Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

9 -- the implication from the DOE report which we think

10 was done -- was incomplete, let's put it that way.

11 That we do not believe they were the only workers at

12 GSI in the Betatron buildings that were exposed to the

{3 uranium from Mallinckrodt.

14 _ + Too just a

15 comment in fairness to the people that did the

16 cleanup, it was after a plant had been closed. And

17 one comment that's in the cleanup report was there's

18 no one around that will know anything about the plant.

19 They didn't look as hard as I did. I got 600
20 claimants that were most likely at the plant or had
21 loved ones there. And I don't think they chatted with
22 anybody. So maybe we could help them a little bit
23 with that information the next time as to what went on
24 almost like a factual, here's the plant, maybe you
25 ought to go look.
0034

| -, there's another

2 comment back here.

3 *, Sure.

4 I was in the

5 maintenance department. | started there in 1955. 1

6 was 17 years old. I lied about my age to get a job

7 because I needed it. And speaking in behalf of the

8 maintenance people, you know, I worked with these

9 guys. They -- when J hired in there, like I say, I

10 was a kid and a lot of them were young men just like
11 myself. The electricians, average age about 34 or 35
12 years old.

13 . (phonetic) which used to

14 change the cones in the machines down there, when he
15 would go down there he'd let us know. We'd follow him
16 down there and do some -- change the oil, grease

17 cranes, and clean things up. But you -- also your

18 millwright helpers, machinist helpers they called

19 them. ['m sorry. They were all young -- young guys
20 like myself because they'd get in there and do the job
21 for the older guys, you know, they'd -- they hand them
22. the tools, they were the grunts.
23 And the maintenance workers spent a lot of
24 time in and out of that Betatron and in them tunnels.
25 And we would go down in them tunnels as oilers. And

6035
1 each conveyer -- some of them run maybe three or 400

Page 20


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
18 System, there's a reference to a tank hull if you go
19 on there with a search, the advanced search it
20 actually mentions a specific tank turret by number
21 from General Steel Castings that apparently came there
22 or came I guess to Aberdeen -- I think they even
23 mention Aberdeen -- and flunked the test because of
24 graininess, what have you. So that might have been
25 that hole that they're talking about there.
0070
1 There were actually a couple of those
2 incidents because another one of the reports said they
3 seemed to have missed heat treatment which was another
4 issue.
5 And while we're talking about nickel maybe
6 these burners and grinders can help me a little bit.
7 Ifyou had a hole in a tank turret that you were
8 working on, what kind of welding rod did you use? Do
9 you know what the material was?

10 : Twas a burner, “tdon't
11 --] just burned.
12 '; So we'll need to talk with

13 a welder I guess to find out because -- anybody else
14 know what it is?

15 °: Can we explain what BE 7
16 is.

17 ‘: The what?

18 . : BE7.

19 — : Well, the BE 7 obviously is

20 a gas that's put off. And we were real interested in
24 whether it's beryllium related.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: BE 7 is an isotope of
23. beryllium. It's --

24 *: That's what I thought.
25 MR. HINNEFELD: It's the radioactive
0071

1 isotope of beryllium.

2 : Allright.

3 : It is a radioactive

4 isotope?

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Of beryllium, 7 is. But I
6 think it might be carbon that's the target.

7 Maybe it -- it -- that's

8 why I said I'd like to take a look for you. But the

9 materials they talked about in the Los Alamos thing
10 were manganese, carbon. And maybe that's why it

Page 41


20
21
22
23
24
25

Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
clearly says accelerators really makes this plant a
candidate for a lot of different things. So I think
we just -- that secret clearance kind of rings a bell
now. J think we know what they're talking about.
: I know some people that worked
in the Betatron especially And they

0063

were told that if you -- if you see it turn red, run.
That's all they were told, if you see that red, go.

: Red warning lights through the
door.

Speaking of the Navy material and the Navy missile
tubes and the Navy parts, the bulkhead plates,
everything that went for the Polaris submarine we made
there at General Steel. We had a section that we
called gaslight square. And gaslight square was just
a--aconfined section that the Navy parts were given
a final Magnaflux after they cleared Betatron. And it
would be so many Navy inspectors there doing the final
phases of Magnafluxing these missile tubes. And
missile tubes, you could -- there were so many missile
tubes that come through GSI and Navy parts until you
just couldn't count them all.

But they did have a section called
gaslight square where everybody else was kept out of
that section except the Magnaflux operators in which I
was one that worked on the missile tubes and these
Navy parts out of HY 80 steel and that type of thing
that went toward the missile tubes and bulkhead plates
and whatever that went on the submarines. But he was
right about the -- the missile tubes and the secrecy

0064

COrIAAUAWN—

10
a
12

of it because this was a confined area and everybody
else was kept out of it. And you couldn't even touch
one of those castings. Unless you were a certified
Magnaflux operator they wouldn't let you in the area.
Then the amount of secrecy over it, well,
we didn't talk too much about it. Even the defects
that we found we didn't talk too much about it. But
that's what went on with the missile tube operation
there at GSI.
*: Thank you very much,
‘again.
This is just going to be a little bit of information

Page 37


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

9 ; : I never heard of anyone
10 checking those badges at all. But we were given a
11 badge. But I don't recall any quality control or

12 anyone doing any readings on them.

130 _ 1 Thank you very much.
14 : You know a big question I --
15 ~ [know a lot of guys that was at meetings

16 that I attended earlier and they said you're wasted
17 your time. You can see the age of everybody here.
18 They said the government's waiting for us to all die
19. off and then their problem disappears, they bury it
20 just like they buried the Betatron. And I know a lot
21 of guys out there that don't attend these meetings
22 anymore because they think they're just wasting their
23 time. And they kind of ask me -- they'll say well,
24 what did you find out. The same old thing, you know,
25 it's a stall, it's a -- you know, we -- we come up
0079
1 with more information and everything else but you
2 never hear anything.
3 I call them up and give them my number on
4 reconstruction, you're 758 out. I said well, when's
5. this going to -- when am I going to get a result.
6 Maybe within a year. Well, the next guy I talk to,
7 maybe within two years. Well, I've done had cancer.
8 I just had a heart valve replaced. I'm on that road
9 going down the -- the other side of the hill, and a
10 lot of these guys are older than me and in worse
11 shape.
12 And so, you know, I just kind of wonder
13. what are we waiting on, what -- what's the big deal?
14 You know, what's taking so long? And it's been going
15 on for quite a while. And are they waiting for us to
16 die.
17 MR, HINNEFELD: Well, I can assure you the
18 government doesn't -- is not waiting for the claimant
19 population to die. There's no part of the -- of the
20 program -- of this process that involves that. I
21 understand that it is a very lengthy process and it
22. has taken far too long and we understand that.
23 We ain't got that much longer.
24 MR. HINNEFELD: And -- and we don't -- and
25 we feel bad about that. The only reason | can give
0080
1 for the length of the process is that there was just a

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

25 around got around.
0023

1 MR. HINNEFELD: Uh-huh. Right.

2 Thank you.

3 . We appreciate that
4 because the point you make I think is really

5 important, that was metal particles that were

6 activated. It's not like everything -- anything that

7 came off the chipping and grinding would have been

8 metal. And it sounds to me if] understood you

9 correctly a lot of this went into the Betatron, had it

10 done, then went out.

ra So it sounds to me like everything we're

12. talking about, dirt, dust, chippings, grindings were

13. after a Betatron test; is that correct? So if there

14 was any activation and if I've read what | thought I

15 read correctly -- and this is where we'll need you

16 help -- the smaller the particle. And I think they

17 talked about that too that when you activate something
18. if it's a small particle, sometimes the activation

19 could possibly be more the finer the particle. |
20 thought I read that.
21 It gets pretty interesting when you -- you
22. think about it. And brought that up to us
23 today about all this dust and metal. It was all
24 metal, and metal's what takes on the activation issue.
25 So that was a great point. Thank you.

0024

1 ~* | tell them about the
2 racial content.

3 : : Oh, you know, that was

4 another just for the record too that we tried to find

5 out the mix and population in the plant. Jt was

6 really diverse. And I know that was kind of important
7 at some of the Mallinckrodt hearings. If we

8 understand correctly -- and these folks here can

9 correct me if I'm wrong -- it was about one or two

10 percent women, 40 percent Afro, and the balance white
11 and European. Does that sound about right?

12 Because it seemed to be a pretty

13. interesting factor at Mallinckrodt because a lot of

14. the testing for the radioactivity, | guess the badges

15 and a Jot of the bioassay information was strictly for
16 white males. And that'd be interesting to know at

17 this plant too.

Page 14


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

Now, what I'm trying to convey, gentlemen,
is there came a point in time that the operators
unfortunately became wary of the reliability and
accuracy of film badges that we wore. And as I
reported with the dosimeter, the standard joke of --
of the operators were simply well, my film badge came
unclipped from my pocket, landed close to the shot,
and after two or three shots | realized what happened.

A week later nothing was ever said about
this incident, nothing was ever reported. I ask you
gentlemen here that were operators how many times have
we heard stories of this? We said it ourselves. Hold
up your hands, the operators that are still there
today.

| We have a very young

operator.

. « And what I'm trying to simply
state in this manner is well, our -- our -- our very
well-being depended on these film badges and

0041

dosimeters. If we could not rely on reliable
information -- and sir, we never saw any reports. I
never saw in the three years I worked there any blood
-- a copy of a blood report, an x-ray, any film badge
or dosimeter reports, and no records of such. We
became wary. Thank you.

: My name's ; oI
worked in the Betatron. You talked about, —. we
were all young guys. And as you guys know certain
workers we didn't care for or we had problems with we
would purposely take their -- their badges, set them
up on a casting, and load them up thinking we would
get them shit-canned, get them away from us. Nothing
ever was Said. No readings ever came back, We were
always good. It's truth. Ask any one of these guys.

’; [think I want to stay on
your good side.
; My name is I

was a -- a burner at General Steel Industries, and I
worked on the castings. And by -- what I mean by
burner is the big castings, when they knocked the
risers off I had to burn that smooth with the rest of
the casting. And I worked generally where there was
railroad cars that you had to burn a -- a quarter of
an inch bevel around the outside edges. And you had

Page 24


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
11 caught my eye because their literature says they did
12 5,000 tons of carbon a month or -- it's some huge
13. number of carbon.
14 1-1
15 want to ask several questions to our resident
16 metallurgist if! might.

