carries. Thank you very much. 

SC&A CONTRACT TASK IV UPDATED PROPOSAL 

DR. LEW WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

We -- we are to have a phone call from David. 

Right? Is --

 DR. WADE: David, are you on? 

 MR. STAUDT: (By telephone) Yes, I am. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, David, okay, you're on the 

line, good. 

 DR. WADE: Welcome. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're ready for the item on SC&A 

contract Task IV, the updated proposal. Let me 

make sure that everybody has the -- the right 

paperwork. 

 DR. WADE: Yeah, I didn't -- I don't think it's 
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in the book. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, it's not -- it's not in the 

book. 

 DR. WADE: It was e-mailed to you a week or so 

ago and it was on your place earlier today. 

 DR. ZIEMER: There's a -- there's a letter from 

SC&A dated September 16th. Is that the correct 

date? Yes. 

 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 

 DR. WADE: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Which has the proposed work, which 

includes basic reviews for 40 cases, advanced 

reviews for 20 cases, blind dose 

reconstructions for two cases; delivery -- 

preparation and delivery of a report for each 

set of Board-assigned cases; participation in 

expanded review cycle; and final audit report 

reflects the findings of the resolution 

process, et cetera. Does everybody have that 

document? 

 DR. WADE: No, if I can talk about that -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. WADE: -- by way of introduction? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, there is -- there is -- 

there was sent to the Board a separate cost 
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sheet. 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

 DR. WADE: Let me explain --

 MR. GIBSON: (Off microphone) It's in the back 

of this (unintelligible), too. 

 DR. WADE: But it's public information. That 

cost sheet is public information. It doesn't 

include the labor, and so let me sort of 

explain. 

 If you recall, at the last meeting SC&A brought 

proposals for the continuation into this 

current year of all tasks. You voted to 

approve and give the contracting officer the 

go-ahead on all of those tasks except for Task 

IV. There was some confusion as to SC&A not 

rigidly adhering to the basic and advanced 

reviews, and you asked SC&A to come back with a 

proposal that was more consistent with the way 

they carried out the task in previous years, 

and they have done that. 

What I have done is I've talked to the 

contracting officer and, in order to keep these 

meetings opened, I asked if there was a way we 

could prepare these packages that would allow 

for open discussion. And he agreed to pursue 
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that and the package you have now can be 

involved in open discussion. 

 The business confidential information, which is 

really the labor rate information, you have in 

your possession. It was what SC&A used in 

their last proposals. It's just been expunged 

from this. So you see hours here. You'd have 

to --

 DR. ZIEMER: But not the rate. 

 DR. WADE: -- do the multiplication with rates 

to get to the total cost, which is also shown 

here. I would ask your indulgence in this. I 

think it's best for us to conduct our business 

in the open, and I think if this is suitable we 

would pursue this, you know, in the future. 

You will have all of the information privately 

available to you, but what we give out and 

discuss in public I think would best be this 

kind of information. 

I did this because in no discussion with the 

contractor did we ever discuss the business 

confidential information, and yet we made the 

nice public go outside. And I don't think that 

serves the transparency of what we're trying to 

do. 
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So you've got a full proposal. John Mauro is 

prepared to walk you through how he has 

followed your instructions to the T. What I 

would like is a vote at the end of this giving 

the contracting officer the go-ahead to make 

this real in terms of starting on their Task IV 

work this fiscal year. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And before John addresses us, 

David, do you have any preliminary comments or 

instructions for us, as well? 

 MR. STAUDT: No, I think Dr. Wade covered 

those. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Then we can proceed, and we'll ask 

John Mauro to come then and summarize the 

proposal and make any appropriate comments. 

John? 

DR. MAURO: Well, this proposal of work is 

virtually identical to our original proposal of 

work for the first set of 62, except now it 

includes a little bit more descriptive material 

related to the case tracking and closeout 

process. That is, as you know, over the past 

year working closely with Mark we have come up 

with checklists, scorecard, closeout process, 

which has brought us to the point where now not 
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only do we deliver reports -- audit reports for 

each of these cases as you have been seeing 

them, these very thick reports that you've all 

been seeing, but they also contain in the front 

for each case a scorecard. And then it also 

includes a roll-up of those scorecards, so it 

becomes like a -- a continually-tracking 

system, all of which is very highly -- very 

rigorous. That is, every -- the numbering 

system used in each audit report tracks back to 

the checklist, which tracks back to the -- the 

tracking system, so it becomes something that's 

very, very traceable as to where the -- you 

know, where does each issue lie, what category 

it lies in, and also we're being -- we're in a 

position now to sort on -- in a very -- in any 

way you would like. That is, effectively, 

whether we run -- we could run all this in -- 

through our access database, so the day will 

come when we will anticipate that the Board may 

-- may like us to prepare various reports that 

sort of summarize where we are and our 

findings, cutting across by cancer type, 

cutting across facility or any one of the other 

fields that are currently in the checklist. So 
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where -- all of that now is sort of behind us 

as a result of year number -- the first year of 

work. 

So that's -- so now, in effect, we have a very 

mature process. And we basically have proposed 

to continue that process exactly the way we did 

it before, of course be-- but being a little 

bit -- in a better position to provide you with 

summary level information. 

We have made the modification in here that, as 

the previous one, we're assuming that there 

will be advanced reviews, that the Board will 

identify those cases to us that you would have 

us do an advanced review -- so that's the 

difference between the previous version of this 

proposal that you had earlier and this version. 

We also have included -- another change beside 

including that, along with this budget, we also 

made certain assumptions regarding how much 

other direct costs we may encounter in doing an 

advanced review. We assumed some fraction of 

those 20 cases that would be advanced reviews 

would actually require a bit of travel, 

interviewing people, and we made certain 

assumptions, all of which are delineated in the 
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cost proposal. 

So I guess it's -- it's -- it's just continuing 

to do what we've done before. We will continue 

to hold those special conference calls, as you 

know, between -- we've been (unintelligible) 

Kathy and Hans and individual members to go 

over your cases. It's all part of the process. 

So this whole write-up really memorializes the 

-- the process we have been using and -- and 

have grown into over the past year. And I 

think that -- I was hoping to capture it to 

everyone's satisfaction. I believe it does. 

Certainly if there's anything I may have missed 

or anything that requires clarification, I'd be 

happy to make the necessary changes. 

By the way of cost, in effect what we've done 

is we have now the -- a lot of things have hap-

- transpired. The -- the original -- the costs 

themselves of -- per case, so to speak, has -- 

there are things that have happened where we've 

gained a lot of experience. We've done a lot 

of -- for example, all of these checklists. 

All that's -- we don't have to do that again, 

so we're going to save some money there. Also 

we're a lot better at doing it, so we're 
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probably a lot more efficient. But we -- so 

those are things that are going to help reduce 

the number of work hours per case. 

By the way, we act-- our actuals from last year 

turned out to be about 100 work hours per case. 

Okay? Now -- to do the full -- full-blown 

audit, right to the end audit, you know, after 

the whole cycle's over. We -- now -- but we --

first reaction is well, that's going to come 

down. Okay? So there -- because of the 

efficiencies of having all this experience 

behind us, having these checklists in place. 

 However, conversely, as you know, we are -- we 

are, in theory, going to move into realistic 

cases. Which means doing a lot more -- in 

other words, the min/max -- the amount of 

min/max that we're going to be doing, which can 

be done relatively quickly, we're going to be 

shifting into ex-- seeing cases that are going 

to be what we call more realistic cases where 

we actually have to go into the de-- do 

detailed IMBA runs to check the numbers, for 

example, as opposed to simply running 

calculations. So that part is going to result 

in some increase in cost. So what hap-- and -- 
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and then of course there is this additional 

cost that we've included in here for doing 

advanced reviews, which would include perhaps 

some travel and some -- so the bottom line is 

that instead of 100 work hours per case, 

effectively we're coming down to about 88 work 

hours per case. And that's how this -- this 

story ends, so to speak. The cost -- the other 

direct costs associated with every-- everything 

that goes with putting these reports out. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, John, and you 

do indeed have -- you've memorialized in a way 

the six-step process, so it's -- it's here in 

black and white so everybody can see it, and 

it's a process that really developed over time 

as we got -- gained experience. 

Now let's open the floor for questions or 

comments the Board members have on -- again, 

this is Task IV for the year ahead. Wanda 

Munn. 

 MS. MUNN: I just have a comment, no question. 

I want to thank John and his team for those 

enormous volumes that he sends me, even though 

I -- I cringe when I open them. They are --

they are indeed presented in a very helpful 
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manner. And it's been much, much simpler to be 

able to identify, in my mind, what we've done 

and what the findings have been because they 

were so well presented. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments? 

 DR. WADE: I might have two, if I might. I 

mean John mentioned that in his costing he 

built in the -- a likelihood that he'll be 

looking at more best-estimate dose 

reconstructions. That -- that's partially 

controlled by the Board as we go through and do 

our assignments, so I would ask that you keep 

that in mind. I think that's important. 

I also think at some point -- not at this 

meeting -- but I'd like to get it on the record 

that it would be worth also collectively 

looking and making an evaluation as to what 

good has come of the first year of individual 

dose reconstruction reviews. We've spent a lot 

of the taxpayers' money. I think it's 

incumbent upon us to say in retrospect, at some 

point, has it been worth the trip. And I would 

ask you to consider that as you -- as you do 

follow-up on -- on this task. 

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a summary report even to the Secretary to kind 

of summarize the experience after we finish a 

certain number of those. 

 DR. WADE: Right, we're not quite there yet, 

but we're getting --

 DR. ZIEMER: John. 

DR. MAURO: Yes, within the scope of this work 

is to prepare such reports, as requested by the 

Board, in any form that you would like. We're 

in a posi-- because we put the system into a 

database management form, that's relatively 

easy to do, and sort on any of the fields that 

you folks have created. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Thank you. Other comments 

or questions? 

DR. ROESSLER: I have a question. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Gen. 

DR. ROESSLER: Perhaps I'm not up to date, but 

very early on we talked about whether our 

contractor would be able to interact directly 

with claimants, and apparently that is a part 

of this advanced dose reconstruction review. 

And I notice it said in here if the claimant or 

representative is -- is willing -- so 

apparently we've gotten past that point and 
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this is now a part of what they are going to be 

able to do? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the mechanics of doing that 

and the -- whatever legal issues are involved, 

I -- I think probably have to be addressed on 

an individual basis. But maybe -- I don't know 

if staff can help us on that or not -- or 

general counsel. This -- I think in -- in the 

-- the proposal they are allowing for time to 

do that. I don't think this guarantees that 

they actually can do that, unless so instructed 

and if certain -- whatever legal hurdles may be 

there, but I -- as I understand it, you're at 

least allowing for that possibility in terms of 

estimating time and cost to your staff. Is 

that not correct? 

DR. MAURO: That's correct. The way we've 

worded it is we've -- we've included some 

budget, delineated how much budget, both out of 

pockets and work hours, in our cost -- report. 

How-- also we also point out that any travel, 

any meetings with --whether it's folks from 

DOE, whether it's claimants, whether it -- 

whatever -- whatever -- wherever the thread 

takes us on an advanced review, all of that 
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would be coordinated through the Board and 

through NIOSH. So we will not be taking any 

unilateral action or any -- any type of 

reaching out, so to speak, without coordinating 

very closely with all of you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And that probably -- and Liz, do 

you have some comments? Clearly there will be 

some issues on -- with claimants, as far as our 

contacting them. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: 'Cause these are --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: We'll --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- these are closed cases, 

remember. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right, these are closed 

cases, so the rules haven't changed. They 

would not be able to contact claimants, 

although they're still able to contact site 

experts, I believe, that you all have been 

talking to, and go up and see workers, that 

kind of stuff. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. So these are not -- these 

are not the claimants themselves. These are --

let's see how the wording is here. 

DR. ROESSLER: It says claimant or claimant 
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representative. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we had a ruling early on 

on that that probably would not be able to 

contact claimants directly, but perhaps would 

be able to contact individuals -- and -- and 

this would not necessarily be individuals who 

would even necessarily know that claimant. You 

couldn't identify to the individual who the 

claimant was, I don't believe. Is that 

correct? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But if you knew a claimant worked 

at Y-12, and there was some issue about the 

workplace and you knew someone who worked in 

that workplace that could shed light on some 

condition --

 DR. WADE: Like with Bethlehem Steel and Ed -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Or wherever it may be. 

 DR. WADE: -- Ed Walker. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I do have a recollection that we 

had information from counsel early on that 

contacting of claimants whose cases are closed 

probably would not be permitted in any event. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think we did reword our task to 

say site experts rather than -- 
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 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, so if -- if claimant appear-

- I'm looking for the words here. What page 

are we on? 

DR. ROESSLER: Page five. 

DR. MAURO: I don't want to say anything right 

now till I see the exact language I used. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Page five? 

 DR. WADE: Page five. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Page five, paragraph -- 

DR. ROESSLER: The first paragraph --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- one. 

DR. ROESSLER: -- sixth -- fifth line down. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Supplemental claimant interviews. 

DR. ROESSLER: Well, that whole paragraph kind 

of talks about it. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right, they wouldn't be able 

to go back and interview -- do these 

supplemental claimant interviews, so I don't 

know if you want to say perhaps supplemental 

interviews or site expert interviews, however 

you made that correction in your last one. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, perhaps the terminology 

dealing with supplemental claimant interviews 

may have to be actually deleted as part of this 
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task. And I think if -- in taking action here, 

we would understand that within the legal 

boundaries of what would be permitted, but it's 

more likely that it would be meetings with site 

personnel or requests for additional 

information. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That would not require a 

claimant's approval itself, since it would 

simply be a site expert. 

 DR. WADE: So where it says --

 DR. ZIEMER: And claimant's representatives 

probably would be off-bounds, too. This would 

 DR. WADE: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- be --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- survivors and others. 

 DR. WADE: So I would propose we change that 

sentence -- if authorized by the Advisory 

Board, advanced and blind dose reconstructions 

may require meetings with site personnel and 

requests for additional information, period. 

And then strike the rest of that sentence, 

including the parenthetical, and that's what 
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we'll have in front of us. 

 MS. MUNN: I would agree. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think site personnel 

implies perhaps site experts. That would be 

the intent, John, would it not? 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible), I would guess. 

Right? 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, we have been loosely using 

site repres-- you know, interviewing 

individuals that worked at a site would be -- 

you could refer to them as a site expert or 

site personnel. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's sort of a generic term. 

 MR. GRIFFON: It's generic. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. So it's understood 

that we're not -- when -- this Board is not 

approving contacting claimants by -- in this 

tasking. Yes. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Just to further clarify that 

the next sentence, you may want to change it, 

too -- this level of estimate, et cetera, et 

cetera, associated with travel and meetings 

with claimants, claimant representatives -- to 

whatever you're calling them, site personnel or 

site experts. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, meetings with site 

personnel I think --

 DR. WADE: Right, we would change it -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Instead of meetings with claimants 

and claimant representatives, it would be 

travel and meetings with site personnel. John, 

does that sound appropriate to you, as well? 

DR. MAURO: Absolutely, I -- sure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The -- the previous sentence 

dealing with coworkers, I think we need to 

understand that is coworkers in a fairly 

generic sense -- might be people who worked on 

the site in a similar job, but they wouldn't 

necessarily be people who even knew this 

person. And in any event, you could not reveal 

to them, you know, we're looking into John 

Doe's dose reconstruction. It would be someone 

you identify on the site. I just want to make 

sure we understand when we say coworkers that 

we're not trying to find people who knew this 

person and can -- or maybe that was your 

intent, but I think that -- 

DR. MAURO: No, I understand what you're 

saying. The language, though, right now is -- 

is -- doesn't explicitly make that clear. In 
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other words, what we're really saying is job 

cat-- had -- perhaps had similar job categories 

or where we could get more information about 

people who worked on those types of jobs. 

You're right, the way it is right now, a 

coworker -- in (unintelligible) definition -- 

could include someone that may have worked 

right next to him. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it might indeed do that, but 

you could not reveal to that person who you are 

looking at. I mean if -- if you somehow 

learned that there was a person that did work 

by this --

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- I'm not sure that would be 

excluded. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess part of the -- part of -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: If you learned that John Doe 

worked next to Sam Doe or -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Part of -- part of where this 

comes up, I think, is that in the CATI 

interviews sometimes they -- they indicate 

people they've worked with, coworkers -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- and --
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 DR. ZIEMER: -- yeah, we're talking generically 

coworkers which would be people of similar job 

types and --

 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no, but that -- that's 

talking specifically. That's what I'm saying. 

In the CATI interview, they -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, I understand. 

 DR. BEHLING: I think the genesis of this whole 

thing, and I think this is where we made the 

mistake that is now being corrected, we 

responded to -- in fact, in the third set of 

audits that you're about to review for us and 

we'll talk about next week when we contact you, 

we made certain points in our audits, and I 

think the issue of contacting the claimant were 

-- was -- was an issue that came out of our 

audits where we realized there were 

discrepancies between what was reported in the 

CATI interview and what the dose reconstructor 

chose to do. And of course the extension of 

that are issues that involve coworker data 

where we again identify coworkers in the CATI 

report and we were under the naive assumption 

that perhaps we would be in a position to 

contact them to verify certain statements made 
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by the claimant himself, or his heirs, et 

cetera. And now of course now Liz tells us 

that's obviously off the table and we have to 

amend our approach to doing -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me --

 DR. BEHLING: -- those claimant interviews. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- suggest something, though. 

Suppose this individual says during a certain 

time period I worked in a certain building and 

this event occurred. It seems to me that if 

one could identify another person who worked in 

that building at that time period that could 

act to verify that, I'm -- I'm -- let me throw 

this on the floor and you can react to it -- 

not necessarily a friend or even a person named 

by this individual, but that generically is a 

coworker that might be contacted to verify 

something. Is that legal? As long as there's 

not a linkage made to the claimant, a person 

who --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: That's the legal part of it 

is there can't be a linkage to the claimant and 

they have to protect the claimant's privacy. 

