PORTS SPFPA Local 66 1 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final Minutes REDACTED 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) 

Worker Outreach Meeting for Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant 

(PORTS) 

Meeting Date: April 22, 2008, 10:00 a.m. 

Meeting with: Security Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) Local 66 in 

Piketon, Ohio 

NIOSH Worker Outreach Team: 

Larry Elliott, Director, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Office of 

Compensation Analysis and Support (OCAS) 

James Neton, PhD, Associate Director for Science, NIOSH, OCAS 

Mark Lewis, Advanced Technologies and Laboratories (ATL) International, Inc., Senior 

Outreach Specialist 

Mary Elliott, ATL, Technical Writer/Editor 

Also in attendance: 

Michael Gibson, Chairman of the Worker Outreach Working Group, Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health 

Kathryn Robertson-DeMers, Sanford Cohen & Associates (SC&A) 

Proceedings: 

[Name withheld], Safety Officer of Security Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) 

Local 66, convened the meeting at approximately 10:00 a.m. SPFPA Local 66 represents the 

security force at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. The union’s 

president, [name withheld], joined [name withheld], along with two former members of the 

security force [names withheld]. The union had requested this meeting to provide additional 

documentation to NIOSH concerning the radiation safety program at the Portsmouth Plant with 

regards to the security force. [Name withheld] stated that he had documents that the U.S. 

Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors were not making available to NIOSH. He 

expressed his frustration that DOE was asked to review the draft report by SC&A on the 

Portsmouth Site Profile since it did not include those documents. 

Mr. Elliott responded that NIOSH requests the documents from DOE that are used to write the 

site profiles. If NIOSH does not know that a particular document exists, they cannot make a 

request unless they become aware of its existence. Because the site profiles are “living 

documents,” NIOSH reaches out to current and former workers to supplement the official 

documents that are provided by DOE and its contractors. The workers’ input helps NIOSH 

understand the actual workplace procedures, which are not always the same as the “standard” 

written operating procedures. If the workers provide documentation that warrants changes in the 

way the dose reconstructions are done, the risk model will be adjusted and the site profile will be 

revised to include the new information. 
PORTS SPFPA Local 66 2 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final minutes REDACTED 

[Name withheld] stated that his frustration was not directed at NIOSH as an agency, but at the 

process which seems at times to overlook “unique” situations and to dismiss volumes of 

information that stakeholders feel is relevant to the process. 

[Name withheld] stated that the department numbers were changed so frequently while he was 

the safety officer for the guards’ union that he found it difficult to track the guards’ radiation 

doses on the quarterly ALARA radiation safety reports. He produced a copy of a quarterly 

ALARA report showing that 68 security guards (including himself) of the 210 who worked 

during that period “flagged,” or reached the plant’s allowable limit for radiation exposure, as did 

62 of 63 material handlers. He commented that he found this “significant.” As the union safety 

officer, he used the badge numbers to identify the 68 individuals who had reached their dose 

limits during this period and determined that they were working in the X-744-G, X-344, and X705 buildings and the X-326 HASA vault. Mr. Elliott commented that the mean dose value 

(difference of 67 and 17) was interesting. [Name withheld] stated that if the security guards had 

been rotated like the material handlers, their dose rate would have been lower. He said that 

putting together the information from the POEF report of the internal investigation by [name 

withheld] and the CDC Health Hazard Evaluation by John Cardarelli and Steven Ahrenholz 

changes the entire picture of the dosimetry program at the plant, and could possibly change the 

way that NIOSH looks at dose reconstructions for the security guards. The report ([name 

withheld] did not state which) states that as many as 1,000 badges per quarter were estimated. 

Mr. Elliott explained that because many Portsmouth EEOICPA claimants are eligible for 

compensation under the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) class, their cases do not require dose 

reconstruction. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) only sends NIOSH the cases that are not 

eligible for the SEC class for dose reconstruction. Since NIOSH is tasked with performing the 

dose reconstructions for these cases as accurately as possible, the purpose of the meeting is to 

gather any information that can aid in that task. To date, NIOSH has received a total of 977 

cases from the Portsmouth site from DOL – more than any other Ohio facility, including Fernald. 