17 Oh, my goodness.

18 : Nickel alloy is a

19 hardener; is that correct or not correct?

20 : Yes, It strengthened. We

21 -- we had a nickel alloy steel that probably all of
22. you have rode on. All of the Port Authority and the
23 New York City Transit Authority trucks, the motor
24 trucks, almost all of them were made in Granite City,
25 and they were a nickel alloy. And it was slightly
0072
1 stronger that the A 27 carbon steel.
And the heat treating

3 process, was that a homogenization process after?

4 : No. It was to set the

5 strength.

6 . « Just to set the strength?
7 ? ts Yeah.

8 &: Okay. So it didn't

9 homogenize that nickel or make it --

10 : No. They normal -- maybe
LL the -- the terminology was normalized. You heated it
12. ina furnace to 1,650 then took it out and let it air

13 cool.

14 : Uh-huh.

15 : Pretty -- pretty standard

16 practice for normalizing.

17 : There was a lot of nickel
18 in all of your four way -- four-wheeled trucks that --
19 *: Wait a minute. The court
20 reporter -- .

21 Let me bring that back for
22 you.

23 *: On the New York subways

24 and -- and most of your transit the trucks that they
25. ride on had to have a lot of nickel alloy placed in
0073

1 those, and that's for the flexibility and things like

2. that. | Magnafluxed thousands of four-wheeled trucks

3 that were used on the New York subway -- subways. And

Page 42


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

10 Shimkus because they really have been here from the

11 beginning. And actually we probably would not be here

12. today if they hadn't kept the -- the ball up in the

13 air and everything juggling. And so we're here today

14 in large measure because of their long-term efforts.

15 I just had a -- if we can get our friend

16 here to cut on. I just had some concluding remarks,

17 This is the second GSI session for the outreach

18 meeting. And J just had one extra slide of things

19 that 1 thought of last night actually that were not
20. said yes. So I would like to put them on the record.
21 And I'd just like to comment, this is not
22 pumping up and I. But you know,
23 have really worked at this research intensely for over

24 ayear. And got me involved. And so I think by

25 now we really do know an awful lot of material about

0008

1 these sites that will not be able to be found

2 anywhere. And it's been sort of like the history
3 detective program on TV. You know, we've had to go
4 out and dig this stuff up.

5 And -- and -- and our focus to you guys is

6 -- is really to share all of this information with you

7 to help you in -- in your primary role of dose

8 reconstruction. But -- but sort of in the same vein

9 that Deb Detmers just expressed I've got to say that

10 one aspect of the program really concerns me a lot.

11 And that is that our particular two sites at General

12 Steel, Granite City Steel misnamed and at Dow site are
13 now in the hands of Battelle under Task Order 16.

14 And you know, we're -- ['m very happy

15 actually that Dave Allen is here who's the NIOSH OCAS
16 task manager at that end. But S've got to say that I

17 believe that in this whole process -- ] mean, we're

18 not here this morning just to, you know, be friends.
19 We're -- we're here because we're trying to convince
20 NIOSH that we should be awarded a Section 8314 SEC
21 right now based on the available that's -- that

22. information.

23 And since Battelle is actually going to

24 make the initial decision -- not the decision to award
25 the SEC but to evaluate our site, we're not happy that
0009

1 we do not have direct access to the people at -- at

2 Battelle. And -- and Dave and Larry Elliott have

Page 5


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

heard that a lot more than one time throughout the
three years I was employed there.

Another thing I would like to mention was
the unusual. Every great once ina while, sir, we ran
into the unusual. One day I was operating in the new
Betatron, the 25 MEV. We had a three man crew, an
operator, an assistant, and a darkroom man. The
darkroom man was always in the darkroom developing,
and loading, unloading. We had just set up a long
shot, exactly how long I don't remember, it was 40
years ago. But it was hours of running. Probably
into -- an hour and a half into that running the
machine was starting to heat up. At the new Betatron
there was a switch on the console, it was a horizontal
sit-down console. I believe it was -- it was a
capacitor change switch, sir, that when you would
power the machine down while it was running you could
change a capacitor bank, increase the efficiency and

0060

cooling of the -- and running of the machine, power
back up, continue the shot.
It was when J was making this capacitor
change to achieve efficiency with the machine that a
terrific explosion took place. And when I say
explosion it was not a 4th of July firecracker. Dust
flew off the ceiling everywhere. I think I lost about
ten years of my life. It was no laughing matter by
any means, and I'm serious when I say that. My first
impression was render the machine safe, that was our
-- our -- our priority orders, render the machine
safe, go upstairs into the Mag room and shut down the
Mags, call supervision, I don't remember any
radioactivity testing being done after that.
Electricians were called. Supervision was called.
Inspections was made of the machine. The machine was
later brought back on line after inspection. But
don't believe the unusual didn't happen, it did.
Thank you.
: Appreciate your comments,
This is »again. And
we must have had some type of clearances at General
Steel. I went to the next employer -- of course, I
worked two years for the government prior for that in
the Safety and Health Administration. And then when |

0061

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2
3
4
8
6
7
8
9
10
U
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
feet long. And then they'd dump onto another one and
go. We'd spend all day down there greasing those
rollers and breathing that dust. We didn’t have no
protection respirators. When we went into the
Betatron we didn't have no protection whatsoever
because we were young kids that didn't even know what
was going on down there.

In behalf of the maintenance workers, you
know, we -- we -- we was exposed quite a bit, you
know, And it -- I think if you checked around some of
your programs a lot of your maintenance personnel
ended up with cancer. And there's a lot of young men
still left that -- I know there was 14 of us oilers.

And -- and | pipe fitted for a while there too. And
we -- we spent a lot of time in -- on those roofs
while they were x-raying greasing fans.

And the heat treat department which is
right next door, we'd spend all day over there on
Saturday, you know, and greasing the Quint/Staint
(phonetic) cranes and -- and -- but the -- there was a
lot of young -- young people there too.

*: Can I ask a question just
for the record. You dealt with grease, oil, hydraulic
fluids if I understood you correctly.

0036

: Right.

: In the Betatron building?

: Right. We -- we serviced al}
the machinery in the Betatron building every time we
got a chance to -- to go down there. If they was
broke down for some reason and sent electricians in or
-- or maybe they had to change a crane wheel or change
the cables because had them -- they had inspectors go
in and check the cables on them cranes because they
was picking up such heavy loads with them, you know.
And we used to have to go in there. And -- and at the
same time they didn't.

Sometimes they -- we would go in there and
have the whole Saturday to maintain the old Betatron
building. Then the following -- maybe a month or so
later we'd go in and spend a whole Saturday doing the
new one. It was ona -- we had a schedule that we run
by, and we'd fill out a report on that there that we
turned into our supervisor which was -- let me think

(phonetic) and

Page 21


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

12 all know that's with a cutting torch; is that correct?

13 : Yes. Sometimes it took -~
14 sometimes the cutting torch had to be so long you had
15 to adjust the valves on this end and walk down the

16 other end and light it, and then come back and adjust
17 itso you had the proper flame. So really and truly

18 sometimes I would to use a four-foot burning torch or
19 a eight-foot burning torch,
20 And so that -- that's blowing the dust
21 like these gentlemen are saying all over the plant.

22 And when the -- sometimes when the crane would pick up
23 your casting to turn it over, when he locked the

24 brakes up you'd -- you'd run outside because the dust
25 would fall down down your neck. And when you're
0046

1 sweating that -- that's very -- real irritating.

2 wee : Thank you very much.

3 % Tm T was a

4 operator at General Steel. And after I got cancer

5 well, of course the doctors would like to have a

6 record, your lifetime record of what you accumulated
7 which was supposed to be available with the AEC and
8 other. So having known people in industry, in

9 technology, in politics I -- my family started

10 searching. And then after 90 days time some of the
11 big leaders in this country says what records and they
12 cannot be found or do they exist today. If there was,
13 I'd get them. I'd get them, but they're unavailable.

14 Thank you.

15 o . T would like to
16 add onto what" > said about wrapping

17 themselves in asbestos blanket. This was done all

18 over the plant due to help to keep yourself halfway
19 clean from all the dust and dirt and you name it. And
20 today asbestos is one of the dirty words when it comes
21 to cancer and a few other things. So I would like to

22. add that to ‘statement because it is much
23 under emphasized.

24 : Okay. Thank you. And I
25 think if I understood correctly too that asbestos was
0047

1 worn at that plant to keep you from getting hit with
2 hot chips coming off of the chipping; is that correct?
3 i Yes.

4 i: We used it quite a bit in the

Page 27


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
exposed to X number of roentgens of -- of exposure to
be worked on by the chippers, grinders, or just
whoever would -- had another part to do on that
particular casting. I'm sure that they were exposed
to any radiation that would be present at the time.

But it wasn't an ideal situation.
And like 1 say, I -- 1 spent practically
all my life there. | started there in the '50s and
left there when they closed in the '70s, So it was a
-- not a unique situation. I'm sure it happened all
over the country because they had Betatrons in most of
the foundries and things that did castings. But they

0039

produced some of the biggest castings at -- at GSI in
the world. It was supposed to be like geographically
located where the pouring of steel would settle. And
some of the largest castings that were produced was
produced right there at GSI.
: Thank you very much.
_ Betatron and

Magnaflux. The gentleman's name that was mentioned,

happens to be a neighbor of mine. He was
the fellow that changed donut tubes. I saw him there.
He did a lot of work on the -- excuse me. I'm sorry.
He did a lot of work on the Betatrons. He's a bad
cancer patient and wears a bag, people.

T wanted to mention one fact. Back in
those days as ? s mentioned we did also wear
dosimeters along with regularly worn film badges. I
remember one incident I was working over in the old
Betatron. [ had been wearing a dosimeter all week.
Before the start of the shift | would charge it, zero
it, put it in my pocket along with the film badge.

At the end of a 16-hour shift I read the
dosimeter and what appeared on the dosimeter was a ten
roentgen exposure. I logged this exposure, notified
the foreman of it. We had a logbook, a dosimeter
logbook. Good Lord, who knows what happened to them,

0040

DAUNUAWN

but they were there. A couple days later the foreman
informed me that I did not know how to properly
evidently zero a dosimeter. The -- I never heard any
reports. Along with the film badge that I wore if
there was any conveying information involved, it was
simply dismissed in such a manner.

