THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


WORKING GROUP MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


Y-12
 

The verbatim transcript of the Working Group 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Cincinnati Marriott 


Airport, Hebron, Kentucky, on May 18, 2006. 

 

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 6 

C O N T E N T S
 

May 18, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 


DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 


INTRODUCTION BY MR. GRIFFON, CHAIR 10 


ISSUE 1: EXTERNAL DOSE DATA VALIDATION 


AND COWORKER MODEL 12 


ISSUE 2: THORIUM BUILDINGS 125 


ISSUE 3: RECYCLED URANIUM (RU) 148 


ISSUE 4: POLONIUM-208 166 


ISSUE 5: EXOTIC RADIONUCLIDES 166 


ISSUE 6: 1948 AND 1949 SALVAGE AND RECYCLING 


WORKER INTERNAL DOSE 192 


ISSSUE 7: Y-12 WORKER DATA INTEGRITY ISSUE 


REGARDING INTAKE INCIDENT 198 


ISSUE 8: INTERNAL DOSE DATA VALIDATION 218 


DISCUSSION OF SAMPLE DR’S 224 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 255 

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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

 

4

 P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 

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PARTICIPANTS
 

ADLER, TIM, ORAU 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BRACKETT, LIZ, ORAU 


CHEW, MEL, CHEW AND ASSOCS. 


FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


KERR, GEORGE, KERR CONSULTING 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCFEE, MATT, ORAU 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


RICH, BRYCE 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


SUNDIN, DAVE, NIOSH 


WOLFF, ALBERT W., ORAU 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(9:40 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO
 

DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade and this is a working 


group -- a meeting of the working group of the 


Advisory Board. This is the working group 


chaired by Mark that’s staffed ably by Mike, 


Robert and Wanda that look at a variety of 


issues including individual dose reconstru-- 


site profile reviews. And they’ve gone from 


work on the Y-12 site profile to the Y-12 SEC 


petition. And that’s the topic that we’re here 


to discuss today is the Y-12 SEC petition. And 


I’d like to identify who’s on the phone 


starting with Board members. Mike, I know 


you’re with us. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: Are there any other Board members on 


the phone? 


(No response) 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Again, we need to keep our 


eye on producing a quorum, but I don't think 


that should be an issue at all. Robert will 

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not be joining us today. He’s, you know, 


having some health issues. Robert is also 


conflicted on Y-12 so if he were to be here he 


could listen but not actively participate. It 


might be worthwhile identifying who’s on the -- 


the -- who’s around the table here, who’s on 


the phone, and then I’ll ask the principals to 


go through and identify if they have particular 


conflicts relative to this site and then we can 


begin our deliberations. Around the table this 


is Lew Wade, the designated federal official 


for the Board. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffin with the Advisory 


Board, chairing this work group. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, SC&A, no 

conflict. 

 MR. RUTHERFORD: LaVon Rutherford, NIOSH. 

 DR. NETON: Jim Neton, NIOSH. 


 MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn, Advisory Board. No 


conflict in Y-12. 


 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Joe Fitzgerald, SC&A. 


MR. MCFEE: Matt McFee, ORAU team. 


MR. WOLFF: Albert Wolff, ORAU team. 


MR. ADLER: Tim Adler, ORAU team. 

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MR. KERR: George Kerr, ORAU team. 


 DR. WADE: Now, if I could ask if you’re on the 


phone who -- who wishes to identify themself to 


identify themself. You don’t have to but 


certainly if you intend to participate in the 


call I’d like you to identify yourself now. 


MS. BRACKETT: Liz Brackett from the ORAU team 


and I have a conflict with Y-12. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch with Labor. I’ll be 


in and out. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome. Anyone else on the phone 


who wishes to identify themselves as a 


participant? 


 MR. CHEW: This is Mel Chew, Dr. Wade. And I 


do not have a conflict with Y-12. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome. 

 MR. RICH: This is Bryce Rich. I do not have a 

conflict. 

 DR. WADE: Welcome. 

MR. GIBSON: Lew, this is Mike. I have no 

conflict. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. Why don’t we start now and 


ask Jim as the -- the -- the leader of the 


NIOSH contingent to identify his team, and if 

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there are people around the table with 


conflicts we need to hear that. 


 DR. NETON: Right. Yeah. This is Jim Neton. 


I don’t have a conflict with Y-12 and I’ll ask 


the -- well, LaVon Rutherford is here as SEC 


team leader from NIOSH. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: And I have no conflict. 


DR. NETON: And I’ll ask the four ORAU folks 


starting with Matt McFee on the left to 


identify if they’re conflicted or not. 


MR. MCFEE: I am not conflicted with Y-12. 

MR. WOLFF: Al Wolff and not conflicted with Y12. 

 MR. ADLER: I am conflicted with Y-12. 

 MR. KERR: George Kerr. I’m not conflicted. 

 DR. NETON: Just for the record, Al Wolff is 

the document owner of the Y-12 document. Tim 


Adler is the subject expert on the document as 


is George Kerr. 


 DR. WADE: The document owner for the SEC 


petition evaluation --


DR. NETON: No, no, no. No. For the report. 


DR. WADE: For the report? Okay. 


DR. NETON: I'm sorry. Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Arjun, your -- your folks? 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun Makhijani. 
I 


have no conflicts on Y-12. 


 DR. BEHLING: Hans Behling. I’m not 


conflicted. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And Joe Fitxgerald. I’m not 


conflicted with Y-12. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. I think that’s all of the -- 


the preliminary business so I’ll turn it over 


to -- to the chair to conduct the 


deliberations. 


INTRODUCTION BY MR. GRIFFON, CHAIR


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. I think what -- the 


best way to proceed, I sent a -- a mini-agenda 


out. I think most of you got that. Everybody 


probably has that except for me. I pulled it 


out of the conference -- oh, here we are. I 


just took it out of the conference call notes. 


There was a conference call on May 9th, between 


NIOSH and SC&A and this was an informal 


conference call. It wasn’t a work group call. 


Mainly it was to go through the -- the -- some 


of the technical issues in preparation really 


for this work group meeting and for the 


upcoming Board meeting. And these were really 


the -- the remaining issues that were discussed 

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at that meeting and we’re going to carry 


through that agenda here. I think that makes 


more sense. So just to go down the list, and 


I’ll probably call on Jim and -- and SC&A as we 


usually do it. I think one thing that -- that 


we all recognize is that we received quite a 


few documents, many of them short as you said, 


Jim, but still quite a few documents last night 


so there may be, you know -- I don't think any 


of us have had much time to digest those if any 


time to even look at them. But at least you 


can present them here and we’ll -- we’ll go 


from there I guess. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Some of us -- actually I think 


you just sent them to John and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- because I didn’t --


 DR. NETON: I sent them to the team. Maybe --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I didn’t receive them. I know 


they came from --


 DR. NETON: Well, I have copies here so -- and 


-- and they are short and I apologize for a 


late delivery but as -- as we talked about it’s 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I don’t think --

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MR. GRIFFON: You did the best you could. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think -- well, I’m not 


blaming John. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. Well, I have copies. 
I 


recognized that they might not get distributed. 


ISSUE 1: EXTERNAL DOSE DATA VALIDATION
 

AND COWORKER MODEL
 

 MR. GRIFFON: So just to start off, Issue 1 


from the conference call. And this is the 


external dose validation along with the coworker model and I guess two pieces that we 


want to discuss there but -- but I guess the 


primary -- primary remaining issue was the sort 


of pre-’56 external dose, the questions on the 


data reliability there. I think Jim is handing 


out some documents that were emailed -- 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yesterday, yeah, so maybe you 


can --


 DR. NETON: I only made nine copies so share 


among --


 MS. MUNN: You can -- I have --


 DR. NETON: Okay. Wanda -- Wanda printed hers 


out. That’s good. Okay. Did you turn it over 


to me, Mark? I was kind of busy distributing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yep. 

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 DR. NETON: Sorry. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You’re all right. 


 DR. NETON: What I -- What I just handed out 


and -- and I apologize. I don't have quite 


enough copies but -- is -- is a summary. And 


again this is a last, late breaking issues in ­

- in -- late breaking summaries of issues that 


we put together in the last day or two. But I 


-- I’ve tried to summarize where -- where we 


are with this 19-- external doses prior to 19-- 


essentially 1957. I think the -- the issue has 


-- has -- has arisen that, you know, SC&A and 


the Advisory Board working group have -- have 


questioned our ability to reconstruct external 


doses in the ’48 to ’56 time frame. A lot of 


it centers around -- there’s two pieces here. 


One is the validation of the data that we have. 


And then the second piece is is the 


extrapolation model that we’re proposing to use 


sufficiently bounding, given those data. So 


I’ll just go through these briefly. The --


The first one you have in front of you is a 


one-page document that we were asked to go back 


and look at some -- for some additional 


validation of what’s in the CER database 

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compared to, you know, health physics reports 


and whatever -- whatever we could get a hand 


on. If you recall in the external area I think 


we were only able to come up with one 


validation using Delta View. So this is a -- a 


brief summary that Bill Tankersley put together 


that compares the results that were included in 


a 1957 memo that talked about external doses 


for 1956. And what it shows here is dose 


ranges and the number of doses -- number of 


workers with doses in those ranges in the memo. 


And you can see the second column refers to 


skin doses and -- in the memo and the fourth 


column talks about penetrating doses. And when 


we compare the skin dose in the memo to the 


skin doses in the database and penetrating 


doses in the memo and penetrating doses in the 


database, one can see that there’s a fairly 


good concordance between the two numbers. 


Where there are discrepancies there are more 


data available in the CER database, more -- 


more people in those ranges than -- than in the 


memo. But we feel that’s a -- a -- a pretty 


good comparison at that point. And then we -- 


the second set was the average doses, millirem 

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per week by department-specific comparison 


between a memo that was issued in ’58 for doses 


that were 19-- for 1957. And again pretty I 


would say reasonable agreement between the two, 


the database and what was included in the memo. 


They aren’t -- They aren’t perfect and I’d 


like to talk a little bit down the line as to 


why those numbers might not be perfect and to 


show you what we discovered in the -- in the 


intervening weeks from Board meeting ‘til now. 


So you might hold your questions on why there 


are any discrepancies until I can get into some 


of the meat of the issues. The second -- The 


second page has a -- a copy -- by the way, some 


of the information I’ve handed out does include 


Privacy Act information so please treat it as 


such. If you’re not comfortable taking it home 


and disposing of it just give them all back to 


me and I’ll -- I’ll take care of it. And --


And we certainly shouldn’t be reading anybody’s 


names and badge numbers off of these things 


because we are creating a public record here. 


Okay. The second memo is a July -- the second 


page shows a July 1st, 1957 memo in -- in which 


they attempted to reconstruct what the 

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cumulative exposures were for workers in -- in 


a foundry operation from 1952 to 1956. So 


anyone who was on the books in ’57, they tried 


to figure out what their total exposure to date 


was from working from ’52 to ’56 or whatever 


years they happened to be working in -- in 


those -- in those years. And on the next page 


what you’ll see is a -- a checklist -- I think 


there are 65 workers listed here -- of the 


years that the worker was actually involved in 


operations and -- and had badge results, and a 


column that shows what the -- what the site 


believed in this memo to be the total exposure 


through 1956, and what the average annual 


exposure was. You can kind of ignore that. 


They’re trying to get a handle for what the 


average exposures, but what we’re more 


interested here is the total exposures through 


1956. I should point out I believe that this 


is shallow dose reported, S-millirem to user 


nomenclature. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I’m assuming that was in the memo 


somewhere or -- because that’s what I was 


trying to figure out, which time to compare it 


to. 

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 DR. NETON: Where -- Where did I -- where did 


I come to that conclusion and I’m -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: As listed averages -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I imagine you’re right. Just --


Just by the numbers I imagine you’re right. 


DR. NETON: All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: By the numbers I thought you were 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. They -- They -- They --


They certainly should be S-millirem. If you 


look at the --


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- at the cumulative exposures here 


they’re fairly large and it’s a uranium 


foundry. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: And in my estimation it would be 


extremely difficult to get those kind of 


external exposures but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- but it was a good question, 


Mark. Again I apologize. Some of this is just 


so late breaking that I’m -- I’m sort of going 


through this on the fly a little bit myself. 

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The -- The -- The Excel spreadsheet table 


behind that documents the comparison of the -- 


of the doses that were in the cumulative doses 


through ’56 in the memo versus what was added 


up for the doses that we had in the database. 


And of course, if you recall the database was 


quarterly doses that, you know, were added up 


to get a year and then we added up those years 


through ’56 of what we had. This is not 


perfect agreement. I think in about 90 percent 


or almost 90 percent of the cases the agreement 


is pretty good, down in the single digit 


categories. But you’ll find that there are 40 


percent discrepancies for a large number -- not 


a large number -- I think six or so of the 


cases. And if you’ll -- if you’ll look at it 


closer -- I’ve had a chance to look at it where 


you haven’t -- the 40 percent discrepancies are 


for people who were monitored only in 1952 for 


the most part so there -- there are some issues 


there with what occurred maybe in 1952. What 


I’ve done though is on the -- after the 


spreadsheet I’ve just generated a plot of the 


comparison of the CER database against the 


health physics reports, and, you know, of 

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course if -- if it’s a pretty good straight 


line which is what you’d hope, I did discount 


one data that was a 70 percent discrepant data 


that Bill Tankersley is working on that he 


believes was an -- was an incident where a 


person intentionally got irradiated doing -- 


using some X-ray process. So I’ll -- I’ll put 


that caveat on it. But with that exception 


this is all the raw data that we had. So there 


are 64 points plotted here. And, you know, 


again it’s not perfect but this certainly shows 


that we’ve got a -- a fairly one to one 


correspondence between what’s in the database 


and what -- what is in the record. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This doesn’t include the ones 


with the 40 percent -­

DR. NETON: This does. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: It does? 


 MR. GRIFFON: It doesn’t include the 70 


percent. 


 DR. NETON: It doesn’t include the -- the one 


70 percent outlier I didn’t put on here. 
I 


probably should have indicated that but -- but 


the 40 percenters were on there. Again it’s -- 


it’s not perfect but again it shows, you know, 

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for 50-year-old data that we’ve got a pretty 


good handle at least on the magnitude within a 


reasonable approximation of what these 


exposures were. So that’s where we are with 


additional comparisons. You know, not a lot of 


new stuff but, you know, again we -- we’ve -- 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- managed to glean a couple more 


supporting pieces of data. I’d like to shift 


our attention then, if there’s no questions on 


that, to the so-called back extrapolation model 


and how this might be used given the quality of 


the data that we may or may not have to bound 


exposures to workers prior to 1956. Okay, so 


the next page --


 MR. GRIFFON: Did we say we didn’t have 


questions on that? 


 DR. NETON: Oh, I'm sorry. I’m -- I’m --


 MR. GRIFFON: If you could stop there just for 


a second. 


 DR. NETON: Go ahead. I'm sorry. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean if the graph is 


interesting, what you can do with the graph is 


interesting. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: The -- I’m trying to look and 


see, I mean on the fly here but it seems like 


most of the differences in your difference 


column are in the positive side meaning that 


the --


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- hard copy was higher than the 


 DR. NETON: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so if they tend to be -- 


 DR. NETON: Internal but within about 10/15 


percent. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But in most of them you’re saying 


during that ’52 year. And is that related to 


that memo where the doses apparently were -- 


 DR. NETON: No, that was a 1954. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That was a different thing? 


Okay. That was interesting though -- 


 DR. NETON: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- as well -- I’m sure you’re 


going to bring that up. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. Well, I can get into that a 


little bit now. At the end of this -- I won’t 


-- I won’t go over these in detail but the last 


ten or twelve pages that I’ve included in this 

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handout are internal company correspondences 


primarily by the health physics folks, Matt Hap 


West and others. In a 1956 -- ’51 -- ’58 time 


frame which sort of document what was going on 


in the early years. And maybe I’ll take the 


opportunity since you brought it up to -- to 


explain a little bit at this point. This is an 


interesting story. There’s always a story 


behind the story in a 60-year-old document. 


Prior to February 28th, 1955 -- this is 


interesting. I had -- I had not realized this 


having been in health physics for a -- more 


than a quarter of a century -- that prior to 


1955 the skin dose and the deep dose limits 


were identical. In other words, they were both 


15 rem. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, I noticed that. 


 DR. NETON: And -- And so what that meant -- 


and -- and George -- George Kerr has mentioned 


this several -- in several discussions but it 


just sort of dawned on me, you know, the 


implications of this is that given that the 


skin dose and the shallow -- the skin dose and 


the shallow -- the skin dose and the deep dose 


limits were equivalent, there was no incentive 

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on their part necessarily to track them 


independently. 


 MS. MUNN: Unh-unh. 


 DR. NETON: In other words, you’ll look. 


There’s a memo in here that talks about the 


beta gamma column. So they would put dose 


information in the beta gamma column and it 


didn’t really matter whether it was beta or 


gamma because they were still comparing it 


against the 15 rem dose limit which applied to 


both working systems. So what you’ll see in 


these other memos is an attempt on management’s 


part, and particularly health physic’s 


management’s part over the years to tease those 


pieces of information apart and put them in the 


right locations. Because if -- after ’55 then 


you started getting into the later years into 


this 5 x N - 18 requirement which, you know, 


limited dose to a certain cumulative exposures. 