Dose reconstructions have been completed and reports have been sent to claimants for more than 

850 of these cases. NIOSH has sent completed dose reconstructions for 776 of the 850 cases 

back to DOL for recommended decisions. DOL has returned 153 of the 826 cases to be 

reworked for various reasons such as additional cancers or when site profile revisions warrant a 

Program Evaluation Report. One case has been pended, possibly to determine eligibility in the 

SEC class. As of the meeting, 184 of the cases requiring dose reconstruction have been 

determined to be compensable and 631 cases have been determined to be non-compensable. 

[Name withheld] commented that he has seen several individuals’ dose reconstruction reports in 

which the second dose reconstruction yielded a lower probability of causation (POC). He cited 

one case in which the individual’s first POC was 34.6%, and the second POC was less than 10%. 

[Name withheld] stated that he had seen the individual’s dose records and knew that he had 

received rem dose working in the PW vault and transferring cylinders with the “blue goose” 

from the X-345 to the SST trucks. The claim was denied and the DOL adjudicator said that his 

dose was figured on 3.5% assay, which made the claim noncompensable. [Name withheld] 

stated that the documents he was providing during the meeting showed that security guards 

worked in areas where 90-97% assay cylinders were stored, and that the neutron dose from those 

cylinders should have been enough to put the claim above 50% POC. Dr. Neton responded that 

the current Portsmouth Site Profile includes a neutron dose for the guards in the dose 

reconstruction as the result of information received during the second meeting with unions from 
PORTS SPFPA Local 66 3 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final minutes REDACTED 

the Portsmouth plant. [Name withheld] asked what assay NIOSH is considering. Dr. Neton 

answered that the default assay in the site profile is lower, but NIOSH can consider a higher 

assay if the work conditions are known – not all workers were around the higher assay uranium. 

[Name withheld] stated that security guards were locked in the HASA vaults in the X-345 and X744G Buildings when the plant operated in high security mode. They often worked 12-hour 

shifts and ate their lunches in the vaults. [Name withheld] said that this increased the possibility 

for ingestion, as well as inhalation from the leaking cylinders in the vaults. [Name withheld] 

added that this was common as late as the 1980s and early 1990s before the Tiger Team Reports 

were written. He recalled that there were often seal problems on the cylinders that were kept in 

the X-326 Building where the 97% assay uranium was stored, so there was potential for both 

internal and external exposure. [Name withheld] stated that if NIOSH examined the [name 

withheld] report, the dosimetry methods may be questionable. He emphasized that the “bad bar 

codes” in the report represent the humans that were wearing the badges. 

Dr. Neton returned to the topic of the uranium assay. He stated that if a worker was badged for 

photon dose, then NIOSH can derive a neutron dose. In the site profile, the neutron to photon 

ratio is fixed at 0.2, so if a worker was never monitored for neutron dose it can be developed by 

taking the entire dose the worker received (including the missed dose) and estimating the neutron 

dose. NIOSH has methods of dealing with these issues in the proper context. [Name withheld] 

stated that the union feels that the dosimetry records that DOE provides to NIOSH are incorrect. 

Mr. Elliott stated that he would make certain NIOSH re-examines the assay issue further with 

Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), the contractor team that is responsible for revising 

site profiles and performing dose reconstructions. 

[Name withheld] explained that the 97% assay uranium was not kept in only one area in the 

plant, but was moved throughout various departments in the plant, sometimes 20 cylinders at a 

time. The turbine blades that were used to push the material were also moved throughout the 

plant in open baskets with forklifts. 