Page 23


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

1 got to the next employer we got our badges, and I had
2 ablack dot on it. And one of the fellow -- oh, he
3 wasa foreman. He says what are you doing with a
4 black dot, they -- it's a mistake.
5 And so | asked a department head that
6 hired me, and he says oh, no, we didn't bother to
7 change you from where you come from because that was a
8 --a secret clearance and it would cost too much money
9 at that time to bump it back down to confidential or
10 whatever needed. So we did have some kind of
11 clearances, but we were never told about it.
12 . Thank you,
13 : *: You know, part of that too
14 --1 mean, obviously these guys built the ballistic

15. Polaris submarine missile launch tube. That's

16 definitely documented. There's pictures of the

17 Polaris submarine in some of the company brochures,
18 And that is clearly recognized as a nuclear weapon. A
19 Polaris submarine doesn't do anything, it's a missile
20 launching system.
21 And I've done a Jot of looking in the
22 again good old Google. You start looking for military
23 weaponry and in particular looking for nuclear weapons
24 it comes up every time. And I've told the story to
25. the Federal Radiation Board that there's one guy that
0062

1 definitely affirmed that it was a nuclear weapon. And

2 he was a Navy guy, and his name is John F. Kennedy.
3 And he said it was one of the single most important

4 weapons that were used to solve the Cuban Missile

5 Crisis.
6 And we know their sister plant in

7 Eddystone was involved in building the missile launch
8 tubes apparently for the Thresher submarine which did
9 sink which was the first submarine made from HY 80
10 steel which this plant was recognized as being the
11 first foundry in the United States of doing. And I
12. think they mentioned the other day that the place was
13. like flies with investigators after the Thresher sank.
14 That plant had nothing to do with it because of the
15 time fine, but apparently the x-rays were at that
16 plant. And I think 1 heard they came in and got
17 those, So this nuclear weapon which is clearly

18 defined in the law as being pretty important. And

19 along with the law while we're talking about it, it

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24
25

Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
turbines. That was from this building, this floor,
and you go another step out at this height of this
building on there that's how big they were. You had

0030

people that'd sit in there and they burnt risers in
here off these castings. They had to cut them off
first, eight hours. Then you get into the chipping
and grinding.
So that's what { -- | bring this up to you
all that you understand it. In the reclaim system
they -- where it does come from everything came back
there. Thank you.
MR. HINNEFELD: Thank you.

That paints a pretty
interesting picture of what happened after they were
tested. And | might add the cleanup report from
FUSRAP which you guys supplied us with and we had seen
it and looked at it, it really tells you in the report
the only building that was checked on that site was
the Betatron building, the old Betatron building,
briefly at the new Betatron building. Nobody looked
at 10, 8, 9, the reclaim system.

That plant's being populated again now.
There are people working there. And in the report I
found it kind of unusual -- and } don't have the exact
wording. But the company that owned the plant at the
time, National Steel asked for assurance and it got it
that nothing else would be looked at. I found that
really interesting.

0031

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1]
12
13
14
15

Or -- or reported publicly.

: Or reported publicly. If
you specifically asked for it -- back then in '93 the
mayor of Granite City didn't know they even cleaned up
the plant when I visited with him when I started my
research or the fire chief who is now the mayor. They
were -- you know, you could have knocked them over
with a feather. That was done very secretively. In
talking with some of the workers | understand there

were guards that were there on site to make sure
nobody went around.

But having heard this last comment it
sounds like the contamination went from one end to the
viher. To look in two buildings, | think somebody
made a mistake. { might be wrong.

Page 18


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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
organizations and people because we really need to
know what happened to this thing. And we'll get to
the bottom of it one way or the other. And we're
going to make sure we're not making a mistake.
Because if we don't let people know it, there's
probably still some out there being used. And I don't
think I could let that happen in good conscience.

So if we could ask for your commitment to
help us look at it like you said yesterday, we really
would appreciate it. And hopefully that kind of helps
get the record straight a little bit. Anything we
have we'll share with you. And like I say, you'll get
another 300 pages of Betatron information, and we're
going to do that pretty quickly.
So thank you very much for your time.
MR. HINNEFELD: Thanks, We
certainly appreciate the -- getting the journal
articles.
2 Why don't you let
talk first.

: Oh, okay. Yeah. This --
this is really a -- now we're going to get into the
workers.

MR. HINNEFELD: Right.
: And? ‘can elaborate

0017

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19

a little bit about this situation.
Can I -- can I -- | just want

to preface what is going to talk to us about
this morning. Because one of the issues to me that
I've learned about and certainly wasn't aware is that
a steel plant -- seemed to me, I've seen the pictures
of the ovens and the furnaces and it certainly looks
hot and like a bad environment that way. But what I
didn't realize was how much material is ground and
sanded and -- and left on the floor of these plants.
And -- and I want - was telling me about some
of that situation. And I hope he can kind of convey
that to you, that this was an extremely dusty
environment with high amounts of airborne
particulates. And you know, it was throughout the
plant.

: My name is ,and 1
would like to put this up here where you can really
look at it to -- to explain really what we're talking

Page 10


22
23
24
25

Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

tolerate any sort of weakness in the metal alloys that
they produce and use in their -- in their military
equipment and probably in regular commercial flights
as well,

0056

So if you take all of that information and
combine it together, now it becomes more reasonable
scientifically to examine the postulate why was
Mallinckrodt sending those uranium ingots. And this
is another area where } think we haven't really talked
about in our meeting. But if there are any workers
here who can put anything into the record about
secrecy regarding the uranium ingots, I think it's
very important, Because in the Mallinckrodt
discussion, in the Iowa discussion, certainly in the
Nevada test site and Pacific proving ground that issue
of access in the SEC process to classified information
has arisen on a number of occasions.

I have a feeling from what I know that it
may very well be that the Department of Energy at Oak
Ridge or elsewhere has information about -- they may
even have the original records of why those uranium

ingots were being examined. And it could be that the
structural flaw theory is just a theory and may not be
the real and actual reason behind that.

So as -- as future petitioners we don't
have access to that material. We don't have any
people in this room who have Q clearances. And that
puts us on an unequal footing. Your agency, the
board, the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker

0057

Serwrud sve wn—

11
12
13
14

Health, Sanford Cohen & Associates all do have experts
with Q clearances that can get into the vaults at Oak
Ridge and look for that information. And to put us on

a coequal plane we're asking to know about that. And
we have a serious question about that particular

issue. So I think this is excellent to bring this up.

And -- and maybe we have some more input on this.

: It's an interesting point
because one of the documents in that cleanup report
that you guys have access to specifically says
Betatron testing and then it appears the page is
whited out. There's another one in there that says
General Steel Castings and it's blacked out. That'd
be real interesting through the Freedom of Information

Page 33


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
a copy of too. There's some interesting things that
happened with all these alloys. I don’t -- we know
they had 30 of them at the site. To try and figure
out what all 30 and how they got affected -- and they
were in military product and nuclear energy product
that they built there -- probably going to be a little
interesting, a little tough.
1” [just want to add onto
comment that has given us some

0051

encouragement that he may be able to get us details on
what those 30 alloys were and the composition thereof.
And you know, so we will certainly -- that's -- I have
a-- a comment of things that we'll send to you all.

But that's the Number 7, the other item. So we'll try

to get that forthwith because we also need it for the
SEC application. But anyway, we'll pass that on to
you all ahead of time as soon as we get that. So --

: And if we could perhaps you
could help us with the Mallinckrodt information.
Everybody heard about ingots there. And I'm sure
there's a breakdown of what was in an ingot. We have
some publication from Mallinckrodt that actually broke
it down that we found by some miracle that we'll share
with you too. Because it wasn't just uranium. It's
really a breakdown of -- by percentage of what's in an
ingot. So that might be kind of interesting too.

: And to follow on to that I
interacted at the Weldon Springs site which was the
second Mallinckrodt site out in St. Charles County.
And so I recently wrote the current project manager in
the DOE Office of Legacy Management, a man named Tom
Pauling and I asked him to please help us with
information about the Weldon Spring uranium ingots
that came to General Steel and also came to Dow which

0052

you will hear about this afternoon. So -- so we're
trying on many fronts. We've written a letter to

Roger Anders at the Department of Energy in the health
division. I gave a copy of that'to so that
maybe he can help us follow up.

So we're trying on many levels to get the
information we need from the Department of Energy.
And if your good agency could help us in that regard,
that's -- that's an area where as you know it's really

Page 30


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

22 at-- at GSI. And those we -- we obtained copies of
23 those through the Freedom of Information Act. And in
24 all of those, you know, the -- an earlier version of
25 TIB 4 were used, We're now up to TIB Version 3 -- TIB
0011

1 4, Version 3.

2 And although that does cover or add the

3  Betatron as a source at GSI, the document itself

4 Version 3 does not really cover Betatron radiation at

5 all. But it -- it does have a short section -- I

6 think it's a paragraph -- on industrial radiography.

7 And I just wanted to put on the record what Larry

8 Elliott actually confirmed to us in a letter that --

9 that NIOSH now does not believe that the earlier

10 version of TIB 4 that was used in those dose

11 reconstructions is adequate to cover our site. So the

12 implication of that is that there does not exist a TIB

13. that -- that covers our site comprehensively enough

14 and accurately enough. So somebody's got to fill in

15 those gaps.

16 The other final thing is -- and then I'll

17 turn it over to -- that I] wanted to say is that

18 one of the requests we have directly is that we want a
19 status report on our two sites of the work that's

20 going on at Battelle. They are now ten months into

21 this one-year contract. And as one who dealt with NIH
22. grants and had to justify our means of support and so
23 forth for many years I know and everybody knows that
24 ten months into a 12-month contract the bulk of the --
25. of the hard work has been done.

0012

l So something has been done to our two

2. sites. And -- and -- and we feel that it’s so late in

3 the game, that's why we're actually going to elaborate

4 means to get this information into your hands and into

5 Battelle's hands at this point rather than waiting for

6 the more leisurely pace of an 8313 SEC to -- to

7 provide that information.

8 So } think with that I'm going to turn the

9 microphone over to and let him make a few more
10 remarks.