They have to --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 
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MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- protect the coworker's 

privacy. I guess the other part of your 

question really goes to the program, as to what 

is the extent of SC&A's job. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. And -- and that -- that 

issue is -- is what -- on doing the blind dose 

reconstruction, do you actually go to the site 

to gather information. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Not only blind, advanced. I 

think we've been through this scope 

(unintelligible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) advanced. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's an old issue, I think. 

DR. MAURO: One of the I guess defenses against 

moving in a direction that might be 

inappropriate is that we are not going to take 

any unilateral action by any means of -- of 

reaching out, whether it's a DOE 

representative, a -- a site expert or some -- 

or a person that may have worked at a site at a 

certain period of time at a certain facility, 

without -- you know, that's made very clear in 

here -- speaking to you. I -- I believe that 

there is this -- there is this boundary, and we 

recognize this now as a result of this 
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conversation -- very clear to me that there's a 

very clear boundary that we cannot cross over. 

The degree to which we will need to work these 

lan-- this language into this is really -- I'm 

-- I'm not sure. I mean I understand the point 

that's being made here. I think we've 

certainly crossed out the offending language 

for sure. Right now we still -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: We may have to have some 

definition on what -- what it means by coworker 

in this case, that there can't be a direct 

linkage to an individual claimant. You're 

talking about gathering information -- which 

might even be done by a phone call -- 

DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- or something like that. I mean 

the question of do you have to go to the site 

to pursue this... 

 DR. WADE: I think we understand the intent of 

the Board's discussion. I'll work with program 

and counsel to see that the words here, that we 

ask you to include in your proposal, are the 

correct words. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Gen, for raising 

that issue. It's very important in the -- 
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 DR. WADE: Thank you very much. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are there other items in here 

anyone wishes to address? Other questions or 

concerns in the scope? 

Basically -- do we need to approve both the 

scope and the cost value? Are -- are they -- 

 DR. WADE: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And we -- we might in fact do this 

in two separate actions, or it could be in the 

same action. 

 DR. WADE: I think it could be in the same 

action. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But I mean the Board could say we 

like the scope and we'd like you to do it for 

half this price, too, see. Okay, Wanda Munn. 

 MS. MUNN: I'd like to move that we accept the 

scope and cost as presented in the letter of 

September 16th to us. 

 DR. ZIEMER: With the modifications as 

identified on --

 MS. MUNN: With the modifications that we have 

discussed to be provided by Dr. Wade. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Second? 

 MR. GIBSON: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That includes the cost, Wanda? 
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 DR. WADE: Yes. 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It includes both the scope and the 

cost. 

 MR. GIBSON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And it's been seconded by Mike. 

Before we vote on this, David, if you're still 

with the discussion, do you have anything to 

add for us or comments to make? 

 MR. STAUDT: No, I think we're okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Are you ready then to vote? 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

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

to approve the scope as modified, and the cost 

of this Task IV proposal, please say aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 And those opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 And any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

It is so ordered. It is now time for our next 

half-hour break. It will be 20 minutes long. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you, David. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, David. 

 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:10 p.m. 
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to 3:35 p.m.) 

 DR. ZIEMER: All right, Board members, if 

you'll return to your seats we'll get underway 

again. 

I want to make a comment before we begin the 

next presentation. This comment deals with the 

action that we just took on the SC&A task and 

contract. It was pointed out that the SC&A 

task mentions that Dr. Mauro and Mr. Fitzgerald 

would be involved in interacting with the case 

managers and so on, but it also pointed out 

that there is no time assigned in the task for 

Mr. Fitzgerald. In fact, in the attachment it 

shows Salient, which is Mr. Fitzgerald, as zero 

hours. I have talked with John Mauro about 

this and he assured me that Joe's time isn't 

free -- well, he really didn't say that. What 

he did say is that the -- the total cost will 

go unchanged, and Joe's time would be either 

assigned to the management task, which is 

separate, or it would be covered by John's part 

of the task, or some appropriate person. The 

actual time that Joe would be involved with 

this part of their activity is actually very 

small, in any event. But they may, as they 
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revise this and working with Lew, make a very 

minor adjustment in those hours, if needed; but 

the total cost would remain the same. I want 

to make sure everybody understands that. So 

unless -- without objection, if necessary, a 

minor modification might be made in showing a 

few hours, whatever it is, for Salient for the 

management part, if necessary. 

PROGRAM UPDATES 

NIOSH, MR. LARRY ELLIOTT 

Okay, with -- with that, we're -- we'll move to 

the program updates, and we haven't had an 

official update for a bit, so we're glad to 

have one, Larry. And we had part of an update 

earlier when we heard about where we were on 

Bethlehem, and actually many of our Board 

members were surprised -- pleasantly surprised 

by where we were on Bethlehem Steel dose 

reconstructions in terms of both the numbers 

completed and the percent that were, in a 

sense, successful from the claimants' point of 

view. But now we're pleased to have a more 

complete report on the overall program, so 

welcome back to the podium. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. Well, thank you, Dr. 

Ziemer, and good afternoon, ladies and 
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gentlemen of the Board and members of the 

public. 

Let me just start off with that Bethlehem Steel 

statistics that I commented on earlier. I want 

to correct what I said there. These numbers 

are a snapshot in time, and they change. And I 

think this morning I said 94 percent of the 

Bethlehem Steel cases have been completed. 

Actually I have learned this afternoon that as 

of today it's 88 percent. We had another 

influx of cases from DOL, so the number 

changed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's gone down --

 MR. ELLIOTT: It's gone down. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- but only because more cases 

have come in. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: People hear that we are -- that 

dose reconstruction is working and people are 

getting compensated, I guess, so they submit 

their claims. And I said this morning 45 

percent of those completed dose reconstructed 

cases were found to be compensable by DOL. 

Actually that number has dropped by one 

percentage point, as well. It's now 44 percent 

today. We'll have the complete numbers, Dr. 
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DeHart -- and I believe you have asked for a 

complete set of statistics -- in case you want 

to develop a response letter to the -- to the 

New York delegation who submitted letters to 

the Board, and so we'll have that information 

ready for you. 

Let me go ahead with this presentation on the 

program, and I'm so pleased to be able to do 

this. We've changed the face of this report 

for you a little bit. We're going to start off 

with something we usually ended with in the 

past, which was our accomplishments, and catch 

you up now to date on what we have 

accomplished. 

As was mentioned earlier in the meeting, we 

have finished over 10,000 dose reconstructions 

to date. All of the numbers that I'm going to 

present to you in this presentation are as of 

October 5th. And so here again, we're -- these 

are a snapshot in time and they would have been 

different had I put these numbers together 

today. 10,679 draft dose reconstruction 

reports have been sent to claimants, and a 

total of 10,121 final dose reconstruction 

reports have been sent to DOL. The difference 
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between these two numbers are those draft 

reports that are in the hands of the claimants 

and we're waiting for them to sign their OCAS-1 

form and send it back so that we can move it on 

to the Department of Labor. 

 There have been 1,352 claims that have been 

affected by Special Exposure Cohort class 

additions, and those claims have been sent to 

the Department of Labor. As you see depicted 

in this slide, 116 cases -- claims have been 

sent to DOL regarding Mallinckrodt early years, 

506 cases for the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, 

728 cases have been returned to DOL regarding 

the early years of work under Calutron 

operation at Y-12, and two cases on the Iowa 

Army Ammunition Plant radiographers' class. 

Department of Labor is busy evaluating each one 

of these claims for their eligibility to fit 

into the class and determine compensation, and 

then each of these classes -- there is special 

designation on what happens if the claim is 

presented without one of the 22 cancers, or 

enough time in the class. And in some 

instances they may be returned to us for dose 

reconstruction; in some instances they may not, 
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and there may not be any remedy at that point. 

 There have been 3,877 final dose reconstruction 

reports sent back to DOL out of the first 

5,000. We're talking here about our attempt to 

finish off the oldest cases, the 5,000 one -- 

we assign a tracking number, as you know, to 

each case, so case one, that was the first one 

sent to us, up to 5,000 we're monitoring very 

closely what it takes to finish those cases. 

As you see here, there are 60 -- and I would 

caution you that these numbers are not going to 

add up to the remainder of 5,000 minus 3,877, 

and that is because there have been some 

reworks, some going back and forth. 

But 69 claims below the number 5,000 have draft 

dose reconstruction reports in the hands of the 

claimant -- we're waiting on those to be 

returned to us with the OCAS-1. 

484 of the claims below 5,000 have been pulled 

by the Department of Labor -- this means that 

they have retrieved them from us for a specific 

reason. Again, that reason varies. It may be 

a claim that was inappropriately sent to us by 

DOL. It may be due to new information that 

they're developing on the claim that we need 
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before we pursue dose reconstruction. And 

unfortunately, in a small handful of cases it 

may mean that there -- the claimant is deceased 

and there are no other survivors, and I think 

that's the most unforgiving and embarrassing 

point, to me. I -- I want to make sure that we 

work these hard so that we don't have any more 

than, you know, the handful that we already 

have where we lose the opportunity to get a 

claimant a decision. But the majority of these 

pulled cases are due to other reasons than -- 

than the claimant becoming deceased. 

Forty-three claims before 5,000 have been 

administratively closed. What that means is -- 

and I'll show a slide later on how many total 

claims have been administratively closed. We -

- we close a claim when we don't get the OCAS-1 

form back. Our rule says we have 60 days to 

await that decision by the claimant. We grant 

them some grace time. We take up to a total of 

74 days waiting, and if we don't hear from them 

then, then we administratively close the case. 

We can reopen it at any point in time that the 

claimant wants us to reopen it if they'll send 

us the OCAS-1 or they provide us new 
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information that should be used, in their mind, 

in the dose reconstruction. 

Ninety-three claims have been pended. Pended 

means we've -- we put a status hold on the -- 

on work on a case for some particular reason. 

There's either a technical reason that we can't 

proceed with the dose reconstruction, or 

there's information that Department of Labor is 

developing about the case that we need before 

we continue our dose reconstruction effort. So 

pended has a variety of meaning, as well, for -

- for these 93 cases. 

461 claims are active with no dose rec-- draft 

dose reconstruction to the claimant. So we are 

working on what it takes to finish up the 

remainder -- these 461, plus when we see the 93 

come to us when whatever issue revolves around 

those -- when we get that satisfied, we'll move 

those forward. 

We are going -- in the next three or four weeks 

here we'll be working up a critical path plan, 

a plan that will identify a work structure, the 

activities and what is the critical path 

through those activities that needs to be 

understood and resolved in order to finish 
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these cases. And so that will be forthcoming 

very shortly. 

We've had 13 requests to -- from individuals to 

add a class to the Special Exposure Cohort that 

-- these 13 have been qualified. Eight 

petition evaluation reports have been completed 

and sent to the Board for your evaluation. 

They cover a total of 11 petitions. Three 

petition evaluation reports are in the process 

of being completed. Those include, as you've 

talked about today and yesterday, Y-12 and 

Rocky Flats, also the Ames University -- Ames, 

Iowa University class. 

We have six current requests to add a class to 

the SEC that are going through the 

qualification process. If you read our rule on 

Special Exposure Cohort, a petition has to 

qualify. It has to meet the basis for 

qualification that's spelled out in that 

regulation, and that's what these six are 

undergoing right now. 

We've had 20 requests for addition to the 

Special Exposure Cohort that have been 

administratively closed because they -- they 

were -- they did not meet the qualification 
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basis, the petition -- the basis for a petition 

as specified by the rule. 

As I've reported before, we are -- in OCAS and 

in NIOSH we are busily looking to identify 

cases where we cannot do dose reconstruction. 

This is accounted for under our dose 

reconstruction rule at Section 82.12, and once 

we identify a case like that we move it into 

and we handle it under our SEC rule under 

Section 83.14. 

I've got to modify this slide a little bit. 

There are actually two cases we've identified 

to date, and they're both on your agenda for 

tomorrow. The National Bureau of Standards is 

one case where we worked really hard with the 

only claimant that we had, and determined that 

we did not have any data or information upon 

which to do dose reconstruction, so you have 

that on your agenda tomorrow. As well we have 

Linde, which is another site where in the early 

years we have no data and we have determined 

that we cannot do dose reconstruction for that 

time frame for Linde. 

I hope that in the near future, as we work 

through the critical path plan and understand 
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the remaining cases that are still active in 

our hands, we will come forward with additional 

cases that we can't do dose reconstruction on 

and put them in front of you as a petition for 

a class. 

We've made a change in our technical support 

contract structure. Last week we awarded a 

contract to work on 1,400 atomic weapons 

employer claims. These are claims that 

represent more than 250 sites, so you can 

imagine how -- across 1,400 claims, there's a 

lot of sites that only have one or two or three 

claims. We're -- we're struggling with 

developing a site profile for each of these 

kinds of sites and situations. And the intent 

here is to allow ORAU to focus their energies 

on the major sites, the bigger sites, the site 

profiles that had been put on a schedule for 

development. And we're asking Battelle to work 

on those 1,400 AWE claims, and we have in our 

scope of work with Battelle an approach that 

categorizes these sites by similar process and 

operation, and we'll treat them with a site 

profile that -- for that similarity. 

This is a one-year contract, and we'll see what 
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happens at the end of the year. This will be 

another situation where I'm also calling for a 

critical path plan to finish up these 1,400 AWE 

cases. 

 We've been participating in the Department of 

Labor outreach -- town hall meetings. This is 

quite an intensive process. It requires a lot 

of effort and resources on -- from -- from 

NIOSH to participate in these meetings. As you 

can see here, we've been at 67 meetings at 33 

sites as of October 6th. Next week we'll have 

some more folks going out, so -- we think this 

has paid dividends, though. We get -- we've 

piggy-backed on DOL's town hall meetings where 

they're explaining their -- their new rule 

under Subtitle E, and we stand out in the 

hallway and answer any questions that come 

forward about dose reconstruction and Subtitle 

B cases. And I think the people that we've 

encountered have been appreciative of our 

presence there, and we'll continue to make sure 

that that happens. 

 We've also finished up, with our ORAU support 

contract, the completion of 23 Technical Basis 

Documents. They -- that's for this calendar 
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year. And we've also finished up and approved 

ten Technical Information Bulletins in the same 

time frame. 

I'll quickly go through some of the typical 

graphs that you've seen in the past. This --

this graphic portrays, in the blue line, those 

cases that have been received from the 

Department of Labor. The timeline here is by 

quarter, and you can see that there has been a 

decrease in the submittal of cases to us for 

dose reconstruction. And I think what's 

important, from my perspective, is that I 

expected to see this line go up as the 

Department of Labor had their town hall 

meetings on Subtitle E, but we haven't really 

seen that yet. Maybe that's out here somewhere 

to come. 

The green line gives you an understanding of 

the number of draft dose reconstruction reports 

that we have provided to claimants, and then 

the red line shows the reports that we've 

received back from claimants and moved on to 

the Department of Labor. So we're tracking all 

three of those streams of information. 

As far as our requests to the Department of 
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Energy for exposure information relative to the 

claims that we have, we have only 335 

outstanding requests. I think this is 

remarkable. Less than 21 percent of the 

outstanding requests are later than 60 daysplus over, and I can speak -- I'm sorry Dr. 

Melius is not here; I know he asks this 

question -- but they really reside at one or 

two sites, and we are working those casespecific issues with those sites. 

As far as our telephone interview statistics, 

they're presented here. We've had at least one 

interview conducted for 17,910 cases. We have 

seen interview summary reports sent to over 

24,000 claimants. Let me just explain that. 

There's more claimants listed there than we 

have cases in our hands. That's because many 

of these claims have multiple survivor 

claimants and each one has an opportunity to 

evaluate the interview report and edit it. The 

number of interviews left to be conducted are 

around 200. 

We have 6,601 cases in the bin of pre-dose 

reconstruction assignment development. This is 

where all of the review and screening and 
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understanding about a particular case goes on -

- can it move into dose reconstruction, do we 

need additional information, where are we 

pursing that additional information from -- 

that's what's happening in that bin. 

There are 1,029 cases that have been assigned 

for DR. This means that a dose 

reconstructionist has been named for a 

particular case and the conflict of interest 

letter has been sent to the -- and the claimant 

has an opportunity to take exception to that 

individual or not. Dose reconstructionists 

then know that these cases are in their queue. 

 Draft dose reconstruction reports sent to 

claimants total 558. That's that number I 

spoke earlier about on the first slide. And 

again, 10,121 claims sent to DOL for 

adjudication with dose reconstruction reports. 

This graphic gives you, I hope, a better 

understanding of where we stand with -- by 

1,000 -- 1,000-case columns. We finished up 

809 cases in the first 1,000. It also shows 

you what's been done, in red, prior to January 

2005 and, in blue, since January 1, 2005. So 

you can see some of the progress that we have 
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made. 

Yes, we do work our priority, and the directive 

that I've given is that the oldest cases need 

to be done first. That's where we want to pay 

particular attention, and our focus is given to 

those. But as we see cases in the later 

submissions here in the 19, 18, 20,000 tracking 

numbers, cases that can't be done and done 

easily, this is the cherry-picking that goes 

on. These are the efficiency processes that 

are used. We do move those cases through. 

This slide gives you a total of the 

administrative closed cases by quarter, and as 

you can see, I don't know that I have any 

remarks to make about the blips here and here 

or what happened there. I haven't had a chance 

to analyze that yet, but I will look into it. 

Total, 110 that we've administratively closed. 

Here's a graphic on how many reworks. Reworks 

are a case that's returned to us by the 

Department of Labor for a variety of reasons. 