And so they really felt a need to start to get 


a better handle. So what I’m -- the bottom 


line of that is that you would not necessarily 


expect these memos to agree with the CER 


database perfectly because the CER database was 


updated periodically in response to these new 

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requirements to -- to more accurately reflect 


what the workers were exposed to than some of 


these sort of contemporaneous memos that were 


generated on the pro-- snapshots of programs at 


the time. So if one took a 1954 memo, you may 


indeed see a discrepancy between skin dose and 


deep dose because they may have been added into 


the same column and then later on in the CER 


database per these memos they may have been 


teased apart. In fact there’s a memo in here 


where like 50 or 60 workers -- they said these 


workers were exposed primarily to deep dose. 


Move their beta gamma column over into the deep 


dose. So there have been some shuffling of the 


information over the years and that’s 


essentially what -- and George can back me up 


if -- if there’s anything I’m missing here but 


that’s sort of what -- what’s happened prior to 


February 28th, 1955 when the skin dose limit 


actually went up. I mean I think it went up to 


30 rem. I -- I don't recall exactly but -- so 


the -- the skin dose when it went up. So then 


there was an incentive on their part to track 


these -- those calculations separately. So 


even given that though, you know, this graph -- 

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and I understand what Mark is saying. You --


especially when a graph -- you show especially 


when it’s on a large scale -- but it does show 


that it’s a, you know -- we -- we have a pretty 


good snapshot of what the range of doses were 


for these workers in those time frames. That’s 


-- I think that’s what we’re trying to say. 


Now, let me -- let me expand the story a little 


more here. On top of the fact that prior to 


’55 the beta gamma columns were -- the beta and 


gamma were -- were some tracked -- not tracked 


separately, in 1950 and 1951 -- prior to 1960 


all badges were exchanged on a weekly basis. 


So you’ve got 52 potential reads a week and 


there’s a 30 millirem detection limit about, 


depends on the year, but 30 to 50 millirems so 


you’ve got a lot of missed dose. In 1950 and 


’51 it was the policy and it’s in this Hap West 


memo that’s listed here. Okay. It was the 


policy that any badge that was not positive was 


recorded as zero. So this explains why ’50 and 


’51 are zeros for deep dose because it’s pretty 


hard to get that kind of deep dose in a uranium 


worker. In fact, to flesh out the story a 


little bit more, most of the doses in ’50-- 

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almost all the -- all the -- all the doses in 


’50/’51 do not include the cyclotron workers. 


It’s another -- another part of the puzzle. So 


you got ’50 and ’51 showing essentially all 


zeros because the workers who were monitored, 


their doses on a weekly basis were less than 


say 30 millirem a badge exchange cycle which 


would give them a maximum missed dose of say 


100 -- 50 to 100 millirem if they were 


monitored every week during that year. So we 


know that in ’50 -- ’50 and ’51. ’52 and ’53 


the practice changed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So then there’s ones in that 


Delta View -- I mean I'm sorry. 


 DR. NETON: That's fine. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The ones in the Delta View 


database were cyclotron workers and they 


wouldn’t have been recorded that database that 


we’ve seen? That’s why that data wasn’t 


necessarily in there? 


 DR. NETON: Some of them were not in that. 


Were some in there during the cyclotrons? 


 MR. KERR: No. If you -- if there’s a -- 


 DR. NETON: It -- It -- It’s spotty though. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But they were all zeros. Okay. 

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 MR. KERR: I would like to check. The amazing 


thing is to me that there’s a lot of things 


with what we found out with -- we have just 


recently been able to verify the cyclotron. 


And before we had no handle on who was really 


working at the cyclotron because we would 


through departments but we didn’t know names or 


badge numbers. The reason we found enough 


numbers there we can really tell who the 


cyclotron crews were over really a fairly wide 


period of time. Once you have that then you 


can go back and easily check and see what their 


dose is. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. KERR: And we now find that there’s a lot 


of information on cyclotron workers. It’s in 


the X-10 database. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, so this -- 


 MR. KERR: And probably more information on 


cyclotron workers in the X-10 database than 


there is in the Y-12 because most of the 


workers at the cyclotron were actually X-10 


people. 


DR. NETON: Right. I don’t want to jump into 

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too much the cyclotron issue because that -- 


they’re separate issues of cyclotrons but -- 


but the bottom line I think -- I'm sorry. 


Wanda, you were going to say something? 


 MS. MUNN: I was just trying to say your soft 


voice is -- is not getting -- 


DR. NETON: Oh. 


MS. MUNN: -- to the recorder I don’t think. 


You’re --


DR. NETON: We’ll move the mike over. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You need to move the mike down to 


the end of the table maybe or something. 


DR. NETON: But -- So the -- the cyclotron is 


a separate issue. I’d like to sort of tease 


that out for the moment if we could -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Sorry. 


 DR. NETON: -- and say that, okay, the uranium 


-- essentially the people who were mostly 


working with uranium at this point in the CER ­

- are captured in the CER database as -- as 


zero values because when they measured them 


they just made them zero when they read them if 


they were less than the detection limit. You 


know, it’s pretty hard I think, unlikely to get 


more than 40 -- 30 millirem in a week working 

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in a uranium foundry. That’s at least my 


opinion at this point. In ’51 and ’52 though ­

- ’50/’51, that’s what they did. In ’52 and 


’53 then it became management policy to record 


the detection limit if it were zero, if it were 


not measurable. So then you see -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: ’53 or ’52? 


 DR. NETON: ’52 and ’53. In ’52 and ’50-- this 


is documented in one of the attachments that I 


-- it’s a Hap West interview that was conducted 


with Donna Cragle I think in the ‘80s. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So then they recorded the LOD -- 


 DR. NETON: So then they started recording the 


LOD -- LOD at times -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- if it was less than 


measurable? 


 DR. NETON: -- if it was less than measurable. 


So what you see is -- is a lot of doses 


centered around 400 millirem all of a sudden. 


Well, 30 times 13 is 390 so you’re -- you’re 


starting to see a jump, a quantum jump in the 


exposures and it looks like there’s a lot of 


dose there. So these are essentially, in ’52 


and ’53, missed dose. To a large extent the 


values that we see are influenced by missed 

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doses and so -- and onward from there actually. 


It was the policy after ’53 to keep doing that. 


So you got the data in the CER database are 


influenced tremendously after ’51 by missed 


dose values. Keep that -- Keep that in mind. 


In fact it -- it’s amazing how high some of 


those could be. Now, there were high exposures 


to extremities and external from -- from 


working in foundries. I’ll grant you that. 


But some of the extra -- specific-- especially 


since cyclotron workers were not in there, you 


know, some of the high doses you see recorded 


for internal, deep penetrating seem -- seem 


somewhat high to us but again they’re assigning 


potentially 390 millirem a quarter based on 


just missed dose. And in fact if you read the 


report 32 that was put out by ORAU that sort of 


developed this co-worker or the back 


extrapolation model you’ll see they have 


detailed tables of distributions by year from 


’52 through whenever and the distributions in 


the ’53/’54/’55 time frame when they were 


monitoring selected workers who were we believe 


would be the highest exposed workers, don’t fit 


any real distribution. That’s why -- in fact 

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that’s what -- that’s what was the genesis of 


this back extrapolation model because you’ll 


see if you look at those little histograms 


there you’ll see nothing and then all of a 


sudden, bloop, a large block of workers at 


almost 400 millirem per quarter and then 


nothing and then a few more out here that 


people may have had real high -- you know, real 


exposures. So there are -- the data are not 


amenable to developing distributions prior to 


1956 and that -- that’s well stated in the 


report 32. So I’m like a yarn -- yarn teller 


here but if you look on the next page, this is 


a -- page 26 out of report 32. And what I’d 


like to just focus on here is -- is the back 


extrapolation graph. So how -- how is NIOSH 


really treating workers who have no monitoring 


data prior to 1956? Everybody have that page? 


Hans, you don’t have it? 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I do. 


 DR. NETON: Is this -- This is it right here. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I have a question before you go 


on. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, sure. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: On the first page of that, the 

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only real discrepancy in that first table there 


in the -- before the 556 and the 703 -- 


 DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And given the numbers of 


workers involved it seems like a -- if it were 


a dose discrepancies were not that large. It 


would seem that 150 worker discrepancies -- and 


they don’t appear anywhere else in the table so 


where did the 150 workers appear from in the 


CER database? 


 DR. NETON: What’s their -- What’s their job 


categories? I mean we didn’t analyze -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, Arjun. For the number of 


people. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. They’re not -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: There was 150 workers in the -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- in the old -- did the old 


memo miss workers that were later caught or -- 


that just --


 DR. NETON: It -- It may be -- well, this is 


1956 so this is after the skin and shallow. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Uh-huh. 


 DR. NETON: I really don’t have an answer for 


that at this point, Arjun, you know. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: All right. I have another 

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question, just a quick one here. On this chart 


here, the -- the one that you showed to us, 


it’s not -- it doesn’t look like a slope of one 


but that should be a slope of one. I think the 


slope was a little less than one. 


 DR. NETON: That’s an interesting observation. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: As I’m reading it because it’s 


 DR. NETON: Well, and I think that -- that -- 


that does go along with the fact that most of 


the biases are in the negative in the -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- in that direction. Yeah, I 


agree with that. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So the best fit would actually 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So while the points look like 


they fall along the line pretty well it looks 


like there’s a systematic bias -- 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- because their slope is less 


than one. So it would be useful to see the 


regression. 


 DR. NETON: Good point. Very good point. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: You raised a good point which 


might be useful in adjusting. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, it might be because there 


is a systematic error you might be able to make 


some corrections. 


 DR. NETON: That’s a very good point. I 


appreciate that. Okay. I’ll just make a note 


of that before I forget. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s sort of what I was 


exerting with the differences being all on one 


side. 


 DR. NETON: I agree with that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: And again, some of those 


differences may be because of the shifting of 


the skin dose into the -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- deep dose category as I 


indicated, you know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. NETON: There certainly are some -- some 


issues with the data. I mean you certainly 


agree with that. To the extent that they 


prevent us from doing dose reconstructions I 


think is the subject of -- of where we’re 

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heading here. Now, on this graph on page 26 


you -- you’ll see a scatter plot here and it’s 


somewhat deceptive because it’s a log -- I 


think it’s a log scale. Yeah, it’s a log 


scale. And -- But -- But this is right out 


of this report 32 and what ORAU has done is fit 


a function for the data from starting in ’57, 


last -- last quarter of ’56 through ’60-- 


whatever time frame that is, ’66, and picked, 


you know, this is the famous 147 workers that 


were selected who had -- were fully monitored 


from ’57 through ’60-something and in fact had 


-- had monitoring data in each of the quarters. 


And in fact, in our opinion probably 


represented the higher end of the work force 


because of they were fully monitored and had 


positive results and -- and such. Now, the 


data -- the regression line fit through there 


included missed dose for all those workers so ­

- so when they had a quarter with a positive 


value ORAU went back and added in the -- I 


don't think it was a full 30 millirem. It was 


probably the LOD over two which is what we 


would normally do. Add those into their doses 


to account for any missed dose because we only 

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had quarterly data so -- so that line that you 


see through the black dots from ’50-- into ’56 


through ’65 time frame is -- is a regression 


line through their doses including missed dose 


because we only had quarterly data. 


 DR. BEHLING: Let me ask you a question on 


that, your -- your assignment of missed doses 


based on LOD value as opposed to using the 


measured doses for those periods when they were 


in fact monitored. And think we had that 


discussion before when you said for instance, 


let’s assume that if the -- a person was 


monitored on a weekly basis and you realize 


that in a counted quarter there should be 


thirteen entries but instead you only find six 


and you said you would probably take thirteen 


over six and multiply it times the -- 


 DR. NETON: Correct. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- doses received during that 


six-week period as an adjustment factor. 


 DR. NETON: Correct. 


 DR. BEHLING: And this was not being LOD 


adjustment. This was being basically assuming 


that if the doses received during the times 


when the individual was monitored would in 

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essence be identical to the balance of the time 


when he was not monitored. 


DR. NETON: Well, we’re saying the same thing. 


I mean if I have one -- one result in the 


quarter --


 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 


 DR. NETON: -- and it’s 100 millirem -- 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 


 DR. NETON: -- then I’m going to assume that 


the other 12 weeks --


 DR. BEHLING: Also would have 100? 


 DR. NETON: No. 


 DR. BEHLING: No? 


 DR. NETON: Were LOD. 


 DR. BEHLING: LOD? 


 DR. NETON: Because you couldn’t be higher than 


that. 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, that’s assuming that the 


person was monitored and the monitoring -- 


 DR. NETON: Okay. Well --


 DR. BEHLING: -- resulted in the zero dose. 


But suppose he was not monitored? That’s the 


question. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. If he wasn’t monitored we’re 


-- we’re still going with our opinion that they 

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were -- the people who were the highest 


monitored -- were highest exposed were 


monitored and so if he wasn’t monitored then he 


was not in that category. 


DR. MAURO: This is a -- a change though from 


what we discussed last time. 


 MR. KERR: He could have been sick. He could 


have been on vacation, you know. 


You don’t know why it’s not showing up. He was 


assigned some regardless. If there was a zero 


there for that time --


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah. 


 MR. KERR: -- he was assigned an LOD because we 


don’t know what the situation was. But there’s 


-- I mean these people had vacation, they were 


sick. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. I think, you know -- 


 DR. BEHLING: No, I think this is where we -- 


the difference is is as a conservative measure 


I would have potentially said well, maybe not 


every person was monitored for each of the 


cycles in the calendar quarter and there is 


some point, and I think you -- you may have had 


that discussion on the conference call -- when 


I look for instance during the second quarter 

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of 1958 when I think one of your tables, table 


8-3 or something had identified somewhere 


around 690-some odd people who were monitored 


but for that one week, the 25th week of 1958, 


the health physics record showed that there 


were only something like 378 or something like 


that monitored. And it gave me the feeling 


that perhaps the people who were monitored 


during that week weren’t always monitored 


throughout the quarter even though their job 


may have been the same. 


 MR. KERR: From 147 people selected for the 


fact that they were continuously monitored over 


the period. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. KERR: There were just some zeros in the 


record here, there and yonder. We filled in 


and didn’t --


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. KERR: -- and tried to measure as 


conservatively as possible. 


 DR. NETON: This -- These people were -- were 


hand-picked for a reason that they had 


exposures that were well monitored over an 


entire period. It is not like we went and just 

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ran and we selected workers for 40-- from ’57 


through -- and I think we -- we ought to focus 


on those people’s records because that’s the -- 


I think and ORAU -- SC&A has actually done a 


review of those and I thought that they -- they 


did agree that those workers appeared to be 


more highly exposed workers. 


 DR. MAURO: I think the confusion may have been 


that it was our understanding that some of 


those 147 did not have -- were not monitored 


every week in every quarter. 


 DR. NETON: Well, we have no way of knowing 


that really. And in fact after ’60 it wasn’t 


weekly any more. It went to -- 


 DR. MAURO: Right. 

 DR. NETON: Quarter. 

 DR. MAURO: -- quarter. 

 DR. BEHLING: In which case it makes no 


difference. 


 DR. NETON: After ‘60 it’s -- it’s a moot -- 


it’s not -- it’s not an issue so you’re talking 


between ’57 and ’60. 


 DR. MAURO: Right. And, you know, the -- the 


only thing is there are two different things in 


here. And one is that, okay, if we have a 

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worker in 1957 who’s part of the 147 and you’ve 


got six weeks worth of actual measured 


monitored data, then the rest of it -- 


 DR. NETON: We wouldn’t have weekly data 


though. We only have quarterly data. 


 DR. MAURO: And all -- all of those are 


quarterly? 


DR. NETON: Every -- Every dose as a result we 


have is quarterly. 


 DR. MAURO: For the 147? 


 DR. NETON: For anyone. 


 DR. BEHLING: So you’re blindly assuming that ­

- that the -- if there were missed doses it’s 


due to the fact that they were -- the recorded 


dose that came out as zeros as opposed to -- 


 DR. NETON: Correct. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- I think it was not monitored? 


 DR. NETON: Correct. Now, you know, one would 


argue why would they -- if the person is 


showing positive results, you know, why would 


they -- we have no indication to believe that 


they were rotating people through as I know 


Hans, has been one of your thoughts all along. 


That they would rotate people through and Mr. 


Worker X would get his 100 millirem badge this 

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week and we take it away and give it to the 


next guy because he might be -- That’s not the 


way at least the memo trails that I have read ­

- they look to us like they were purposely 


picking people that were working in the 


trenches doing the work and -- and monitoring 


the -- the high end of the -- of the -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: And wouldn’t that -- I mean if 


they did that in those early years, ’57 to ’60, 


artificially drive the maximum doses down? 


Because if you’re spreading the TLD around the 


-- the total cumulative dose for that 


individual is going to be driven down which we 


clearly didn’t see that when you looked at the 


later data for the same operations to the 


earlier data. So I -- I -- I’m -- I don’t see 


that effect. 