11 *: Thank you. And thank

12 everybody for coming again today. Some new faces and
13. some that were here yesterday. We appreciate it. One
14 of the points that was made very clearly yesterday and

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

3 certainly explained to us why that needs to be true.

4 ButI must tell you we're not convinced that any of

5. those arguments are valid. So I just want to put on

6 the record that we think that this lack of direct

7 access to Battelle to input our data is inhibiting not

8 only communications but actually our ability to

9 support our contention that we should be awarded an
10 8314 SEC.

It The other comment I need to make is that

12. there is one other source term at GSI that I need you

13 all to consider in dose reconstructions. And that is

14 that when the Department of Energy came in and cleaned
1S up the uranium dust in the old Betatron building in

16 1994 as part of that study they also discovered that

17 there were above cleanup limits amounts of radium 226
18 in the soil outside of the old Betatron building.

19 And at that point they -- I think
20. officially they attributed that to a high level known

21 to be present in this area. But there is a worker who
22 unfortunately could not be here for these meetings,
23° who works for a nuclear remediation

24 company. And he said his company has measured, you
25. know, a lot -- lot of radium, both 226, 228 and that
0010

I in his experience the levels of radium in the soil at

2 -- at GSI are not those that you would normally find
3 as background in Southern Illinois. So we'll
4 elaborate on that point. And we're not trying to make

5 the exact technical point this morning. We just want

6 to alert you that there may be another source of that

7 material. We're -- we're not sure how it got there,

8 but it -- it is present and it is -- that is
9 documented.

10 The other thing I need to point out that's

IL a little different about this outreach meeting than

12 many other outreach meetings is that often workers are
13 giving information to NIOSH after a site profile has

14 been created. Well, neither of our sites have a site

15 profile. So that's not the situation here. One

16 possibility is that Battelle might create a site

17 profile for us.

18 The other thing to mention is that

19 although there are over 800 claims pending from our
20. two sites and over 600 from GSI alone that so far only
21 four dose reconstructions have ever been accomplished

Page 6


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

16 a This is I just
17 want to follow up on what -- the implication of what
18 saying. What -- I want to be explicit about

19 what we believe. What we believe is -- is that the
20 uranium ingots from Mallinckrodt -- the assumption in
21 the DOE cleanup report is that they entered the
22 Betatron buildings and left on the railcars or on a
23 truck from the Betatron buildings and that was it.
24 It was also clear from the record that the
25 plant management was discouraging to the Department of
0032
1 Energy and actually tried to put constraints on -- on
2 which parts of the plant could be examined. And I'm
3. -- I'm inferring this because we don't have access to
4 internal memoranda and things like that. But the
5 inference was there was a reason that the plant
6 management didn't want Buildings 4 through 10 as
7 rhas just talked about examined.
8 And yesterday we put on the record that
9 there was a lot of indication that the uranium ingots
10 did not just go into the Betatron building but
11 certainly were back in the storeroom, were back in the
12 Building 6 area way at the other end of the plant and
13. that -- that it's highly likely that some of the
14 oxides that were found up on the rafters in the old
15 Betatron building, from the uranium ingots I'm talking
16 about now, got recycled to other parts of the plant
17 through the reclaim process and -- and maybe just
18 because the ingots were taken to other areas of the
19 plant. So I think that's an extremely important
20 point.
24 It's difficult to prove that the uranium
22 was there because nothing was surveyed. And you know,
23 those building still exist. So at the end of this
24 process one of the things I'm -- I'm very much in
25 favor of is getting the Department of Energy and --
0033
1 who now at least is only the titular head of the
2 FUSRAP program. But the Army Corps of Engineers still
3 does remediation. I think there's more work to be
4 done in that plant. So that's the reason we're
5 putting this on the record and also to put on the
6 record that workers who worked inside those other
7 buildings were potentially exposed to uranium. | want
8 to be explicit about that, that we do not accept the

Page 19


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

8 in fora reshot.

9 : So I think we're getting
10 the idea where -- and they talk about the same thing,
11 8,000 rems or 8,000 roentgen.

12 : Some were ten.

13 . *: That's the article, That's
14 exactly what it says. If the size of the casting and

15 grinding and burning and activation and attenuation,
16 which is where the radiation goes into the material --
17 sometimes they say you can't even read it because it's
18 inside.

19 Well, these guys once it went inside
20 that's how they fixed it, they went inside. And the
21 unique thing about it the casting didn't stay in the
22 Betatron, It went everywhere in the plant for
23 everybody to work on them, to grind, burn, chip, weld.
24 So I think you'll find this article
25. really, really helpful. And I'm glad we had that
0015

1 conversation yesterday because it really told me. And
2 Idid a little kind of -- you guys got one book, 400

3 page. You're going to get another one that's 325

4 pages of Betatron information out of about probably

5 2,000 pages I have. This is a difficult device to

6 understand because it’s so old.

7 I hope it really helps, 1 think we need

8 to get to the bottom of it, find out did it really do

9 what all these people are saying. And there's more.
10 That's just one guy. There's more and more documents,
ll There was an article referred to in Los Alamos lab.
12 We're going to copy that too. Ten thousand seems to
13 be the magic number for activation. But then we have
14 other reports that go down to three and four.

15 So we're really going to ask for some help

16 on this one, And we'd really like to ask you guys to
17 help us to fully understand it. Because it's not just

18 GSI. We know where there's a lot of these Betatrons.
19 This a nationwide issue, not one site. There's a lot
20. of other General Steels out there that had these. And
21 in reading the last 25 years worth of annual reports
22 from Allis Chalmers that I have I got an idea where
23 they went, who they went to, how they were used.
24 And we're going to share everything we
25 have with you and probably with about 25, 30 other
0016

Page 9


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

0042

1
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9
10
1]
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
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20
21
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to get the cheers -- shears out of the corners where
they made the corners.

And so what | ended up doing -- I had
heard of older mens being there dying from black lung.
And so I'm very health conscious, but as of now I have
had prostate cancer. Now I got lung cancer. So
that's another reason why I'm here because of the fact
I was very protected of myself for getting black lung.

So at that time they had no respirators.
But the respirators that they did issue out was made
of cotton. And I would take the respirators going
next to my face or mouth and I'd wet those
respirators. And if | would breath through that and
could see any brown, I'd add additional respirators.
And those respirators, as it was put out in front of
each other, now it got so thick you couldn't fold the
aluminum over. So I'd double it back and put them on.
So I'd have maybe five, six, seven respirators. And
if | could see in the inside brown from that smoke or
from that torch, I'd add more.

Now, if you had to get over in the bin to
get the shears out or you couldn't get it from the
other way, the other burner next to you was burning
your back, well, I had a big old asbestos apron that I
used to put around.

0043

COI AV Bwn—

10

12
13
14
15
16
17
18

Now, I was extraordinary glad to get the
job at GSI. That was -- during that time a lot of you
guys are not old enough to know about it, but that was
one of the better jobs in the area and you had good
benefits. But I never -- ['m hearing now about these
badges and -- and the -- and the Betatron and all
that. All I did -- if the foreman said go to --
(phonetic), go down -- that's my nickname -- go
down to building such and such, burn off the risers,
that's what I did.

So what they did they transferred me up to
where they was working on tank turrets. And those
would be so hot, maybe 800 to 1,200 degrees, you could
only the work in them for maybe just to burn out the
rods so they can get the black casting sand and stuff
out. And so what ended up happening was you put a
piece of wood in there and you would have to wear like
the shoes with the wood on them. And when you'd walk

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

GENERAL STEEL INDUSTRIES
WORKER OUTREACH MEETING

August 22, 2006

Collinsville Holiday Inn
1000 Eastport Plaza Drive
Collinsville, Illinois 62234

», Court Reporter

PARTICIPANTS

Ms. Deb Detmers, District Director for
Congressman John M. Shimkus

d

Videographer, PohIman Reporting
Company
Pohlman Reporting Company

NIOSH Panel Members

Page 1


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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
process with the recent acknowledgement by Larry
Elliott that the four dose reconstructions that have
been done for GSI have to be reopened and reexamined
then, you know, the fact still stands today that we
have zero acknowledged completed dose reconstructions

0082

for General Steel Industry workers.

And I -- I think I have to sum up my
strongly growing feeling that there has been an
inordinate, unfair, unequal, unjust amount of
attention, effort, work to the larger DOE sites. And
although you may say well, our rationale was we did
that because there were more claimants and so forth,
For these individual people as far as I'm concerned if
1 were a claimant, I would want to my claim to be
considered coequally with everybody in the pool as far
as possible. And I really do think that there has
been a planned and acknowledged and -- and amplified
in many comments by the Radiation Board consideration
first of the large DOE sites and much less attention
paid to the, quote, smaller AWE sites.

And so -- so based on that if not a single
dose reconstruction has been completed for this site,
that's why we're going to demand to be honest with you
to the extent that we can with workers, citizens,
advocates, and the Illinois congressional delegation
that we receive some kind of information about what's
going on at Battelle very, very quickly. And I'm
talking about within a matter of a week or two and not
later. So I guess that's my closing comment.

: Okay. We thank everybody

0083

1

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
il
12
13

for coming and we certainly thank you for your time.
MR. HINNEFELD: Thank you all for coming.

(Whereupon, the worker outreach meeting
was concluded.)

Page 48


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
13 Magnaflux and blowed that casting off with an air hose
14 so they could move on to the next work site how much
15 dust and dirt -- metal dust and dirt you blew into the
16 air. 1 -- 1 worked --
17 _ . {would mention --
18 mention to Stuart and -- and Dave and Laurie about the
19 amount of dust that was just covering the floor, the
20 thickness of it.

21 Okay.
22 + Yeah.
23 : In 9 Building which was the

24 main repair floor the dust would be from anywhere from
25 three inches to six inches deep, metal chippings,

0020

1 grindings, you name it. The janitors couldn't even
2. sweep the floor. That's why they used an

3 electromagnet to -- to pick up the big stuff so they
4 could even get down to the floor. You know, it -- it
5 -- it's unbelievable.

6 Same token, I worked the hot floor a lot

7 in Magnaflux. | worked behind the burners. Think of

8 ail that burning chips and stuff when they'd start

9 that torch up and blow that stuff out across the

10 floor. And the -- you know, it's -- it's almost

11 unbelievable to think that conditions like that

12 occurred.