These reworks may be sent to us for 

deficiencies that they've identified where they 

think we missed something. They may be sent -- 

returned to us as a rework in an instance where 
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the claimant has provided new information 

that's been developed by DOL and we need to 

factor that into dose reconstruction. 

 The green line shows the ca-- the reworks that 

have been received by NIOSH for rework, and the 

blue columns indicate those that we have 

returned back to the Department of Labor. 

Returned, 666; and total received, 1,003. 

Our phone calls -- we still take a lot of phone 

calls. We do a lot of work not only in the 

field at the town hall meetings, but when we 

come back we still get a lot of phone calls. 

As you can see, over -- almost 42,000 calls to 

date. ORAU takes a lot of phone calls, and 

they're quite busy over there. That number 

includes the interviews, as well as the 

closeout interviews, an interview done at the 

end of the draft dose reconstruction report 

cycle where it -- the draft report is explained 

to the claimant and the claimant's encouraged 

to file the OCAS-1 form. 

We get a lot of e-mail traffic, as you can see, 

and our policy still is to attempt to provide a 

response, if at all possible, within 24 hours 

of receiving that e-mail -- if it's not on a 
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weekend, I guess. 

I think that's it, and I'll be happy to respond 

to any questions you might have. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Larry. Let's 

see who has questions here now. Yes, Leon. 

MR. OWENS: Larry, thank you for that update. 

I had a question in regard to the 461 claims -- 

active claims with no draft dose 

reconstructions. Are those claims particular 

to a certain site, or have you had a chance to 

-- to evaluate that? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's in -- I believe you're 

talking about the slide that shows the first 

5,000 cases. Right? That's where the --

MR. OWENS: Yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- 461 --

MR. OWENS: Yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- cases have not been assigned 

yet. No, they're not particular to one site, 

but they are -- we have acknowledged certain 

obstacles that we're working on, like glovebox 

issue where we're working on -- on -- you know, 

we have a TIB for glovebox. We're working on 

that. We have some -- there's some sites in 

there that deal with -- or some cases in there 
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that deal with trades workers in the early 

years, and so we're working with Center for 

Protection of Worker Rights to come up with a 

document and a way -- a Technical Basis 

Document and a way of treating dose 

reconstruction for th-- for the early trades 

workers. I think Jim alluded to that earlier; 

Savannah River's the first site we'll be seeing 

that used at. 

 And then there's other obstacles and -- but 

it's not one site and not two sites. There's 

probably, you know, 20 sites involved there. 

MR. OWENS: Do you think it'll be possible by 

the next meeting just to have a general update 

on some of those issues -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I hope by the --

MR. OWENS: -- (unintelligible) the Board? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I would hope that at the next 

meeting, your meeting in January, I'll be able 

to show you the critical path. If this is -- 

the 461 aren't done, I'll show you what the 

critical path is to get them done. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Rich. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Just out of curiosity, with the 

other SEC from Mallinckrodt, about how many -- 
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how many are going to be sent to the SEC -- how 

many claims that are going to be affected by 

the SEC on that? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: On the later years of 

Mallinckrodt? 

MR. ESPINOSA: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) years of Mallinckrodt. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't have that number with me 

right now, but I could get it and -- get it for 

the Board. I just don't have it off the top of 

my head. 

MR. ESPINOSA: And also on the 21 percent of 

the outstanding requests or ones that are 60-

plus days or older, are you seeing a pattern of 

-- what -- what specific sites are kind of 

causing the -- and is there a pattern of these 

sites? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: There is no pattern. This --

these situations are individually specific. 

 (Whereupon, Dr. Melius arrives.) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: There are issues associated -- 

like where we can't find the data for this 

particular person. We can't verify that they 

were even here that time frame. In -- in one 

block of cases we're talking about ETEC in 
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California where we've actually -- they've held 

cases and we're working with DOL on trying to 

make sure that these folks are eligible. So 

we're working through those issues. There's 

not any -- I don't see any trend here. If I 

saw a trend like we saw in the early days with 

-- we had a trend going on at Idaho where we 

really had trouble retrieving information, then 

we put our folks out there to help them get 

that information in -- into a format where it 

was easily retrievable. If I saw a trend like 

that, we'd take some action. Right now we're 

working on individual situations for those -- 

those cases. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: In your statistics on the SEC 

petitions, you show 20 requests that have been 

closed because they were found not to meet the 

basis for petition. That sounds like a really 

high number to me in the realm of the SEC right 

now, and I'm wondering, is that -- it seems 

like that's a lot of work to put one through. 

Is there misinformation or misunderstanding or 

what were the reasons that they were turned 

down? 
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 MR. ELLIOTT: Again a variety of reasons, some 

of those include a person who had a dose 

reconstruction and had their claim already 

adjudicated and they didn't like the outcome, 

and so they just filed a petition with no 

basis. We worked -- we worked with them, and 

there was no basis for a class. In -- in one 

or two instances we had a petition filed that 

covered multiple sites, and the rule says you 

have to focus on one site. We had one petition 

that covered workers across sites; can't have 

that. Working with the petitioners then, they 

withdrew their petitions in those three 

examples that I've given. So that's -- that's 

mainly it. There's no -- I would say that 

there's no -- there's -- there's no one single 

reason that they haven't met. There's a 

variety of reasons they haven't met the basis. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Rich? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Larry, isn't the rule one site 

or (unintelligible) workers? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Pardon me? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Isn't the rule on the SEC one 

site or a class of workers? 

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site. At a site. The class of workers cannot 

go across sites. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, further questions? Did you 

have an additional, Gen -- no. Dr. Melius has 

joined us. Welcome. 

 DR. MELIUS: Wanda's given me a very nice brief 

briefing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mark Griffon. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- just a question, Larry, 

on the worker outreach meetings. I didn't see 

any slide on your worker outreach meetings that 

-- that been going on, that -- I just wondered 

if you can give us an update on those or how 

many have been done and how many are scheduled? 

What -- what sort of is the outcome of these, I 

guess? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, there was one slide. Right? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That was town hall. You're right 

 DR. ZIEMER: Town hall. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- Mark, you're right. I don't 

have that information at my -- right off the 

top of my head. I appreciate your comment, 

though, Mark. We'll add that to the program 

report. That's something we should -- should 
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get in front of you. We do have a program 

where we have -- where ORAU, and at times OCAS 

staff, go out into the field and interact with 

workers on a site profile, collect worker input 

about site profiles or Technical Basis 

Documents. We've done a number of those, but I 

don't have those off the top of my -- I'll make 

sure that we add that to our presentation for 

you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, other questions? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess -- I guess one -- just 

one follow-up, a comment on the worker outreach 

meeting. I mean I've read some of the minutes 

and there -- there are some very specific 

questions in some of the meetings, and -- and 

sometimes the response -- I think there was 

sort of a response that said we'll follow up on 

that, and I wonder to what -- what's the 

mechanism for following up with these groups or 

getting back to them on -- you know, or 

answering the questions that are laid out in 

these minutes? I hate to just have the people 

involved in these meetings think that it's a 

one-shot deal and (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Or basically are they tracking -- 
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 MR. ELLIOTT: Sure. Sure. No, they are 

tracking the comments. They are in a document 

control process. I'm not at a -- at a position 

where I can speak about, you know, how many 

they have responded to and how many affected 

changes have been witnessed in a Technical 

Basis Document. I would say that Bethlehem 

Steel, though, we -- we know that what we 

heard, we addressed in -- inhalation and 

ingestion was addressed in Rev. 2. We still 

accept and hear input on that and we're 

considering what we hear. But yes, there is a 

formal mechanism. We need to make that more 

apparent and obvious to you as to how it works, 

and we'll do that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Thank you. 

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

PROGRAM UPDATES 

DOL, MR. JEFFREY KOTSCH 

We also have a status report from the 

Department of Labor, and Jeff Kotsch is here 

again today. Jeff, welcome back to the podium. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Department of -- the Department of 

Labor thanks -- thanks the Board for the 
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opportunity to give an update. I don't know --

I don't know when the last time we probably 

gave one was. At least for me it's been a 

while. 

The number of -- well, let's start with the 

number and types of claims received under Part 

B. Total number of claims received is 69,016. 

This is -- most of this data is as of October 

6th of this year, and you see on the display 

the primary categories of claims that we see, 

which are the categories under Part B -- 

cancers, beryllium sensitivity or chronic 

beryllium disease, silicosis for the workers 

engaged in activities at the Nevada Test Site 

or Amchitka, the RECA claims for the Radiation 

Employees Compensation Act, then -- and under 

Part B, the conditions that are covered, which 

I won't see later under Part E, they will now 

have coverage, or potential coverage. 

The case status -- again, like Larry said, 

there's a difference between the numbers 

between cases and claimants because cases can 

have more than one claimant. Total cases 

received by DOL are 49,650. The district 

offices which render the recommended decisions 
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have rendered 36,638, and we've sent 20,312 to 

NIOSH. Now our numbers never seem to quite 

synchronize with NIOSH's number, partially 

because of our databases and partially just 

depending on what -- what -- almost what day we 

take the snapshot. And then the pending 

recommended decisions of about 3,100 are just 

our cases that are inside the pipeline within 

DOL at the district offices. 

 The Final Adjudication Branch, which determines 

and renders the final decisions based on the 

recommended decisions, have issued 33,924, and 

within their pipeline they've got about 2,700 

cases. 

Now the final decisions as far as claims goes, 

they've -- they've approved -- we have approved 

17,501 and denied 26,166. Again, the primary 

categories for denied claims are listed there. 

Again, predominantly non-covered conditions or, 

further down, cancers not related or POCs less 

than the 50 percent required under the Act. 

The other ones are employees not covered, 

survivors not eligible, insufficient medical 

evidence to support the claim. 

As far as the NIOSH referrals, we have 99 -- 
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we're showing 900 -- 9,900 cases at NIOSH, and 

we've had completed dose reconstructions on 

9,605 and dose reconstructions not required for 

777. Those are a variety of cases. Some of 

those are -- I think include chronic 

lymphocytic leukemia, some of the other ones 

that we either sent or -- basically there's not 

a dose reconstruction that was required. 

We've accepted, for the cases with recommended 

decisions, 2,136, and cases with final 

decisions, we've accepted 1,829; denied 500 -- 

or I'm sorry, 5,434. 

These statistics do not include 848 cases that 

have pending recommended decisions and 66 cases 

that have -- that are currently pending 

payment. 

 The three facilities -- at least locally, I 

think -- obviously that are interest and we'll 

just provide quick statistics on are Oak Ridge 

National Lab or X-10, and we've referred 1,062 

cases to NIOSH. We've had 460 returned; 100 

of those were approved at the recommended 

decision level, 86 at the final decision level 

were approved, and DOL has paid out $12.6 

million on 84 claims. There are two cases that 
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are pending payment. 

K-25 we've referred to NIOSH 1,310 cases and 

we've had 540 returned as completed. 

Recommended decision approvals for 75 cases, 

with final decisions that were approved for 54; 

compensation paid for seven -- about $7.9 

million for 53 cases; there's one case still 

pending. 

Total compensation paid, including SEC cases -- 

obviously K-25 is one of the statutory SEC 

sites -- we've paid out -- or Department of 

Labor has paid out $261 million -- almost $262 

million for 1,749 cases. 

 The Y-12 plant is the largest claimant base -- 

for this area, anyway -- and we've referred 

2,375 cases to NIOSH and have had 1,067 cases 

returned. At the recommended decision level 

we've had approvals for 318; at the final 

decision level 286, and a paid-out compensation 

of $41,325,000 on 276 cases. We have ten cases 

still pending payment. 

So for Part B now as of October 10th, the 

compensation benefits issued, the total 

compensation that -- we've made payments for 

15,972 to the -- at that -- I'm sorry -- with 
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compensation of $1,247,000,000, with an 

additional medical benefit payment of 

$75,437,000. For the NIOSH cases -- that was a 

total number. For the NIOSH cases we've made 

1,763 payment -- payments, I'm sorry, and the 

compensation amount has been almost $264 

million. 

Now just a briefing -- last October the 

Congress amended the Act to add Part E to the 

mix for Department of Labor, really essentially 

taking the Part D program from DOE and 

transferring it, with some additional actions, 

to the Department of Labor. Part of that was a 

requirement to issue an interim final rule, 

which was issued on May 26th, which met the 

deadline that was mandated by Congress. 

Obviously in support of this additional 

activity, the Department of Labor had to add 

staff, which it has done and is doing at the 

district offices, the FAB offices -- which are 

attached to those offices -- as well as the 

national office. And also additional resources 

for the Resource Centers which were initially 

run by DOE and DOL, now are currently run just 

by DOL. 
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Also in support of that, obviously DOL has had 

to perform internal training. We've done that 

in two cycles. The first phase we completed in 

May of 2005. We are currently in a cycle now 

this month of training our field staff and our 

national office staff on Part E. Obviously 

that went hand-in-hand with the -- the issuance 

of the interim rules as we determined what was 

going to be involved in the -- in the process. 

We had a goal internally within the Department 

of Labor to issue 1,200 payments by the end of 

Fiscal Year 2005. We exceeded that goal and 

issued 1,535 payments. 

 Public outreach, there have been a number of 

town hall meetings at 35 sites, as -- as Larry 

alluded to, and NIOSH has been out there with 

us at most of the sites, discussing Part E and 

residual contamination. There's meetings in 

fact going on today and tomorrow at ETEC in 

California, and within the next two weeks 

Shiprock and Grants, New Mexico; Rocky Flats 

and Grand Junction, Colorado. And with the DOE 

goal -- or I'm sorry, the DOL goal of initially 

processing the large majority of 25,000 Part D 

cases that we received from the Department of 
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Energy, shooting for a target to try to get a 

lot of -- the majority of those done by the end 

of Fiscal Year 2006. 

Final slide is the Part E claims we recorded as 

-- again, as of October 10th, three -- 35,091 

claims. We've rendered recommended decisions 

to approve for 2,508; final decisions to 

approve for 2,106; and paid compensation of 

$205,243 on 6,810 cases. 

And that's it, briefly. Are there any 

questions? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Thank you, Jeff. 

Let's start out -- Dr. Melius. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, you entered -- published an 

interim final rule and accepted public comments 

on the Part E program. Where are you in terms 

of a final rule on that? Can you give me a 

general sense? I --

 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, I can give you a general 

sense, because I'm not intimately involved with 

that. I know the public comment period for 

Part -- for the rule ended -- I forget now, 

probably a month or two ago -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 MR. KOTSCH: -- and talking to our lawyers, 
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'cause I knew this question might be asked, 

they weren't going to commit to any time when 

they were going to -- when they were going to 

complete the rule, but it -- it's not -- let's 

just say it's -- it's more than a few months 

away, probably, 'cause they have a number of 

comments they have to resolve and other issues 

they have to address. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Rich. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, the Subpart B that was 

10,600 claims that were under non-covered 

conditions, would you happen to have a 

percentage or a hard number of how many of 

those cases did qualify for the -- E? 

 MR. KOTSCH: No, I don't have that with -- we 

can provide that in the future, but for Part B 

a lot of the non-covered conditions are things 

that are covered under Part E due to toxic 

exposures. You know, a lot of the respiratory 

diseases, coronary problems, the renal 

diseases, things like that, which I think -- 

other than -- the only ones that really don't 

ever -- will never be covered are some of the 

ergonomic type of things or back problems or 

some hearing loss. I mean there is some 
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hearing loss associated with certain exposures 

-- toxic chemicals. Some of those things will 

never be covered under either program, but I 

think the large majority of them should somehow 

be addressed under Part E now. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And you automatically switch those 

over --

 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, any claim -- well, any old 

claim, any B claim that came in that was 

automatically set up also as an E claim, once 

we got E. All new claims that come in are 

submitted to both sides of the program, and 

actually we're no longer dividing internally 

our -- our claims. They're not treated as B or 

E anymore. They're treated as a total claim 

and will go through both -- our -- that's why 

we're training our CEs that -- who work the 

claims from both sides, basically. Whichever 

side can go faster, we -- if we can compens-- 

compensate a person, we'll -- we'll do a Part E 

compensation, and then if a Part B compensation 

follows through NIOSH, we'll -- you know, 

that'll come later. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So it shows up in your statistics 

in both -- both columns, so does it look like 
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there's more claims being processed than there 

really are? 

 MR. KOTSCH: Not in -- not in these statistics. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. Thank you. 

 MR. KOTSCH: I mean at the front end of the -- 

all -- the front end of those statistics are 

all Part B. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Roy. 

 DR. DEHART: Can't the radiation criteria -- do 

you have any data on appeals and success of 

appeals? 

 MR. KOTSCH: For the Part B program? 

 DR. DEHART: Yes. 

 MR. KOTSCH: No, and I think -- I'm trying to 

remember if that question was asked previously, 

and I -- I probably committed to supplying some 

data on that. I don't know if we did or not. 

I don't -- I don't know. Pete did it the last 

time. But we can do that. I happen to be one 

of the two people that have to review at least 

all the technical objections that are presented 

to the FAB, you know, as we -- as people raise 

technical objections and at the -- they -- they 

have to come to either myself or my junior 

person for -- for review. 
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 DR. DEHART: (Off microphone) One of the 

reasons for the question, I think -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is the mike on? 

 DR. DEHART: One of the reasons for the 

question, and I think the Board would be 

interested because it, in a sense, provides 

some kind of quality control for deliberations 

and actions. 

 MR. KOTSCH: There -- and I don't want to give 

you a percentage because I probably can't 

figure it out exactly. There are some portion 

of the rework requests that go back to NIOSH 

that are a result of technical objections that 

are raised by claimants to their -- at the 

stage of the recommended decision. That's the 

opportunity they have to -- or their first 

opportunity with the Department of Labor to 

raise an objection -- or even at the final 

decision they can obviously either ask for a 

reconsideration or a -- if it's after 30 days -

- of a reopening of their case. And we do -- 

it's less frequent, but there are -- they do 

have an opportunity and they may bring 

technical objections up at that point, too. 