 DR. NETON: Well, in fact you could see on this 


graph the spread of the data for the 147 


doesn’t look tremendously different to me prior 


to 1960 and these are the same monitored 


workforce --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- who were monitored quarterly 


versus weekly. It’s the same people. I --
 I 
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don’t see that there’s a -- a drop in that at 


all. In fact it looks very similar. It does 


go up per the -- the regression line. But I 


think this is a point where we’re just going to 


have to say we may disagree on whether missed 


doses are appropriate to add to those workers 


or not. And the bottom line is what effect if 


might have on the overall back extrapolation 


because I think -- I think the line that’s fit 


from ’60 onward is pretty much consistent with 


the line before 1960. 


 DR. BEHLING: That’s it. I only base it on 


circumstantial evidences. I have no real data. 


DR. NETON: Yeah.


 DR. BEHLING: But as I said one data point that 


came up was the 1958 25th week where for that 


second counted quarter I think one of George’s 


tables identifies somewhere around 700 people 


were monitored in that quarter but yet for the 


25th week there was some accounting that was 


done at the request of health physicists to -- 


to say how many people were -- were there 


exposures to in that group. And I only counted 


370 which is about 50 percent of the people 


monitored in that counted quarter. 

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 DR. NETON: ’58 sounds suspiciously in the -- 


 DR. BEHLING: Well --


 DR. NETON: -- criticality time frame. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes. It was within that time 


frame. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: The 25th week is that week, 


yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, it was --


 DR. NETON: Yeah, well, this may be somewhat of 


an anomaly then. I don't know whether -- 


whether --


 DR. BEHLING: The only thing I can say, it’s 


true. You don’t want to match one by one. As 


you mentioned there are people coming in and 


out of the system. They may retire. They may 


come into the workforce in any counted quarter 


and so the numbers should never match one to 


one. But a factor of two seemed a bit too much 


to -- as a discrepancy for me to assume. But 


to the way a person is monitored, he’s 


monitored always and -- and that’s the only 


reason I bring it up. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 MR. KERR: I -- I -- I’ve got to submit that 


the way we have -- we have amendments here that 

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I’d like to let you look at. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Dr. Kerr, could you come 


close to the table, please? 


 MR. KERR: Sorry. Hans, when we have a time 


away from the table today I have some memos 


with me that I’d like to show you and let you 


look at. And I think we can really clear up 


this -- some of these questions you have about 


who’s ro-- the rotational monitoring -- 


 DR. BEHLING: Uh-huh. 


 MR. KERR: -- and so forth so let’s don’t take 


up time here. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah. 


 MR. KERR: But let’s look at those aside and 


see if we can resolve some of these questions 


you have. 


 DR. BEHLING: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Also, if you have the references 


on those memos or if they’re on the O-drive 


somewhere that would be -- 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I think we’d all be interested 


in that. 


 DR. NETON: And I think some of them are maybe 


attached --

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 MR. GRIFFON: Some of them might be in your 


package? Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: George -- George might not realize 


it but I’ve attached a number of these memos to 


your handout. 


DR. MAURO: Could I just step back a little 


bit? When we had our conference call it was my 


sense that in regard to this -- the issues 


we’re talking about here, the concern was some 


discrepancies in the early extent of dosimetry 


data that we sort of identified in the minutes. 


And the problem was those discrepancies created 


the situation which might have made it 


difficult for you to validate your 


extrapolation model. And that one -- that was 


the only real issue. The -- Once -- Once 


there was a confidence on your part that you 


understood what the discrepancies were then as 


I understood, then you were back to the place 


where we are in a position where we can 


validate our model using your earlier data. 


And then we leave the SEC realm and we move 


into the site profile realm. Is -- Is that 


where we are right now? 


 DR. NETON: That’s where I’m trying to head but 

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I -- I can’t get past Hans’s issue here with 


this whether we put 100 millirem or -- and I 


think that’s a tractable problem. I think to 


answer Hans’s issue I mean you -- you could go 


and go back and redo this entire analysis and 


give them that dose for every week and -- and 


see how it changes this back extrapolation 


model. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That would still make the site 


profile. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, that -- that -- that’s just a 


difference in opinion as to how one interprets 


the ’57 through ’64 data so -- 


 DR. MAURO: No, the reas-- no, that’s what I -- 

 DR. NETON: Bear with me here. 

 DR. MAURO: So I want to -- I guess I’d like to 

get a little more crisp in terms of I guess in 


light of the analyses that I -- 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. MAURO: -- that -- and the tables you’ve 


shown us --


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. MAURO: -- and the description you’ve 


explained regarding these columns -- 


 DR. NETON: Right. 

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 DR. MAURO: -- am I hearing that you’re getting 


a little bit more comfortable with 


understanding what transpired in those early 


years and the discrepancies that apparently 


y'all saw? 

 DR. NETON: I think yes. 

DR. MAURO: Is that what I’m hearing? 

DR. NETON: I’m trying to -- I’m trying to get 

there but unfortunately I have to go through 


and explain what we’re doing on individual dose 


reconstructions to give you a sense of how the 


data do or do not support that conclusion. I’m 


going to have to -- you have to bear with me. 


I don’t think it’s well understood how we’re 


doing these. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let me ask about data, too, on 


the -- it seems like you’ve -- and we did ask 


for this, this question of pre-’56. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But also the -- the overall 


external data reliability question. You know, 


obviously the model is relying on ’56 through 


’65, right? 


DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 


MR. GRIFFON: Heavily on -- on that data. 

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 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Have -- Have you found any 


supporting documents in that area? I know we 


focused on probably ’48 to ’57 because it’s the 


SEC period. 


 DR. NETON: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But, you know, really -- 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- the dose reconstruction would 


rely on the later data. I just, you know, in ­

- in glancing at some of these memos and -- 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- it was 11:00 o'clock last 


night. I mean there -- there are some 


interesting twists and turns on how they got 


from here to there -- for these database data. 


I mean the -- the West memo -- 


DR. NETON: Yeah, sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- where he discussed -- I mean 


he -- he clearly says that there was no raw 


data even then when he was trying to -- 


 DR. NETON: Right. But --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- understand this stuff so -- 


 DR. NETON: -- if I can explain the comparison 


I’m getting to an invalidation it might -- it 

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might at least make my point. 


MR. GRIFFON: All right. I’ll wait for you to 


-- to finish. 


DR. NETON: Now, whether you guys agree or 


disagree with that interpretation, but bear 


with me. Remember, we got a missed dose -- we 


got the monitored workforce with, you know, 


thousands of quarters per year and -- and so 


they were monitored. And it is our contention 


that they were more highly monitored workers 


and so in worst case you’ve got a missed dose 


issue. I mean they didn’t record anything for 


less than zero so you’ve got 52 weeks times 30. 


You’ve got a 15 -- 1.5 rem missed dose issue to 


deal with. But I want to point out where we -- 


what this back extrapolation model shows. We 


did get -- well, there’s one additional data 


point we got in 1955 that I’ll talk about later 


with an HP report where they -- the average 


millirem per quarter in 1955 came out 1554 and 


the CER database came out 1531 so we do have 


one additional piece of information I just 


received this morning. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


DR. NETON: It’s not in here but -- so we do 

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have some validation there. And again after 


’55 we’re much more confident because remember, 


February 28, ’55 is when they upped the skin 


dose limit so they had to intentionally track 


separately deep and shallow. And so they were 


monitored separately. And the comparison that 


we did later on with the -- with the Delta View 


showed that the data matched fairly well. I 


think it was a later time frame but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think it was ’53. 


 DR. NETON: Was that ’53? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Wasn’t that ’53? 


So anyway we still -- the ’56 -- I mean I -- I 


agree on the ’56 through ’65 therefore should 


be more one to one correlation -- 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- is what you’re saying. 


 DR. NETON: Right. Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So if you were --


 DR. NETON: It’s very difficult to find those ­

- those pieces of data unfortunately. But if 


we can get past the red line through the solid 


black dots here and whether we use Hans’s 


approach or our approach, let’s assume that 


that line can be constructed somehow. Now 

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we’ve got the extrapolated line back into the 


1950 era where -- where -- we -- we know we 


have a lot of workers who -- who were not 


monitored. So let me just brief-- briefly 


explain what we would assign. This is -- This 


is -- it’s a little misleading because it says 


year on the bottom but this would be the dose 


assigned per quarter to each individual so in 


other words, if you go back to 1950, you know, 


you’ll see it will be somewhere around 300 


millirem per quarter assigned to a worker based 


on the back extrapolation so you’re talking 


about 1.2 rem or exposure at a uranium facility 


not counting cyclotron workers. Pretty --


Pretty generous dose assignment I think. 


 MS. MUNN: Very generous. Very generous. 


 DR. NETON: Now, one thing I want to point out 


though is this curve is based on assigning 


missed -- two things: missed dose is included 


to generate that curve so it -- we’re -- we’re 


already in my opinion accounting and somewhat 


biasing it high because it’s our -- it’s been 


our experience that missed dose -- if you add 


missed dose in at face value it biases a 


worker’s exposures high. It’s almost 

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impossible to have 13 -- 12 badge reads at the 


detection limit in a row all read less than 


detectible and add that dose. So that’s point 


number one. The second point is that this 


curve in itself was -- it’s a little difficult 


to explain because of the -- the maximum 


likelihood process that was used here but in 


the regression analysis for this curve they 


assumed a geometric standard deviation of the 


data points here. Instead of using sigma in 


the regression analysis they used the 95th
 

percentile of sigma to fit the curve. Now, how 


that corresponds one to one with what came out 


here is difficult to explain other than if you 


look at the table on the next page. You’ll see 


the geometric mean of the regression line, say 


in ’47, was 194 E-dose which is what NIOSH 


would use in the quarterly dose assignment, 


came out 385. That is a direct result of using 


the 95th percentile of the geometric standard 


deviation in fitting the regression model. It 


-- It’s -- It’s very complicated to describe 


what the effects -- I can just show you 


empirically what the net effect was. But my 


point is that you have -- you have already used 

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missed dose to generate the regression line and 


on top of that you’ve used the 95th percentile 


of the sigma value to generate the regression 


line so you’re -- you’re already way up there 


is what I’m trying to point out. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That -- That’s pretty -- you -- 


you can easily track that through on these 


spreadsheets that support. I haven’t looked at 


the -- I mean I’ve looked at those -- 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- that’s laid out there. The 


calculations are --


 DR. NETON: Yeah, the calculations are laid out 


there. And it -- it’s pretty arcane subject 


matter but yeah, it’s there. Okay. So now I 


can get into this -- this next -- 


 DR. BEHLING: Okay. Can -- Can you just --


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: The E-dose is basically the 


assigned dose without a sigma value? 


 DR. NETON: No, it has a sigma value as well. 


 DR. BEHLING: You’re saying it’s built in. 


 DR. NETON: Right. Yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: But this would be entered in as a 


deterministic value? 

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 DR. NETON: No, it would have a sigma value 


associated with it as well which would be the 


propagated sigma of the geometric standard 


deviation and the organ dose conversion factor. 


I went through the -- the tools yesterday to 


verify this. So what you have is, you know, 


the do-- the organ dose conversion factor or 


the triangular distribution. And you -- you 


couple that with the geometric standard 


deviation on this E-value and you end up with a 


propagated log -- it ends up being lognormal 


because a lognormal drives the distribution. 


And so you’ll end up assigning an E-dose with 


its associated geometric standard deviation 


that’s propagated through the process. So 


again it’s not just that although, you know, 


it’s a sampling process and as we’ve been down 


the line you effectively end up sampling higher 


than that because if this uncertainty is small 


compared to the overall uncertainty you’ll 


effectively sample the mean of the 


distribution. It’s getting pretty technical 


here but --


 DR. MAURO: Again, it’s -- I’ll ask you a 


simple question and just make sure I understand 

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what I’m looking at. On the table 5 that we’re 


looking at now -- not -- we’re looking at 1947 


-- you have this 194 millirem in that quarter. 


That -- That’s a geometric mean obtained from 


real data? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, that’s the black dot. That’s 


the geometric mean of the regression line -- 


 DR. MAURO: So there was a certain number of 


workers that actually were measured in that 


quarter? 


 DR. NETON: That is the best estimate of the 


workers’ exposures -- 


 DR. MAURO: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- in that quarter. 


DR. MAURO: And that was from the data -- but 


this was from -- measured from badge film? 


 DR. NETON: Oh, no, no, no, not ’47. This is 


the projected --


 DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: -- regression line from the -- 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. Then -- and then the -- the 


past the progre-- from the regression line then 


what’s -- then what’s the I guess the E-dose? 


I’m having trouble understanding what this 


number is? 

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 DR. NETON: Okay. That would be the regression 


line if one used the data as it was. Used it, 


the geometric mean of standard deviation for 


all the data after ’55. 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. That would be the 194? 

 DR. NETON: Right. 

 DR. MAURO: Okay. Then --

 DR. NETON: Now, I don’t -- I didn’t reproduce 

it here but there’s a -- there’s a -- in table 


-- in report 32 there’s especially one 


sentence. It said to be more claimant 


favorable instead of using the sigma value for 


either of those years after ’56 in the 


regression calculation they used the 95th
 

percentile as if it were sigma. 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: And then they -- they fit the line 


using that. And this is what you end up with 


doing that. And in fact if you look at the 


equation underneath the -- underneath figure 2 


here that -- that -- that equation, E-dose = 


EXP3.6 - .122 year - 61, that little appendage 


there plus .5 x 1.147 squared is the correction 


that they added to increase the E-dose. In 


other words, if you would get the -- what you 

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would get -- 140-- 194 without that .51 x 1.47 


squared. And that’s the additional increase 


due to account for the -- allowing for the 


sigma to be equal to the 95th percentile. 


 DR. MAURO: Now I understand. Now, a follow-up 

question. 

 DR. NETON: Sure. 

 DR. MAURO: Now, in one of the tables that you 


are providing you actually do have some records 


of external measurements. For example in 1948 


it looks like there were 162 personnel. I have 


it -- I’m looking at one if the tables you’ve 


provided. I’ll just tell you what the numbers 


are. The -- There actually were measurements. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 


 DR. MAURO: And there were 162 workers 


monitored in 1948. And the total number of 


records in 1948 for those workers were 3,599 


which is a lot of records. So there were a lot 


of records. Now, what I’d be interested in 


knowing, so okay, there’s your real records. 


Now if I took the doses for those all 166 


workers and I just said, you know, here’s -- 


here’s the dose in that year, 1948, here’s the 


-- the highest dose for the highest person. 

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Second highest, third highest, you know, just ­

- just made a long list So here’s -- here’s ­

- if I just use the data for those -- and there 


-- by the way there were over 2,000 workers so 


what we’re really saying is in 1948 there were 


2,511 workers. You had data in 1948 for 162 of 


them. And look, I’ll show you -- 


DR. NETON: John, we’re getting there. I --


I’ve got that comparison. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, is that where you’re heading? 


 DR. NETON: I’m heading there. 

 DR. MAURO: I'm sorry. 

 DR. NETON: I’m heading there. I'm sorry. I'm 

sorry to have to be so -- but I think it’s 


important to understand what we’ve done. 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: I hope you agree I mean because 


otherwise I mean we -- we -- we have no basis 


of comparison. 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: So we’re going to -- we’re going to 


assign this lot, okay, so you can read it. 


We’re going to give them about 1,200 millirem 


with the distribution say for 1948. I think we 


all agree that seems to be a fairly generous 

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assignment of dose. The one other thing I just 


want to bring out because I don’t want to get 


confused about these scaling factors. If a 


worker was monitored after ’56 we have some 


additional knowledge that we don’t have for 


people who were never monitored, right? I mean 


and so the scaling factor was built into the 


calculation to account for the fact that maybe 


a worker was at the high end of the exposure 


after ’56. You can see there’s a big spread of 


these black dots. What if he was the worker 


way to heck up here? So to account for that 


we’ll say, well, if he’s got five quarters of 


data here to show us that he’s really at the 


higher end up in here we’re going to scale his 


doses parallel to that red line and say it 


certainly goes up and it goes up proportionally 


and we’re not going to under-assign him a dose 


prior to 1957. That -- That was the whole 


point of the scaling factors. If by definition 


though if you have no monitoring data at all 


before ’57 your scaling factor is one because 


we’ve already decided that the highest exposed 


workers were monitored. He is not by 


definition one of these workers with the high ­
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- at the high end of the distribution. So that 


-- that’s where we’re at. Okay. Now, if you’d 


just -- there’s a report here that George Kerr 


put together for us. It’s called validation of 


backward extrapolation model. I'm sorry? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Can I ask you a question about 


that? In the ’56 to ’60 period some workers 


were monitored part of the time because some of 


the record in the evaluation report you 


indicate that people were taken off monitoring 


because they didn’t have high doses or they 


were on monitoring -- they were put on 


monitoring so obviously it’s varying so how -- 


how do you deal in the scaling factor with the 


partially monitored? 


 DR. NETON: Right now my understanding -- my 


understanding of the procedure is that it’s 


five quarters -- I think it’s five quarters of 


monitoring data that you could use. But --


But if it’s not there then it would have to be 


-- there would have to be some judgment made. 


I mean, you know, we -- we -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. You said that. 