[Name withheld] described an incident in the X-326 Building in which a leaking cell housing in 

the 90% assay area froze the pipe next to it (stopped the flow of uranium hexafluoride gas). An 

OCAW (Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers) union welder and a carpenter went in to warm the 

pipe with acetylene torches to get the material moving again. They used a Rimbaud detector to 

find the leak by locating the area with the highest concentration of neutrons to locate the leak. A 

guard was required to be present the entire time to keep material from being diverted from the 

area. They worked under slow cooker conditions – the welder for just over three hours, the 

carpenter for two hours and 45 minutes. The quarterly report for that period showed 3.8 rem for 

the welder, 2.5 rem for the carpenter, and 1.8 rem for the guard, who was not as close to the leak 

as the others. [Name withheld] went to review the hard copy records, but was not permitted to 

make copies due to Privacy Act restrictions. As the Safety Officer for the guards’ union he was 

permitted only to look at the records of that union’s members. [Name withheld] was the OCAW 

Safety Officer at the time, so he reviewed the records for his union’s members. 

The dosimetry department transferred the quarterly readings to disks, and then sent them to 

another area to be archived on magnetic tape. An index card file was kept so the tapes did not 

have to be retrieved from the other building. The 3x5 cards with the employee’s name, 

department, and identification number showed the employee’s dose by quarter. If there was a 

“bad badge” or high rem dose above the quarterly limit, the dosimetry department estimated the 
PORTS SPFPA Local 66 4 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final minutes REDACTED 

worker’s dose based on a worker in the same job classification with a lower reading and gave the 

first worker 10 mrem above that dose. Dr. Neton asked whether the worker got an explanation 

of why the badge was bad and asked [name withheld] to define the time period. [Name 

withheld] replied that the time period would have been approximately 1995-96, when the plant 

was using thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs). [Name withheld] said that he and [name 

withheld] were present when the badges were read. Plant protocol stated that if there was a high 

reading, or the badge holder was cracked or tampered with, the badge was to be bagged and 

saved for an investigation. The worker was to be interviewed, but the company did not follow its 

own procedure. Dr. Neton said that NIOSH had heard this information before. [Name withheld] 

interjected that the [name withheld] report showed that quarterly numbers for destroyed badges 

were significantly high for both guards and material handlers. 

Dr. Neton stated that the DOE Laboratory Accreditation Program (DOELAP) protocols were the 

same using similar devices when he ran the dosimetry programs at Argonne National Laboratory 

and Fernald. It is not unusual to have a certain amount of false positives from any number of 

things, including putting the device through laundry and coming into contact with phosphate 

detergent. He asked if the false positives were documented in a report. [Name withheld] 

responded that they were not, and that information came out in the report by [name withheld] 

and later in depositions. Mr. Elliott verified that NIOSH has the [name withheld] report. [Name 

withheld] stated that the opinions of the persons altering the badges should be considered suspect 

since that sort of activity is not sanctioned by DOELAP. 

[Name withheld] stated that instead of preserving the bad badge holders per procedure, they were 

placed in the trash and the worker was assigned a new holder and barcode. He said that he often 

did not see anything wrong with the badges that were discarded and was told by dosimetry 

department personnel that the worker could not have that amount of dose. [Name withheld] said 

that it would be considered “lucky” if the reader was calibrated every 60-70 reads. [Name 

withheld] said that documents that were written around the same time as the [name withheld] 

report could be used to develop a timeline. [Name withheld] alleged that the DOE contract gave 

the company monetary rewards for safety practices and that DOE benefited financially when the 

company was privatized and DOE moved to an oversight role. 

Dr. Neton stated that the [name withheld] report does not suggest discrepancies of the magnitude 

being discussed; it specifically addresses a 26 millirem (mrem) dose being changed to “0,” but 

not the 2+ rem doses that [name withheld] was suggesting were being changed to a coworker 

dose. [Name withheld] responded that when he was injured on [date withheld], he asked [name 

withheld] to request documents because he feared they would be changed. At that time [names 

withheld] discovered hidden records. [Name withheld] said that his records have been altered so 

that there are now two sets of the incident record, the medical record, and his badge record, and 

that the company and DOE have suppressed the hidden documents, yet no one has ever asked 

how the company could go back and forth between those records without ever being discovered. 