We've had some people that will object at the 
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recommended decision, they will object at the 

final decision, and then they will continue to 

submit reopening requests. But generally it's 

not -- they have not submitted additional 

evidence that really provides us a means to go 

-- you know, to go -- to say we have -- need to 

rework the -- the dose reconstruction, but we 

do receive -- like I said, at the recommended 

decision we have seen some, we can get numbers 

on that, that result in reworks because of 

technical information that we've received that 

-- or questions that we received that would 

result in a rework of the dose reconstruction. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Does that answer your question, 

Roy? Would you --

 DR. DEHART: It answers the question -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- like to see some of those 

numbers? 

 DR. DEHART: -- in the fact that he has no 

data. What would be helpful, if we could see 

the data --

 MR. KOTSCH: Sure. 

 DR. DEHART: -- on present-- future 

presentations. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Sure, we can do that. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Jim. 

 DR. MELIUS: I have a -- two -- or separate 

questions. One -- Larry may have addressed 

this 'cause I was obviously late, was I noticed 

in the statistics Larry presented that we're 

seeing a little bit of an increase in the 

number of requests coming in. Is there any 

sense to what extent that's being generated by 

these town meetings and outreach efforts that 

are underway, and any sense of -- are you 

seeing in those meetings claimants already in 

the -- now in the Subtitle E program, or are 

you also seeing new -- new potential claimants, 

I guess? 

 MR. KOTSCH: I don't know, and Larry I don't 

think was able to make that leap, either. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think Larry indicated he 

expected more than they actually got. Was that 

not the case? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We really haven't seen any 

dramatic increase in new claims being submitted 

as a result of all the town hall activity. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Not to us; I don't know about 

DOL. 
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 MR. KOTSCH: I don't know that it's that 

apparent to us at Labor, either, but I don't -- 

again, I'm not the one who crunches that 

particular data to see -- I know they do get 

inquiries at the town hall meetings and they do 

get people that -- 'cause there are resource -- 

the Resource Centers pick up information -- 

maybe the next time we can look through our 

resource information data -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Certainly the NIOSH curves look 

pretty flat for the last number of months and -

-

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, it started to go up a little 

bit I thought --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

 DR. MELIUS: -- but I looked at it quickly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- it looks like --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, it --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- some wiggles. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- could be (unintelligible) -- 

 MR. KOTSCH: We might be able to make some 

correlations, Jim, with the Resource Center 

that's, you know, local for the, you know -- 

and see whether there was any kind of increase 

in activity following a town hall meeting. 
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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. I mean there's -- it's hard 

to tell 'cause, again, you know -- you know, 

the only -- we know that some people are 

frustrated with how long the process is taking 

so far, so there -- certainly it's not 

encouraging for people newly filing, and it may 

take a while until it's -- both the NIOSH 

program catches up and as this -- people start 

to see actually claims being compensated under 

the Subtitle E, or it may be that we've sort of 

run through who's -- you know, a large part of 

the eligibles because they're -- they're from 

the past, and I'm just thinking more, you know, 

how do you project out, you know, what's 

happening with this program in the future and -

- and I think that has something to do with the 

strategy that, you know, Larry and -- you know, 

NIOSH uses to address these claims and so 

forth. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I would just point out that since 

January the average submittal rate, NIOSH from 

DOL, has been around 220. It dips below 200, 

it comes back up above 250, but it's on average 

220. And the town hall meetings really started 

last -- help me out here, Jeff -- I think late 
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last fall? 

 MR. KOTSCH: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: So we really -- you know, it 

hasn't happened as to what I expected would 

happen here, but --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that's -- that's fair. My -

- my second question is -- I believe Larry or I 

believe NIOSH shared -- shared with us a letter 

from DOL concerning some DOL deci-- decision -- 

policy decisions regarding some of the SEC 

sites, and I'm -- I'm trying to understand what 

the letter meant. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Larry, are you familiar with that 

letter? 

 DR. MELIUS: It's from -- you shared it with us 

a week or two ago. Was that -- a couple of 

weeks ago, a letter regarding some of the SEC 

sites and how you're going to parse and handle 

some of those claims -- or how DOL was, I 

believe. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't believe I was the one -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay, maybe it --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that sent that out. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- came from DOL then. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I will -- I will say this, that 
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each Special Exposure Cohort class designation 

that comes out of the Secretary of HHS is sent 

over to DOL --

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and DOL has reacted to each 

one of those by reviewing the language and 

sending us a letter on how they're going to 

handle the cases within that class and whether 

or not there is any opportunity for dose 

reconstruction on a non-presumptive case. 

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And those have read differently, 

depending upon which class you talk about, but 

it didn't come from me. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Well, I mean I write those letter-

- or at least I've written those letters so far 

interpreting how the HHS Secretary has defined 

a class, and then how we would approach the -- 

you know, basically defining the employee cases 

for that -- for that class and as well as 

whether we can determine dose reconstructions 

for the non-specified cases. 

 DR. MELIUS: So -- yeah, this may have been 

just a routine letter that either I noticed the 

first time or I received this type of letter 
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for the (unintelligible) -- 

 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm not familiar 

with what --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Are you looking on the web site, 

'cause we do post these --

 DR. MELIUS: No, no, this --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- these letters on the web site. 

 DR. MELIUS: This was an e-mail. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay, sorry. 

 DR. MELIUS: I believe, from some -- somebody. 

I'll look it up on my computer later, but -- if 

it wasn't special, that's good then, I'll... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Michael. 

 MR. GIBSON: This question's for either DOL or 

NIOSH. When you ask for additional technical 

or medical information from these claimants or 

their survivors, and you know, a lot of times -

- sometimes the claimants are terminal at that 

point and aren't of the -- you know, sound 

mind, perhaps, do you have any ideas on how 

they're supposed to get this kind of technical 

or medical information when you guys have 

trouble getting the information from these DOE 

sites and getting -- getting dose 

reconstructions done and everything else? How 
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are these claimants and their survivors 

supposed to go out and get a doctor to write a 

letter and say yes, this place caused it or -- 

or -- or walk up to this big government entity 

called DOE and try to get information out of 

them? 

 MR. KOTSCH: Well, that's not -- I'll speak for 

DOL. It's -- obviously it's not an easy 

process for that claimant, especially if they 

are older, or even if they are -- sometimes 

even if they are survivors it's even tougher, 

especially if the employee's passed away quite 

a while ago. We have a lot of problems -- or 

the claimants have identified a number of 

problems where medical records are destroyed -- 

I don't know, it varies by state, but certain 

states will des-- you know, will allow their 

destruction 20 or 25 years ago. So sometimes 

people that -- if the claimant had a -- if the 

employee had a cancer like 40 years ago, they 

may not be able to -- if they -- if they didn't 

keep their own records to be able to retrieve 

those records, or their family physician may 

have passed away and passed his practice on to 

somebody else and either they didn't keep the 
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records or something else happened, but we have 

a lot of problems with claimants, and we try to 

help where we can to develop that medical 

information -- or to assist with information 

from the Department of Energy. But yeah, it's 

a -- it's -- it's a real problem and 

unfortunately it's not an easy one to address 

always. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Anything to add for NIOSH -- yeah. 

DR. NETON: From the dose reconstruction side, 

the burden of providing the information for a 

dose reconstruction is really not on the 

claimant. It's on NIOSH to go to the 

Department of Energy and obtain the 

information. We do of course ask the claimant 

for any information they may have that they 

believe is relevant to a dose reconstruction, 

and in fact at times when a claimant does 

object to a dose reconstruction because we 

haven't done a sufficient job in a certain 

area, we'll -- we'll go back and -- if it makes 

sense, to go back to the DOE and obtain that 

information such as, you know, assertions that 

they worked with certain sources that weren't 

covered. We'll go back and try to see if those 
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sources were there in what rooms and that sort 

of thing. So the burden of providing the 

documentation for the dose reconstruction is 

really on -- on us and the Department of 

Energy. 

 MR. GIBSON: But --

 DR. ZIEMER: But you were referring 

specifically to medical records, Mike, were you 

-- or other -- other records? 

 MR. GIBSON: Well, some-- sometimes other 

technical information's requested, but -- and 

maybe I didn't make myself clear. I understand 

that you guys are responsible for getting that 

-- the information for dose reconstruction, but 

we've seen the trouble that you have, the 

trouble SCA has in getting this information, so 

you can imagine how it compounds on the 

claimants and the survivors and, you know, it 

just seems to me that the -- the scuttlebutt 

I've heard from claimants, they -- they just -- 

they get frustrated and get ready to give up, 

and -- when it, on the surface, would appear 

they have a good claim. And so I -- I would 

just encourage both NIOSH and DOL to really 

look into some way to -- to try to help these 
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people get the in-- show them the path to try 

to get this information so that they don't -- 

they don't give up on their claim and -- and if 

the -- so justified, they're compensated. 

DR. NETON: Well, I guess I'm a little 

confused. I mean we don't ask them to go get 

the information. We get it. If they -- if 

they inform us that there's information that 

the DOE should have on them, we will go back to 

the DOE and file supplemental requests on 

behalf of the claimants. There's -- there's 

really no requirement for the claimant to go 

work with the Department of Energy to get the 

data that we need for dose reconstruction. 

 DR. ZIEMER: What about on the medical side 

with Labor, do -- is the claimant expected to 

come up with --

 MR. KOTSCH: Pretty much, the --

 DR. ZIEMER: That may be the issue. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, the two pieces obviously to 

start the claim are the evidence of employment 

and evidence of the medical condition. And the 

onus is basically on the -- the employee -- or 

the employee or their survivors to supply that 

information. Now for the employment, our 
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claims examiners will assist, you know, through 

-- if they can't get it directly, they'll 

assist through the Social Security 

Administration trying to get some records from 

them. They'll at least provide some evidence 

of employment at a particular site -- again, 

because sometimes these dates of employment 

could be 60 years ago. For the medical it's a 

little more onerous, almost. I know Department 

of Labor attempts to intervene sometimes, but 

we're not always able to collect that 

information, either. 

 MR. GIBSON: I just -- I have been told of a 

claimant -- I have not seen the letter and I 

don't know if it came from DOL or NIOSH -- that 

requested information of the stuff the person 

was exposed to during their employment at the 

facility. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think probably -- we do know 

that claimants are given the opportunity to 

provide such information if they know what it 

is, and I think we've also heard that that's 

often misunderstood, that they feel like the 

burden is on them to show what they were 

exposed to. And that's part of I think 
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preparation for the interview even. Is that 

not correct? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That may be, but I think we need 

to be very careful here and clear in -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- what aspect of the claim 

filing process we're talking about. This could 

be a Subtitle E case where they are asked -- 

the burden on the -- is -- is put on the 

claimant to provide that level of detailed 

information about what they worked with, what 

they were exposed to. That all goes to DOL's 

responsibility in determining eligibility of a 

claim. At NIOSH we don't -- our goal is not to 

put burden on the claimant. We're -- we're 

trying to work with the claimants and it's our 

burden to go find the information necessary to 

do dose reconstruction. 

 MR. KOTSCH: You're right, I wasn't -- I wasn't 

thinking Part E when I was responding. I was 

responding in Part B space, not 

(unintelligible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) cases where 

they're asked for dose information 

(unintelligible) --
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 MR. KOTSCH: I -- I think they probably are. 

It's fairly new to me, as far as the process 

goes. I know we are developing information on 

the different sites, as well as the toxic 

materials that were at those sites. So if we -

- if we knew the person's employment category, 

we could probably still make that link to 

exposure to different toxic materials at the 

site. But I -- I have to admit some ignorance 

as far as not knowing all the ramifications of 

Part E because I have not -- I get my training 

in a couple of weeks on all (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, if it is a Part E and it's 

the -- it's the dose information, would the 

Department of Labor go back and try to obtain 

that on behalf of the client, or do they still 

put the burden on the client? 

 MR. KOTSCH: For dose dat-- information? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Aside from the medical, the -- the 

radiation. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Oh, the radiation dose -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: On the Part E. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, that -- well, the Part E 

basically transfers over from the Part B 

program --
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 DR. ZIEMER: Be transferred over, so --

 MR. KOTSCH: It's -- it's -- there's not -- 

it's not intended to double the -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. KOTSCH: -- workload. 

 MR. GIBSON: This -- this information came to 

me second-hand. If -- would there be a -- a 

legal issue or anything else if -- if whoever 

this person is, if I can get a redacted copy of 

that letter from -- through this friend and 

bring it to a meeting -- the next meeting, 

would there be a problem with that so we could 

determine whoever generated and show exactly 

what the person was asked for? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: My only request would be 

that if -- if you're going to make it public 

here that you just run it by us to make sure 

that everything that needs to be taken out of 

it is taken out. 

 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Rich, did you have a 

comment? 

MR. ESPINOSA: No, I -- yeah, on the silicosis 

cases, there's only specific sites that are 

covered under the B on this. 
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 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, silicosis really just 

applies to mining activities at the Nevada Test 

Site and up at Amchitka, you know, where they 

drilled the tunnels. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah. Well, my question is is 

if somebody applies -- if somebody didn't work 

at one of these specific sites but applies 

under a silicosis case, are they being referred 

to the E? 

 MR. KOTSCH: Part E will cover it -- or will at 

least address that -- that issue. 

 DR. WADE: I have a very general question, if I 

might. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Lew. 

 DR. WADE: I mean there's enough that's 

transparent in the program now that we have 

some substantial numbers. When I look at cases 

that were referred to NIOSH and then that have 

been returned from NIOSH with recommended 

decisions, my calculator says about 24.3 

percent of the cases have been accepted for 

compensation. I wonder what your reaction is 

to that number. I'm sure there were 

projections done early on as to estimating the 

cost to the program. What's -- what's the 
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reaction in DOL to that number? 

 MR. KOTSCH: I have to admit I don't know what 

the early numbers were -- were. I know DOE was 

-- and Larry might know better. DOE was I 

think initially projecting quite a bit lower 

than that, probably lower than ten percent, 

maybe, you know, into the single digits -- 

lower single digits. I think when we did our 

initial estimates, and I wasn't -- I have to 

admit, I was not at DOL at the time that those 

estimates were done -- when the Act was 

initially passed and OMB probably asked for an 

estimate -- I'll just say personally, I'm not 

speaking for the program at this point; I don't 

know exactly -- I think we're probably at a 

higher rate than maybe they initially 

projected. And I don't know whether -- I mean 

that's just my personal opinion, but Larry may 

have more programmatic -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'll only speak because I was 

here at that time, and DOE and DOL were talking 

about this and the numbers that they were 

talking were between ten and 15 percent 

compensability rate for dose reconstructed 

cases. And obviously we're -- we're seeing 
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much higher, and I think that's due to -- to 

claimant-favorable assumptions that we're 

making in our approaches that we use. 

 DR. WADE: I just wanted to get that on the 

record. Thank you. 

 DR. MELIUS: I would --

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: I would disagree with that, to a 

certain extent -- in fact, to a great extent. 

I think one of the problems with the early 

estimates, and I was around for those also, was 

that they -- DOE has always grossly 

underestimated to the -- the extent to which 

their workforce was exposed to radiation, and I 

think we're seeing repeated examples of that. 

And I think if you look at the history on -- on 

some of these sites in particular, you'll -- 

you'll find just -- just based on some of the 

external monitoring data, that they are -- DOE, 

you know, repeatedly claimed that there were 

very few people with significant exposures, you 

know, whatever level you want to call it. And 

I think we're finding that there were -- there 

were many more. 

Secondly, those projections also based on how -
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- out of the total workforce, and we're seeing 

only people that -- filing claims. And you 

know, claims -- people filing claims, it's a 

very complicated picture and we've just talked 

about it now with these latest outreach efforts 

and so forth, and people file claims -- it's 

not like the whole universe is filing a claim. 

You know, they have some -- some extent what 

they know about their exposure or believe about 

their exposure, you know, to some extent it -- 

it -- it's driven by success at some sites, 

which may be we're selecting out what are sites 

that have a -- a much higher exposure and 

therefore higher -- higher -- you know, 

favorable -- you know, claims rate or whatever 

you want to call that. 

So I'd just be cautious in trying to draw too 

much from what we expected, you know, 'cause it 

was based on relatively little data, and I 

think on some data that was, you know, 

perceived differently by different groups 

involved. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 

DR. NETON: I just have a slightly different 

take on that. I think what's driving these 
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large numbers, to a tremendous extent, is the 

missed dose calculations applied by NIOSH in 

dose reconstructions for respiratory tract 

cancers. In many cases claimants are being 

compensated for respiratory tract cancers when 

they have no evidence of any positive bioassay 

measurements at all. I'm not saying it's not 

reasonable. I'm just saying that the detection 

limit for the ability to document exposures to 

determine compen-- that they're non-compensable 

is very difficult for exposures to these 

actinide elements. And -- and you'll see that 

in that 24 percent, I would say the vast 

majority of those are respiratory tract cancers 

for folks exposed to actinides. 

 MR. KOTSCH: But I think, Jim, some of that is 

related to the way they've selected -- you've 

selected -- NIOSH has been selecting its cases, 

too. 

DR. NETON: That's a very good point. These 

numbers shouldn't be considered hard and fast. 

Many of the respiratory tract cancers were -- 

were easier to process under the efficiency 

program that we enacted, and -- and that may be 

in fact why a large number are being 
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compensated. 

 DR. MELIUS: Can I just add that it would be 

helpful to -- rather than conjecture on some of 

this is to see some analysis of this, and if 

NIOSH will be willing to share -- do some of 

this analysis and share that information with 

us, I think it might -- it might be helpful at 

some point. I'm not -- not as a criticism, 

'cause I understand you've got many other 

things to do, but it's -- you know, if it's 

going to become a point that we need to address 

in some way, then I really think we should -- 

let's get the data and let's talk from data 

rather than --

 MR. ELLIOTT: We would be glad to work with DOL 

on that, but DOL needs to do this because we 

don't -- NIOSH does not make compensability 

determination; DOL does. We only provide dose 

reconstruction -- estimate of dose 

reconstructions here for them to use in that 

determination. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, I think we could base it as 

well on estimate dose reconstruction. 