 DR. NETON: We have clear-cut procedures but 


clearly the guy has a huge dose in 1958 and his 

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job title is the same and it goes back. We’re 


going to -- We’re going to make some -- some 


adjustment for that. But proceduralized right 


now it’s five quarters. Okay. Let’s move on 


to the next document that’s entitled validation 


of back extrapolation model. And I’m not crazy 


about the term validation but maybe evaluation 


would be a better term. But given the data we 


have, if you’ll look at the figure 1, after 


1957 we will assign, you know, we -- we have 


it. We have the data for the workers so we’ll 


assign it. Prior to 1956 though what you see 


is a line that is equivalent to that red line 


on the other document. And the circles are the 


projected annual doses that we would assign to 


the workers for those years with unmonitored 


data. So you can see back around in 1958 


you’re upwards around 1300 millirem per year. 


In 1951 you’d be right around a rem. So these 


are the -- these are the assigned deep doses 


for these workers who were unmonitored who in 


our opinion had lower exposures than the 


monitored workers. And remember this is based 


on an extrapolation of 147 workers including 


missed dose assigned to them. So that’s --

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that’s what we assigned and -- and on top of 


this it’s not shown but you would have a geo-- 


it’s not shown but you would have some kind of 


a geometric standard deviation about each of 


those points to account for the uncertainty of 


the backward extrapolation model. So you end 


up with some pretty high -- high -- you end up 


with a very high estimate and a geometric 


standard deviation about those values. 


Has everybody got -- it’s -- it’s this page 


with the figure 1 and figure 2 on it. 


 MS. MUNN: Page 3? 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


 DR. NETON: The first one is deep dose. The 


second figure two is beta particles. So in an 


attempt to go back and look at the data that we 


have -- remember we have data prior to ’57. 


We’ve looked at it. We -- We’ve acknowledged 


just earlier that there are issues with this 


data because of recording practices and 


whatnot. Notwithstanding those issues though, 


and remembering that after ’51 all of the doses 


include missed dose by definition. Every time 


a person was monitored with zero they added 30 

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millirem so we’ve got -- what we have here is 


the projected line includes missed dose and now 


we’re -- we’re comparing it to values X factor 


’51 of people’s doses that includes missed 


dose. And we just did a straight comparison of 


what the back extrapolation model would assign 


versus what we currently had in the database. 


And this -- this is the average value that’s in 


the database. 


 DR. MAURO: So am I correct in interpreting 


that your extra-- extrapolation model provides 


a high level of ensurance that you’re going to 


overestimate the mean dose in a given year for 


a given unmonitored worker? 


 DR. NETON: It is -- It is our opinion -- 


 DR. MAURO: And I think we’ve never doubted 


that that -- that you overestimated -- I don't 


know. This is -- This is my opinion. You 


would always -- you would overestimate the mean 


dose, but it’s always been our concern that 


there may be a population of workers -- subpopulation of workers in the earlier years that 


that back extrapolation is going to be 


potentially underestimated for those workers. 


Now, granted, one of the discussions we had is 

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that that’s going to be, you know, the vast 


majority of these thousands of workers are 


going to fall below the projected back 


extrapolation. That’s true. And I think that 


that brings us -- you know, we’re really in a 


site profile issue right now. So that brings 


us to the question is, are there substantial 


numbers of workers who are unmonitored in the 


early years that had a good likelihood of 


experience and exposures well above the values 


that were back extrapolated? No doubt that 


you’ve overestimated the mean for the 


population of workers. But the question is is 


this, you know, is this where you want -- where 


you want to be? 


 MS. MUNN: Is there any evidence -- 


 MR. KERR: You can go to these means now and 


(inaudible) the monitored workers. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: But the means are for the 


monitored workers? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. KERR: The means that are shown down here 


at the bottom --


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


 MR. KERR: -- are from the monitored workers. 

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 DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 DR. NETON: Including the missed dose for the 


monitored workers. 


 MR. KERR: That’s not unmonitored workers. 


That is the monitored workers. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: So the only way you could come 


up with that is if you do not believe the 


maximum exposed people were monitored. That’s 


the only way you can make that interpretation. 


 MS. MUNN: Has there ever been any evidence -- 


 DR. MAURO: We have no evidence whatsoever of 


that. When you compare -- when you look -- 


remember early on when we looked at the data 


from ’61 on when everyone was monitored and we 


identified the maximum exposed people during 


that period. When we -- we went back in the 


earlier years those same people were the same 


maximum exposed people with the same max doses. 


So I think we’ve done that comparison already. 


 DR. NETON: Well, With some caveats. 


Be careful but --


 DR. MAURO: There’s a sim-- We’re really --


We’re really right back I guess to where we 


started with in the population of workers that 


were all monitored. When those workers were 

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selected I am now convinced that two things 


happened. There was an effort absolutely to 


monitor the workers that had the high end 


exposures. There was also an effort to capture 


workers in a large number of different 


departments so there was like a little bit of 


both. A little bit of --


 DR. NETON: Cohort worker. 


 DR. MAURO: But it wasn’t all that. In other 


words, because there’s no doubt that -- that 


the departments that have the higher exposures 


had a greater number of workers in the pot. So 


-- So it was a little bit of both. Now the 


question becomes when you look at the mean of 


all the numbers what we’re really saying is you 


get the mean of all the numbers which reflects 


a chunk of people that were the departments 


that got higher exposures, but some people, a 


chunk of people that were in the departments 


that got low exposures. So when you roll the 


whole thing up what you get it an overall 


picture that would be a somewhat dilution of 


the exposures to the people that were in the 


high end departments. And that’s -- But I see 


that as a site profile issue. 

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 DR. NETON: I agree. I agree with you. But 


remember that this E-dose is a factor of almost 


two higher that the projected mean value of the 


distribution to begin with. We’ve already 


built into some conservatism on that level. 


 DR. MAURO: So that protects you from that. 


 DR. NETON: Well, we feel -- we feel strongly 


that that’s the case. 


 DR. MAURO: Protects your position by doing 

that. 

 DR. NETON: Yeah. 

 DR. MAURO: Okay. 

 DR. NETON: And so --

 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think your discussion on ’48 


and ’49 dose will even add. We already built 


in to some conservatism on that level. 


 DR. MAURO: Right. So that protects you. 


 DR. NETON: Well, we feel -- we feel strongly 


that that’s the case. 


 DR. MAURO: That’s your position, I mean by 


doing that. Yeah, okay. 


 DR. NETON: And so --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, back to your discussion 


on ’48 and ’49 those would even add more value 


to it. 

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 DR. NETON: Well, ’48 and ’49 is way, way below 


as well. And that was based on some of the PIC 


data as well as the film badge data that George 


wrote a report on that we had talked about in 


the past. I just feel that, you know, you -- 


you have a curve that is based on -- I don't 


know, on what -- our curve, our back 


extrapolation curve is based on including 


missed dose for the highest exposed worker -- 


for the what we believe to be the highest 


exposed worker. We went back including that 


missed dose. And we used the 95th percentile 


of the -- of the same, jack it up by either a 


factor of two. And now we’re comparing this to 


the monitored workers and they fall pretty well 


below that. And those monitored workers 


include, after ’52, missed dose itself. So 


we’re comparing a -- a huge missed dose 


overestimate to a missed dose overestimate of 


the actual workers and we’re above that. I --


I find that to be a pretty convincing scenario 


in my mind that we’re not under-assigning doses 


to uranium workers in this facility. And in 


particular in light of the fact if we’re saying 


that these cyclotron workers are not in here. 

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Now, if the cyclotron workers were in here I’d 


feel a little less comfortable -- 


 DR. MAURO: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- because we know that those were 


some very high exposures. I mean clearly very 


high. So you’re talking about a uranium 


foundry, a facility. It’s hard to imagine 


getting doses much higher than this in the 


workplace. Is there -- Is there a segment of 


population that was unmonitored? I -- I have 


trouble believing that that’s true. Could it 


have happened? I can’t say with 100 percent 


certainty that it didn’t. 


 DR. BEHLING: To some extent I’m somewhat 


biased because I reviewed the Paducah TBD. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: And they run a parallel path. 


Their conversion from partial monitoring to 


full monitoring occurred in exactly the time -- 


time frame that occurred here. And -- And I 


looked at that data and they, too, expressed 


the opinion that the most or the highly exposed 


population was monitored prior to the 


conversion to whole monitoring. And then they 


actually had a couple documents that showed the 

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distribution of doses among people prior to 


that conversion and after and -- and they have 


distribution that says zero to one rem a year ­

-


 DR. NETON: Yeah, I remember talking about 


that. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- to one to two rem and I 


believe the numbers go at a time when they 


monitored only 500-and-some odd workers they 


have 15 people in the one to two rem, the 


highest distribution. And then they converted 


to all monitoring workers that went from 500­

some odd people to over 1,600, more than 


tripling the -- the original people monitored. 


And of course, the assumption now would have 


been that the people who weren’t monitored, the 


additional 1,100 people would have fallen all 


into the low exposure category. And instead 


when you look at the people that went -- that 


were prior to that, 15 people who fell into the 


one to two rem among the 500, and then they 


went to 1,600 people monitored, they went from 


15 to 75. And you sort of say well, they don’t 


-- it doesn’t seem to -- to jive. 


 DR. NETON: I’d be careful, though, 

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interpreting that. I mean are we looking at 


missed dose issues here again? 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I don’t --


DR. NETON: Missed dose plays a huge part in 


these early dose reconstructions. You know, 


you’ve got 52 badges with a 30 millirem 


detection limit. Depends on whether you add 


the 50 in like they did in ’53 or they did not, 


or was it, you know --


 DR. BEHLING: I think there were quarterly 


doses and I don’t think the issue of missed 


dose was part of that equation. 


 DR. NETON: Well, I don't know. I’d like to 


see it. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah. And -- And -- And it 


just struck me and so in that way I’m somewhat 


biased --


 DR. NETON: Sure. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- in saying, okay, here we have 


Paducah and it’s on a parallel path between 


partial monitoring of a workforce to full, and 


we have a distribution that in crude terms 


defined worker exposure between zero and one 


rem a year, one and two rem. And we went from 


15 people in the one to two rem representing a 

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total worker population monitored of 560. And 


then you add 1,100 new workers and -- and they 


should have all been in -- in the lower 


portion. 


DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: And instead you went from 15 to 


75, a five-fold increase. And that’s what? 


 DR. NETON: Right. And that was at Paducah? 


 DR. BEHLING: That's correct. 


 MS. MUNN: But Hans, in the Paducah case you 


have evidence --


 DR. BEHLING: Right. We have -- 


 MS. MUNN: -- that there was a problem. 


 DR. BEHLING: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: In this case there is no evidence. 


 DR. BEHLING: No, I -- I understand that. 


 MS. MUNN: It’s just --


 DR. BEHLING: What I’m saying is that you could 


be -- I’m fully aware -- I think we’re all 


assuming that the average dose is an inflated 


dose, that people are mostly going to get a 


generous assignment of the dose they probably 


didn’t deserve. But as -- as John is saying, 


we’re looking at it and it’s just like the 


environmental protection. The reasonably 

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maximum exposed, he probably is a rare bird 


there’s no question. But John’s concern is 


that are there some potential people out there, 


a very few and who’s to say if any of them even 


have a claim, that on a basis of your generous 


assignment would still be underestimated. 


That’s the only issue. 


 DR. NETON: I -- I -- I understand. 


I understand what you’re saying. 


 MR. KERR: As we handed out something or Jim 


did at an earlier meeting which re-looked into 


1961 group of workers, and we looked at -- 


split that 1961 into two groups; ones who had 


been monitored before 1961, ones who hadn’t. 


If you read that memo I don’t think you’ll find 


any evidence that there was a lot of workers 


before 1961 who were highly exposed that 


weren’t being monitored. And if you haven’t 


seen that I would advise you to get a copy and 


look at it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We still have -- there is some 


caveats. I mean the salvage worker question is 


-- is one thing, right, the early amount. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah. I think you addressed 


that separately though. 

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 DR. NETON: Yeah, a salvage worker in my mind 


is -- is more of an internal dose issue than an 


external. I don’t -- I don’t have any believe 


to be that -- they were -- they were working 


with uranium. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: And so, you know, I just don’t see 


that there’s a big difference. 


DR. MAURO: We still haven’t done this common 


sense thing that I’ve been -- 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. MAURO: I keep asking for and I don’t know 


-- I don't know how much value it is. But in 


my mind it has value. Let me just -- Let me 


just point that out to you what it is. 


 DR. NETON: Sure. 


 DR. MAURO: And then, you know, sort of get it 


off my back. Okay. All I’m saying here is -- 


is at this very nice table, I look at it and I 


got it to say oh, okay, in 1948 there were 


2,511 workers, okay --


 DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MAURO: -- in Y-12. And we know that 162 


of them were monitored, okay? And these are 


the number of records we have. I guess these 

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are weekly records. 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. Now, are they good? Good. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Rank them highest to -- 


 DR. MAURO: All right. So just do me a favor. 


Just take them high to low, all right? Forget 


about the distribution. 


You may see -- you may see some high, three or 


four high numbers and you may see all zeros. 


Or if this is the -- whatever -- whatever it 


is, it is. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. MAURO: This is what the data say. Then 


along comes your extrapolation model. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: See where it fits. 


 DR. MAURO: Where does it drop in? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I agree. I see what you’re 


saying. 


DR. MAURO: I mean I look at that and if I see 


a drop up in the 95th percentile of this 


distribution I say I don’t -- I don’t need to 


know any more. I’m -- I’m --


 DR. NETON: Well, the average value here is 


around 200. 


 DR. MAURO: Right. Yeah, right. 

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 DR. NETON: Okay. So --


 DR. BEHLING: But he’s wanting to check for any 


outliers to see how many outliers there may be? 


 DR. MAURO: Where does it sit? Do we have a 


whole bunch of people that were hired? 


 DR. NETON: Well, that may be but -- well, but 


-- well, but John because now -- 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: -- now let’s say we find one -- one 


person who was monitored that exceeds 1,500 


millirem. 


 DR. MAURO: Right. 


 DR. NETON: What are you going to do about 


that? Are you going to state that? 


 DR. MAURO: I just want to know it. I guess, 


no, here’s where the judges -- 


 DR. NETON: If he’s monitored, see, now we -- 


we maintain that the highest exposed people are 


monitored. 


DR. MAURO: Right. 


 DR. NETON: Right. So my point is that just 


because there may be a few people over what 


we’re assigning does not mean, you know, this ­

-


 DR. MAURO: No. Remember -- Remember then we 

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go back to the conversation we had with Hans 


before. But we all agree that there were some 


departments where there may be a large number 


of people that -- that received substantial 


exposure but only a portion of them were 


actually selected for monitoring. There were ­

- in other words, all the workers that had the 


potential for exposure in a given department 


were not monitored. So -- So -- So --


 DR. NETON: But those workers were included in 


the distribution. I mean and the percentage 


would be included, you’re right. Right. 


 DR. MAURO: But what I’m saying is that those ­

- so here we have a worker that was not 


monitored, came out of a chem department where 


there was a high exposure but he wasn’t 


monitored. Now -- but that department if you 


look at it, it was biased high by its very 


nature. 


DR. NETON: Because it had a high exposure. 


 DR. MAURO: Do you see? You understand what 


I’m saying. Now, to me I say that problem goes 


away if you do this ranking. And I see that 


you’re coming in at the high end. The 


extrapolation is bringing you in at the high -- 

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and I’m not saying we’re in the high end, but, 


you know, it shows that when you go back and 


extrapolate there are going to be very few 


people that will be high end. Now, we all know 


there’s always going to be one or two are going 


to be higher than you in theory. The thing is 


where are we coming in? See that’s what I call 


the common sense approach to looking at the 


data. And that would -- that would convince 


me. But I’ll also say that what we’re talking 


about now is a site profile issue because what 


I’m hearing is, unless I’m hearing differently, 


the data -- the question is being put to bed? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No. 


 DR. MAURO: No? Okay. Well, I -- that’s what 


we should be --


 MR. GRIFFON: It hasn’t been. I mean that’s 


what I’m saying. The first 60 -- 50 -- the 


first 56 right now, you know, hasn’t. 


 DR. MAURO: Well, then that’s what we should be 


talking about. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s where we’re at. I think 


the modeling is less an issue to me than the 


question of what we’re -- what we’re modeling 


with. 

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 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


DR. NETON: We’re looking more to ’57 to ’60 -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- because ’61 on everybody was 


monitored and so we should have data that we 


can do an -- easily a comparison with that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, no, no, no. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: ’65 and I’m not saying, you know, 


I think these can help, physics reports for 


summary data. I don't know if they exist, Jim. 


I -- I agree with you there but, you know, 


it’s just a -- a couple spot checks from that 


time period. 


DR. NETON: Okay. I’m -- I’m -- I’m 


encouraged. I mean if that’s where we’re at I 


don’t -- I don’t --


 MR. GRIFFON: I’m not trying to make a moving 


target out of this but really we are focusing 


on ’57 for that time period of the SEC but 


really you’re relying on the other and -- 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- quite frankly if we dig into 


the ’57 through ’65 period and see all these 


manipulations and maneuvers I’d be a little 

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more concerned. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. I’ve learned -- I’ve learned 


my lesson. I’ll never presume. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You’ve explained and -- and with 


good reasons and memos and good -- it seems 


like good -- you have a good trail -- 


DR. NETON: There’s a -- There’s a -- There’s 


an explanation to what’s been going on and I’m 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. But if that still exists 


afterwards -- you seem to think that that 


doesn’t exist now and if we look and -- and we 


see problems still -- 


 DR. NETON: I can’t predict that there is not 


some new standard that occurred but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. 