He said that the incident was widely known throughout the plant. It was covered up until an 

employee came forward in late 1994 to say that the records had been changed, yet no agency 

conducted an investigation until 15 months later. Mr. Elliott noted that there were three sources 

of documentation of the accident (incident, medical, and dose reports). [Name withheld] 

indicated that the [name withheld] report was never given in full to the guards’ union; he was 

only able to obtain it with a federal subpoena. 
PORTS SPFPA Local 66 5 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final minutes REDACTED 

Representatives of the two unions at the Portsmouth plant asked NIOSH to conduct a Health 

Hazard Evaluation following [name withheld] accident. John Cardarelli and Steven Ahrenholz 

were sent to conduct the investigation. [Name withheld] described the events following Dr. 

Cardarelli’s request for archived tapes of dose records from 1992-94 for a high-assay area where 

they were enriching fuel for military programs. The plant safety director told Dr. Cardarelli that 

the archived tapes contained five layers of data, but Dr. Cardarelli was later told that there were 

at least 12-15 layers of data after a delay of several hours. Days later, [name withheld] was told 

that plant manager ordered the hard copy records to be destroyed since the archive tapes were 

useless. [Name withheld] explained that the hard copies of the dose records were kept in the 

audiovisual room and that anyone who wanted to view them had to be given access because the 

room had an alarm system. [Name withheld] said that he personally observed two OCAW 

workers taking the hard copy records to the wood chipper. He stopped them and tried to 

intervene, but was unsuccessful in his attempt to stop them. Subsequently, [name withheld] filed 

a complaint with OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) on the grounds that 

federal law requires medical records to be retained for 30 years. OSHA cited Lockheed Martin 

for destroying the records. 

Dr. Neton inquired as to the timeframe of the records. [Name withheld] replied that they covered 

the period between 1988 and 1994. Dr. Neton asked if the records showed beta, gamma, and 

neutron results, to which [name withheld] replied, “Yes.” Dr. Neton asked [name withheld] if 

the 3x5 cards were the only hard copy records that were kept, to which [name withheld] replied 

that a worksheet was kept of the estimated dose but was often changed. Dr. Neton questioned 

whether NIOSH would get any records if they asked DOE for records from 1988 to 1994. Mr. 

Elliott asked if [name withheld] meant that there were no records for the guards or for the entire 

workforce. [Name withheld] replied that he personally witnessed the guards’ records going 

through the chipper, but was later told that some records for the material handlers were also 

destroyed. [Name withheld] added that the workers who were asked to destroy the records went 

to their union leadership but were afraid to admit their wrongdoing at a higher level for fear of 

retaliation by the company. 

Dr. Neton stated that the Portsmouth Site Profile includes co-worker models through 1992, 

which indicates that there was data available. [Name withheld] explained that if the dose was 

too high when a guard’s badge was read, it would be deemed a “bad” badge and a barcode was 

used to give the worker an estimated dose. The estimated dose would be put on the archive tape 

and the 3x5 card, so it became the “official” dose of record instead of the actual dose. Dr. Neton 

noted that the point being made was that the cards showing that these doses were changed no 

longer exist, so there is no evidence to confirm the actual dose readings. [Name withheld] 

contended that the “official” dose of record that NIOSH used for the model is not accurate. 

[Name withheld] suggested that the [name withheld] report admits that investigations were not 

properly done and segments of the records were changed, so any dosimetry data the company 

provided to NIOSH is corrupted. [Name withheld] said that Dr. Cardarelli’s CDC report stated 

that when the badges were processed at the Portsmouth plant, no accounting was made for the 

“slow cooker” effect, meaning that the neutron dose was incorrect. 