 MR. KOTSCH: I'll take that back, though, as an 

action item to address. 
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 DR. MELIUS: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any further comments or questions 

on these reports? 

 (No responses) 

 Thank you, Jeff. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to recess now until 

the public comment session, which will be at 

7:00 o'clock back here in this room. So we 

look forward to seeing many of you at that 

time. 

 DR. MELIUS: I was just getting warmed up. 

 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:45 p.m. 

to 7:00 p.m.) 

GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, good evening, everyone -- 

pleased to have you here tonight for the public 

comment session of the Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health. My name is Paul 

Ziemer and I serve as Chairman of the Board. I 

want to take a moment and sort of acquaint you 

with who the Board is or what the Board really 

does and what we don't do. We have a certain 

amount of limitations ourself, but let me kind 

of acquaint you a bit with the Board. 
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This Board is an independent body. We are not 

part of the government. We are -- all the 

members of this Board have been appointed by 

President Bush to serve in this capacity. We 

come from a variety of backgrounds. There are 

several that are technical people with 

backgrounds in things like health physics, 

radiation safety, nuclear engineering, some 

with medical backgrounds. Some are from the 

worker segment. That is the trades and that 

sort of thing. And under the law, this Board 

is set up to have broad representation of that 

sort. 

There are ten members of this Board, eight of 

whom are here at the moment, plus -- eight, 

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, 

right. See, I'm the technical guy. I can 

count. Lew Wade is the Designated Federal 

Official, so he -- he is a Fed, and under the 

requirements of the Federal Advisory Board 

(sic) Act, we have to have a federal person 

sort of be a part of our deliberations. And we 

have Ray Green, who is our transcriber. 

Contrary to what some people think, Ray is not 

on oxygen. He is -- yes, some people have 
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thought that, what happened to that poor fella 

-- he is transcribing for us. 

 The Advisory Board is charged with overseeing, 

as it were, and giving advice on the dose 

reconstruction process. And since we are an 

Advisory Board, what we give is advice. Our 

advice can be ignored. It can be accepted. We 

always think it's worth accepting, but the 

people we advise don't always think that, so 

you know how that goes. 

But one of the things that we do -- and we do 

this on a fairly regular basis -- is we come 

together and we meet probably an average of six 

times a year in different locations. We come 

together and we get updated on what NIOSH and 

Department of Labor are doing in the dose 

reconstruction and the worker compensation 

program. And we have the opportunity to give 

input to the Secretary of Health and Human 

Services on the program. So our function, in a 

way, is a sort of oversight/quality control 

function. We do like to learn where the 

glitches are in the program so sometimes we can 

help smooth the way, as it were. 

We do not handle the individual dose cases. 
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That is the job of the federal agencies 

involved. Many of you here tonight have 

specific cases, and may have concerns about 

your case. The Board probably will not be in a 

position to answer your specific questions, 

although we would be in a position to help you 

find where you can get answers if that is an 

issue with you. 

What we do try to learn as we hear -- and we 

hear a lot of people's stories. Many of you 

are here to tell us your story, and those are 

very important because from them we learn 

what's happening in the program, how is it 

going, how long have people had to wait for 

actions. Where are the glitches. And from 

that we can, in a sense, be of help to you, 

even though it's the federal folks who will 

deal with your case. So if you have an issue 

and say well, I didn't get this filled out 

correctly, or they didn't understand this or 

that, we will try to help you get to the right 

person. 

But we are not the ones who review or -- or 

actually do the dose reconstructions. We are 

not -- we are not a review board in the sense 
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that we hear cases where people say well, I 

didn't get treated right; I want my case to be 

reviewed. We are not an appeals group. That 

is -- under law that is -- we're not permitted 

to do that. 

Our function is to advise on the program in 

terms of whether the dose reconstructions are 

being done properly. And in the case of the 

special cohort petitions -- and there's one 

from Y-12 in process -- this Board also makes 

recommendations to the Secretary of Health and 

Human Services on that kind of thing. So I 

give you that as sort of background so you 

understand there are certain limitations in 

terms of what we're able to do in terms of your 

personal case, yet we still want to hear what 

your issues are and make sure that somebody is 

available to assist you in whatever way is 

appropriate. 

So in some cases you may have questions -- why 

did this happen or why did that happen -- this 

Board may not be able to answer that for you 

specifically. But we will try to make sure 

that we get the right person to help you as the 

need arises. 
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I might also add -- I told you that we have a 

vast variety of -- of people on the Board in 

terms of technical and work backgrounds and so 

on. We come from different parts of the 

country. Some of the folks here have 

experience in facilities such as yours. I 

myself began my career at X-10 and worked some 

at Y-12. So this is kind of home for me. I 

get a little emotional about Oak Ridge. Okay. 

Yeah, look at my wife -- see, even -- she gets 

more emotional than I do. How about that? 

Okay. So I have a list of people who have 

asked to speak and I'm going to go just in the 

order given here, and the first one is Thomas 

Duncan. Thomas Duncan here? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we'll -- we'll skip ahead 

and then come back. How's that? 

Chris Elliott? There you go, Chris. Just 

approach the mike here. 

MR. C. ELLIOTT: Well, I'll give this my best 

shot. Is that --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

MR. C. ELLIOTT: My name is Chris Elliott. I'm 
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an affected employee or some people like to 

call us victims or whatever. My history is 21 

years at K-25 in the fire service, 

approximately nine months at Y-12 early in the 

'60s for about four months in the biology 

division -- which I was working for X-10, but 

at the Y-12 site. And in the late -- '97 -- 

'96, early '97, as the (unintelligible) 

coordinator for fixed fire protection for Y-12 

fire protection systems. 

During all this time, especially at K-25, I sit 

here -- and bear with me, because my problems 

are all really in my head. I have been 

diagnosed with cognitive deficit, early 

dementia, frontal and right lobe brain damage 

from toxins and heavy metals, and major severe 

recurrent depression since -- I've been on 

disability from Y-12 from -- since 1997, 

February. 

I've set (sic) here for two days and listened 

to the NA-- whatever that group is that -- the 

contractor group that's kindly (sic) bouncing 

off NIOSH's findings, and I wonder, since K-25 

is a special cohort site, that -- is anybody -- 

not monitoring, but looking at the way NIOSH is 
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doing the dose reconstructions for the noncovered illnesses such as skin cancers from the 

people at K-25, which I have a case on that, 

and my wife also entered a case which was 

denied. But I wonder if the same methodology 

that's being kindly (sic) challenged to a point 

at Rocky Flats and Savannah River is being used 

at K-25, and is there any challenges or things 

going on there at that site to say yes, you're 

doing this right and no, we think you're doing 

this wrong? 

My wife worked there for six years as clerical, 

and I know you can't do anything about this, 

but I want you to hear it. And her dose to her 

skin came up as 11.217 rem or a 42.17 percent 

of probability, which it has to reach 50 

percent probability to get compensation. That 

was a little less than six years employment in 

the clerical environment. I spent 21 years in 

the fire service environment, as I told Mr. 

Zimmer (sic) there -- Ziemer. When everybody 

was running away from it, we were running 

toward it. Yet I had a basal cell carcinoma on 

my forehead and my whole body -- I mean the 

skin dose came up as 14.8 rem. That, to me, 
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in one way of looking at it, in 15 more years I 

only got three more rem exposure. To me, 

that's -- that doesn't quite balance out, you 

know. So that's one of the things that I -- 

I'm concerned about is the way they do the 

business of checking. 

 Well, I've heard high-risk jobs, bioassay, you 

know, in high-risk professions inside the 

plants themselves. We were in the fire 

service. In 21 years I never remember a 

bioassay being done on myself. The records say 

I had one, and I don't remember it -- which is 

not unusual, considering my mental capabilities 

right now -- but to me, I don't know why we 

weren't in a bioassay program because we were 

exposed to numerous releases, fires of 

materials and we had to go in and pull people 

out of releases and excursions and whatever. 

Y-12 is comparatively safe, as far as I know. 

I didn't get into much over there with the rats 

and the mice, that I know of. But we had a lot 

of toxins and the heavy metals and a lot of 

chemicals and stuff at K-25, which were very 

injurous (sic) to the people down there. 

I worked my way up from a fire driver to the 
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chief of the department at K-25. But at the 

time I made chief, I was in the throes of this 

illness that I have right now, and I just could 

not keep it. It was something I had worked for 

all my life down there, and I had to give it 

up. And then a few months later, in October of 

'96, they decided my services were no longer 

necessary and laid me off and I found a job at 

Y-12. But I only lasted till February of the 

next year and had to go on disability. Tried 

to come back after six months. Y-12's own 

medical department would not allow me to come 

back, and I have been on permanent and total 

disability since '97. It's a hard thing to 

take, for somebody who's worked all their life, 

to go home and not be able to work and not get 

a paycheck, as such. You get a disability 

check -- but anyway, that's not really probably 

germane to all of this. 

I was -- I will -- one thing I am proud of, I 

was a member of the original group at K-25 that 

started all this. Where you're at today 

started at K-25 with a group of about 50 

employees who started showing up with cyanide, 

biocyanate in their urine, and we started 
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trying to get something done, get somebody to 

listen to us that there was something wrong. 

And that's when the study from Dr. Locke and 

Dr. Byrd* ensued. For about two years we went 

through ever (sic) kind of test I guess 

imaginable, and that's where a lot of my 

diagnoses came from was out of those testing. 

But I think this movement that's going still 

today started at K-25 in the '90s. So I'm 

proud of that. I'm proud of -- we stood up, 

and then other people started standing up and 

trying to get to right some wrongs. 

I will say one thing -- and don't take this 

wrong -- there's some things that happened in 

this country that's horrific. 9/11 was 

horrific. I feel very deeply that the people 

suffered tremendous loss. This country did, 

too. But the government ran over theirselves 

(sic) to compensate the families of those 

people who were in the wrong place at the wrong 

time. We worked at a place that's been proven 

that people higher up knew what it was doing to 

us and were not informed. Places I ate in, 

smoked in, chewed gum in in my street clothes, 

in my coveralls, in my fireman's uniform, when 
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I left down there you couldn't go in there 

without double-C protection, double boots, 

double gloves, respirators. You couldn't even 

go in the building, and I went through those 

buildings numerous times with just street 

clothes on. You breathe a lot of dust and 

stuff like that and, like I say, I hate what 

happened at 9/11. But the people who worked at 

the plants in this country are just as much 

victims and are just as deserving of 

compensation than those people. 

And I hate it, but that's the way I feel about 

it. We gave a lot to help win the Cold War, 

and some more than others. A lot of people who 

worked with me are no longer here. The process 

has outlived them. 

And I just -- that's about all I've got to say, 

and I appreciate you and I appreciate what all 

you're doing, but there's a lot of people 

hurting out there and they need help. They 

don't need a lot of technical talk, a lot of -- 

I've got a lot of charts in here that I can't 

understand. I don't know what they mean. We 

need results, not technicalities. Thank you 

very much. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Chris, for your 

comments. 

Next -- it looks like Herman, Herman Potter? 

Yes. 

 MR. POTTER: Hello. My name's Herman Potter. 

I work for the United Steel Workers. I've been 

asked to come here to inquire about a letter 

that was sent to each Board member by 

(unintelligible), United Steel Workers Safety 

and Environment Director. He was -- he was 

wanting to know what actions, if any, it was 

taken on this letter that was sent, and I would 

like to read the letter, with your permission. 

It's (reading) Dear Chairman Ziemer and 

Advisory Board Members, Unions and workers -- 

worker groups have organized meetings with 

NIOSH and its contractor support staff to 

provide input into the site profiles being 

prepared for use by radiation dose 

reconstructors in the compensation program. 

This NIOSH initiative was triggered by a formal 

request from the Advisory Board. With the 

exception of several locations, we're growing 

increasingly concerned that this input is not 

being fairly considered by NIOSH or ORAU. We 
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believe that it may be appropriate for the 

Board and/or its audit contractor to evaluate 

the degree and extent to which the workers' 

comments were evaluated and were relevant -- 

and, where relevant, incorporated into the site 

profiles. This letter requests that the 

Advisory Board and, where appropriate, its 

audit contractor review the comments provided 

on NIOSH site profiles that were submitted by 

the local unions or worker groups, including at 

Hanford, INL, K-25, Portsmouth, Paducah, Rocky 

Flats, Fernald and Chapman Valve. These 

comments are contained in the TopHat database, 

but to date we are not even aware whether these 

have been reviewed by the audit contractor. 

For example, in the recent Hanford site profile 

review. 

And it says (reading) Thank you for your 

consideration and -- and please contact Herman 

Potter if you have any questions. 

And I might add that very recently, even -- 

basically a non-typical DOE site, NFS out of 

Erwin, Tennessee, we had U.S. -- United Steel 

Workers received requests and -- in assistance 

in their site profile. And we had actually -- 
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we had actually provi-- started providing that 

assistance. And in that -- in that specific 

case, NIOSH and the -- and the contractor has 

been working with us to find out what 

information was provided to them by that 

contractor. But there is a problem that that 

contractor, on its initial -- on the initial 

request for documentation to review in order to 

prepare for that site profile, had refused to 

provide that information. 

Now this -- this is not -- this is just very 

basic technical information. It's just 

procedures, bioassay procedures, things that 

should be in a Technical Basis Document. But 

that type of relationship or that type of 

action by the contractor does not lend -- does 

not lend credibility to this program. 

But back to the letter, Michael Wright had 

asked me to actually approach you all with this 

and find out what actions have been taken, or 

if any are going to be taken. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me give you a preliminary 

response. I believe I got a copy of the 

letter, and I'm -- were the Board members 

copied? I just saw it earlier this week, 
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actually, but -- and -- and have not replied to 

that letter. But let me tell you generally, we 

are making concerted effort, and particularly 

with the help of our contractor, to garner the 

comments of workers in the work site. I know 

that NIOSH is also now doing the same. Whether 

the specific comments that you're referring to 

have been addressed, I don't know the answer to 

that. But we certainly will have that and I 

want to make sure that we follow up on this and 

-- as we proceed in reviewing those various 

site profiles. And certainly -- I'm -- I'm 

looking to see if any of our -- John, did your 

folks get a copy of that letter, as well? If 

not, we will provide it to our contractor. 

DR. MAURO: (Off microphone) Yes, we are of 

that -- aware of the letter. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

DR. MAURO: (Off microphone) We have been in 

communication with NIOSH and their contractor 

(unintelligible) that information 

(unintelligible) TopHat database. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. The TopHat database is the 

-- the key. We will certainly follow up on it. 

If you're asking whether it's all been 
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addressed, I don't think we know that right 

now, and the answer is probably somewhere in 

between. My guess is some of that probably 

already has been looked at by NIOSH, but we 

will -- we will make every effort to make sure 

that -- that that does occur. We thank you for 

that input. 

 MR. POTTER: Thank you. 

 DR. MELIUS: Dr. Ziemer, the letter is actually 

-- what's the date on the letter? Can you 

clarify that first, Herman? 

 MR. POTTER: The letter's dated June 27th, 

2005. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, this is -- goes back quite a 

bit of time, and I think it came in just before 

one of our scheduled meetings. It -- actually 

I'd inquired about it at that meeting, said it 

would be on the agenda for the next meeting, 

and then we had sort of a -- I don't know what 

you call it, emergency meeting, but the offschedule meeting, last one in St. Louis, and I 

would actually like to see it -- if we can't 

have time to discuss it at the meeting now, 

that we put it on the agenda for the next 

meeting and have a formal presentation from 
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NIOSH, who, you know, claims they're being more 

responsive and trying to incorporate these 

comments. We have a lot of concern about that 

and I think we should formally discuss it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. So -- yes, and so 

please assure your colleagues that we will 

address these issues. 

 Randy Layman? 

 MR. LAYMAN: Yes, sir. Thank you all for 

having me back. We spoke briefly yesterday and 

I made (off microphone) (unintelligible). My 

father worked at the Y-12 site that has been 

referred to at this meeting. (On microphone) 

My father went to work at Y-12 in 1958 and I 

was conceived as a child in 1962. I grew up 

being known as what was called a carbide brat. 

That plant used to be Union Carbide, and it 

went to Lockheed Martin and Martin Marietta. 

Now it's BWXT. Tomorrow it might be -- you 

don't know and you don't want to know, and 

that's... 

Well, anyway, I have a picture -- my father was 

a assembly -- production machinist, and you all 

are calling Y-12 the site, but as I was growing 

up, the sign out in front of Y-12 complex said 
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Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant. Okay? So in my 

mind and in laymen's terms, that to me don't 

mean conventional weapons. Okay? And I 

understand that back in the -- the late '50s 

and early '60s that Y-12 especially had huge 

Navy contracts. They built weapons for the 

Navy. In other words, some of these things 

that you see on TV, a warhead that would come 

from 4,000 feet deep in the ocean, break the 

surface and then hit a target 8,600 miles away, 

Cold War (unintelligible). It took a lot of 

technology, guys like yourselves. You 

metallurgists and you physicists and engineers 

used to get together and draw these things up. 

Well, my father was the man that built these 

things. 

Okay, the site that you call it that you go out 

there and look at now has 100 machinists. 

Okay? In 1975 Y-12 employed 28,000 people, 

12,800 were machinists. My father was fourth 

from the top in seniority, and that was a very 

good job. He took good care of us. We -- we 

had a fine brick home with a basement. But I 

was a freshman in college when my father died. 