13 In fact, this machine here, this Magnaflux

14 machine you're supposed to -- you got a handle on

15 front end. You're supposed to be able to pull that

16 around. We had to move them with a crane because you
17 couldn't move them by hand.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Uh-huh.

19 So the -- you know, it -- and
20 okay. This casting here, all that dark spots on there
21 isscale, grease, and dirt collected from the grease
22 and the oil and so on. That's a gear box for -- for
23 the largest crane in the world. So there's -- there's

24 -- okay. Now, that's -- that's in -- that's in the
25 shooting room right there.

0021
1 MR. HINNEFELD: Right.
2 : That casting is so big they

3. had to move it into the -- into the shooting room on a
4 truck because the crane in the Betatron wasn't big
5 enough to pick it up. You can see the dust -- the

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
20 about. You're familiar with the Betatron. Okay.
21. This is a -- this is a Westinghouse turbine right
22 here.
23 This is a Magnaflux machine that you use a
24 magnetic field to find the cracks, surface cracks.
25. It's a 240 volt machine. That's the machine. This is
0018
1 the powder box. You spray -- you spray metal
2 particles into the magnetic field. These Xs and the
3 squares are -- each one is a test site for the
4 Magnaflux machine. The -- okay. On -- on -- ona
5 casting like this you've got anywhere from two, three,
6 or four of these machines around the casting, four --
7 two men to each machine. And when this machine --
8 when this casting is completed with your Magnaflux
9 process it is literally covered with metal dust.
10 Okay. All the defects are marked up either with
11 yellow chalk or these squeeze tubes of liquid paint.
12 Before it goes to the next process this
13 casting went -- you would take an air hose and blow it
14 off. When you got enough dust on there and you wipe
15 your hand across it like that you've got a hand full
16 of dust. The floor around this casting -- let me get
17 a-- give me that one picture of this here.
18 You've got 8, 9 and 10 Building. 8
19 Building was a machine shop, layout, ultrasonics. 9
20 Building was the repair floor for Westinghouse
21 turbines and your nuclear submarine parts and your
22 nuclear power plant points -- or parts. 10 Building
23 was the armor building, your tank hulls, tank turrets,
24 and railroad.
25 8 Building, the floor was so dirty they

used an electromagnet to sweep the floor. You hooked
it into your overhead crane. The overhead crane drug
this electromagnet across the floor and it would pick
up like bushels of trash, take it over to a dump site

and dump it into a bin where they hauled it off to be
recycled or -- or whatever.

Around this casting here when -- when
Magnaflux were done and all over the -- all over 9
Building if 1 dropped a cigarette on the floor, J
didn't even bother to bend over and pick it up it was
that filthy dirty. And think of how much dust there
was put into the air. When -- when we finished with

Dre wewrsguayne

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Meeting, GS! - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
23 ': Okay. So that adds I think
24 to our looking at the Betatron by itself. One or two
25 little buildings really doesn't do it justice at all.
0075
1 The 6 Building with all the open walls and everything
2 was really of interest. Any other comments? Yeah.
3. They -- while we're talking about other sources I
4 think we covered them yesterday a little bit, but
5 there was mention of a tin shield going around a
6 cobalt source or iridium source in 10 Building. Was
7 that correct, sir?
8 : Well, it wasn't only --
9 almost all industrial radiographers learned to set up
10 a perimeter with wire or string. And -- and in -- in
11 the end of 10 Building St. Louis Testing came and used
12. the iridium source because we didn't have one. And
13. these -- these tin shields that you're talking about
14 had nothing to do with -- it just showed where the
15 perimeter was. And the perimeter usually --
16 from St. Louis Testing hung a radioactive sign on it.
17 And they set it up where it should have been, based on
18 the standards of those days, safe as long as you
19 didn't go past the perimeter wire or string, whatever
20 it was. Does that answer your question?
21 : Yes, sir. Any other
22 comments? I just wonder if it'd be appropriate, do we
23 need a five minute break right now? Does anybody need
24 to use the facilities?
25 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, if there are no
0076
1 other comments, we could probably wrap up I suppose.
: Any other comments from the
3 group?
4 - : Yeah. I guess I do have
5 some. So I guess | would summarize by saying | hope
6 we have enriched your understanding of the operations
7 of the plant, of the multiple radiation sources, of
8 the dedication of these workers. And we hope very
9 much that you will use this information to do a more
10 accurate dose reconstruction from these people. And I
11 guess we've tried to also heighten your awareness that
12 we believe that it will exceedingly difficult if not
13 impossible to accurately reconstruct the dose for
14 these people in a timely fashion.
15 And I can attest to you that the entire

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
workers that maybe the uranium from Mallinckrodt
really wasn't just being examined for structural flaws
which is the official version now. And you've heard
some testimony from supervisory people and workers
that worked there. And this last testimony is really
very powerful that there was a crew who was shooting
the uranium ingots without any film. And if you
couple that then -- you know, so I can learn too and
change my opinion.

So if you think about the two articles
that I mentioned yesterday -- and I think has
copies of them for you that have to do with directly
irradiating uranium ingots with a 25 million volt
electron Betatron and -- and you accept the
information there that the Betatron is perfectly
capable of and did at those kind of intensities split
the uranium atom. And in fact, as I said on the slide
yesterday you can get, you know, a slight amount of
enrichment.

But the other part of that story is that
there is a wealth of literature from the Department of
Energy and specifically at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory that they've had a program I became aware

0055

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
ia
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
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26
21

of that's been ongoing for 20 years that specifically
looks at the destructive secondary responses of
different metals that are irradiated at these high
intensities. So not only does -- I mean, and -- and
so in a way that's complimentary information the
Betatron can activate. And of course, the -- the
released energy that's captured within the metal
itself has to do something. And what it does is it --
it changes and breaks down the internal atomic
structure of the irradiated metals. And ORNL has been
very interested in that process. And in fact, so
interested in the process that the Department of
Energy has invested by now probably billions of
dollars in research that's aimed at fixing that
property.

So | was very interested it learn that the
Department of Energy now has a very active program
where they create metal -- metal alloys. They develop
them, they produce them, and they sell them to
commercial firms who want to -- and I suppose it must
be used in aircraft and spacecraft who -- who can not

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

CERTIFICATE PAGE

3 1, ; Court Reporter, do
hereby certify that this GSI Worker Outreach Meeting
4 was transcribed by me to the best of my ability.
5 I further certify that 1 am neither attorney
nor counsel for nor related nor employed by any of the
6 parties to the action in which this is taken; further,
that I am not a relative or employee of any attorney
7 orcounsel employed by the parties hereto or
financially interested in this action.
8
TN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my
9 hand and seal this 11th day of September, 2006.
10
I

13 [Court Reporter]

Page 49


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
-- for us at least it's tough to get that information.
So we would appreciate any help. .
: My name is

1 worked at the Betatron from '63 to '66. As 1
mentioned yesterday about the uranium ingot that came
from Mallinckrodt, { don't believe that we were
shooting those for structural defect because you
couldn't -- you couldn't get a readable film if you
shot it head on because it was too dense. And you had
to shoot the -- the ingot obliquely from the corner
which distorted the image on the film somewhat. [
don't think we interpreted the film. I believe the
film was packaged up and shipped back to Mallinckrodt
with the ingot for their interpretation.

But | heard of a story, and I'm going to
ask 1 to -- to tell us about that story which

0053

1

25

adds a little fuel to this fire I believe.

: Okay. I'm . Twasa
operator there. I come in on a Sunday morning. It
wasn't unusual to work Sundays, seven days a week.
And I relieved -- a crew says they were shooting those
billets, ingots, whatever you want to call them. And
they says -- I says well, what film did you use. You
know, you got to get relief, you got to find out what
went on the shift before. They says oh, no, we didn't
use film, we charged the billet, we charged the
ingots. And then they went on to the wash house.
Thank you.

*: Are you -- you're saying
there was no film?

« They was -- they were
charging. They -- I don't know if they were telling
-- I don't know if they were telling the truth or not.
But they says oh, we were charging those ingots,
charging them with the Betatron. And later on of
course down the line when I -- information was
available to me [ observed that you can charge them
with a Betatron and it will change their molecular
construction. And they can be made into nuclear rods
or whatever they used them for.

_ , need to -- I'm -- as

0054

2

a follow onto that when first told mea
long time ago that there was some feeling among the

Page 31


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

15 I'm really glad it did and it's actually helped us

16 decide that we didn't quite do everything we were

17 going to do. We're going to really need to assist a

18 little bit more in familiarizing everybody with -- and

19 we have some information for you with the Betatron.
20 And we have that -- had the abstract read
21 yesterday about the two articles. And what it really
22 made clear to me is that this is an older device and
23 information. I can really understand it's kind of
24 hard to get. And these devices have been modified and
25 there's a lot safer ones,
0013

t But when I got home last night I reread

2. this, and it's almost like it was written for General

3. Steel Industries. But it was written in 1974, and the
4 Kuttemperoor individual that wrote the paper -- and
5. it's K-U-T-T-E-M-P-E-R-O-O-R -- it's like he was at
6 General Steel. The article -- and | have copies for

7 you -- specifically talks about an Allis Chalmers

8 Betatron, 25 million volts. We found a picture of the
9 gentleman -- or actually of the Betatron. So we'll be
10 able to compare that to this, and it's a twin.

W It specifically says activation takes

12 place. It specifically says it takes place in

13. industrial castings. It specifically says if you

14 grind, you got a big problem not only from external

15 exposure but internal exposure. That's huge because
16 regular -- or regular x-rays really don't address from

17. what I've read in TIBs any internal exposure. So

18 we're really going to ask for your expertise.

19 And another thing that it said -- this is
20 on the front page, doesn't -- [ mean, you don't have
21 to read very far. Jt says the size of the material
22. that's x-rayed is important. They got real brave in
23 the lab and they did a one pound link from a chain for
24 the test. Some of the castings at General Steel
25 weighed over 70,000 pounds. They talk about taking
0014

1 one shot. Some of the castings at General Steel

2 required two, three, 400 shots.

3 * 524 was the biggest one.
4 , 524 shots, that was on the

5 outside. What happened when they found the problem,
6 fixed it? Did they check that casting again?