When Dr. Neton asked if they knew how many badges were changed during a badging cycle, 

[name withheld] estimated that as many as 400 to 600 of the 2500 to 3800 total badges may have 

been changed quarterly. Mr. Elliott stated that if one-third of the doses in the data provided to 

NIOSH have been adjusted as they indicated, it could possibly cause problems. [Name withheld] 
PORTS SPFPA Local 66 6 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final minutes REDACTED 

stated that instead of providing the POEF document following the OSHA citation, Lockheed 

Martin settled so that they did not have to submit the document. [Name withheld] said that, even 

though the 30% figure could have been the same every quarter, the records were not capturing 

the highest exposures. Dr. Neton stated that NIOSH needs to look at the procedures that were 

used to adjust the readings since there were DOELAP accreditations in place at the time. [name 

withheld] reiterated that the methods reported in the [name withheld] report would never be 

sanctioned by either NAVLAP (National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program) or 

DOELAP. 

Mr. Elliott asked for the typical number of badges that would be investigated in a quarter. Dr. 

Neton explained that the number of false positives in a badging period is depends on the 

environmental conditions under which the badges are worn. He stated that it was not unusual for 

10-15% of the badges at Fernald to show false positives. [Name withheld] said that when 

security guards were present as observers at jobs in high security areas, they had special reads 

that were activity specific (for example: the 1.8 rem reading for the guard mentioned earlier). 

Dr. Neton stated that when a TLD shows a high reading, there is a glow curve when it is heated 

up that indicates whether or not the exposure is actually due to radiation. He noted that 30% 

seemed to be on the high side. 

[Names withheld] explained that badges were normally left in the plant, but if a badge went 

missing, a temporary badge was issued. The [name withheld] report stated that the plant issued 

300 temporary badges a day to Lockheed Martin employees. Temporary badges were also 

issued to contractors who were typically only on site for two weeks to a month at a time. [Name 

withheld] said that the temporary badges are monitored as such. 

[Name withheld] related a conversation with [name withheld] of the Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission (NRC) during which [name withheld] asked that his comments remain off the 

record. [Name withheld] was concerned that the DOE legacy issues would overlap some of the 

NRC issues. [Name withheld] made documents available to [name withheld] and was asked why 

he was providing them. He replied that he wanted medical cards for all of the security officers – 

basically to give them special cohort status. [Name withheld] explained that the SST drivers had 

asked for and received a special separation package that included full medical retirement because 

they were also working in the high radiation areas under the same conditions as the guards. 

[Name withheld] asked if it was possible for the security guards to have a special cohort within 

the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC). A discussion followed to clarify the term “special cohort.” 

Mr. Elliott and Dr. Neton confirmed that the security guards are included in the SEC class for the 

Portsmouth plant through the end of 1991. [Name withheld] again cited the timeline that could 

be established using the documents that the SPFPA is providing to NIOSH to prove that records 

were kept “outside the realm of integrity.” He proposed that NIOSH work together with the 

SPFPA to establish the integrity of the records. 

Mr. Elliott stated that the purpose of the meeting was to answer the questions being raised about 

the validity of the information being used in dose reconstructions for the workers that are not a 

part of the Portsmouth SEC class and the question of another SEC class for Portsmouth has been 

raised before. Dr. Neton stated that original class extends through 1992, but the SPFPA could 

petition for another class to be added to the SEC. Mr. Elliott added that only the period during 

which the plant operated under DOE contract is eligible to be included in the cohort. The group 

discussed briefly the transition between DOE and NRC regulation of the Portsmouth facility. 
PORTS SPFPA Local 66 7 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final minutes REDACTED 

[Name withheld] stated that the SPFPA’s primary concern is that the manipulated data provided 

to NIOSH to use as the basis of the models for the Portsmouth plant is the primary reason why 

more dose reconstructions are not reaching the 50% POC required for EEOICPA Part B 

compensation. 

Dr. Neton acknowledged [name withheld] statement that badge results were changed with no 

technical justification for those results and that the evidence of those changes was destroyed. 