 DR. NETON: So I’m encouraged. I mean if 


that’s where we’re at, that’s fine. I mean we 


can -- we can go back and -- and look at the -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I think that -- 


 DR. NETON: -- the data that we have in ’57 


through ’65. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that’s been my bigger 


concern throughout is the -- 


DR. NETON: I might have misunderstood that. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- the data that we’re using 


rather than the model itself, the data that the 


models rely on. 


 DR. NETON: Well, I think it was important 


though to establish that the model itself was 


bound. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. I agree. 


DR. NETON: I think -- I think that’s an 


important thing to demonstrate. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, I think once -- I think 


even if you end up tweaking it it’s a site 


profile issue. It’s not an SEC issue. 


 DR. NETON: That’s been my belief for awhile. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: Right. Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, but -- but the data, you 


know, we had to get there by looking at the 


data. 


 DR. NETON: Sure, absolutely. No problem. 


 MR. GRIFFON: George. 


 MR. KERR: The data that -- that John really 


wants is in a report on the ’48/’49 -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: It is. 


 MR. KERR: -- data. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. KERR: Because we give the maximum value 


that is recorded each month. It’s not the 95th
 

percentile. We give the 75th percentile but 


then we also give the maximum. So those --


that data is available. 


 DR. NETON: There -- There -- Here’s some of 


the data. ’48 maximum -- July ’48 was about 


300 millirem. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Where -- Where is this report? 


 MR. KERR: This is a report -- ‘47. Well, it’s 


on --


 DR. MAURO: This is -- Okay, this is in 


02/’47. 


 DR. NETON: It’s been out since September of 


2005. 


 MR. GRIFFON: 02/’47, okay. Okay. So this is 


out there. 


 DR. NETON: It’s been out there for awhile. 


And -- And it does -- it does have monthly 


statistics. And I’ll tell you right now just 


at first when you look at this thing it looks 


like we’re --


 DR. MAURO: Well --


 DR. NETON: I won’t make any comment. Looks --

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Looks pretty good to me. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Looks okay. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. I don’t -- I don’t see that 


there is a --


 MR. GRIFFON: Are those numbers in 02/’47 


derived from health physics reports or from 


where? Where are they -- 


 MR. KERR: From that ’48/’49 -- 


DR. NETON: Well, it’s that ’48/’49 data that 


as the film badge data that we talked about 


when, you know, Arjun was at one point saying, 


well, we said it wasn’t valid two or three 


years ago or somebody did and then -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So addressed that. 


 DR. NETON: The intent of that document was to 


go back and look at that to see if it could be 


used to do any kind of comparisons such as 


we’re making. Actually I think the original 


intent to be honest may have been could we use 


these data to reconstruct doses. 


 DR. MAURO: Unh-unh. 


DR. NETON: And I think we’re not doing that 


now. We’re just saying that in looking at the 


data there’s enough information there that we 


can use to say that this 1,500 millirem that 

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we’re projecting to assign is pretty darn good. 


And it’s pretty bounding and and it’s -- it’s ­

- it’s a plausible number. 


DR. MAURO: I have to apologize. When I asked 


that question before, do we still have a date 


of that issue, I was thinking of about what 


George was saying. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: What was the answer? I mean where 


are we on that? 


 DR. NETON: I agree and, you know, Mark says 


and it makes sense that we need to go back and 


look at after ’57 and show that we don’t have 


any disconnects there. 


 DR. MAURO: Got it. 


DR. NETON: To the extent that we can. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But the model itself I think 


we’re -- I mean we’re -- we’re I mean I think 


we’re getting comfortable with it. And even if 


there’s still some -- some smaller questions on 


it I think it’s really a site profile issue. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know if everybody agrees 


but --


 MS. MUNN: I just want to draw a box around 

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that. We’re okay with the ’52 through ’57? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, no. I mean we just got this 


stuff last night. It seems good as Jim 


presented it. It seems like they’ve got -- 


 MS. MUNN: Well, okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: What? What? 


 DR. NETON: No, no. I’m fine. That’s fine. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean --


DR. NETON: No, no. I just -- I just -- I’m 


not --


 MR. GRIFFON: You’re looking at me funny. 


 DR. NETON: Well, I was going to say it seems 


sort of like I put some spin on it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, there’s a -- there’s a -- 


no, no, no. I’m not -- I’m not suggesting 


that but there is another problem. I mean you 


look at this at 11:00 o'clock at night. We 


don’t have identified databases so I’m at a 


loss how to even compare, you know. 


 DR. NETON: My whole point --


 MR. GRIFFON: This is an ongoing issue. 


 DR. NETON: My whole point is there are 


(inaudible) prior to ’56 -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- and they’re -- they’re 

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understood and recognized. And given that 


though, and given that it’s all missed dose it 


looks like we’re up here, you know, well above 


where -- where we believe the workers were 


receiving dose. 


 MS. MUNN: It looks well above any probability. 


 DR. NETON: I think it’s a very reasonable, 


plausible approach. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think Arjun’s been waiting to 


say something. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The back extrapolation and the 


modeling seemed okay I think, especially with 


the scaling factor and so forth so I think a 


lot -- the -- the crucial assumption is one of 


the things we’ve been debating and that was 


part of Harry’s statistical analysis and in the 


review that we did last month, in appendix 3 of 


the review. And that revolves around 


interpretation of this table 45-B in your 


appendix of the evaluation report on page 33. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And, you know, if -- if you’ll 


-- if you’ll look at that table it’s -- it’s 


clear that in many of the departments if you 


define high exposure potential as high exposed 

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-- high mean exposure, what everybody was 


monitoring, and rank it that way as one 


approximate way of understanding which 


departments have the highest exposure -- 


relatively high exposure potential compared to 


others. And you look at that table and it goes 


from 30 millirem average to 107 which is more 


than a factor of three. And then you look at 


the percentage of people who were monitored 


between ’56 and ’60. Do they correlate -- do 


the percentage of people increase? Were there 


consistent -- is there some consistent pattern 


in the monitoring even among the departments 


that are clustered at the high end, which is 


saying the 70 to 100-plus millirem dose. You 


don’t find one. The --


 DR. NETON: Well, I -- I don't have that table 


in front of me but the first table my -- that I 


saw in that comparison made no sense to me 


technically from a -- from a statistical 


perspective. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Which table? 


 DR. NETON: Well, are you talking about those 


tables that were generated, those graphs to 


show --

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89

 DR. MAURO: Figures 1, 2 and 3? 

 DR. NETON: Yeah. 

DR. MAURO: I pulled those out. Yeah. Yeah. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. Because number 3 -- 


number 3 seemed to support our case. Number 1 


didn’t seem to be with merit because I saw no 


reason to believe the premise. 


 DR. NETON: Well, the workers who were low -- 


the average exposure in workers prior to ’56 


should be the same after ’60. I think --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, it’s not ’56. It’s --


It’s -- It’s not -- It’s not a question of 


comparing the average exposure. It’s a 


question of we simply did a correlation. Were 


-- Were those departments that had high 


exposures in the ’61 to ’65 period -- 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- also tending to have the 


relatively high exposures in the earlier 


period? 


 DR. NETON: Is this figure -- Is this figure 


1? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is figure 1. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: It’s not the horizontal and 

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vertical axes are not on the same sphere. 


 DR. NETON: I understand. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And you’re not required to have 


a slope of one. You’re only required to have a 


relatively strong positive correlation between 


high values and high values regardless of what 


those high values actually are. 


 DR. NETON: But my question on that graph was 


what if the department had 1,000 people in it 


and they monitored one. You’re going to dilute 


it and have a low exposure that after ’61 it 


makes no sense to me, that comparison. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That -- That’s exact-- That’s 


part of the point -- well, there’s another 


graph, of course, that we did. 


 DR. NETON: Well, figure 2 I’ll grant you. But 


figure 1 makes no -- no technical sense to me 


why that comparison is a valid -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, it -- it -- it allows you 


to determine whether there is a correlation 


between the -- the departments that indicate 


high -- the doses that were indicated as 


relatively high in the department -- 


 DR. NETON: Only if the departments all have 


the same number of workers. If you have 

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different number of workers by department 


you’re going to dilute the dose way down. It 


makes no sense to me what you’re doing. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, but if -- if -- if your 


premise is correct that in the ’56 to ’60 


period that all of the monitored workers have 


the highest exposure potential clearly the 


average in those departments -- first of all 


the average in those departments for the ’56 to 


’60 period should be higher than the average in 


the ’61 to ’65 period and that is clearly not 


the case. I will give you -- I will read you 


an example. The -- The --


 DR. NETON: I don’t have it in front of me. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Look. Department 2162, 50 


workers, average 17.1, 36 percent monitored. 


The average post when everybody was monitored, 


47.6. 


 DR. NETON: But --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Wait. I’ll give you one with a 


lot of workers. Department 2776, 8.9 percent 


of the quarters were monitored. The mean dose 


was 20.6 when they partial monitored but the 


mean dose when there was universal monitoring 


was 90.7. That -- That -- That contradicts 

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the case that the people in the earlier 


periods, that’s why that correlation is 


important is indicates that in some departments 


that had high exposure potential you had a lot 


of monitoring and in others you didn’t. So, 


you know, your premise actually was indicated 


to not be correct. 


 DR. NETON: But I would argue that the doses 


that you’re quoting there are well below the 


detectible doses of the badge exchanges. So 


you’re really in a statistical wheeze, Arjun. 


There is no way that you can validly compare 


doses that are 100 millirem when you’ve got a 


badge that -- that reads 30 millirem and is 


exchanged weekly. It makes no sense. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, quarterly dose is only 


20. 


 DR. NETON: But my point is that you -- you’ve 


got built in there a lot of statistical issues 


with detectability of the radiation itself. 


You’re comparing -- if you put air bars on 


those comparisons I guarantee you they’re going 


to be like this. (Indicating.) They make no 


statistical sense at all to me. I could do 


this. I could go back and show that. But what 

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I’m saying is you’re looking below the 


detectability of the measurement systems 


themselves and trying to make comparisons at 


zero. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Those were the data that you’re 


using and including in your 147 workers. 


 DR. NETON: No, they were -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: You are using -- you are using 


data from workers who were monitored in the ’56 


-- that’s the piece -- that’s the only piece 


that really concerns me in this -- 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- is this piece. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Is your -- There’s -- To me 


as I look at this information both in regard to 


proportion of people who are monitored in the 


various departments and -- and the average 


doses that are indicated here is that there’s a 


very mixed bag as regards who was being 


monitored in the ’56 to ’60 period. 


 DR. NETON: I don't think that that analysis 


says that at all. I think you’ve -- you’ve got 


statistical issues with what you’ve been 


comparing. We compared the highest exposed 

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workers who had really high doses and the 


highest exposed workers continued to be the 


highest exposed workers across the -- the 


graph. So you’re -- you’re up there in the 


level of doses that are meaningful 


statistically. You’re comparing doses of 


workers who could have received, who knows? 


Again like I said, 30 millirem per badge 


exchange, 50 weeks, you’ve got a potential dose 


per worker of 1.5 rem, and you’re comparing 20 


millirem averages. It’s -- It’s not a valid 


comparison I don't think. I think if you put 


air bars on there you can’t come to any -- any 


valid comparison there. I mean it’s a good 


statistical analysis but I think that they did 


not understand the limitations of the 


measurement devises that were used when they 


did the analysis. That’s my opinion. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Why, when 90. -- let -- let’s 


just take -- if -- if that -- and I’m quite 


open to not seeing this right. And I looked at 


this as much as you have obviously. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Let’s if we can -- if we can 


just understand this one department, 2776. 

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1,137 workers; number of monitored quarters 


with 8.9 percent. The mean dose in the ’56 to 


’60 period per quarter is 20.6 millirem. Same 


department with the universal monitoring was 


90.7 millirem. All right. Now, in the second 


period it clearly had an above detectable dose 


 DR. NETON: But the average -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- of 90.7. 


 DR. NETON: But it’s built up of a bunch of 


numbers that -- that aren’t above the 


statistical --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But a lot of people had to have 


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe they just built up because 


the LOD was assigned --


 DR. NETON: Exactly. What I’m saying -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- Zeros assigned -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: A lot of people had to have 


doses above 30 millirem in order to make up 


this average as 90. If the limit of detection 


is 30 --


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- it couldn’t be that 70 


percent of the people were assigned 30 and 

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you’re coming up with an average of 90 because 


then you’ve got some very, very high exposed 


people. 


 DR. NETON: But the point is, Arjun, you’re 


assigning missed dose to all those workers that 


are now monitored. That’s my point. You’re 


giving all those workers who didn’t receive -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s just 30 millirem per 


badge exchange per quarter. 


 DR. NETON: Times 13 is 400 millirem. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Six months or? 


 DR. NETON: These are per quarter doses. 


 DR. BEHLING: These are quarterly doses. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: These are quarterly doses. 


 DR. NETON: Right. But what I’m saying though 


is the 90 millirem quarterly dose includes a 


lot of missed dose. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But only 30 millirem. 


 DR. NETON: For more workers though. You’ve 


added a lot more workers -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But not the early ones. 


 DR. NETON: -- (Inaudible) positive -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- relevant in the average. 


The -- The -- If you -- If you have an 


average of 90 millirem you have to have a very 

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significant number of workers -- 


 DR. NETON: No. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- who have above --


 DR. NETON: No. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Please hear me out. Now, if 


you have an average of 90 millirem in a group 


of workers and the limit of detection is 30 


then you’re going to have a large number of 


workers who have had doses above the limit of 


detection. And then you can’t come up with an 


average of 90 unless you have real -- a few 


real outliers --


 DR. NETON: Okay. Let me -- Let me --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- which I’m excluding. 


 DR. NETON: Let me see if I understood what the 


comparison was. Prior to ’56/’57, eight 


percent of the workers are monitored or 


something like that. So I have badge results 


for those and I’m assigning them missed dose or 


whatever to come up with my average but I’m 


dividing that value by the entire work 


population --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, no. No. Workers. 


 DR. NETON: I divide it by the monitored 

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workers? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. 


 DR. NETON: Well, then that makes the 


comparison --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is the mean dose -- this 


is the mean dose for -- for monitored workers. 


It would make no sense to divide it by average. 


 DR. BEHLING: They should go down. In 


principle they should go down. 


 DR. NETON: But not if you’re measuring 1,100 


workers and assigning them all missed dose. 


 DR. BEHLING: No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let me make a -- can I make a -- 


 DR. NETON: I know. They monitored everybody 


after --


 MR. GRIFFON: Can I make a suggestion here? 


Hold on. Hold on. Let’s -- it might be a good 


time for a ten-minute break? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And during the break maybe Jim 


can look at -- do you have this tape on file? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I don’t have it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe let’s take ten and let Jim 


look at this table during the break with Arjun 


and we’ll come back and -- 

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99

 (Whereupon, a recess was held from 11:05 a.m. 


to 11:20 a.m.) 


MR. PRESLEY: Hey, Mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. PRESLEY: I’m on the line. It’s Bob. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Hi, Bob. 

 MS. MUNN: Good. How are you feeling? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, how are you doing? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Much better. 


 MS. MUNN: Good. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s good. 


 MS. MUNN: Great. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I’m on for about 30/45 minutes. 


 MS. MUNN: Are you behaving yourself? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yes, ma'am. I’m sitting here 


laying back with my feet up in a chair. 


 MS. MUNN: Good. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Like to never found a telephone 


up here to use. 


 DR. WADE: I appreciate that. Bob, this is 


Lew. You understand that you’re conflicted on 


Y-12. You’re certainly welcome to stay on the 


line and listen to the discussion. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I would love to. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 

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100

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Jim, I think I want to 


just, you know, let’s -- let’s try to wrap this 


issue and discussion up and see what we have 


remaining. 


 DR. NETON: I just have one -- one comment. In 


the interim during the break we were able to 


pull out a piece of documentation on the 


particular department number that Arjun was 


talking about, department 2776. And it looks 


for a two-year period here starting in ’58 they 


were removed from the program completely, from 


monitoring. So that may -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Two year? Two year? 


 DR. NETON: I think it’s starting in ’58. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: April of ’58. 


 DR. NETON: April of ’58 through ’60. They 


were taken off the monitoring program 


completely because they didn’t feel the workers 


had sufficiently high exposures. Anyway, that 


-- that’s something we can probably talk about 


when we -- when we look through that particular 


example that Arjun raised. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, okay. And during the break 


we did have some discussion on these particular 


tables. We -- We needed an opportunity to let 

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101 

Jim see which tables SC&A was looking at and 


vice versa so -- but I did want to try to at 


least get a path forward here. And I think my 


sense is that number one is a remaining 


question on data -- data reliability, ’57 


through ’65 if NIOSH can find, you know -- 


support that case a little better I think that 


would be useful. I think the work group and 


SC&A still have to digest the information you 


provided for that ’52 through ’57 period as far 


as data validation goes but it looks like you 


have a fair -- fair amount of data there. I 


mean, you know, that looks like a good, strong 


case for that data although many twists and 


turns with some of these memos that I was 


reading. But at least there’s some information 


there. But I can -- SC&A and the work group 


need a chance to look at that a little more. 