7 Absolutely. It came back

Page 8


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

(phonetic), ~, (phonetic), (phonetic).
And © ~ which was an electrician, I've been
down in there a lot of times with him while he was
changing a cone, servicing the -- the x-ray machine
itself. We'd be all over that thing just climbing

0037

like -- on it like we were monkeys.

*: Thank you because that
definitely helps us understand the grease and the oil
part of it. And one of the documents we have say that
is definitely something you don't touch on one of
those machines.

R: My name is .
{ spent a lot of time at GSI. I started
there in '50. I quit when they closed. I left and
went to the Army from there. | came back from Korea.
But --
: He was a young man too.

I was a young man when [
started just like the maintenance operators. But he's
right that | was a Betatron operator. | worked with

My name is ° “the two
We did a lot of work together in the

Betatron, both old and the new Betatrons. And! can
verify what” said is correct. There was dust
everywhere. If the dust was residual; that is that it
contained radioactive material that could collect in
the dust, it was there, it was present. Not only on
the floor and the rafters, everywhere you looked you
seen dust.

The maintenance -- the maintenance people

0038

that came in they came into the Betatron and we would
stop production if there was something special they
had to do like repair something, they did it and left
and like he said with no protection whatsoever.

The Betatron operators, we did have our
film badges that were supposed to go to the Atomic
Energy Commission to be checked at a certain --
because we had our pencils, our dose pencils that we
used that would collect radiation if that meant
anything.

But so far what ‘said about the
activity that went on throughout the mill and the
castings that came out from the Betatron after being

Page 22


6

7

8
9
10
i
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
24
22
23

25

Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
Information Act did a request back that if we wanted
information on another metal that is mentioned now
with General Steel HY 100, we'd have to go to the
Pentagon in Washington DC. So that is another alloy
that would probably have to be evaluated. Any other
comments?

° s I'm vagain. And this
is of a lighter thing that occurred there. When that
submarine went down, was it the Trident or --

x: The Thresher.

: Okay. So anyway, all of a
sudden there was a rain, and they says the basement
became flooded. So they brought the film we already
processed. And we had a machine called a X-Omat, and
we would run it through the X-Omat again and not
develop it. We would run it through the fixer and
washer and try to salvage the film and dry it, you
know. And we done that for -- I think 1 worked over
three, eight-hours shifts, and we -- plus several of
my coworkers had to do the same thing. But we were

0067

i]
2

not successful in saving all the film. So there
again, they says well, we done what we could.
Then another incident, they went to
computers and many of -- a few of the people in the
foundry open hearth [ guess went ahead and retired.
So they put in computers. All of a sudden I was on
the second shift. And who was the
works manager, president, or something around there --
and he called and I answered the phone in the
Betatron, He says -- he says Tam trying
to get ahold of somebody at the plant. We want
another tank hull shipped to Aberdeen, Maryland. We
want that -- that new Dodge truck, put it on the
trailer. It was a trailer tractor, a new one and --
just before they shut down. And he says have them
rush it to Aberdeen, Maryland, drive day and night,
put a couple drivers on it. And I says well, I'll get
ahold of somebody. So got ahold of somebody. They
contacted and a government ordnance
inspector by the name (phonetic).
And I thought nothing of it. You know, I
went home that -- after that particular shift. You
know, you were always tired. So low and behold ina
day or two one of the tank hulls was brought back and

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
25 it had a shell going through the nose of it. And I
0068
1 start asking questions, and the people from the
2 foundry says oh, they don't have enough nickel in it,

3 the computer made a misread or something. So that's a
4 little lighter. And we didn't know what to think so
5 we laughed about it.

6 : We'd ask you too just --
7 they put a lot of nickel I guess in those turrets?

8 Yeah.

9 *: In the hulls?

10 » Sure.

1 *: A lot of nickel?

12 a + And the regular foundry

13 people -- I think here, his dad was --

14 worked in the foundry or something. So anyway, they
15 had men when they were pouring the heat or just before
16 they had a shield with colored glasses -- with colored
17 glasses. And asa result they would say two
18. more nickel and they'd drop in two billets of nickel,

19 and it'd be perfect. But that computer couldn't tell

20 that.
2\ : *, That's kind of informative
22 too because the Los Alamos report which we keep
23 referring to really looks at nickel when it's hit with

24 a Betatron, that's not a good result, | know that
25 isn't. So that would be something that would be worth
0069

1 taking a look at.

2 elaborate what was bad
3 about that.

4 : Yeah. What happens when
5 you -- they mentioned some metals in there. And I

6 have the specifics here so bear with me a little bit.

7 But if we understood correctly in working with a -- a

8 metallurgy expert they would drop in ingots, billets

9 like they would cubes of sugar in coffee to get the

10. right flavor for these 30 alloys.

1] And when a Betatron, according to Los

12. Alamos, hits that kind of metal it changes it. And I

13. might be wrong, but I almost thought nickel went to
14 BE7 gas. But we can look that up today and see if

15. that's exactly what it does.

16 And it's funny that D -- DTIS website that

17 I mentioned, I guess the Defense Technical Information

Page 40


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
-- in the sand system because you had to reclaim
system. All them -- the risers -- the riser would
come back that directions, So that -- personally
myself I stood there on that belt and picked them off
with asbestos gloves and we had asbestos material like
aprons around us. Myself I was tested positive for
the asbestos from working that hot -- that stuff was
hot. You had to use asbestos to keep from getting
your hands burning. You couldn't use regular gloves.
And that was a dusty -- like you say, you go in there
and work, you come home and you shower. There'd be
sand in your ears, your nose, everywhere.

And some of the old-timers had a habit of
using tobacco. So they spit tobacco. They thought
that would help the dust back there back in the '50s.

1 tried it, 1 -- 1 passed out. 1 couldn't chew no
tobacco. It made you just dizzy, see. But those guys
they -- that's what they did at that time period. So
it was a -- really not a very good condition.

*; Thank you very much.
J think you --

0048

2 Tm Thave two
comments that are kind of important, one to me and one
to what you guys are here for. Our -- our foundry was
a huge place that started out with the little bitty
Commonwealth Steel Company. But it was very diverse
not like we're talking about female, black, white. It
was diverse from Southern Europe. We had people that
came from every Southern European country. And in
Granite City even today there are a lot Orthodox
churches that were started by those people.

They came and sometimes wouldn't even
speak to each other even though they -- they worked a
-piecework program. One was on one side of the core
plate, one was on the other. They split their
earnings, but you know, Serbs didn't talk to whatever,
you know. And our company built a building basically
to Americanize these Southern European workers, who
these were excellent people I might add. Some -- some
of the people here know those older guys. Some are
younger and don't.

But let's take one family. The
family in our core room became very important later
because the son, like a lot of their sons, became very

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
17 And we're the ones that now have pulled Senator
18 Durbin's office in.
19 I just want to say a couple things. One
20 is you're here to tell your story. Don't be afraid of
21 that. Don't be afraid of this. Just tell your story
22 just like you've told it to me sitting across the

23 table from me. You've told it to you've
24 told it to . You just need to tell
25 your story the best that you can.

0006

1 The second thing is that one of the

2 reasons | --] wasn't sure I wanted to talk today.

3 One of the reasons is | have a tendency to say exactly
4 what I think which is not good in politics as you

5 know. So I will tell you guys just so you know we're
6 very frustrated here, and I think you know that. And

7 [I'm not blaming any of you at the table. But we

8 have a level of frustration that is growing here.

9 Once a week somebody brings me in another obituary of
10 acolleague that died, and it is wearing on us. And

I] just because there aren't as -- quite as many of us as

12 at some of the sites doesn't mean that his cancer and
13. his father-in-law's death and everything else we have
14 in here doesn't matter just as much. So we -- we --
15 do want to express our frustration at that.

16 And the bureaucracy that is involved in

17 this has been somewhat overwhelming. 1 -- I work for
18 acongressman and still felt like I was a ship in a

19 sea kind of floating around not knowing which
20 direction to go. And without the help of and
21 who spend full-time plus doing this kind of
22. stuff and + who knows more about this than
23 anybody I've ever met -- and you're never going to
24 hear this from another republican, thank God for
25 SimmonsCooper. But seriously, thank God for
0007

1 SimmonsCooper, or we wouldn't -- we wouldn't be as far
2 as we are today.

3 So I want to thank -- they're the real

4 heroes here and I want to thank them. And I -- so

5 just -- you guys tell your stories, make sure they

6 understand it, and we'll go from there. Thank you.

7 Thank you very much, Debbie.
8 And -- and 1 want to say for the workers, all of us we

9 owea special debt to Debbie and to Congressman

Page 4


21
22
23
24
25

Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
huge amount of work created by this law. This law,
you know, in the way it's structured is -- it requires
a lot of work on -- by several federal agencies,
three -- three different departments. The Department
of Health and Human Services, that's the one we're
from, the Department of Labor and the Department of
Energy have to cooperate and all have quite a lot of
work to do to administer this program.

And so because of that large amount of
work that was generated when the law passed it has not
been possible to provide timely responses to that
large number of claimants who came in in the early
days. And it just hasn't been possible to do it.

: Well, when they generated these
laws they also generated some hope.

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. I understand that.
T understand that and --

. For all of us, you know, they
generated some hope that you might give something to
your kids or something.

MR. HINNEFELD: | understand that, and I
understand that the -- the length of time its taken.
I can’t defend the length of the time its taken. I
can only explain that it has been so much work to

0081

accomplish in the amount of time, and that is why its
taken so long.

And I honestly believe at this point we're
making far better progress. 1 know we're making far
better progress in terms of completing dose
reconstructions and completing research than we were
two years ago. And so as we've -- as we've acquired,
you know, the contractors we needed and built the
systems we needed in order to accomplish this work

we're moving along at a better pace. And all I can do
is -- is say that it makes us all feel bad that its
taken this long. I'm sorry, but I don't know how we
could have done it. Given the way the law's
structured I don't know how we could have done it
quicker. I just don't know how.

° i, you have a
comment?

| Well, appreciate those

sentiments, but I -- I guess I've got to say as the
final word I have here is that this far into the

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
16 group that's working on these SECs will be pushing
17. these two aspects, accuracy and timeliness. And you
18 know, we certainly appreciate you're coming hearing
19 this testimony. We certainly hope that in the next
20 few weeks we will get some kind of progress report
21 from the activities at Battelle. And I think with
22 that I'll close the GSI session and turn it back to
23 John who may have some other comments.