[Name withheld] concurred. Dr. Neton said that the NIOSH co-worker model in the Portsmouth 

Site Profile shows that the 95th percentile value for the highest exposed worker after 1981 is 120 

mrem for the entire year, including the missed dose component, a difference of a factor of 10 

compared to the 2 rem dose that was mentioned earlier. He asked where the guards were 

working that they could have gotten such high exposures. [Name withheld] responded that they 

were sitting inside the open HASA vaults where the highly enriched uranium (above 90%) was 

stored in 24-inch carts containing 5-inch cylinders during the period from 1980 through 1994. 

[Name withheld] described the environment in which the guards worked around the clock, 365 

days a year, on a raised platform that was the top of the vault: 

• A trash sorting area was to the north. 

• The process area was to the north and east. The process workers were in fresh air just 

across the fence while the guards sat inside the vault. 

• To the south was the area where the cylinders were filled. 

• To the west was another vault where the very highest enriched uranium was stored. 

• The cells were located above the vault. 

During this time, the guards often worked 16-hour shifts. One guard would bring lunch back to 

the others and they ate together on top of the vault. 

[Name withheld] said that there were conflicting reports that the alarm went off on the argon 

gammagraph the morning of his accident. The incident report stated that they did not work, but 

the union leadership challenged that in their own documents, which were suppressed. The DOE 

investigator included a statement by the plant manager that the alarm did not go off. Other later 

reports, including the Tiger Team investigation, also stated that the cell alarms were shut off. He 

said that the point he was making is that security guards are often in areas where leaks are not 

detected because the alarms do not work and he feels that they are paying for it with their health. 

That is the reason they are bringing hard documentation forward to NIOSH to work together to 

clear the information. 

Mark Lewis referred back to Dr. Neton’s question regarding the changes and stated that he was 

the safety representative for the OCAW local at the time of the incident. He recalled that the 

seals on the cylinders had started to break down, causing them to leak. During that time, it was 

not unusual to see higher badge readings for many of the workers in the production area. [Name 

withheld] said that the DOE representative was very aware of the situation. 

[Name withheld] described a large fire that started in the X-326 building because oil baths were 

not shut off before a side purge was burned off. He stated that the firefighters and security 

guards who must be present during these purges are exposed to the byproducts being burned off 
PORTS SPFPA Local 66 8 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final minutes REDACTED 

during the purges. [Name withheld] stated that incidents such as this need to be considered as 

part of these workers’ exposures to acknowledge that there are scenarios for deep tissue dose. 

[Name withheld] cited the [name withheld] report, which states that the CAS system was 

blocked by barrels and would be of no use in the event of a subcriticality incident. This, 

combined with such factors as alarms that are turned off, creates a situation in which workers 

have no idea that they are being exposed. He said that rare medical conditions are becoming 

commonplace among the workers and former workers from the Portsmouth plant. Seven people 

in the security department have been diagnosed with ascending aortic aneurisms. The usual odds 

of developing this condition are 1 in 144,000, yet there are seven people among a group of fifty 

that have this condition. [Name withheld] said that such situations would seem to indicate a 

need for another cohort. Mr. Elliott stated that Part B is for cancer only, but that these workers 

can put in a claim for compensation under Part E. He said that the program must be carried out 

in conformance with the law. [Name withheld] stated that the union wants to bring it to NIOSH 

in hopes that their claim will be investigated from the top down. 

[Name withheld] referred to a letter between two department heads at the plant that asked about 

the guards’ working hours. He recalled that the guards were often required to work 12-hour 

shifts and occasionally 16 hours. Their work schedules often alternated daily between 12- and 

16-hour shifts due to a shortage of personnel. He added that DOE regulations prohibit personnel 

carrying firearms more than 16 hours in a 24-hour period unless under attack or in an emergency. 

When Mr. Elliott asked him the timeframe he was speaking of, he replied that it was from 1984-

97 and that he had worked nearly three work years during one years’ time. [Name withheld] said 

that it was common to work 60 to 80 hours a week. [Name withheld] said that he knew of 

instances where one guard put in 110 hours in one week. 