Okay? And that was -- he -- he had me on -- I 
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wasn't on scholarship. He was paying for that 

and it was out of school for me and I had to 

learn to be a man. And myself and my sister 

and my brother, we're successful business 

people here in Knoxville, and -- and we're not 

up here begging for the money. We're okay. 

But here -- there -- there's one statement I 

want to make and there's a question, because I 

realized where my father worked when -- when 

you get down into the bowels and the guts of Y12 weapons plant, I believe that you all meet 

fierce resistance. Meaning this: I believe, 

sir, that there's places in Y-12 that you can't 

go. Because now that they've changed the plant 

to the large production facility, they're even 

taking some of the most dangerous -- most 

dangerous waste from the Soviet Union and 

storing it -- guess where? Thirty-five miles 

from where you're sitting. You guys are up 

here and you have this meeting in this nice 

hotel, but I don't even know in this room who 

has the clearance to go into the bowels of Y12. And it -- to me, it's like chasing a 

ghost. But some of those buildings are not 

there. The production has changed. 
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But I have a picture right here, and I want to 

pass it around and I want you to look at it. 

This is a picture of my father at 43 years old, 

and he died at 53. He went to work at Y-12 in 

1958. My mother said in five years his hair 

was solid white. In ten years he was bald. 

I'm 43 years old and this picture I'm about to 

show you is my father working in a dry box at 

Y-12. He's 43 years old. I want you to look 

at him and look at me. Now I told you 

yesterday he went from 235 pounds and six foot 

two -- he played end at the University, but 

because of a knee injury his football career 

was over. But he fought in Korea. When he 

came back from Korea he went to work at the 

plant, was the kind of man he was. But can any 

of you go to a place in -- I'm sorry -- (off 

microphone) in Y-12 that has a machine that 

looks like this? Now when you look at this 

picture, look at my father, but ask yourself 

what is inside this dry box that he's making, 

and what component is in it and what's -- when 

it comes out here it has to go on a lathe and 

turn (unintelligible) high speed 

(unintelligible) and this thing right here is -
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- is what I want to talk to you about about 

these shavings flying (unintelligible) and how 

safe is this. Sir, you're a physicist. You 

figure this out. But this is the only picture 

I can bring you as evidence (unintelligible) 

where my father's -- he died in January, but in 

-- in October of that year, before he died, he 

went from 235 but his death weight was 173. I 

want y'all to see that just for a minute. 

 (On microphone) And out of these 28,000 people 

that worked at Y-12, I'm proud to say that my 

father wasn't a wandering generality. He was a 

meaningful specific. He was fourth from the 

top out of 12,800 machinists. He knew what he 

was doing. When there was a precision project 

to be made, they called on Bill Layman, and I 

believe it cost him his life because -- I mean 

I believe they tried at Oak Ridge to have 

safety. But if you'll look at this dry box 

right here, if I were doing a dose 

reconstruction I would take that picture, if I 

could go to the bowels of Y-12, and I would 

find somebody who knows about a dry box like 

that and I would say sir, isn't -- 2005, if we 

had a dry box like this in here and somebody 
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was turning metal of it, how long do you think 

they would live? 

Let me ask you all this right here. I can't 

think of one machinist that worked at Y-12 for 

25 years in my father's era that lived to tell 

about it. They're all dead of cancer. Look 

and see. 

I got one more thing I want to show you. (Off 

microphone) When I said that my father was a 

meaningful specific, my father was (on 

microphone) declared Mr. Safety -- (off 

microphone) now I (unintelligible) Mr. Safety 

on his job in 1971. That means -- (on 

microphone) Y-12 has a safety program, and 

they're big on safety out there. But when you 

have an employee that goes above what he's 

supposed to do and offers suggestions to the 

plant he works in and those safety values are 

taken and making policy because he -- he -- he 

did things that was -- made safe on the job, so 

he wasn't out there trying to -- to -- to do 

something foolish with this -- (off microphone) 

in east Tennessee we call it hot stuff -- and 

he -- he told me (on microphone), he said I -- 

I just got into too much hot stuff. 
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So I just wonder, when you guys go down there 

to do the -- the dose reconstruction -- okay, 

the number one thing, if any of you know about 

Bear Creek Road -- okay, when I was a kid we 

could go down Bear Creek Road 35 miles west of 

here and you could drive straight by Y-12, K25, X-10, the Lab and the whole nine yards. 

Now if you get in your car and you drive down 

there, the first thing you're going to 

encounter -- okay, just say if you send a lady 

out of your office working from NIOSH. She 

gets in her car in Ohio and she drives to Oak 

Ridge, Tennessee. The first thing she 

encounters in the street on Bear Creek Road is 

the military, sir. If she don't have the 

credentials to get in, she's going to be met, 

or he, with stiff resistance. Okay? 

Then what -- let's say she gets inside that 

gate. Do you believe -- you want me to believe 

that she can go in the bowels of Y-12 and dig 

in their archives of the people that's died out 

there? That, to me, sir, in a dose 

reconstruction set up that way would be like 

trying to -- if building an automobile was 

settling these cases, a dose reconstruction and 
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a coloring book -- I mean a workbook is like 

carving a ancient stone out of a wall. It's 

backing up. It's wasting money. And no 

disrespect for you all, but folks, the people 

that's died at Oak Ridge, the money it costs to 

have this meeting -- this is the finest hotel 

in our city. We could have done this at the 

Holiday Inn, and the money saved from this 

could have bought some shoes for some kid 

that's daddy died turning metal out there 

making weapons to protect all of you, and me. 

Think about it. I mean if you think a dose 

reconstruction going on for four years and you 

don't have any more answers respectively than 

you've got right now, and you're going to do it 

another -- another four years, all I'm -- I 

expect to get letters from you, four more years 

just like the past four years. We're about to 

get it to dose reconstruction. Once it does 

this, it does that. But it's -- it's -- it's 

really not going nowhere. In east Tennessee --

y'all might see me as a redneck hillbilly, but 

I'm telling you there's -- there's time to spin 

your wheels, and they've spun enough. It's up 

to you. And if you said President Bush ordered 
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you all to handle this, then why aren't you 

doing it? Why are you letting NIOSH tell you 

all that they're going to Oak Ridge and getting 

all these samples? They can't even get in, 

sir. That -- national security is threatened 

if your people go digging in the bowels of Y12. Russia's most dangerous stuff that they 

can't handle is sent 35 miles west of here and 

kept in our safes at Y-12, and you all want to 

do a dose reconstruction? If you walk into 

those places and breathe it, you'll die. You 

can't go in the bowels of Y-12, sir. If you 

can, at least convince me of that. I'm talking 

-- my NIOSH numbers is 5502. My name's Randy 

Layman. You can look at my father's employment 

record. But if you'd seen him when he died, a 

big thick tongue and just -- just purple. He 

just went down to nothing. He not only had 

myelomytic (sic) leukemia, but they said -- 

they said his leukemia was in the bone marrow. 

It was in his blood. It was in the lymphs. It 

was -- he was consumed by it. And he worked 

even Friday -- my dad carried a lunchbox to 

work, sir, and his lunchbox didn't just have a 

-- a meal in it. They had a joke. At the 
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guard shack every day when they checked my 

dad's lunchbox -- Mr. Layman, we see you 

brought your medicine cabinet with you today -- 

because of the stress. And my daddy would joke 

about that, but when you're talking about 

ulcers on top of ulcers, your hair falling out, 

losing weight, getting weak, not knowing what's 

going on, but go to work on Friday -- and my 

dad hated the doctor, but my sister right here, 

he asked her to take her -- him to the hospital 

on a Sunday night, that he felt weak. Tuesday 

they diagnosed leukemia. Thursday they gave 

him a shot of chemotherapy -- and one more time 

I'm going to tell you, at this hospital right 

across the river, my daddy died on Friday 

holding my hand and telling me that he got this 

stuff from Oak Ridge. You can believe it or 

not, and your check is not going to make or 

break me. I'm standing on my own and I can 

make it. But you might tell some widow woman 

that because of this alphabet (unintelligible) 

the bowels of Y-12, and I was close to him, and 

right there's strict proof. And I feel like if 

you want a dose reconstruction, go down there 

and say I've got somebody that's Mr. Safety. 
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Look at this dry box. Would this fly at Y-12 

right now? And the people will tell you no, we 

had to get rid of them a long time ago. Well, 

why was that? Because they leaked. Well, what 

was in them that could leak? Weapons grade 

uranium, and once this stuff's enriched, it 

won't go away. 

There's things out there that I believe will 

never go away. You can't get rid of it. 

There's nothing you can do with it. There's 

vats of fuel. There's -- there's -- it's -- 

it's almost like we're at a stalemate, and to 

call it a dose reconstruction and keep going, 

to me, and with all due respect to you, I 

believe it's a waste of time. Sometimes it's 

time to cut your losses, pay the people that 

deserve it. If I deserve it, pay me; if I 

don't, don't. But stop the letters. Stop the 

high-priced meetings, and -- and -- and buy 

some kid some shoes that's daddy died out there 

trying to defend the United States and Israel. 

Do something right that you can feel good 

about. Don't listen to all this hogwash. But 

if you can't go to the bowels of Y-12, how can 

you do a dose reconstruction? I'll guarantee 
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you they won't let you in. How many Q 

clearances do you all have? And on top of 

that, how many of you -- and with this (off 

microphone) knowledge -- and with all due 

respect, how many of you can handle top secret 

material? You can't even get there. The 

Army's in the street. They'll stop you in your 

car if you don't have (unintelligible) -- byebye (on microphone) and that's how it works. 

Convince me different and I'll shut up. I'm 

only here for a few minutes to see you all. 

Life goes on for you and life goes on for me, 

but the fact stands, the man that you see 

working in the dry box, you can have it, but 

somebody take the -- if -- if I could go, I got 

the guts to ask them (off microphone) why did 

you do away with these machines, because -- 

I'll -- I'll tell you one more thing. (On 

microphone) N.C. State had a group of seniors 

that developed a new type of Geiger counter, 

and a man here mentioned K-25. I talked to a 

man last night that works at K-25. They 

thought they had the best hot-stuff readers in 

the world. Inci-- these seniors from U.T. -- I 

mean N.C. State brought their Geiger counters 
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or equal-to Geiger counters, and they started 

going off through the door. There was hot 

stuff all over that place. They found a fake 

floor with waste just dumped and built over it. 

That place is hot, real hot. Sir, can you go 

to the bowels of Y-12? Can you? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I cannot go to the bowels of Y-12. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Who can? 

 DR. ZIEMER: We have some on the Board that 

can. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Well, let's see what he can find. 

And would you get back to me, please? 

 DR. ZIEMER: And let me comment -- thank you. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Yes, sir. And I don't -- I'm not 

being hostile to you, but -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: No --

 MR. LAYMAN: -- you do -- I'm an enlightened 

person. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Let me tell you that the -- 

the task of garnering the dose information on 

the workers is a NIOSH task. They have people 

that are able to garner that information. We 

also have folks on our contractor's side that 

have the appropriate clearances to go into the 

various facilities. Now I don't know if you 
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realize that actually if we're not able to get 

the dose information on a person, then we have 

a process -- and it may be that you're not 

familiar with that, but there is a process 

which essentially assigns worst-case dose to 

the individuals in the absence of information. 

And -- and it's a process that we're required 

by law to follow. We cannot ignore -- I 

understand your sentiments. You must 

understand that this Board and NIOSH are 

charged by law to follow certain procedures. 

It's a bureaucratic thing, admitted. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Sure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But we cannot simply say well, 

we're not going to do this. We will, you know, 

ignore what the law says. There will be some 

frustrations in the process. We -- this Board, 

NIOSH, our contractors -- will do our best -- 

 MR. LAYMAN: I appreciate that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- to -- to --

 MR. LAYMAN: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- try to determine, whether it's 

your own case or others, if we can reconstruct 

the dose in a manner which we believe is 

reasonable, it will be done. If we cannot do 
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that, NIOSH will say so. They already have 

cases now where they have said we cannot 

reconstruct this person's dose and therefore 

recommend they move into the Special Exposure 

Cohort. 

 MR. LAYMAN: When national security is at 

stake, there's -- there could become -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: That could --

 MR. LAYMAN: -- stalemates on that ---

 DR. ZIEMER: -- happen. That could happen. 

 MR. LAYMAN: -- and I realize that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: If we cannot get the information, 

then we have some alternatives. We will do our 

best to do it in a fair way -- 

 MR. LAYMAN: I appreciate you very much. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and you understand that we have 

some limitations on what we are legally able to 

do, but we will do our best to be fair, not 

only to -- to your father, but all other folks. 

We appreciate, you know, what -- the impact it 

has on individual families. You -- we know 

that people are not just numbers. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Yes, sir. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And we want to be cognizant of 

that as we proceed. We know -- you know, the 
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cases have numbers, yes, your numbers, but each 

case is unique. We're honestly trying to do 

our best to -- to be fair to all of those 

concerned. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Yes, sir. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And we -- we recognize that in 

many cases it's not an issue of just the money. 

It's an issue of fairness -- 

 MR. LAYMAN: Sure it is. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and it's an issue of, you know, 

not -- not only fair treatment, but -- for 

example, what's -- were folks deceived, in a 

sense, by their own government -- 

 MR. LAYMAN: Sure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- which is, you know, an issue we 

hear many times. So we're cognizant of that. 

We -- we will honestly do our best to address 

those. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Thank you so much. I appreciate 

that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Thank you, sir. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Howard Lawson. 

 MR. LAWSON: Lawson, L-a-w-s-o-n. 

 DR. ZIEMER: L-a-w -- okay. Oh, law, yes, not 
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-- okay, yes, Lawson. 

 MR. LAWSON: Good evening, and my name is 

Howard Lawson. I work at BWXT, Y-12. I'm 

electrician by trade, and I'm also one of two 

full-time union health and safety 

representatives. And on behalf of the ATLC and 

the ATLC president and vice-presidents, let me 

tell you that we appreciate the work that the 

Board does. I know a little bit about your 

travel schedule, and it has to be sometimes 

inconvenient for you, at the best. And if 

there's any way that the ATLC can assist the 

Board in getting information to help workers 

and former workers at Y-12, we'll be happy to 

do it. 

I don't have many complaints. I've got some -- 

some comments and suggestion, and one important 

question -- well, that's important to me -- 

that I wish you could answer, and I'll get to 

it last. But the first two things here are 

kind of superficial. The first is the meeting 

location. You're in Knoxville for an Oak Ridge 

meeting. It might better serve the claimants 

if -- if you could meet at -- in Oak Ridge. 

know the old Doubletree, it's probably not as 

I 
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adequate as this, but it'll make do. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And let me insert here. We --

that would have been our preference. We 

actually had trouble getting it scheduled for 

this meeting. This -- this was not our first 

choice, honestly, and we're hopeful that we can 

meet in Oak Ridge in a future time. 

 MR. LAWSON: (Unintelligible) I guess it's 

Doubletree now that --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) before. 

 DR. ZIEMER: As we did before. 

 MR. LAWSON: Right, right. The other one is 

that -- the advertisement, getting the word out 

on -- on this particular meeting. I didn't see 

it because I had access to e-mails through the 

union, but one of the ladies was telling me 

that it was a -- a small ad in the paper in the 

classifieds, and particularly hard -- hard to 

find. If -- next time, if you could see it -- 

if you had, you know, a bigger advertisement, 

you might get a better turnout and a better 

participation. 

Next, the phone interviews that the -- I guess 

it's one of the first steps that is -- is in 
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the dose reconstruction process, it -- if you 

could change the questions to -- to be more 

oriented towards the -- the buildings in Y-12 

and the processes or the components that were 

used, the workers would -- would have better -- 

could give a better indication of where they 

worked and what they worked with, rather than -

- I believe I remember one of the questions 

saying something about a specific radionucleide 

(sic). You know, most workers out there don't 

know what nucleide (sic) -- one from a -- one 

from another. And also it would be helpful if 

the interviewer could have some semblance of a 

working knowledge about the Y-12 site and they 

could get an idea of the exposures that the 

workers were exposed to, and the hazards -- in 

building say 9212 or 9206, as opposed to 9720-

6. In other words, the difference in the 

hazards in the east end and the west end. 

This -- I heard -- I believe it was yesterday, 

about the HP, how -- how they are plentiful 

now, and I can attest to it that they -- they 

are, they're plentiful now. But in talking 

with some of the old-timers, the time frame 

through the late '60s, '70s and even into the 
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'80s, HPs weren't all that plentiful and 

available to the workers and -- and their job 

sites. Now whether they were adequate or not, 

I'm not -- I can't say, but they weren't all 

that plentiful then as they are now. And some 

of them back in those days were even paid for 

with X-10 money. Therefore they stayed mainly 

in the X-10 building. They were -- they didn't 

smell as good as the Y-12 building, but they 

weren't as contaminated as the Y-12 buildings, 

too. You know the -- the rat building and some 

more of them. 

Okay, my -- my question that I mentioned, too, 

that I'd like to -- the Board to satisfy, deals 

with the use of -- of coworkers for dose 

reconstruction data. I don't -- I've got a 

little bit of a problem with that in that how -

- how you would use the -- which coworker would 

be selected. They -- they give you some 

scenarios -- we're using electrician, since 

that's what I am, I know a little bit about. 

Today I might be relamping in a building -- a 

clean building like this and with say Joe. And 

then -- but the next day I'd be working with a 

different coworker in the 9212 head house 
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basement, and most likely I'm going to be in a 

full dress-out, anti-Cs, and a respirator. So 

for the purpose of the coworker dose 

reconstruction data, which coworker are you 

going to use? Would you be -- use the one 

where I worked with the -- changing the light 

bulbs in a clean area or would I be -- would 

you -- will it be -- use the one when I went to 

the head house basement? How -- how -- what's 

the process for determining which coworker is 

used for that re-- reconstruction data? 