24 Just one quick note if I
25 could another Betatron operator has joined us, and --
0077

1 . And are there any -- I know these guys
2 -- some of these guys, they haven't seen one another

3 for 40 years. So if there were any comments,

4 , you wanted to make. We certainly

5 appreciate you folks joining us. I don't mean to

6 catch you off guard there. He just walked in.

7 : T really don't have --

8 don't have a comment so to speak. But I did work in

9 the Betatron and Magnaflux and worked with a lot of
10 guys I've seen their names. And a made me
1] aware of this. And I apologize for being late, but I

12 had some business. 1 had no choice but to come in

13. when I did. But that's about it.

14 bo. *; We really appreciate that.
15 And we know you guys haven't seen one another for a
16 long time, and we're definitely going to try to pick

17 your brain on operations at the plant. So anything

18 you can share with us will really be appreciated, and
19 you know, we'll talk a little later.

20 You people have any
21 questions that we could maybe answer?

22

23 : Yes.

24 : Can you ask -- ask

25° if he wore a badge and if he can comment
0078

1 on radiation.

*: Yeah. did you

3. wear a radiation badge when you worked in the

4 Betatron?

5 « Yes. I did.

6 *, Did -- the answer was yes.

7 Can ask did you ever get reports or what have you of

8 the results from those badges?

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
MR. HINNEFELD: The Mallinckrodt
epidemiology work, so the collections of badges that
was mainly white males. The -- not -- not who got
badged. But those studies that were done after the
fact to try to determine health effects in the
population, that -- those epidemiology studies were
generally done on white males because they were the
largest number of people so the studies could have

0025

25

more power,

And -- and when you include -- and if you
have a -- a homogeneous study population, you were
more likely to see effects. And so that's why they --
the epidemiology studies. It doesn't mean that other
groups weren't badged. It just means that their
results were not included in those epidemiology
studies.

Well, I -- I think the point

that's relevant to particularly the GSI site at Dow --
I think you'll hear this afternoon perhaps that there
were a much smaller fraction of Afro-American workers
there for whatever reason. But I think what's
important is since -- since neither of these sites
have any radiation exposure data, the only way you can
possibly do a dose reconstruction is by using coworker
data or data from another site that's comparable. So
1 guess the point I'm trying to make is if you use
that other data, to make it truly comparable it ought
to be on a similar population where you have, you
know, a mixture of Caucasians and -- and
Afro-Americans.

And J do understand that there is not a --
actually because of the way those epidemiologic
studies have been done there may not be as much good

0026

1

2
3
4
3
6
7
8
9
10

data on cancers in Afro-American people. But to -- to
make that a -- you know, to make another site a
comparable control group to apply and extrapolate to
this group you would have to have a similar high
ethnic diversity. So just a point. Allright. Why
don't you let some other people talk.
Sure.

In -- in this
-- in this conversation here you might also need to
think about the number of women welders, women

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
4 worked at. And most of them peoples there were mostly
5 about 75 percent black. A few whites was in there

6 too. But basically we -- that's what we did.

7 The main foundry, you're look at 15. Then

8 down in the Betatron building I had people, the

9 shakers down by 8, 9, and 10 Building. We had done
10 some cleanup work in that area too in that particular
11 spot. If you go back down to these other, 4, 5, and 6
12 Buildings that's where the -- a lot of grinding and

13. chipping was done in. These castings sitting in that
14 dirt and dust. We had a guy on a tractor that would

15 go in there and had to move this stuff and push it to
16 the conveyer to bring it back to the reclaim system.

17 So everything dust and dirt and sand

18 concerned, whatever it went through came back there.
19 We had to do the process of putting new sand and

20 maintain it. So all the core room, the cores was

21 broken up, everything, blocks were all shipped back to
22. the cell -- sent to the -- to the sand system, reclaim

23 system which is Building Number 23 on this outline.
24 8,9, 10 we had a shaker there. That'd be the south

25 end you want to go to that direction.

0029

1 You come on down this end we had another

2. shaker that shook everything out and a metal conveyor
3. that conveyed it all back. We had conveyor belts

4 underground and above ground that were -- headed

5 directly to the feed and return. So we were return,

6 and we collected a lot of metals, | mean a lot of

7 metals and shimmies, small pieces of metal from this
8 process.

9 So that's my -- my point I wanted to say.

10 But like I say, I was in management there, and I was
11 over that department. And we had meetings in the

12. front office with the president and even bigger guys
13 and we had to go in there and look at our process. We
14 looked at sands, at the microscope, and all those type
15 of things to make that process start here until the

16 core had been made. You pour it and the frame come
17 out then bring it down to these other buildings.

18 And these buildings -- that 7 Building was

19 dirty, full of dirt. There were signs on those

20 castings wanting a sample of that. They never took a
21 plan. The foremens poured it out of the pots from the
22 open hearth any these big turbines, Westinghouse

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

24 to learn what we can from the workers who worked at
25. those facilities and people who are knowledgeable
0004

1 about those facilities so they can tell us what -- you
2 know, what went on at the facility to kind of flush

3 out the -- the paper record that we're able to find

4 through certain repositories here and there. And so I

5 want to thank you all for coming and helping us with

6 this.
7 1 want to introduce my colleagues who are

8 here with me today. Dave Allen is a team leader for

9 --a dose reconstruction team leader for our OCAS

10 office. Laurie Ishak is the special exposure cohort

11 petition counselor. She's responsible for helping

12 people who want to petition for special exposure

13. cohort status to prepare the -- the best petition

14 possible and have the best chance of success possible.
15 And so she works with petitioners in order to provide
16 that service.

17 On my left is Mark Lewis who works for a

18 contractor company that we have hired, ORAU's hired.
19 He actually works for a company that the company we
20 hired hired. So -- but Mark is -- has been very
21 helpful in -- in setting up and arranging and
22. organizing worker outreach meetings around -- around
23 the country at a variety of -- of sites. And so he's
24 here today to kind of continue to expand his network
25 of people who are, you know, workers from the program,
0005

1 people who are represented by labor unions or not and
2. who are participants in the program and so to expand

3 his network and knowledge about the people who are
4 adding this information to us.

5 I want to also acknowledge a special

6 visitor with us today. Deb Detmers from

7 Representative Shimkus' office is with us today. I'd

8 like her to -- give her the opportunity to say a few

9 words if she would like to,
10 MS. DETMERS: I was going to sing a song,
11 but now that I can't move my hands I guess I won't.
12 So you're probably all saved from that. I -- I don't
13. think I'm a stranger to a lot of you. I've been
14 involved in this for a couple years. We've met with
15 workers on and off for the last two years. I'm the
16 one that kind of got Senator Obama's office involved.

Page 3


Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
13 about the -- the ships we were building parts for.
14 The -- General Dynamics was a prime contractor.
15 Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics was
16 responsible for building the submarine fleet, the

17 nuclear fleet. And I think -- and _ might

18 help me -- we built 30 boats?

19 : I believe that's a correct

20 number.

21 : Or 36 boats maybe. And

22 we turned around and built 12 for Great Britain if you
23 remember. We -- we also built parts for the Great
24 Britain -- Great Britain's nuclear fleet. Each boat
25 had 20 missile tubes on it. Each missile launcher
0065
1 consisted of two parts, the lower and the upper part.
2 So you're talking about 40 pieces times 36 boats,
3. times 48 boats plus C yokes, valves, bulkhead plates.
4 : Rudder hubs and yokes.
5 « Rudder hubs, yokes, a lot
6 of different parts for those submarines. So that is
7 just for your information as to what we were doing
8 down there as far as building parts for these -- for
9 these boats.
10 The Thresher incident, when the Thresher
11 blew up [ think it was down 200 feet, and a pinpoint
12 hole the size of a pencil lead sprung a leak in the C
13 valve. And the stream of water shot across the
14 control room into the main control panel, and it just
15. ripped the boat apart. They estimate about 12 seconds
16 before it completely imploded or exploded or whatever
17 itdid.
18 The Bureau of Ships and Navy ships were --
19 the Nav ships and Bu ships were interested in seeing
20 the film from -- from that when that happened.
21 Luckily I think we didn't have any. But we were
22. inspected. After we cleared the film we were
23 inspected by General Dynamics or -- or Electric Boat
24 Division came in and read the film. And then they in
25 turn turned it over to Bu ships and the Bureau of --
0066
1 and the Navy ship would come in periodically to review
2 that film. It was quite an operation, quite
3 interesting.
4 : And I guess that metal was
5 interesting too, HY 80 and then we got a Freedom of

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

19 on that it's so hot that you could only burn for 15
20 minutes because the wood would literally catch on fire
21 and it would burn your eyes. It wasn't so much that I
22 couldn't stand the heat because I can really stand a
23 lot of heat, but you couldn't see to burn because your
24 eyes was running from -- from that.
25 So now, I was sent to all these buildings
0044

1 because | was a burner and somebody didn't show up.
2 The foreman would say go down to this building, go

3 down to this building. And you'd go down there and

4 report to the foreman down there, and then you'd do

5S whatever he tell you to do. So I was never aware. |

6 just always thought that the American government was
7 taking care of its people. And so now we see from

8 what these gentlemens are saying that they were not

9 taking care of their people.

10 And so when I was in the military I heard

11 about roentgens and things like that. But ]

12 understood that to be in situations where they was

13. trying to kill the enemy. And so now you hear about
14 these things, and it seemed as though GSI was maybe
15. directly or indirectly doing the same thing. And so

16 here we can see how -- why this meeting that we're

17 having here today is so important. It is imperative.

18 Because now, | never smoked. And when -- when they
19 asked me about that and I said well, how is it that I

20 got cancer. And I was an electrician before I

21 retired. And so! said well, what did I -- or where

22 did I get this cancer. I don't know if I got it at

23. GSI. [really don't. All] know is they tell me I

24 gota mass in my chest, and I've been taking chemo
25 treatments and radiation treatments for almost two
0045

1 years. So I'm a living witness of this fact that
either from GSI or some other source, but I -- f do
have cancer.

And so I'm very thankful to .