And then on the model part I think nothing 


remains as far as NIOSH analysis but I think 


SC&A wants to -- to further look at the tables 


in the evaluation report and I would say 


compare it to -- to the previous reports that 


George has provided on looking at the maximum 


exposed workers pre and post-’61 is the -- is 

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how the analysis is laid out. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I mean I think many of us 


feel that -- that what from the model 


standpoint, what to -- if anything it being a 


site profile issue more than an SEC issue. But 


I think we want to cross the T, dot the I on 


that issue. And I think we’re -- we’re close 


to that but, you know. 


 DR. NETON: Well, I still, you know -- we’ve -- 


we’ve been at this juncture for awhile and I 


guess I still point out that if it’s coming 


down to the situation where SC&A and the 


Advisory -- the working group is not 


comfortable assigning the geometric mean of the 


back extrapolated distribution then it’s a 


matter of how much that is tweaked to cover the 


maximum exposed worker I think. And if that’s 


the situation we’re at then to me that -- that 


doesn’t bear on the SEC process and, you know ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: And I think the final resolution 


is -- is are we -- are we convinced at least in 


-- in large part the highest exposed workers 


were monitored. And some of these -- this 

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table raises some questions I think that we 


need to at least explore a little further. 
I 


mean I think we’ve been pretty convinced. 


You’ve pointed out some pretty good arguments 


that that is the case. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we need to just close that 


and then we’re -- I’m -- I’m speaking for 


myself anyway, if that’s closed then -- the -- 


the regression analysis, that piece of it, it 


looks okay. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 


 DR. NETON: I agree with that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So --


 DR. NETON: All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I agree with that. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, I want -- I have two questions 


that I’d like to ask you. If we come to the 


conclusion that some of the issues reveal that 


there are not necessarily applicable to the SEC 


but are site profile issues, are we simply 


postponing dealing with this? Does it come 


back to us? 


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of site profile matrix issues from -- from -- 


 MS. MUNN: I understand. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So we -- we would be -- 


it’s not -- I mean I guess it’s -- it’s just a 


timing thing. We’re trying to make as quick of 


a determination on the SEC petition as we can. 


So if we feel that they have enough information 


to maximum plausible doses then we don’t need 


to go any further for this SEC closeout 


process. That’s my opinion, Jim. Is that --


so we are -- we are putting it aside for the 


meantime only because we wanted to -- 


 MS. MUNN: But --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: It comes back. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It -- It could come back. But 


it could -- it could be that John and -- and 


Arjun and -- and the SC&A folks and -- and the 


work group say, you know, the regression 


amounts looks good the way it is and we can 


close it up completely. I don't know. But I 


think -- I think we want to at least get to the 


point where we can say, you know, this -- this 


really -- we’re not completely sure but we’re 


pretty -- we’re sure it’s not an SEC issue. 

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Let’s put it over here as a potential site 


profile issue and, you know. 


 MS. MUNN: Okay. One other point of 


clarification. Now, are there going to be 


additional -- in your mind are there going to 


be additional years following the ’65 time 


frame where we’re going to feel any -- to be 


reviewing the data in the same manner that 


we’ve done to this point? 


 MR. GRIFFON: The data reliability questions? 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I think since the model -- 


the co-worker models used that period -- up to 


’65, correct? So I would say, you know, that’s 


the primary period of interest would be the SEC 


period but also to work the modeling period. 


 DR. NETON: Co-worker model after ’61 is really 


the distribu-- well, after ’57 is the 


distributions, the -- the normal distributions 


by year --


 MR. GRIFFON: By year. 


 DR. NETON: -- of themselves. No extrapolation 


is --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: It’s a traditional co-worker model 

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much as you see at other sites. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: Because at that point we have 


confidence that they do fit lognormal 


distributions and something can be done with 


them. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that’s after what year? 


 DR. NETON: After ’57 -- ’56. Starting in ’57 


we have AAFC and the frequency charts that Hans 


has with him from report 32, the data appear to 


fit very nicely what you’d call normal -- 


traditional lognormal distributions. And so 


then you would be assigned either the geometric 


mean or the 95th percentile depending upon -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: The co-worker back extrapolation 


relies on what period of monitoring data? 


 DR. NETON: ’50-- last quarter ’56 through ’65. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So that -- I think that’s 


 DR. NETON: That’s what --


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s the interest. That’s the 


primary interest. 


DR. NETON: Right. But -- But again I would 


point out that the back extrapolation model is 


based on this 147 workers. I think really 

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that’s where the emphasis needs to be placed. 


Out of those 147 workers representative of the 


maximum exposed workers in that time period. 


And if they are then the model -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, then is -- But if that’s 


the modeling side then the data reliability 


side is --


 DR. NETON: Different issues. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- data reliability. 


 DR. NETON: Now, the department issue that 


Arjun has raised again, maybe those 147 workers 


need to be looked at in that light. Do you 


know what I’m saying? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: Because we -- we relied on a very 


select subset of workers to develop that model 


and -- and they’re the crux of the model. If ­

- If -- If we can convince folks that the 


model used people who were in the maximally 


exposed categories then I think we’re okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That part goes away, right. I 


agree. 


 DR. NETON: So --


 MR. GRIFFON: Then it becomes mainly a data 


reliability issue. 

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 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Which is I think where we’re -- 


where we’re -- we’re real close to that. 


 DR. NETON: yeah. And it’s data reliability 


’57 --


 MR. GRIFFON: ’57 to ’65. And give us -- give 


the Board -- the work group and -- and SC&A an 


opportunity to look at your ’52 through ’57 


stuff that you’ve provided. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. And again, that’s getting 


close, but again one needs to look at the 


context of the projected curve versus, you 


know, what we can glean from that data. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Jim, do you have the 


departmental breakdown of the 147 workers? 


That might make this job a lot simpler. 


 DR. NETON: I agree. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Compare that to the -- 


 MR. KERR: We have work descriptions. Those 


you already have. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we’ve -- we’ve been given 


that. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But do we have the -- we have ­

-


 DR. NETON: You have the worker num-- worker 

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ID’s and those department numbers are listed in 


the database so you should -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, so I could go back and -- 


 DR. NETON: I don't know. I think --


 MR. KERR: You asked -- You asked previously 


for job descriptions. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 MR. KERR: But what you asked for -- and you 


got a breakdown in terms of job descriptions. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 MR. KERR: And you realize most of them are 


uranium workers. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 MR. KERR: They’re machine shop worker, workers 


and special workers. Makes up almost the whole 


147. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: Are you saying now we want to plot 


them another way? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: In this context because, well, 


this issue didn’t arise earlier because we 


didn’t have the evaluation report. But the 


analysis that we’ve done subsequent to that 


publication was off the evaluation report where 


the doses are broken out by department number. 

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 MS. MUNN: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And so the question about were 


the highest people mon-- the potential exposure 


people monitored arose in the departmental 


context only because we saw that table and -- 


 MS. MUNN: Sure. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- realized it. We can have 


that breakdown or we could simply go to the 


table and it might become -- I think -- I think 


LaVon -- LaVon --


 DR. NETON: Yeah, I think we can do that. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


DR. NETON: My -- My -- My real question is ­

- looking through the O-drive recently I -- I 


saw -- there’s a spreadsheet, a list of the 147 


ID numbers I think so maybe -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that’s in -- I’ve seen -- 


 DR. NETON: But -- But it doesn’t have -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I know I have --


 DR. NETON: -- department codes but that’s 


tractable through the -- the database which -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Which gets us back to the 


database. I think -- I think that’s the only 


other thing I would ask for from NIOSH’s side 


is if we can once and for all get the Y-12 

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access databases iden-- identified data. 
I 


mean it -- it -- it would just make this so 


much easier to -- to -- 


DR. NETON: Well, we’ve given you the access 


database for all the years we’re working with, 


I think through ’65 now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Through ’65, right but no 


identifiers. 


DR. NETON: Well, it’s got ID number. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Doesn’t have --


 DR. NETON: You can’t -- You can’t track it to 


a case number. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We can’t track it to like these 


names, this list of names that you have, things 


like that. Just to spot check to get comfort 


with this data you’ve just provided in -- in 


real time. I think it would be much easier. 


 DR. NETON: Just to insert the identifier in 


the database? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. I mean you, you know, for 


the people extracted from there. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, sure. I think we can do 


that. It’s just the whole database -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I’m not trying to create work 


either. 

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 DR. NETON: No, no, no, no. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think it probably exists, you 


know, and --


 DR. NETON: Yeah, I think -- I think we can do 


that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don’t want to make work. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. The -- The -- It’s not a 


real reluctance on our part to provide the 


whole database but if it’s a sequel database 


and you have to download these tables to 


convert them to Access, it’s virtually 


impossible I’ve been told to make that entire 


sequel database, which is a relational 


database, into Access tables that are useable. 


You almost -- these Access ta-- database -- 


files almost are the result of queries of this 


huge database which the data may be all over 


the place. You know what I’m saying? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 


 DR. NETON: A relational database has, you 


know, many, many, many tables and key field 


indices. So what may appear to be very simple 


-- here’s the year-end data, here’s the guy’s 


name -- may have actually been pulled from a 


number of different locations from a sequel 

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frame which only runs on, you know, several 


sequels. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So when Bill Tankersley did those 


comparisons he probably was using a sequel 


database directly? 


 DR. NETON: I don't know. Well, he can pull, 


you know -- he can ask their -- their computer 


people to give me -- give me, you know. It’s 


very much like the database. You know, we have 


all kinds of stuff in there but to get an 


answer, how many people were working between 


19-- you know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I understand. 


 DR. NETON: It takes some programming. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I’m not trying to create 


additional work. I was thinking, well, it’s 


probably a product that’s -- 


 DR. NETON: But the answer to your original 


question is can we put identified information 


in there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: I don’t see why we shouldn’t be 


able to. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. And -- And put a 


urinalysis in. You know, might as well do both 

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of them. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So is there any other -- other -- 


other things on issue one? Do you still have 


stuff on issue one? 


 DR. NETON: No. No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No? 


 DR. NETON: No, I --


 MR. GRIFFON: The last little bit, maybe just 


as a -- from a presentation standpoint, because 


we really do need to move through the other 


seven issues. Do you -- can you give us a 


sense of some of these memos that you sent last 


night? Particularly there was one on the -- 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I thought they indicated that 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- there’s some analysis they -- 


 DR. NETON: 1954. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- had done and that was 


transposed and they put the penetrating in the 


skin and vice versa. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. Actually ORAU discovered -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I’m not sure how they got there 

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but --


 DR. NETON: ORAU discovered it after they took 


receipt of the electronic data for study -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- that the 1954 penetrating doses 


appeared to be inordinately high compared to 


the bracketing years ’52 and ’53 and ’55. And 


on investigation they -- they worked with Hap 


West who was -- many of you maybe know was a 


long-time HP at the site and ran the program 


for awhile. He’s since deceased. But they 


determined from several different avenues that 


the -- the data would transpose for penetrating 


and shallow in 1954. So they went and redid 


the database to match what they believed to be 


the truth for that year. And so the CER 


database then, which is -- actually the Y-12 


database would have been updated and then the 


CER database would have followed -- was 


changed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that how they got there 


was the part I was -- and skimming this over 


last night --


 DR. NETON: Well, you know, I skimmed -- I 


didn’t read that report real closely either. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: But I mean it was clear to me 


early on he said that he was unable to find raw 


records so they had to I think he said tap his 


own memory and others that worked in that time 


period and --


 DR. NETON: So there are some, you know -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. We’ll leave -- I mean 


I think we should look at that memo but just as 


a follow-up on the other -- other question -- 


 DR. NETON: The other memos spoke to beta, you 


know, the data up here in the beta gamma 


column. And there’s an instruction to the -- 


and that just sort of validates this IBM 


keypunch thing that we were talking about that 


the IBM cards only had a column for beta gamma 


prior to ’55 actually. And they -- they were 


instructing them to create a new column, one 


for gamma and one for beta, and there was some 


instruction and actually a list of workers who 


they believe the beta -- gamma exposures should 


be pulled out of the beta column and moved into 


the gamma field. But it was pretty much based 


on their work assignment, work location as best 


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 DR. NETON: Workers. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the guys’ numbers or I think 


it --


 DR. NETON: It was workers, the Social Security 


numbers. 


 MS. MUNN: Worker names and --


 DR. NETON: The Social Security numbers, right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So those’ll be in the 


(inaudible). 


DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. It might be interesting to 


look at the --


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think year is by 


department? 


 DR. NETON: Right. And then -- then there were 


other instructions of memos in there about how 


they wanted to see the data for certain years 


like, oh, there was a recollection by Hap West 


of the years as to what monitoring practices 


were in places and how -- the recording 


practices in particular. This is where I got 


the information for ’50, ’51. They didn’t put 


any -- they put all zeros. Starting in ’52 


they recorded missed dose and, you know, and it 

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goes up through the ‘60s. So --


 MR. GRIFFON: In spite of --


 MR. KERR: In --


 MR. GRIFFON: Sorry. 


 MR. KERR: I was going to say something on -- 


in one of those memos which is getting -- it 


was a ’57 memo where they’re getting ready for 


’58, where you need to know cumulative exposure 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. KERR: -- and you need to ensure that it 


didn’t exceed so much per year and according to 


worker’s age. They tell you how they got -- 


how they went back and summed, you know, the 


doses. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


 MR. KERR: And if you’ll see the ratio they 


used it was the number of badges over the 


number of records. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. KERR: So if they had a damaged badge or 


somebody didn’t turn a badge in or something 


they tried to correct for missed dose in 


getting those S-rem and P-rem -- 


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 MR. KERR: You saw --


 MR. GRIFFON: The number of badges over the 


number of records, yeah. 


 MR. KERR: Yeah. But it was for missed dose, 


the thought that they were taken into account. 


 DR. NETON: I think they’re interesting 


reading. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: And I do think they show that the 


level of effort they were trying to put into 


make it correct. But also it does point out 


that there are issues in that database but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, right. Just -- And some ­

- somewhat it clarified some things that were 


recorded at different time periods so it was 


useful for that. 


 MR. KERR: Yeah. One other thing, Mark, and I 


have just this one comment. If you go back and 


look at say a ’53 memo or a ’54 memo, realizing 


that they made some of these changes at a later 


date, you may see some other discrepancies 


between the two values because of the 


corrections that were made later. And see, 


there may be some minor -- minor discrepancies 


may be coming in that way. 

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 DR. NETON: But again --


 MR. GRIFFON: One thing I was going to ask you 


then. I think some of this analysis probably 


answered this question for you but one of the 


earlier things we raised I think at the last 


meeting was the P-millirem question. 


 DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And did -- what -- what’s the 


upshot of that? I mean you -- you have the 


result of why it is the gamma dose in I think ­

- I thought you mentioned somewhere in my 


reading I thought I saw something about that 


but maybe not. 


 DR. NETON: Well, ’50/’51 clearly there was 


nothing in any of those columns -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- so we understand now why that 


was the case. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Because it was all put in S? 


 DR. NETON: It was all put in S. Well, yeah. 


And also it was -- even if they were going to 


record it was missed dose wasn’t listed and so 


it was unlikely that anyone would have received 


greater than 1.5 rem I guess in that period. 


don't recall now, you know, -- 


I 
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 MR. GRIFFON: I just sort of see a P-millirem 


versus --


 DR. NETON: -- early estimates. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. I mean you remember the 


issue that was brought up? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 MR. KERR: There was a problem back early 


because they assigned sometimes in the -- in 


the later years they assigned missed dose based 


on where they thought the person primarily had 


a gamma exposure problem or a beta exposure 


problem. But sometimes they wrote down -- put 


this 50 millirem over here in the gamma and 


didn’t put it in the beta column. So anyhow 


you got this problem when you sum ‘em up 


because that -- your deep penetrating were the 


contributing, your S-millirem as well as your 


P-millirem. If they only put it over here in 


the P-millirem column and summed up, it was 


possible you’d get P-millirem doses bigger than 


the S-millirem doses. 


 DR. NETON: That’s -- That’s true. 


 MR. KERR: And they went back later and tried 


to correct for this if they saw the P-millirem 

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was greater than the S-millirem. Then they set 


employee equal. And the reason they did that, 


if you go back and look in some of the 


claimants’ files you’re going to get down and 


you’re going to see sometimes in the early 


years where the S-rem and the P-millirem are 


the same. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


 MR. KERR: And that was kind of a correction 


they tried to make because they may not have 


assigned any, you know -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Since they weren’t sure? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. In fact my recollection 


looking through the database, after ’56 I was 


hard-pressed to find values that didn’t sort of 


add up and make sense. In other words --


 MR. GRIFFON: That's correct. After ’56 we had 


 DR. NETON: If you go in there -- It makes 


sense from a health physics perspective what’s 


in the various columns. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And looking at it after ’56, 


yeah. 


 DR. NETON: They all add up. 