[Names withheld] continued to describe potential scenarios for high exposure. It was common 

for SRT (Sudden Response Team) members to accompany the fully loaded transport vehicle 

containing about twenty 5-inch cylinders of high assay material from one point in the plant to 

another. The SRT agent could not leave the truck until all the cylinders were received and 

secured, which sometimes took several hours. 

Dr. Neton said that a dose of 5 mrem per hour is assumed for workers in proximity to 5-inch 

product cylinders. He stated that during dose reconstruction, NIOSH assigns a 1.2 rem dose per 

year to security guards when using a maximizing dose. [Names withheld] again cited the dose 

reconstruction that had a lower POC on the second submission. Dr. Neton described the 

efficiency process that was used to reconstruct doses during the early years of the program. 

NIOSH has the values for the upper and lower bounds for possible scenarios and these values are 

applied to overestimate the doses. When the dose reconstructions are reworked for the second 

time with more realistic information, the doses tend to go down. [Name withheld] said that he 

routinely saw 2.3 rem doses on the quarterly reports. He alleged that because these records were 

destroyed, NIOSH did not receive this information with the records that were provided by the 

company. Dr. Neton acknowledged that this is reason enough for NIOSH to review some of the 

procedures that were used at the Portsmouth plant. [Name withheld] said that there are sworn 

depositions by the people who were ordered to alter the records. Dr. Neton stated that there 

likely is someone on the technical side that may attest that the readings were falsely high and that 

there was a list of things to judge them against, but they didn’t document it. That leaves NIOSH 

in a difficult situation in which they must ask which is the more reasonable given that there is no 
PORTS SPFPA Local 66 9 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final minutes REDACTED 

longer any data. [Name withheld] again countered that if the methods were held to the DOELAP 

standards, they would never be sanctioned. 

Mr. Elliott summed up the action items that he wanted to take back to NIOSH for further 

examination: 

1. Look at the modeling for the security guards in the site profile to examine whether it 

gives an upper bound that covers the guards’ exposure to high assays. 

2. Look at the assay percentage that is presented in the site profile versus what today has 

been described as 97% assay, or 90+% assay throughout the plant. 

3. Look at the full dose reconstruction model to determine if it accounts for appropriate 

levels of dose and consideration of the plant’s adjustments of dose in the 1989 to 1996 

timeframe during which as much as one-third of the data may have been adjusted. 

4. Look at the overtime effect on dose reconstruction. 

[Name withheld] described how the NIOSH Hazard Health Evaluation by Dr. Cardarelli and Dr. 

Ahrenholz led him into numerous other investigations into the causes of [name withheld] injury. 

He said that the plant manager told him that he would prove that [name withheld] got “0” dose. 

He realized that while he was talking about internal dose from ingestion, the plant manager was 

talking about external dose from radiation. [Name withheld] described the dosimetry badges at 

the HASA vaults that read the background radiation, which was then subtracted from the badge 

reading. Dr. Neton said that NIOSH is aware of that issue and accounts for it when it is known. 

[Name withheld] suggested that a fifth action item should take a look at the how the database 

was corrupted by using records that were “purposely and willfully destroyed” by the same group 

that provided them. He said that the SPFPA also disagrees with the “0” doses that resulted when 

the background dose was subtracted from the badge reading. Mr. Elliott responded that the issue 

is addressed in action item #3. 

A discussion ensued regarding the details of the [name withheld] report. Dr. Neton commented 

that the issues the SPFPA are raising with NIOSH are much broader than the report, which 

documents one badge with a reading of 26 mrem being changed to “0” dose. [Names withheld] 

contended that their timeline that is represented by all of the documents being submitted will 

give a much larger picture. Mr. Elliott and Dr. Neton acknowledged that they understood the 

significance of the documents. 