-- the doctor here for having
these meetings because little people don't have any
representation without someone in the know-how like
Brother -- * (phonetic). And so f'm truly
appreciative for everyone that's participating today.

*; Thank you very much.
Because the burning process at the plant, you know, we

CeOIADAKNAWN

——)

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
Mr. Stuart L. Hinnefeld, CHP, Technical Program
14 Manager, Office of Compensation Analysis
and Support
15
Mr. David E. Allen, CHP, Dose Reconstruction Team
16 Leader, Office of Compensation Analysis and Support
17 Ms. Laurie Ishak, SEC Petition Counselor
18 Mr. Mark Lewis, Senior Outreach Specialist,
Advanced Technologies and Laboratories
19 International, Incorporated
20
General Steel Industries Employees
21

n —
2B

24
25
0003

IT IS STIPULATED AND AGREED by and between
SimmonsCooper, LLC and PohIman Reporting Company that
the August 22, 2006 GSI Worker Outreach Meeting will
be transcribed to the best of their ability by a Court
Reporter.

0-0-0

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10 MR. HINNEFELD: Good morning, everybody
11 and thank you for coming. For a lot of you, thanks

12. for coming again. My name is Stu Hinnefeld. I work
13. for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and
14 Health, the Office of Compensation Analysis and

15 Support. That office of NIOSH was created in order to
16 fulfill NIOSH's responsibilities under the law passed
17 a few years ago, the Energy Employees Occupational
18 Illness Compensation Program Act.

19 Part of, you know, our -- our assignment

20 under that, our responsibility is to reconstruct

21. radiation doses that were received by people who have
22. filed claims under this law with the Department of

23 Labor. And so we go on these outreach meetings to try

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

15 Act and of course you guys have the security

16 clearances I'd like to know what Betatron testing

17 really meant. It has the name on it,

18 T'll be glad to provide that because it

19 wasn't -- there's part of the FUSRAP report that

20 wasn't sent to us that is on the Internet like the

21 first one through four sections I think. And that's
22 where some of the letters are that talk about going
23 over to the site and getting permission. And we have
24 the complete set. And that was kind of interesting.
25 You know, you look forward to reading it, then wait a
0058

1 minute, that's whited out and that's blacked out. I'd

2. like to know what the rest of that is.

3 And there's a mention in one site, it says

4 WAPD. Just a Google search, WAPD actually meant a
5 nuclear power plant up in Washington, I believe

6 that's what came up when I did a search on it just on

7 Google. WAPD I think might bring up Hanford or

8 Haniford (phonetic). And I'm just real curious

9 because I didn't think Mallinckrodt was providing any
10 enriched material to go anywhere. And I was really
1] amazed when that WAPD showed up in the cleanup reports
12 for General Steel Castings not with Mallinckrodt.

13 So I intend to do a lot more searching on

14 that one. So I just thought that might be kind of

[5 interesting too to find out. Because there's some

16 reports in there that they give names of people and

17 what have you on the thing, but then it look likes
18 it's blanked out. So some help on that would be

19 appreciated too because | think maybe we could all
20 maybe find out something. And maybe there was a
21 reason for it. Maybe there just wasn't anything on
22 that page. But to put a name on a piece of paper and
23 then have nothing else on it didn't, you know, just
24 make a [ot of sense.
25 » Betatrons, Mag.
0059

1 Two things I'd like to mention. One that *

2 mentioned about the secrecy. I had an uncle who was a
3 supervisor in metal form. knew him well.
4 When I went to work in this department the first thing
5 my uncle told me was you're going to see things you're
6 not going to be able to talk about, you keep your

7 mouth shut, you don't ask any questions. And sir, I

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt
so nickel is prevailing in those things. And I guess
that's what it's used for is the flexibility and the
-- then the bending and things like that, the stresses
that these trucks are under.

: | might add for the record
too in the railroad business a -- a truck is actually
the set of wheels that the railroad car sat on rather
than a vehicle truck. And this plant definitely made
railroad cars which are mentioned in here for the
military in order to carry that heavy -- you're going
to haul a tank, you can't haul it on a little 40-foot
tractor trailer. They did -- they actually built
heavy duty railroad cars for the Army. They had a
contract with the Army for that if I'm correct on
that.

Correct.

: And those trucks that
you're talking about if I understand correctly did
they not test those with a cobalt source in 6
Building?

« Cobalt 60. Yeah.
: And that was the little

0074

building we talked about with no roof yesterday,
concrete blocks around it. ‘tells me he
could jump up and down and look over the roof. I
don't know if we can -- he was either a heck of a
basketball player. But what do you think the roof --

or the walls were, ? Were they eight feet,
ten feet?

* About ten feet.

*: About ten feet. So that's
where our issue with sky shine down on 6 Building
really comes into play too because -- did anybody work
close to that building or that little area there where
the cobalt was?

= [did a lot of work there.
I did a lot of repair there.

_ 1 Okay. Did -- were there
workers around that building, you know, normal
workers?

: Absolutely. The only
thing they had that would separate the workers from
that was probably just a -- a makeshift wall or
whatever, sometimes a concrete wall.

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

24 important. . was | of the Granite
25 City team that won a state championship. He Jearned
0049

1 his basketball in this same building where his father
2 and others learned English. But he went to the

3 , and -- and the whiz kids at

4 Iinois are still a little famous even though, you

5 know, that’s back in'4]. But -- but

6 captained that team, later became a captain in the
7 _3and played professional ball with the
8
9

So it wasn't just diversity like we

10 normally think of it. It -- that -- that whole

11 foundry was diverse without anybody else but the

12 Southern Europeans.

13 The other thing is that hasn't been

14 mentioned that I think's very important is these big

15 casting were blasted, and there was all kinds of

16 medium for that. You can use steel shot. You can use
17 a grit and various sizes. And it was almost

18 impossible to blow that off. Sometimes the castings
19 went right to layout or the Betatron from blasting.
20 This was not a -- a set in stone process. You could
21 deviate with the various things that had to be done.
22 But that grit that came from the shot blast along with
23 the -- later the magnetic particle medium was on the
24 casting.
25 And I'm talking 350 exposures on some of
0050

| the castings first time around. [ don't remember the

2 560, but that's a big number too. But -- but what

3 happened to that under this 25 million volt x-ray I

4 don't know. | can't multiply in my head 330 times 25
5 million because that's exactly how many times it was
6 bombarded. And those -- those particles were -- they
7 weren't just one thing, they were several things that

8 would -- would receive that radiation.

9 *: You know, I might add if!
10 may background too was a metallurgist. So the
11 alloy's pretty important. To just say that plant used
12 5,000 tons of carbon steel a month which is what they
13. say in their publication is really just the tip of the

14 iceberg. And the Betatron hitting carbon is another
15 one of the items that's mentioned in the Los Alamos
16 training book which, you know, we're going to provide

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902:

Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

tracks -- the truck tracks in the dirt and the dust in
the Betatron right there.

So there's -- and you get over here to
these chippers and so on, the girls they had -- they
had quite a few lady grinders. This one big, tall
colored lady she'd come in to work every day clean,
clean clothes, a white turban on her hair, around her
hair, over her face. They would get alfalfa seed
sacks -- feed seed sacks and then wrap themselves in
-- in these sacks in clean -- so they'd keep their
clothes clean. She would come in with like gym shoes
on snow white every day, snow white turban over her
head trying to keep clean. Some of them even used the
-- the asbestos blanket to wrap themselves in when
they worked on these castings because they was so
filthy dirty.

And the -- most of the people in this --
in 8, 9 and 10 Building here thought they was doing a
hell of a good job, and we were. It was some of the
best paying jobs in -- in the plant. In fact, the
2
Betatron people were highly envied because we were the
elite.

And the -- you know, it's -- it's -- in
the same token street -- we wore the street -- our
street clothes in. This is myself right here. And
the -- no protective gear, whatever. You'd use
whatever you could cover yourself up with.

And the -- but when you have to use an
electromagnet to clean the floor so the janitors even
could sweep up the dust is unbelievable. So the --]
don't know if you've got a copy of this of the plant.

MR. HINNEFELD: We've got it in --

MR. ALLEN: Got a few different versions.

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah.

The -- back there you guys

looked at my display before.

MR. HINNEFELD: Right.

. So you know, when -- when --
when the casting moved from the work floor to the
repair floor to the welding floor back to the Betatron
for reshots, inspection of the repairs they weren't
always the cleanest.

MR. HINNEFELD: Right.
So you know, I guess what went

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Meeting, GSI - Worker Outreach Meeting 8-22-06.txt

11 grinders, crane operators who were left over from
12. World War II that were still working in the plant.
13 The diversity, this wasn't a bunch of young people in
14 this plant. There was probably more older people in
15. the plant in the general working conditions of the

16 plant than there were young people.

17 The only really young people were in the

18 Betatron area because of the new technology. But in
19 the rest of the plant there was a high, high
20 percentage of older people, a lot of women and a lot
21 ofolder men. So this would be -- also need to be
22. figured into the equation.
23 : Thank you, Any
24 other comments from the crowd? Sir.
25 ‘: You had a copy of this layout
0027

1 before of General Steel. 1 worked there from '63 to

2 ' . My name's ‘, and I was in management, a
3 supervisor there. In the reclaim system, when you say
4 the buck stops, it stops there. [ don't care if it's

5 the north end to the south end, we sent material north
6 and south. I had people -- like my first -- myself

7 worked in these places. I worked there too. So I

8 supervised them from down from the north end to the
9 south end. I'd say from 4 Building all the way down
10 to8 and 9, 10.

1 We had shakers there. You shook

12. everything off these castings once they been poured.
13 And it started south and come north, then come back
14 where he was talking about they was testing.

15 At our supervisors’ meeting in the ‘60s --

16 we had the front office over there and I was like

17 assistant superintendent -- we noticed that the tanks
18 were being blowed up, holes in them. So we had to
19 look at our all process for the reclaim system

20 throughout the entire plant to correct this problem

21 which they did.

22 Another thing, this dusty material -- you

23 talk about dust, the material all came back to the

24 reclaim system. We had magnets that we had to draw
25 out of the storage tank. When they come by there they
0028

1 would take the metal out of the sand, out of the dust.
2 We had to push that aside there. So those type of

3. things all came back to the reclaim system that we

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