 MR. GRIFFON: In other words ’52 to ’55 -- 

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DR. NETON: Yeah, ’52 to ’55, and again, you 


know --


 MR. GRIFFON: The gamma P-rem -- I mean the 


skin and the -- and the S-rem always -- always 


met, almost always I think. 


 DR. NETON: Might, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: From ’52 to ’55 anyway. I’m 


going by memory which --


DR. NETON: And in fact it’s never -- there is 


never a column -- I went through almost every ­

- every point last week and there’s -- I don't 


think there’s ever a column where the Smillirem is larger than any of the other 


columns. In other words, if there’s a gamma 


dose the S-millirem is always larger or equal 


to the beta column. I went through it and it 


made -- it made sense to me that the -- the 


bracketing dose, and this was partly related to 


the fact that they recorded beta gamma doses in 


the same column, so you’ll never see a -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean this is kind of a minor 


item. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. Well, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The gamma versus P-millirem if -- 


if you can just maybe follow up on that. 

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 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: We may have at times at some 


facilities -- I'm not sure if Y-12 necessarily 


-- where they actually pulled out the gamma 


component of the shallow dose and reported as a 


beta dose which means that there can be 


incidents where the beta dose is clearly less 


than the deep dose if there’s no beta component 


because they basically pulled out the gamma 


component and reported it as not shallow dose 


but beta dose. 


 DR. NETON: That was incorrect, but yeah. I’ve 


seen that out at facilities. You’re right. 


But I don’t see that in -- I -- I looked 


through pretty carefully the database and I 


didn’t see any case where the shallow dose was 


exceeded by the gamma dose. It always was --


was larger than the gamma dose. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That makes sense. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: For Y-12 I think that is -- 


 DR. NETON: For Y-12 -- see, originally I was 


thinking, well, that’s -- that’s certainly 


bounding. If you use all shallow doses because 


that’s the largest dose in any of the columns, 


then you’ve got a bounding analysis there. But 

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I don’t think you need to go there. But I 


wanted to satisfy myself that if there was this 


recording practice of putting beta and gamma in 


the same column is there an instance where -- 


where the gamma dose is larger and the beta 


dose is not? So -- But I can’t explain any 


more than that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anything else on issue one? 


 (No response) 


 MR. GRIFFON: So we’ve got those -- some action 


items on that then. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


ISSUE 2: THORIUM BUILDINGS


 MR. GRIFFON: Issue two. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. Thorium buildings. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thorium buildings. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. This --


 MR. GRIFFON: Let’s go into it and maybe, I 


don't know if people want to -- how about 


taking lunch at 1:00 or is that okay? 


 DR. NETON: That’s fine by me. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is that okay with everyone? Then 


maybe we’ll miss any potential crowd in the -- 


 DR. NETON: I thought it was pretty busy today 


actually. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Okay. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. Thorium --


 DR. WADE: There’s coffee here by the way. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. It’ll keep me -- keep me 


going ‘til 1:00 o'clock. I’m not really a big 


coffee drinker but these meetings, I just feel 


like I -- I need -- I need the extra energy. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do you want a couple minutes to 


get a cup of coffee? 


 DR. NETON: I can make it okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: As long as you’re okay. I’m 


going to get one while you’re talking. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. Well, once I’m done I’ll get 


one. In the thorium area of course the -- the 


issue is have we -- have we bracketed all the 


buildings that had thorium in them in our, you 


know, class that we’re adding to the SEC. Or 


more correctly have we -- have we bracketed the 


buildings that had thorium exposure potential 


in the SEC period. You know, we -- we have to 


be careful that because a building had thorium 


listed as being in its contents that, you know, 


it was really an exposure hazard, yes or no. 


To address that question we sent some people 

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back to the records area to look at the thorium 


-- the so-called thorium ledgers. These are 


ledgers that -- that kept track of material 


balance of the nuclides that -- that were of 


interest and thorium is one of those. And ORAU 


has gone back and looked at these ledgers and 


identified now all potential buildings that -- 


or I have to be careful. Not necessarily 


buildings. Sometimes material balance areas of 


where thorium was actually -- to which thorium 


was actually distributed during the SEC period. 


This is fairly late-breaking news so I’m going 


to have to rely on Mel Chew. Is Mel on the 


phone? 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, I am Jim. 


 DR. NETON: Okay, Mel. Mel, could you flesh 


out for us where we are with the ledgers and 


the thorium buildings, please? 


 MR. CHEW: Glad to. 


 DR. NETON: Unfortunately I don’t have any 


handout for --


 MR. CHEW: Thanks to Jack Beck and Company I 


faxed you this morning two lists here. One is 


a list of buildings that we -- from the ledgers 


that we have identified where thorium is in the 

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1950s which is the SEC period. And then a 


second list that includes the additional 


buildings from the 1960s. And let’s focus in 


on the area where the SEC period is here. The 


table -- there’s a chart that I think you have 


in your hand there, Jim, that talks about -- 


goes out to the account numbers and you’re 


absolutely correct. The account numbers really 


relate to locations where material balances 


were segregated for control and accountability 


material, accountability of the thorium. It is 


very notable that the accountability is down to 


a gram level in quantity. Let me just try to 


give a summary without going through the long 


story. And we can go through I mean a detailed 


analysis. In the 1950s we have identified 


eight buildings in the 1950 time frame -- ‘50s 


time frame which is the SEC period of which 


there are -- I mean we have added some 


additional buildings because small samples that 


have went -- have been identified into 


analytical areas, even down to the like 11 


grams, 16 grams and 454 grams. So we have 


identified these particular eight buildings 


that we have indicated that thorium was 

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present. Okay. So --


 MR. GRIFFON: Mel, are these -- you’re -- 


you’re saying the ’50s but you mean ’48 through 


’57 or --


 MR. CHEW: Well, I think that even in the ’48 


through ’50 I think there was the first 


indication of any thorium was like one and a 


half kg’s in the ’49 period, Mark, that showed 


up in the X-10 electromatic research area 9204­

3. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But I mean --


 MR. CHEW: -- four kilograms was listed as a 


total quantity. There’s an account called 


control and control sort of is the -- by our 


analysis is where the total quantity of thorium 


is within Y-12 and then they break it out into 


the particular areas where they are located. 


So control is sort of like this is the total 


quantity we know of is at Y-12. So I hope I 


answered your question. We do have indication 


where in 1949 there were some in the R&D area 


and also in the electromatic research area of 


which we think the -- our control is like -- 


like 57 kilograms in total here. But 


encompassing that -- and -- and so that goes 

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through 1950s all the way through ’57 is the 


table that I submitted to -- to Jim on this 


particular time. The -- The quantities in -- 


are in kilograms and we can clearly identify -- 


we have listed all of the buildings through 


that entire period from ’49 to the 1950s, 


probably including ’59, that would be, you 


know, those buildings that would have contained 


the -- has -- has quantities of thorium 


present. So we’re going to revise -- I think, 


Jim, this is your call -- I think we’re going 


to revise the -- this particular list in the 


SEC evaluation report to reflect the -- these 


particular buildings that we did not originally 


include, including some of the analytical 


laboratories which contained small quantities. 


I’m going to stop here. Jim, do you want to 


pick it up from here? 


 DR. NETON: Right. I'm not sure we’ve actually 


made that decision at this point although it’s 


certainly an option. 


 MR. CHEW: Right. This is your call. That's 


right. I’m --


 DR. NETON: And -- And, you know, this is 


fairly new information. I just -- I just -- 
I 
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got this last night and didn’t have time to 


look at it but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Can we -- can you make copies -- 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, we’ll --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- during the break or -- 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, we’ll get copies. 


 MR. CHEW: The bottom line, Mark, is that -- is 


the -- the base using the official ledgers that 


is in the (inaudible), you have identified all 


the specific locations in the time period we’re 


talking about and what quantities of thorium 


has been at the -- at those particular 


locations here. And we have also not only 


accounted for the accountability number which 


is the identification of the MVA, but also a 


little bit about the location description like 


research laboratory, extraction and muffling, 


analytical lab, electromatic researching and 


ORNL reactor technology division. So I think 


what I’d like to say is that we think we have 


all of the thorium accounted for in the Y-12 


area for those particular buildings and 


locations during the 1950s, ’49. 


 DR. NETON: And I’d like to give credit to -- 


to the folks who -- who worked -- worked 

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through these ledgers. It was easy to find the 


-- the first few up through ’55. I think ’56 


and ’57 took some doing. They weren’t in the 


same location. But we were able to find a 


ledger for every single year which was good 


work. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We appreciate that. 


 DR. NETON: Now, Mel, when you say there’s 


eight buildings you’ve identified then I assume 


then there’s overlap with these -- the five 


that we’ve listed in the SEC period already. 


 MR. CHEW: That is correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And what are the three additional 


that aren’t on the list? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Three additional. 


 MR. CHEW: Let’s see. I don't have that in 


front of me here. Sorry about that. But I 


think 9203 had 11 grams of material. I’m just 


going to take a guess which one. I should have 


had that little bit of overlap here. But I can 


iden-- I can identify -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Mel, this is Bomber -- this is 


Bomber. I’ve got it. 9203 is an additional 


building. 


 MR. CHEW: Okay. Thanks. 

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 MR. RUTHERFORD: 92-3 is an additional 


building. 


 MR. CHEW: All right. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: And 9995 is the third 


additional building. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah. I already got that, Bomber. 


And -- And I kind of -- I can give -- we have 


the maximum quantities -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. CHEW: -- in any given year that I just had 


to flip to for myself just for this discussion 


if necessary here. For example, like Bomber 


just mentioned, 9995 they had 436 grams. The 


9203 that Bomber mentioned was 11 -- 11 grams 


for example, and I showed it for 1954. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Are those both labs? They must 


be labs. 


 MS. MUNN: 11 grams, had to be. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: The 11 gram was definitely a 


lab. I know that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: 9995 I know was a lab. 


DR. NETON: It’s an assay lab -- assay lab. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: 9201-3 was an ORNL reactor 


technical division and that -- they picked up 


significant quantities in ’57. But they --

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they actually had quantities back in 1952. 


 MR. GRIFFON: What do you mean significant 


quantities? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, I mean I would -- 


 DR. NETON: 9201-3, in ’57 they picked up 7,800 


kilograms of material. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Alpha 3 -- Alpha 3’s clearly not 


a research lab. I mean it’s not a lab. 


 DR. NETON: Right. Yeah, these other two, 


again, I’ll reserve judgment. We have to 


rethink this but when you -- again, as I 


preface my remarks, if you -- if you have 11 


grams of material in an analytical laboratory 


you’re clearly calibration type standards. 


Now, how finely we want to split this is -- in 


terms of what the potential exposure is I don't 


know. I mean we need to -- we need to rethink 


this and --


 MR. GRIFFON: Let me ask if that listing -- I 


mean I’m glad, you know, it got to the ledgers 


but were there other buildings, Arjun, that you 


found in these other previous memos that you 


saw that were mentioned? Maybe we can figure 


out if there’s a discrepancy -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Can I look at the break? 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Okay. We’ll get back 


after lunch. Maybe we’ll be at a place to take 


a break at noon. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Inaudible) 


 MR. GRIFFON: The other -- The other question 


I had outside of the buildings in looking at 


some of the case data it’s -- it’s apparent to 


me that there is mainly a reliance on 


department information and this -- this is 


probably more of a deal out question but it 


gets back to the how do you determine question, 


you know. And if you’re -- how do you find out 


if someone was in one of these five or seven or 


how many other buildings? And the onus comes 


onto DOL so maybe we need to bring Pete Turcic 


back in the mix. 


 DR. NETON: I think you’re right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But if you just have department 


information then I know from doing some work 


out there that the departments are not 


necessarily one to one linkage with buildings. 


So then you, you know, do they conservatively 


assume and some of these are big process 


buildings so then you get into a large number 


of claimants being put into this group which 

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may or may not belong in that group, you know. 


So... 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark -- Mark, I have -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anyway but you -- you don’t have 


-- you can’t shed any light on -- 


 DR. WADE: We will ask Pete or someone 


representing DOL to come to the meeting 


prepared to answer those questions. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You don’t know if anyone’s done 


any department building sort of analysis. I 


don’t think that’s been done. Some of the work 


has been --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I -- I -- I would bet that 


Bill Tankersley and some of the -- done some of 


the studies, has done some of that -- that 


work. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Hey, Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Can I talk? 


 DR. WADE: It’s up to the group. Are you going 


to share information based upon your expertise 


at the site, Bob? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: And not opinion? It’s okay with me 


if -- is it okay with you, Mark and Wanda? 

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 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. If you -- If you want to 

share --

 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I don’t want to violate our 


own ruling. That’s the only thing. 


 MS. HOWELL: As long as he’s speaking as a site 


expert only. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. WADE: If you speak as a site expert only 


and offer only facts as you know them, that 


would be acceptable, Robert. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. What you’re talking about, 


the departmental charges and buildings? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Just like the fabrication 


department. You’ve got -- it doesn’t -- 


somewhere in that time frame there was 


somewhere between 16 and 21 different shops. 


And those different shops could have had the 


same department number. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. PRESLEY: The same thing with your chemical 


workers, everything else. So you cannot really 


go by department number as to what building 


that is in. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: And then from what I understand, 


Bob, they -- they, even within like say a 


maintenance department, these guys were telling 


me they -- they often bid out on jobs in 


various areas --


 MR. PRESLEY: That could be. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- within a year so they could be 


shifting around. 


 MR. PRESLEY: And that’s not only just in Y-12. 


They could have gone to ORNL or 225 because we 


did maintenance. You had Y-12 maintenance 


people working in all three plant sites. 


 DR. WADE: We will ask you all to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- ask you all about -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I have --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, you found your other -- 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I found my list. We -- Now, 


we -- you’ve looked at our evaluation report 


review of April 24th . We do have time frames 


on these so, you know, if you eliminated these 


as not belonging in the right time frame. But 


there were in 9204-4 -- no, sorry -- 9201-5 and 


there was some thorium -- there was a storage 


building, 9720-5. And there’s a thorium 230 


associated building, 9215. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: And 9215 may have been a later 


period. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I'm not sure about the 


period. We could not nail down the periods. 


Obviously all -- all of these -- 


MR. CHEW: Arjun, I think Bomber has that list 


I sent him. We have identified those 


particular buildings that you have just 


mentioned in the 1960s. I just caught some of 


them. You mentioned 9201-5, 9215. What was 


the other one you had mentioned? I'm sorry. 


apologize. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: 9720-5. 


 MR. CHEW: 9720-5. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Storage area I think you said it 


was. 


 MR. CHEW: Storage area. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Inaudible) 


 MR. CHEW: Okay. We don’t -- We didn’t have 


that on the list from the 1960s but it wouldn’t 


surprise me if 92-- a storage area would, you 


know, where the material would originally come 


into because we know large quantities came into 


the -- into Y-12 and was waiting to be 


processed here. 


I 
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 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I think that may be the 


one building where I don't remember the 


document but it seems to me that maybe thorium 


was received there. 


 MR. CHEW: Oh, that makes sense. We have a one 


called account number control. There was no 


building listed but we couldn’t find that and ­

- and I’m just going to take a guess that may 


relate to that. But we could track that 


number, account number down, that MBA number 


down to make you sure that we are tracking 192 


-- 9720-5. The other two you mentioned we 


clearly have identified -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


 MR. CHEW: -- the thorium being present in the 


1960s and not in the 1950s. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So that would resolve 


that. 


 MR. CHEW: Pretty much, Arjun. Appreciate it. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And 9204-4 I guess may be the 


last one on my list. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, 9204-4 is also listed in the 


1960s. 


 MR. GRIFFON: In the 60s. 


 MR. CHEW: Okay. You have those in front of 

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you, right Bob? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah. 


 MR. CHEW: Good. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So then that would -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: So we’ll check that one -- 


 MR. RICH: In the 1960s were buildings 


identified by extensive air samplings? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Bryce Rich. 


 MR. RICH: The main production areas, the 


thorium production areas. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. RICH: There are nine of them, nine 


buildings. But as has been indicated, three of 


those overlap, 9202, 9206 and 9203. That’s the 


1950s. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, with the exception of this 


9201-3 it seems like, you know, we covered the 


areas in the SEC --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- class that actually did 


something, you know, process-wise with thorium 


and --


 MR. GRIFFON: You have a senior laboratory. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, laboratories. And, you know, 


I’m -- I’m still right with this point not 

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certain where we’re going to land on that 


issue. I mean but the 9201-3 is something 


NIOSH needs to take into consideration. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Sure. And maybe free up 


this 9720-5. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, I got it down. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that’s -- that’s it. 


 DR. WADE: I think -- I think --


 MR. GRIFFON: Other than that I think -- 


 MR. RICH: 9201-3 was one of the old beta 


calutron buildings. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The last issue here doesn’t 


relate to a building but to the S3 pond. Now, 


we -- we looked at the document that NIOSH 


pointed us to and we noted, you know, between 


our two reports, and we noted that the burial 


ground data included S3 pond discards before 


1974 so we weren’t able to parse whether the S3 


pond was used in the SEC period or not. And I 


don't know if you have been able to. I think 


that’s the last issue we have. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, I’ll jump in a little 


bit here. We do have indication that there was 


some material that was discarded in 1952. 