[Name withheld] noted key points of the [name withheld] report: 

1. There is not a reliable database; 

2. Employees were not properly trained; 

3. There was a lack of supervision; 

4. Equipment was not calibrated correctly; 

5. “Buckets” of dose; 

6. Each barcode for an estimated dose represents another employee’s dose being changed; 

7. The manager had a system “back door” to change the dose without leaving a paper trail; 

and 
PORTS SPFPA Local 66 10 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final minutes REDACTED 

8. Family members were sometimes brought in to assist. 

Dr. Neton responded that it is necessary to separate some of those issues from what is applicable 

to the dose reconstructions. Mr. Elliott recalled that [name withheld] had addressed some of 

those issues when NIOSH last met with union officials from the Portsmouth plant. He 

acknowledged that NIOSH had examined how to use those issues to improve the dose 

reconstructions. Mr. Elliott commented that today’s meeting addresses broader, more general 

problems with the procedures at the Portsmouth plant. 

Mr. Gibson assured the members of the SPFPA that the documents would be examined to 

determine how they can best be used. A discussion followed regarding which documents would 

be useful. [Name withheld] provided a list of the documents. 

Mr. Elliott added more action items: 

6. Respond to the allegation that the database is corrupted. 

7. Examine the [name withheld] report and other documents being submitted. 

8. Look at the background radiation issue. 

[Name withheld] volunteered to develop the timeline that may “help put the puzzle together.” 

Both he and [name withheld] related their personal experiences that led them to develop the 

information. 

Mr. Elliott stated that NIOSH’s purview is limited to the compensation law. NIOSH will sort 

through the information and determine what can be used to the best advantage of the claimants 

from the Portsmouth site. He stated that the law calls for dose reconstruction, taking into 

account data that may be missing, destroyed, or corrupted, and making adjustments to the benefit 

of the claimant. 

[Name withheld] adjourned the meeting at 12:15 p.m. for lunch. 

[Name withheld] reconvened the meeting at approximately 1:30 p.m. 

The SPFPA members revisited some of their key points from the morning session of the meeting. 

[Name withheld] called for corrective action to remove corrupted data from the dose 

reconstruction modeling based on the reports that they had brought to the table. He stated that 

the SPFPA was giving NIOSH the documents to correct the data that was deemed “bad” in 2000 

when EEOICPA was signed into law. 

[Name withheld] commented that he found it inconsistent that the union had provided SC&A 

with the information for their review of the Portsmouth Site Profile, yet NIOSH still needed the 

documentation for further investigation. He observed that there is not yet a working group for 

the site profile and asked if it would be possible for the union to put one of their members on the 

working group when it is formed. 

Mr. Elliott replied that the working group is made up of members of the Advisory Board who are 

appointed to study the SC&A draft report on the Portsmouth Site Profile. NIOSH and others 

also participate as necessary. He said that the SPFPA and other interested parties can be notified 

and may participate, either in person or by phone. 

[Name withheld] reiterated the importance of looking at all of the documents to get a clear idea 

of what they illustrate as a whole. Mr. Elliott assured him that NIOSH will be certain to use the 
PORTS SPFPA Local 66 11 of 11 April 22, 2008

Final minutes REDACTED 

information that best serves the claimants; but he cannot say that NIOSH will be able to make 

the statement that the union was wronged. Mr. Elliott said that he can only make the case to the 

Board and to answer the action items that he is taking back to NIOSH. 

[Name withheld] asked how the union can be invited to the working group. Mr. Elliott stated 

that the information can be found on the NIOSH/OCAS Web site, or he can be put on a 

distribution list to receive OCAS Web updates. 

More discussion followed on the dosimetry program and issues that the union has with reports 

and procedures they feel are not in line with acceptable standards. They related conversations 

with management personnel regarding these issues. The group read excerpts from the documents 

that they were providing. 

[Name withheld] requested a formal response on Mr. Elliott’s action items. Mr. Elliott replied 

that he would be happy do so. 

[Name withheld] adjourned the meeting at approximately 2:15 p.m.