 DR. ZIEMER: And perhaps we could ask Jim Neton 

or one of his folks to answer that. I can tell 

you in general what they would tend to do would 

be to find the one that had the highest dose of 

-- of the group and -- and use that as the 

assignment, but Jim, clarify for us. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, you -- you raise a good 

question about this coworker data. 

 DR. ZIEMER: This is Jim Neton, who --

DR. NETON: I'm sorry --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- is with NIOSH. 

DR. NETON: -- with NIOSH. There's been some 

confusion about how we're doing this, and we're 

not doing -- using exact side-by-side workers 
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for the very reasons you mention. It's very 

difficult to demonstrate that these workers had 

identical exposures. So what we do is take the 

-- the samples for all workers who were 

monitored, and if we have no idea where the 

person worked or -- or what their exposure was 

and they should have been monitored, we will 

pick the high end of the monitoring data and 

use that to do the dose reconstruction. If we 

believe that the person was not in a position 

that they needed to be monitored, we will take 

the average value of all the monitored workers 

and assign that. So it's a lot more rough than 

-- than you'd think. It doesn't get down to 

specific job. It's all monitored workers, and 

we err on the side of conservatism and 

claimant-favorableness to give the higher 

exposure. I don't know if that answers your 

question. 

 MR. LAWSON: (Off microphone) It answered a 

little bit (unintelligible) confusion. Say --

say we have -- we -- we have secretaries that 

are on the east end, and they're monitored. 

Even up until just a few months ago, they -- 

they were in the urinalysis program. They are 
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obviously on the low end of the scale. They're 

going to get virtually nothing. And the 

carpenter that's working in one of the process 

buildings, he's -- he's going to get the max. 

Now -- but to reconstruct it, where do you go 

from there? 

DR. NETON: Well, it depends on the individual 

case, but in general I could say that if a 

secretary who -- they were monitored? If 

there's monitoring information, we'll use the 

actual monitoring information to reconstruct 

the dose. But if a secretary were not 

monitored and -- and our investigation reveals 

that they should have been -- in other words, 

they had potential exposure -- then we would 

more than likely use the average value of all 

the monitored workers at the plant. This is 

not 100 percent the way we do it, but that's 

what we would do if we couldn't determine and 

we believe that the secretary had potential. 

If a carpenter were not monitored and he should 

have been monitored, and we believe that there 

was a large potential for exposure, we would 

pick the highest exposure of all the monitored 

workers -- not the highest, but the -- towards 
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the high end, what we call the 95th percentile 

of the extreme end, and say we don't know; 

we're going to use a highest value because, 

again, we don't know and we'll be conservative 

and select that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Ken Silver. 

 MR. SILVER: Good evening. I'm Ken Silver, 

Department of Environmental Health, East 

Tennessee State University. My comments are 

about the draft Los Alamos site profile. I 

have two requests -- I'll be very brief; you 

have other working people waiting to talk. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, but that's -- that's fine. 

Go ahead and proceed. 

 MR. SILVER: Very briefly, two requests. 

Please go back to New Mexico soon for a Board 

meeting and put the draft LANL site profile on 

the agenda. And two, before the meeting in New 

Mexico -- within the next year, please -- see 

to it that ORAU provides a detailed response or 

rebuttal to my written comments on the draft 

LANL site profile, which OCAS was kind enough 

to post on the web site. 

My comments don't come from the ivory tower. 

In October 2002 you had a Board meeting in 
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Santa Fe at the Inn of Loretto and I'm proud to 

have been part of the social movement that 

helped liven up that meeting. I didn't write 

my comments until NIOSH and ATL held a meeting 

in Espanol in New Mexico June 18th of this year 

in response to a request from UPTE* Local 1663, 

and I spent the better part of the late '90s 

from the Openness Initiative until 2001 going 

through public source documents on Los Alamos 

historical processes, emissions and exposures. 

There are very, very serious problems with the 

LANL draft site profile in terms of using 

readily available public information that 

someone with a large contract ought to be able 

to get. If I could get it a few years ago from 

public sources, hey, what's the problem here? 

Secondly, LANL has not made available a very 

important source of information, the occurrence 

reports collection that is in technical area 

35. It's the mother lode of nose swipes, 

bioassay data, spills, accidents, contamination 

incidents from 1944 into 1991. I had access to 

it, no security clearance, from 1996 to 1998. 

In my comments I developed an estimate of the 

number of occurrences that the site profile 
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missed, somewhere on the order of 250 

occurrences, that could be documented if NIOSH 

and ORAU got into that collection. 

 And because you're a federal advisory 

committee, you're probably aware that public 

interest science, which is responsible for many 

of the health and environmental protections we 

today took for -- take for granted, grew up 

right here in front of federal advisory 

committees in the 1970s. So I thought well, 

can we take a public interest science approach 

to this draft site profile? What does a public 

interest scientist do? You look at the docket, 

the cited sources, and independently evaluate 

how they were interpreted. I couldn't even get 

to first base. There are 254 cited sources in 

the LANL site profile; 41 percent of them are 

not available to the public, period. I sat 

down at the computer terminal at Los Alamos's 

main library. They're not on the library 

shelves, they're not on the open net healthrelated database of DOE, they're not on the 

Energy citations database, they're not in the 

Los Alamos Historical Documents Recovery 

Project, the Zimmermann Library at UNM. 
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Roughly a third is simply not available. 

Another 17 percent have copying or page 

charges. Another six percent from NTIS, and 

you know how much they charge. So more than 

half of the basis of the site profile cannot be 

subjected to a public interest science 

approach. 

 So the working people have a lot of really 

interesting things to say about what's in the 

document from the standpoint of how doses are 

being assessed, as we speak, and the injustices 

that are occurring. So please get back out 

there soon. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you for that input, 

Ken. 

 Next we'll hear from Thomas Smith, Y-12 -- Y-12 

and K-25, I guess. 

MR. SMITH: And X-10. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And X-10, okay. 

MR. SMITH: I don't know where to start, 

really. I used to have a friend who worked for 

the Oak Ridge Associated University -- in fact 

I dated her, so she better be a friend -- and 

she used to tell me -- now this is a few years 

back, but she used to tell me you don't want to 
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work in that building; too many people are 

dying and too many people have cancer, and this 

is what my statistics show. Well, of course 

she's no longer with ORAU, but I'll be honest 

with you, this will not get it. That's a TLD, 

a dosimeter. That won't get it. I guarantee I 

could -- I can prove it won't work. It didn't 

work with me. I had cancer, and I thank God I 

don't have cancer any more, they cut it out. 

But if you get alpha beta particles in an open 

wound, you're going to get cancer. And I'm not 

a doctor, but I know for a fact that happened 

to me. 

If I could just read a little bit of this. 

This is a letter of denial, of course, and this 

is -- I appealed the case and this is my denial 

letter, and the interviewer was real nice. 

I've got nothing bad to say. I've been treated 

very, very nice. This says (reading) After a 

review of the above evidence, it is sufficient 

to establish that Mr. Thomas M. Smith has skin 

cancer and the onset of this disease occurred 

after his initial exposure to radiation in 

covered employment. 

Okay, findings and facts. This is the same 
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page. (Reading) Medical evidence establishes 

that Mr. Thomas M. Smith developed skin cancer 

after he began employment at K-25/Y-12 plant, 

and after his initial exposures of radiation to 

that employment. 

And this is the dose reconstruction estimate, 

which was too low. That's the reason they 

denied it. There's no way a TLD could indicate 

cancer in me. It says (reading) Mr. Thomas 

Smith does not meet the criteria of an 

individual with cancers to have sustained a 

cancer in the performance of duty. 

 Okay, I'll get away from that and I'll tell you 

how I got the cancer. I was -- I was a 

lineman, and we had stripped some hardware off 

of some poles west of the 9212 building. In 

fact it was real -- you know, relatively close 

to the building. And as a lineman, you put -- 

you put your gloves -- get this thing adjusted. 

You put your glove -- you've got to work with 

gloves. You put your gloves in your hardhat, 

that's how you take care of them. That's how 

you find them when you want them. I cut my 

head. Granted, I didn't turn it in. It was 

just a small gash and I -- I cut it when I got 
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into the truck. I hit my head. I didn't have 

a hardhat on. So months went by. Well, the 

cut would never heal. Then my hair started to 

fall out and I got a little concerned. People 

started to notice, so I went by and talked to 

Dr. Zimmerly* in medical, and he recognized it 

as probable cancer. So he set up a -- an 

appointment for me. They did a biopsy and it 

was basal cell carcinoma. 

Okay. Of course I was angry, mad at myself, 

too. But they then -- then I got to thinking 

about well (unintelligible) get cancer? I'm 

still wearing the same gloves, still using the 

same hardhat. So I go to health physics -- or 

radcon, rather. They checked my gloves -- and 

I've got witnesses, people that were in my crew 

were standing right there -- and radcon said 

these gloves are hot. I said well, check my 

hardhat, and the hardhat was hot, but not as 

hot. So naturally I changed gloves and I 

changed hardhats. That's where the cancer came 

from. A particle got in an open wound and 

caused cancer, it's as simple as that. 

And every time I've talked to anybody I've told 

them the same tale. The cancer could not be 
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traced back to a dosimeter. It could not be -- 

it could not, in a condition like that, say you 

know, that I -- you know, I always wore my TLD. 

I've been going in and out of that plant for 

well over 30, 35 years and my -- my numbers 

just didn't show up high enough, so they said 

we're sorry, we can't do anything about it. 

And I'm not complaining about the money, like 

this gentleman here. You know, my God -- my 

God'll take care of me. I'm not worried. But 

you know, if they'd just admit hey, okay, we're 

sorry. That's all I want to hear. You know, 

keep the money. Give -- give it to widows and 

-- and small children, the people that need it. 

I don't need it. But that's my issue and 

that's my story. Thank y'all. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

 MR. LAYMAN: (Off microphone) Sir, can I say 

one more thing? 

 DR. ZIEMER: You bet. 

 MR. LAYMAN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

this badge? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Of course. 

MR. SMITH: I don't know if I'll show it to him 

or not. 
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 MR. LAYMAN: (Off microphone) Is it hot? 

(Unintelligible) --

MR. SMITH: It might be, I was in the bowels of 

Y-12 today. 

 MR. LAYMAN: (Off microphone) I glow in the 

dark anyway. This right here is a modern 

dosimety (sic) badge compared to what my father 

had. My father had one of the oldest ones, and 

if this thing is bad, then my badge was 

ancient. If you -- if you took one of those 

old ones in there now, I mean it -- it'd be off 

the page. 

MR. SMITH: Actually -- actually I don't think 

this is -- this is probably okay. This will do 

its job as far as detecting, you know, alpha, 

beta, gamma, but --

 MR. LAYMAN: (Off microphone) What about 

(unintelligible)? 

MR. SMITH: No, no. 

 MR. LAYMAN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

MR. SMITH: No. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, these are not for -- these are 

not chemical detectors. 

 MR. LAYMAN: (Off microphone) Those are still 

dangerous. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yes, of course. 

MR. SMITH: Strictly radiation. Thank you a 

lot. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Next, Edith 

Livingston. Edith? Is Edith here? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) She had her 

question (unintelligible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, she did? Okay. Okay, very 

good. 

Ida Humphries? Is Ida here? Occasionally 

people sign this thinking they're signing the 

registration sheet rather than the sign-up 

sheet, so that happens on occasion. 

 Kitty McNamara? Kitty. 

MS. MCNAMARA: Thank you for the opportunity to 

speak. I'm the child of a Y-12 worker, the 

grandchild of two Y-12 workers and -- my 

grandparents got there when it was still 

Tennessee Eastman, that's how long ago it was. 

They came here -- moved here from Massachusetts 

for what they thought was going to be a golden 

opportunity to provide for their children after 
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the depression. 

I don't want to go into a long story, but I do 

have some concerns. My grandmother worked K-25 

and Y-12 as a secretary, typist -- 

clerk/typist, those were her titles. However, 

on several occasions she shared with my parents 

that she actually went down into the plant with 

her boss. That wasn't her assigned place, but 

it was several times a week. Unfortunately, 

she died in 1956, about 18 days -- 17 days 

after her first grandchild was born. 

My concern is, you know, we talked about doing 

the averages and everything, but this was a 

lady who developed colon cancer in her fifties 

and died from it. Parents lived long lives, 

whole family history. If these dosimeters 

don't, you know, reach the same -- you know, 

the level that they assume, you know, how's 

that going to affect us? 

Also I had a concern and I stressed it earlier 

today to the young lady who was doing the 

interviews out here that when my father worked 

there he -- he was put on a medical retirement 

in 1974. He was a machinist and then an 

inspector. For years he never talked about 
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anything that went on there. I mean they were 

held to confidentiality. But the last couple 

of years before he died, he finally started 

kind of opening up and he shared with us 

stories of literally waiting in water an inch 

to two inches deep at their boots, that you 

could see the radioactive materials and 

particles floating around in. Talked about 

going up and they would check him, and they 

would just say well, go take a shower and get 

back on the line, or take your badge off and go 

back to work, or just go sit down for 30 

minutes and go back to work. 

So my concern is a lot of these dosimeter 

readings may have been skewed just by the fact 

that they wrote them down wrong. My dad 

voluntarily participated in the mercury studies 

that were done by Emory and by Michigan -- I 

believe it was University of Michigan. He went 

in there and they were pricking his fingers, 

and he kept telling them he didn't feel 

anything. He didn't feel anything in his toes 

and his feet. His toes would turn black -- I 

mean like he'd walked in coal dust -- and they 

would say you're lying to us; you have to be 
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feeling something. Now this was a -- my daddy, 

if he got a cough, he started this -- I got the 

flu, you know, I mean total no tolerance to 

pain. But he could sit there and take this and 

never -- I mean wouldn't feel a thing, could 

not pick a coin up, could barely hold a coffee 

cup because of the fingertip -- no feeling. 

But yet his studies from the mercury all came 

back no sign of mercury poisoning, no sign of 

mercury poisoning. This is -- and this was 

even in the '80s and early part of the '90s, so 

these are things -- you know, I understand the 

frustrations of people here because this is 

what we dealt with. 

My dad was burned in a beryllium fire. He was 

the first person to ever cut it, and it burnt -

- it caught on fire, burned him. He, for the 

rest of his life, from where his glove start to 

where his coveralls started, in his neckline 

where his coveralls were, and on his face 

around his mouth and chin area burned. He had 

-- looked literally like cancerous lesions. 

called it like leprosy. For the rest of his 

life. 

They had let-- we had letters that said -- 

I 
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where they sent stuff off and said well, this 

is not consistent with someone being exposed to 

beryllium, yet he was the first one to ever 

really work with it. He was called a 

malingerer. It's in writing. He was called a 

hypochondriac. They kept telling him he had 

chronic dermatitis. This man had chronic 

dermatitis, as they call it, from 1959 until 

the date of his death on March 3rd of 1998. 

Never would go away. Couldn't -- nothing they 

could do. 

He's been turned down -- or my mother has been 

turned down on appeal. And actually in my 

letter -- my -- and when I testified at the 

appeal, I said the same thing you did. My dad 

was on the line giving his life for this 

country. They were more than welcome to give 

millions of dollars to people who just happened 

to be in the Towers, but they told my mom your 

husband's life is not worth $150,000. We're 

fighting for my grandparents now, just hoping 

maybe we can get something for my mom. My dad 

retired at 47 on medical. They took his life -

- or his medical insurance out of his life 

insurance to keep those premiums paid. When my 
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father died my mother got a grand whopping 

total of $9,000, and she was at retirement age. 

So these are things we've had to deal with. 

do have concerns, and maybe you all can answer 

this, about -- what about the mercury exposure 

combined with the others? Are they going to 

open up things on beryllium besides just 

chronic beryllium disease? What's going to 

happen if we can't find medical records? 

That's what we're running into. This happened 

in 1959. You know, we can't find -- my dad's 

doctors were dead and gone by the time the 

federal government finally decided to pay 

attention to this. 

And I also wanted to ask about the hazards and 

the concerns for family members. You know, I 

can't help but think if my dad got all this 

exposure what he may have brought home. He was 

burned in November of 1959. My sister, who was 

conceived and was born a year later in November 

of 1960, has had chronic problems with her 

skin, same thing. Certain chemicals that she 

gets around, she -- she was a hair dresser. 

She went to school and couldn't do it because 

her skin broke out in these big blotches. 
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She's had chronic blood dyscrasia problems, 

can't put a finger on what's causing it. My 

dad was actually diagnosed with ITP at one 

time, but you know, never anything really came 

of that and we, there again, can't find 

records. 

My sister that was born a year after that has 

had a form of lupus as a child, has had chronic 

problems. She's right now going to probably 

about six different doctors on a weekly, 

monthly basis. They can't figure out what's 

going on with her. 

My mom, a year after this sister was born, so 

three years after my dad was born -- or after 

my dad was burned, had to have a hysterectomy 

for a pre-cancerous cervix. So I just --

that's a question I -- you know, I guess that's 

my question. Where's this going to leave us as 

far as, you know, the dosimeter 

reconstructions, you know, when you've got all 

this proof but nobody'll actually say yeah, 

more -- more likely than not, you know. 

 And another thing is, I was listening to some 

of these people were talking, like your wife 

with the 42 percent. You also have to look at 
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the but for. Yeah, you're going to have some 

other exposures in life, you know, that you may 

know -- I mean ever -- ever (sic) day we open 

up the newspaper and read where Sweet 'n' Low 

or red dye or something's going to cause cancer 

because it did in rats. But people may get 

through that, but for the fact that they worked 

at Y-12, or K-25 or somewhere else. They would 

have never gotten cancer with these other 

minimal exposures, but that on top of -- so I 

have a hard time with this setting a -- you 

know, okay, if it's not 50 percent, then it 

didn't happen. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And perhaps -- just 

some general comments. You must understand the 

way this law is structured, it doesn't take -- 

it doesn't take into account the possibilities 

that you raise, which are recognized by many 

scientists as important questions. Multiple 

exposures to things like radiation plus 

mercury, for example, or any -- any combination 

that you wish to talk about. Not only is the 

science on -- we're pushing the science on the 

radiation alone. When you add some things like 

other contaminants, let us say, first of all, 
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the science there is very sparse. And 

secondly, the law as it's structured does not 

even allow us to really do that, although 

there's, you know, been an indication in the 

past that conceptually that's what one would 

like to be able to do. We -- we can't actually 

do that. So in fact we do not, in a sense, 

take that into consideration. 

 Actually I think the only other time something 

is taken into consideration is smoking does 

come into the picture in the cases of lung 

cancers that we address because smoking is such 

an overpowering issue when you have lung cancer 

that if -- if a smoker gets lung cancer and is 

exposed to radiation, that sort of hurts their 

case because smoking is -- part of that is 

attributed to -- I think that's probably -- and 

Jim Neton can help me out. I think that's the 

only case where we consider any kind of a 

mixture. Isn't that correct? Yeah. 

So yeah, but what -- what you say, we recognize 

is probably very important. And it's -- in a 

sense, we and our laws are at a loss as to how 

to address that at this time. That doesn't 

give much comfort to those who feel like that's 
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an issue for them, but that's in fact where we 

are on that. So we're not, in a sense, allowed 

to take that into consideration when we do our 

determinations, so... 

And -- oh, the other thing you -- 

MS. MCNAMARA: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And likewise the law does not 

extend to -- you mentioned the possibility of 

family members getting secondary exposure, as 

it were. That's not -- also is not covered in 

the law, though one would recognize there could 

very well be cases where that might be an 

issue. 

MS. MCNAMARA: Do you know if there's any 

indication that that might be looked at? I 

mean I worked in an oncology office for a few 

years --

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not aware of --

MS. MCNAMARA: -- and he had a bathroom 

strictly for our patients -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yes. 

MS. MCNAMARA: -- and employees and visitors 

were not allowed to use it --

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure, sure. 
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MS. MCNAMARA: -- because of the potential, you 

know, exposure. So --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

MS. MCNAMARA: -- you know, and I'm not saying 

necessarily for huge -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: No. 

MS. MCNAMARA: -- monetary pay-offs like 

they're paying the workers, but you know, it 

would be nice to at least be recognized as a 

possibility that, you know, we -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not aware of any legislative 

efforts to address that. And ironically -- 

this is a little bit off-subject, I suppose, 

but ironically patients who go to their doctors 

and get radiopharmaceuticals, either for 

various scans like PET scans or for therapy 

using radioisotopes such as radioiodine, are in 

fact allowed to carry very large amounts of 

radioactivity back home under those conditions 

-- legally. 

MS. MCNAMARA: Uh-huh, I know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Probably much higher levels than 

one would expect to come out of any industrial 

process. That seems rather ironic, but that is 

the case. 
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Now, Tom Duncan -- Thomas Duncan. We finally 

get back to you on the list. 

 MR. DUNCAN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

or not. 

(On microphone) I'm a Y-12 worker, machinist -- 

in the bowels (unintelligible) machinist. I 

spent two years working dry boxes. I had the 

record for having the most jobs at Y-12. I've 

been a machinist, MBS equipment operator, 

(unintelligible) operator, janitor, machine 

cleaner -- I've been laid off five times and 

never left the plant. Kind of like a mule, you 

know, you don't get rid of a mule. Don't care 

what you pay them, just -- you know. 

I've sit (sic) in on y'all's meetings so I 

don't want to get way off into left field on 

some of this stuff, but y'all talked about 

(unintelligible) some of this stuff about 

breathing today, whether you do it through your 

mouth or your nose. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. DUNCAN: If you ever -- I have to be real 

careful what I say. I still carry a clearance. 

You know my boss, Ruddy*, he got in trouble for 

something similar to this, I guess. But it has 
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its own odor, you know. People don't realize 

that part of it. When it catches on -- on 

fire, whatever, you know, it -- I don't know if 

you've got little kids. When a kid runs up, 

you know, you're filling a gas tank up and they 

stick their nose -- boy, that gas smells good, 

you know. But you know -- you know it's bad 

for them, get away from there, you know. And 

you know, the closer you get to it -- it's like 

a skunk. If you're far away from it, it's got 

a distinct smell. The closer you get to it -- 

if you get sprayed by a skunk, you'll throw up. 

And if you go by the Golden Corral, you smell 

the odor of the charcoal. It's got its own 

smell. So you have to put that in the category 

of uranium's got its own smell. And so I --

I've been out there for 27 years. I'm not 50 

years old yet, so far. I can't draw no 

retirement, have no benefits. I'm on vacation 

today, been on vacation this week. I got a 

letter from some lady -- Miller is her last 

name -- invited me to this meeting 'cause I -- 

you know, I hadn't heard too much about y'all 

people. The way I heard about this 

compensation program, a surgeon that removed 
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body parts -- had some cancer from my head to 

my chest -- he referred me to -- I was in the 

same building as this Workman Compensation 

outfit was, you know. He told -- he told me 

the cancer I had was -- I asked him about it 

and he said, you know, maybe what kind it was 

or whatever, you know. He said well, Mr. 

Duncan, you don't really act like you're right 

stupid. Ain't you ever heard of radiation 

before? I said well, yeah, you know, a few 

films at work and stuff. And he said I had a 

cyst and some other stuff on some body parts, 

they -- they took it out and he -- it was 

around Thanksgiving. He said don't -- don't 

plan on having a big Christmas. He didn't know 

where it's at. And that -- you know, of course 

I got lucky, and -- you don't get rid of 

cancer. I still got it. It's not like a cold, 

takes a long time -- I had some radiation 

treatments. I smoke. I've had a full body 

count. My lungs are real clear. A guard 

stopped me one day, said Duncan, you ought to 

quit smoking. I said well, I'm leaving right 

here and going down to the Butler building. 

don't know if you know what that building is, 

I 
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but it's where they -- beryllium. I said, you 

know, (unintelligible) beryllium. And I better 

get -- I'm getting way off-track here. 

Some of the other things I wanted to talk to 

you about was -- you was talking about office 

workers, you know, we -- back when I first 

started there, you know, department heads, my 

foreman, people you trusted to keep you safe, 

that's their jobs, they get paid for it. You 

know, you can eat this stuff; it won't hurt 

you. You know, drink plenty of coffee, you 

piss it right out. I -- I -- you have a 

physical every couple of years. I don't --

they give you a sample box that's -- you check 

your stool with. I'm trying to be real -- 

anyway, it's all voluntary. So they give me 

one. I read the instructions several times, 

just couldn't make it through it, so I never 

give a stool sample. Urine samples, you know, 

they're pretty well mandatory. You know, if 

you skip one, you know, they'll get on you 

every once in a while, you know. And if, you 

know, if you happen to forget to take it home 

and do it on the weekends, you know, if you run 

up there and you'll drink a lot of water, you 
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can just -- you can get rid of your -- you can 

get your two bottles and you're out of the 

woods, you know. You're not subject to 

termination, not unless you do your urine 

samples. 

Our monitors -- worked in a area -- the counts 

are getting too high, boys. When you load 

these parts, I don't care if they're black, put 

your (unintelligible) monitor off -- you know, 

your personal (unintelligible) monitor off. 

You've got regular (unintelligible) monitors 

hanging over the machines all the time. I 

fired up one job and they wanted me to run the 

job and it had a tag on there, you know, it'd 

been out of service for two years. I said hey, 

wait a minute, you know, you got to get this 

thing going before I want to start firing this 

thing up and that. And I got whipped, whatever 

you want to, for -- you know, matter of fact, 

I've been -- I got -- I got a badge. I used to 

have a TLD badge, you know, the blue badge on 

there. I had to go see the shrink because I 

was too safety conscious. That was the 

shrink's analysis, I guess. He said I'm going 

to move you out of the real hot area and put 
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you down in the whipping post, what they call 

it. And -- they don't -- he done -- and he 

said -- he said he done me a favor, and he 

probably did, and I have no regrets about that 

whatsoever. I still work in the security area 

and I still manufacture weapon components, not 

the hot stuff, but they -- they's several 

things that -- that goes along with it. Yeah, 

I'm getting way off-track. 

The office workers, I was going to tell you, we 

had a secretary in that shop, you know, where -

- back in the late '70s, you know, fires were 

everyday occurrences, you know, the smoke. 

They called the fire department. Fire 

department hooked -- you know, when the -- 

ceiling's a lot higher than this. When they 

get down about head level with the smoke, 

they'd make us all evacuate. That includes the 

secretaries. You know, we -- they had a 

secretary there in the office and we had 

department heads. We had all these engineers 

(unintelligible) the hall. You know, they had 

to go up there and we had to all go outside and 

stand at the little red signs. And you know, 

all the engineers, you know, same thing. Here 
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comes all these fire department guys running up 

there, you know, in their little suits and you 

had a big drum, you know, melting into the 

ground and, you know, they take care of that, 

you know. So I just wanted to mention to 

y'all, you know, y'all are wondering whether 

people that don't work with the material ever 

(sic) day, they -- they got their -- they got 

their little dose, you know. And the fire 

department, I -- I got offered the fire 

department truck driver's job once and I said 

y'all wait a minute, you know. I don't want to 

be going toward them fires, I want to be going 

away from them. You know, I don't want to be 

driving no truck, so you ought to really 

consider -- like machine cleaners, I was a 

machine cleaner for a while. You got coolant, 

and some of them parts that goes from the 

foundry, they have to go through a process of 

cleaning. Well, sometimes that cleaning 

process gets broke down far more than what 

you'd think and so you bring black parts up 

there. And all that oxide gets in the coolant 

and the machine cleaners, they have to -- they 

have to take care of that coolant coming in and 
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out, and that stuff was -- you know, I seen it 

was a lot hotter than just the actual -- but -- 

stuff I was working with. And I -- I -- you 

know, when they didn't clean the parts real 

good, they was sitting up there black, them -- 

them little gals come along with them little 

meters, come along and hit me once when I was 

working with it and I had to go to the shower 

three times. She says you come back again, I 

said, you know, we're going to have to get you 

out of here, you know, 'cause, you know, my 

hands are clean but -- we were just talking 

about some kind of rolling mill someplace else, 

some other part of the country, you know, and 

they was taking torches to the thing. It's 

possible, you know. That's -- that'd be the 

quickest and easiest way to separate that 

material. And now you can't do it to -- I'm 

going to stop there, but cost-wise, you know, 

it's possible. You know, somebody's got enough 

sense -- you know, they got -- to do it that 

way, yeah, that'd be one way of doing it. 

This time I -- I got one other little 

complaint. It's going to be a year before they 

even think about looking at the most -- looking 
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at my case. And I don't know if I got a year. 

And I got a 23-year-old boy in college. She's 

got a 22-year-old boy that's in vocational 

school. And I got a ten-year-old little girl 

right back there right now. But what -- tough 

sometimes, you know. 

I work for the government, and if I get a job, 

you know, it don't matter -- sometimes -- I 

just wonder if this (unintelligible) people are 

planning on retiring the day they get the last 

one done. That's what wonder. You know, some 

of them -- I talked to a gal and she said well, 

we're mandated to get so many out. When I 

first started, they said we've got 5,000 cases 

we've got to review, and when I come back 

several months later, they still had 5,000 

cases they had to review. Now it wasn't -- you 

know, it ain't according to who I talk to. 

They hadn't done one case. But I got some 

information from NIOSH the other day and they 

had done quite a few, you know, but they -- 

NIOSH has got a big stack full, you know, and I 

was wondering if they could -- my categor-- 

categorize instead of just going by numbers, 

categorize them, you know, for the people that 
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-- living that might need help right now than 

survivors ten years down the road, you know. 

That might be something they want to look at. 

My -- my medical bills has quadrupled in the 

last year, and actually I got a letter the 

other day when they removed some cancer from 

the side of my head, and it's something I have 

to update on my little report, you know, out 

here where -- respirator man here, and I don't 

mind that so bad. That's the outside part. 

When they remove body parts, that's -- that's 

when I really worry. You know, you only got so 

many body parts. And I talked to several 

coworkers that been there -- at -- one of them 

got colon cancer and one of them's got cancer 

on his kidneys and their application was 

denied. And they say that -- you know, I'm 

missing a thyroid now and some other little 

body parts. They say oh, you don't have to 

worry about it, Mr. Duncan, you're -- you're on 

that list of where the cancer is. And Linda 

Hamby, she passed away last year. Her -- her 

cancer was on the list. It was on the brain 

where they can't remove the brain, so -- and 

same thing, she left three kids, said it was on 
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the brain. And (unintelligible) -- I'm 

carrying my cancer for five years. That's what 

the doctor estimates. He said if you'd carried 

it another year, you'd have had to lose your 

brain, too. So I was just lucky. 

And by the way, there's a Indian doctor down at 

the Y-12 medical -- when I come back off the 

life-threatening injury -- or life-threatening 

disease, he found a cancer in my throat. I 

give him all the credit for that. So I'm --

I'm going to let y'all go home, hear. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Tom, for your comments. 

Incidentally, you referred to the backlog of 

cases, and I -- I don't know if you were here 

earlier, but NIOSH is making a very concerted 

effort to take tho-- get that backlog down, and 

they're actually making good progress. 

Interestingly enough, new cases come in nearly 

as fast as they get old cases out of the way, 

so sometimes what looks like a steady number of 

cases doesn't mean they haven't done work, and 

there are -- I think NIOSH earlier this year 

completed dose reconstruction on their 10,000th 

case. So they are moving them through actually 

quite -- quite well, but there is a backlog and 
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they're trying very hard to address that, as 

well. And so we appreciate your -- your 

comments on that. 

That completes the public comment period for 

this evening. We -- additional comment? 

Sure. 

 MR. LAYMAN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

just one more? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure, yeah. 

 MR. LAYMAN: (Off microphone) I don't want to 

anybody (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, that's fine. 

 MR. LAYMAN: I know it's been a huge couple of 

days. I'm going to be here with you guys again 

tomorrow. It's --

 DR. ZIEMER: Good. 

 MR. LAYMAN: I know this is -- you know, it's -

- it's grueling at times and you guys have done 

a super job with your concentration and the 

effort you put into this. But I want to say 

one more thing. 

When I was a child, on Sundays we could go out 

to what we called Carbide Park, and there was a 

big lake. The Clinch River about 35 miles west 

of here, and it was beautiful. And where you 
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have a nuclear facility, you need water for 

cooling and various things. 

Well, when I become 15 years old, they put a 

sign up on that lake that said no fishing, and 

that was a lake that we -- we swam in when we 

were children. Okay? 

 About five years after that, and you can go 

down there tonight, and all over that lake 

there's huge signs that not only say no fishing 

anymore, but no body contact, because they 

dredged, and when they dredged and dug in the 

bottom of the Clinch River, which is -- runs 

right by Y-12 five miles downstream, within the 

silt they found mercury. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. LAYMAN: It's full of mercury. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. LAYMAN: You -- you can't even go down 

there and stick your toe in it -- you know what 

I'm saying? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. LAYMAN: So -- I mean wherever you guys 

live it might be safe. I pray to God it is. 

But 35 miles west of here, maybe what you go 

out there and see now is one thing, but in the 
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mid-'70s, this place out here rocked, and they 

did a lot of things for the Navy, but there was 

a lot of people, a lot of Cold War casualties. 

And I look at them as heroes. These men here 

that are live are heroes. My father and the 

dead ones, too, we'll never forget them. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. LAYMAN: They just -- they ran 28,000 

people out there 24 hours a day. It was 

productions. The Soviets were building their 

bombs, we were building ours. It was -- it was 

a counter thing to keep peace, and a lot of men 

felt like that -- that it was needed, and some 

of them -- like you said, some -- some gave it 

all. And they offered me and my brother jobs 

at Y-12 after my dad died. Some guys came out 

from the plant and we kind of looked at each 

other and -- I could work at Y-12 right now 

myself, but I'm a salesman here in town and I 

like what I do. I have a flexible schedule, 

because a lot of people that go to work at Y-12 

it's like going into prison. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. LAYMAN: There's no windows, and they have 

certain things to do and there's a lot of 
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safety and guidelines and a lot of do's and 

don'ts. There's some things you can't touch 

and some things you better not touch. There's 

consequences. 

But somebody needs to be held accountable on 

the money that has been spent. Think about it. 

Do an analysis on how much these dose 

reconstructions has cost to this point, then 

you add your workbook program. How much is a 

workbook going to cost to complete? And if you 

take a workbook down there to Y-12 and you 

start saying guys, we're doing a workbook -- 

well, their -- their job is national security. 

They're not going to open up their bellies and 

let you fill out your workbook. And -- and if 

you did have a workbook, what good is it going 

to do? I don't understand that. I'm going to 

have to sleep on that one. But I'll see y'all 

tomorrow and I hope we talk again. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Good night, everybody and 

(unintelligible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much for your 

comments. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Thank you. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Again, we thank all of you who've 

participated tonight, and others who've been 

here just observing. The Board will reconvene 

tomorrow morning -- 8:30. And we have a fairly 

full session. We actually have completed I 

think for this meeting our Oak Ridge stuff, but 

you're all welcome nonetheless to come back 

'cause there are many other related facilities 

that are being addressed. So good night, 

everyone, and we'll see many of you tomorrow. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Is there a special cohort meeting 

tomorrow? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, it's not on Y-12, though. 

The special cohorts on the agenda include 

National Bureau of Standards and Linde 

Ceramics. 

 MR. LAYMAN: Thank you so much. 

 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 8:40 p.m.) 
______________________________ 

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1 C E R T I F I C A T E OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of October 18, 

2005; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

4th day of December, 2005. 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102