We’re still tracking identities. This table is 

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not very clear on that and -- and so if we can 


leave that S3 pond issue or burial ground issue 


as something that we’re still looking into. 


 MR. GRIFFON: As for exposures of the people 


that would have been handling the waste, is 


that --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 MR. CHEW: I’d like to on that note, I’d like 


to distribute first a memo from Union Carbide I 


have in my hand from radiation safety because 


the question came up several times about the -- 


considering the thorium contaminated in the 


uranium salvage operations that had potentially 


went into the pond. And it’s called the 


maximum thorium concentration in process 


salvaging. It does some assessment of work 


they felt the thorium -- additional thorium 


exposure may be as a potential exposure pathway 


and so we do have information that that was 


studied. I will make sure that’s going to be 


in your hand. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, let’s make sure we get that 


distributed, Mel. 


 MR. CHEW: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: Great. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Other issues on the thorium 


topic? I mean is there -- what about the -- 


have we closed out the issues of the other 


(inaudible) that were used to outside of these 


buildings or -- or could we have covered it all 


in these buildings? Is that --


DR. NETON: Well, I think the material balance 


ledgers certainly --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON -- if the thorium didn’t get shipped 


there unless we believe the ledgers to be 


inaccurate I think we’ve covered the waterfront 


under thorium --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think so, too. 


 DR. NETON: -- activities. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Me, too. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I would agree with that 


especially in light of what was said by 


Department of Labor at the Denver meeting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Since we’re not dealing with 


the uranium workers for the thorium, that’s 


gone away so I think --


DR. NETON: Yeah, I believe so. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: It makes it a lot easier for all 


of us. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So we covered the buildings 


then. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: As long as we cover, yeah, who 


worked in those buildings. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s the department building 


issue, yeah. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAURO: I have just got -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: John. 


 DR. MAURO: Just again for clarification, what 


we have is a circumstance where at some point 


waivers define the class in a way that the 


boundaries are very clear that who falls into 


the class and who doesn’t and it has something 


to do with, what I’m hearing, with the 


buildings and perhaps to types of activities 


and locations within buildings. And a class 


will be defined in those terms. I’m trying to 


create a model in my head to -- to separate out 


where we might still have some residual SEC 


issues. Would that be -- 

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 DR. NETON: I think you heard -- I think you 


heard Pete Turcic pretty clearly say on the 


record that, you know, if -- if there was no 


way to parse those areas out at all that they 


would -- they would -- they would consider 


working in the building period as evidence of 


thorium exposure potential. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Of thorium exposure, right. 


 DR. MAURO: Then that puts to bed the only 


concern I have. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think he did -- he might have 


parsed it a little bit saying that, you know, 


if there was any indication job-title-wise or 


whatever that they would -- 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- like an administrative person 


that was likely not in the process. 


 DR. NETON: Well, even then, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Even then, yeah. 


 DR. NETON: Say for instance if there was a 


cafeteria in the basement of the building that 


you entered and never went into the workplace ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- I think they might make that -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: But otherwise we can assume it’s 


very clear? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: If you look at the lab, assay 


lab, if we -- if we ended up putting the assay 


lab -- if we decided that that would include 


that. You know, you wouldn’t necessarily look 


at a newspaper person if there’s only 11 grams 


in the building and their doing, you know, so ­

-


 DR. NETON: You’ve got -- I mean the definition 


was couched in the sense that, you know, you 


had to have -- should have been monitored or 


were monitored for exposure to thorium so 


that’s a --


 MR. GRIFFON: But see, they took the thorium 


part out of that definition. 


 DR. NETON: He -- He did in the sense that if 


you can’t tell it’s not going to be an issue. 


This takes care of Arjun’s concern about colocated workers. 


 DR. MAURO: You have a pretty good sense then 


of what that boundary should have been 


monitored should be. In other words, you’re in 


a – you’re going to be in a position where 


you’re going to help Pete say where that line 

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is drawn. 


 DR. NETON: And I think Pete’s already said 


that. If there’s any potential for thorium 


exposure at all, pretty much the way I -- 


 DR. MAURO: Then it’s clean. 

 DR. NETON: Yeah, I don’t want to interpret. 

 DR. MAURO: Then it’s clean. If it’s not clean 

then it’s a walkaway. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And the only part that I’m saying 


isn’t quite clean is -- is that how do you 


determine if they ever were in the building? 


 DR. NETON: That’s another issue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It’s not for us to -- it’s a DOL 


question. 


 DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 


 MS. MUNN: And the thorium balance record makes 


it a lot easier. 


ISSUE 3: RECYCLED URANIUM (RU)


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we’re on to issue three 


if -- Recycled uranium. 


 DR. NETON: Wanda, could you start passing them 


around? 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. NETON: I have some -- a handout here that 


was put together with ORAU. Bryce Rich 

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particularly was involved in -- in piecing this 


together. This -- I’ll briefly cut to the 


chase on this. ORAU has raised a concern that 


I think fundamentally SC&A is not necessarily 


opposed to the defaults that we’re using for 


the recycled uranium for process workers with 


the -- with the materials. They did raise a 


concern that in the cleanup of the recycled 


material that arrived you generate waste 


streams, ancillary waste streams that by 


definition have at some -- to some degree 


enriched the uranium -- I mean the contaminants 


relative to the uranium. And so we put 


together a -- a write-up on this. Bryce Rich 


has done -- done a good job on this. Some of 


it goes through the issues of -- of what are we 


doing and why our -- our conservative values 


are -- are -- are high already for the workers 


who are handling the material. We picked the 


highest -- the highest contaminant level to 


deal with the workers. I think that at the end 


we talk about the waste streams that were 


generated and it is true that the waste stream 


values are higher and I think we actually have 


measurements for those values. But it is our 

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opinion, at least my opinion at this point that 


the waste streams are wet process waste 


streams. They were handled wet and dispensed 


to the -- the disposal areas as such and so the 


potential for inhalation exposure to this 


enriched sort of -- bad choice of words -- this 


enhanced amount of transuranic material was -- 


was very low and in fact our -- our default 


assumption using the highest concentration that 


came in the door is -- is probably a reasonable 


amount to assign to the workers. With that 


I’ll ask if Bryce has anything to add and 


comment if that’s a fair assessment of where -- 


where we are or where he believes he wrote -- 


what he believes he wrote up anyway. 


 MR. RICH: I -- In more of perhaps background, 


Y-12 was unique in the area of recycled uranium 


from the standpoint that they -- most of the 


contaminants came in with very high enriched 


uranium recycle materials out of -- out of 


(inaudible) and SRS. Plutonium 238 became the 


dominating plutonium isotope. They also 


handled a lot of other LEU and DU because of 


operational requirement, all of which had 


recycled uranium. As Jim indicated we -- we -- 

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we defaulted at the maximum level to add to the 


uranium intake value since those were so 


extensive. In -- In the area of the 


enrichment there was -- there was some, maybe 


30 percent of the -- the recycled uranium -- I 


should back up and say that the -- the -- the 


very -- VHEU and the HEU that came in was -- 


was pretty much all chemically extracted again 


primarily not to remove the uranium 


contaminants or the recycled uranium 


contaminants but primarily to remove the other 


contaminating non-radiological metals such as 


copper and nickel and the like. About 30 


percent of the recycled uranium contaminants 


did go out in the raffinates. But put in 


perspective on the history of the plant, 


something like a tenth of a gram of -- less 


than a tenth of a gram of plutonium went out 


and relatively small quantities of neptunium, 


technetium and -- and the like. Another unique 


factor was that there was some thorium 228 that 


came in as a contaminant as a result of the 


production in irradiating very high enriched 


uranium fuels. We think we’ve adequately 


covered the -- the additional exposure that 

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could have occurred as a result of the recycled 


uranium contaminants including the -- the 


raffinate waste processing. It’ll -- It’ll --


It’ll be perhaps as you look at the description 


I guess I’ll have to admit that because of the 


complexity we -- we perhaps all a little more 


descriptive treatment, a little more of a -- a 


-- a narrative in the -- in the technical basis 


document which we tried to keep concise but 


perhaps too concise. 


 DR. MAURO: The only comment I -- I have is by 


way of clarification. I did read this write up 


on the way over and I got the sense that the 


answer is fairly simple. Notwithstanding the 


wet processing side of it is that the default 


method that’s currently in the Y-12 TBD had 


adopted a set of assumptions which bound any of 


the scenarios that we were trying to struggle 


with. And if that’s the case -- 


 DR. NETON: I think you’re right. If you look 


at table 5-6 is where you’re getting that? 


 MR. GRIFFON: It’s -- Yeah. 


DR. NETON: If you look at the raffinate value 


of the footnote the maximum plutonium in the 


raffinate according to this table is 30 per 

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gram of sludge. That’s pretty low. I mean you 


-- you would have to inhale a fairly large 


amount of sludge to -- to get any kind of 


exposure. As a matter of fact -- 


 MR. RICH: As a matter of fact, that is right. 


The -- However -- And -- And the -- may not 


-- and I think it was clear in the write-up 


that was provided that we did not apply the 


maximum value to the few people that were 


involved actually in transferring, you know, 


the handling the transfer and the disposal in 


the S3 ponds. Those maximum models to the 


entire work class nor to the individuals 


themselves because they did other jobs, too. 


 DR. NETON: Oh, yeah. 


 MR. RICH: And -- And -- And so as a 


consequence, you know, if you want to go -- if 


you want -- and -- and a further default to 


accommodate that one rather small -- it only 


took 50 hours a week -- 50 hours a year to do 


that job. 


 DR. NETON: Say how many? 


 MR. RICH: Pardon me? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Fifty hours --


 MS. MUNN: Fifty hours a year. 

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 MR. RICH: Fifty hours a year. And this is -- 


this is very well documented in the Y-12 


recycled uranium mass balance report. And so 


we didn’t devote -- devote the entire -- at 


that level which would -- which would go in 


about a factor of five increase. And -- And 


that increase by the way, because we defaulted 


high, factor of ten in all of the other 


defaults above the -- above the average values 


we felt like that would -- that would certainly 


cover that -- that relatively short term 


operation at the increased level for the 


raffinates. Take a look at it and see what -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: A factor of ten? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Bryce, can you explain the 


thing because I had a question about that 


factor of ten that you reduced the maximum 


value by in your example. 


 MR. RICH: Yeah, the range of, you know, the 


analytical range, result range through the 


plant for all of the -- the contaminant levels, 


the -- the maximum range to which we defaulted 


was in the -- in the range of a factor of ten 


or higher than the average. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And what’s the basis for that 

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factor of ten? 


 MR. RICH: What’s the basis? Because it was 


just the upper range of the distribution. 


 MS. MUNN: The maximum value. 

 MR. RICH: Yes, the maximum value. 

 MS. MUNN: To represent --

 MR. RICH: And the reason for that -- the 

reason for that is that it -- it -- it’s almost 


impossible to identify any individual as being 


associated with a process that represented -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Process --


 MR. RICH: -- any -- any -- any given 


distribution. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is it --


 MR. RICH: And as a consequence you’re almost 


forced to default to the maximum since -- since 


this is a -- a missed dose they didn’t do 


plutonium or neptunium analysis but at the 


levels we’re talking about and the extent they 


didn’t do an amount of bioassay at the -- at 


the levels for that purpose. They -- They 


controlled on the basis that the incoming 


limits placed on recycled uranium contaminants 


was agreed to to increase the overall hazard 


level by no more than ten percent. This did 

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not include concentrating mechanisms primarily 


of which was the liquid extraction process. 


And with that in mind it -- we feel that we’ve 


adequately defaulted on the high side and as -- 


and the application of the default will provide 


a claimant-favorable result. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Bryce, you mentioned the DOE Y-12 


recycled uranium report. 


 MR. RICH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I’m -- I’m going by memory here 


but it seems to me there were other operations 


listed in there as at least moderate in -- they 


had executive summary sort of table where they 


 MR. RICH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- indicated the relative 


potential for neptunium and plutonium 


exposures. 


 MR. RICH: Yes, they figured out a matrix that 


 MR. GRIFFON: And there are other operations 


other than the sludge handling that -- 


 MR. RICH: Oh, yes. They had 36 fundamental or 


major operations associated with the processing 


of recycled uranium materials. There were over 

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100-plus different types of operations but they 


-- they all grouped within 36 categories and 


they analyzed and -- and then provided that 


data within those 36 categories. But three of 


which were the -- the recycled uranium -- no, 


the -- the waste product streams not only to 


the S3 pond but WETF waste processing that 


occurred after I think ’86 or so. And then of 


course, there’s some -- some burial of the -- 


the material also. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You believe all those -- your 


sense is that all those operations fit within 


this range in table 5-6 that you’ve presented? 


 MR. RICH: They fit within the -- the -- the 


fundamental default range that I indicated with 


the exception of the --


 MR. GRIFFON: Of the raffinate. 


 MR. RICH: -- of the raffinates. And the 


raffinates being again in that matrix they -- 


they -- they made an effort to estimate the 


amount of time associated. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. RICH: And -- And also the probability of 


airborne activity and -- and that -- that all 


taken into account we felt we were defaulting 

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accurately. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And when you said you talk about 


this maximum, is that -- that’s -- is that in 


table 5.6 or --


 MR. RICH: No, they’re in there, several 


tables. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. RICH: I think it’s table .6 but then 


there’s also a table in the appendix B under B3 of the 4 pages. And a good share of the 


default or good share of the materials comes 


from that source also. 


 MR. GRIFFON: How about within your TBD though, 


within the TBD’s I have these excerpts here I 


think. 


 MR. RICH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Table 5.6, 5.7, 5.8 -- 


 MR. RICH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that maximum you were 


discussing, is that -- and then you said you 


might divide by ten in some instances because 


the maximum --


 MR. RICH: Yeah, I -- I think we -- well, that 


-- that’s true. If -- If you were to -- the ­

- the -- the best estimates -- but -- but there 

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are other criteria for doing best estimates so 


I think that’ll come out of the -- the -- that 


part of the TBD. That’s actually dose 


reconstruction determination so if that’s 


clear. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think so, yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I’m still a little 


puzzled about what actually happens. Is you --


you have the maximum value and there’s a 


distribution that doesn’t seem to include the 


maximum value because the maximum value belongs 


to a very limited set of processing, three out 


of whatever, 37. 


 MR. RICH: I took -- took the maximum 


distribution for the entire sets -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 MR. RICH: -- all of them. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So the range -- the range that 


you’ve shown in table 5-6, .11 to 4.5 for 


instance for plutonium, does not include that ­

- the raffinate value. 


 MR. RICH: I -- That’s what I said. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 MR. RICH: It will not include raffinate. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Bear with me. I haven’t gotten 

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to the question yet. The -- The -- When you 


do a dose reconstruction you -- you use that 


range, .11 to 4.5 as a --


 MR. RICH: You use -- You use the maximum, a 


maximum derived from that range. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: A maximum. So you use 4.5 or ­

-

 MR. RICH: Yes. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: So you use 4.5 from that range? 

 MR. RICH: Yes. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Where did the 62 come in? 

 MR. RICH: The 62 is recognized as a -- as a -- 


a -- a range for a given raffinate stream that 


was -- that was handled by -- as a wet process 


stream that was discharged directly to the S5 


pits or later to the WETF processing system. 


And -- And in the S5 pits -- S3 pits -- ponds 


they mixed again with -- with other uranium, 


mostly LEU and DU from other processes, a lot 


of uranium. And so as a consequence any 


exposure at that point -- then the -- the -- 


the parts per billion compared to uranium would 


-- would go down again. See, in the raffinate 


stream the uranium was so cleanly removed that 


it was only parts per million of -- per gram of 

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material such that the use of the 62 parts per 


billion -- parts per -- yeah, parts per billion 


plutonium, is -- is really meaningless because 


there’s precious little uranium in it. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 MR. RICH: And so there are two reasons for not 


using that -- that -- that level in the 


raffinate stream directly as a default because 


it’s -- it’s not meaningful in terms of the 


fact there’s precious little uranium there in 


the first place plus the fact that, you know, 


there was a total of a tenth of a gram, total, 


put into the ponds and -- and the fact that 


there’s 62 parts per billion is -- is not a -- 


not a consistent default based on the -- the 


overall default philosophy that has been 


developed. Plus the fact that that it was such 


a small time-wise and exposure potential 


process. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess the one -- again, I’m 


going by memory, but the one operation, I 


thought it was casting or furnace operations 


where -- and from -- from what I recall 


sometimes the slag would concentrate in the 


plutonium or neptunium. 

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 MR. RICH: Yeah, I mentioned that, you know, in 


the --


 MR. GRIFFON: And that’s still covered within 


this range, is it -- I guess that’s my 


question. If this range covers all those types 


of operations I think -- 


 MR. RICH: Yes. Yes -- Yes, I think so. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You know --


 MR. RICH: And -- And by the way, you know, 


when you -- when you reduce uranium it’s 


converted to UF tetrachloride and then reduced 


with a magnesium bomb. And -- And there’s a 


certain amount of slag that comes up which has 


impurities. It’s -- Casting of uranium is a 


purifying process in itself. But because of 


the fact that they -- unique to Y-12 they 


processed all of the ACU directly, immediately 


and then -- then cast that to uranium directly 


so that the slag was -- was less than what you 


would normally get in some other process where 


the material had sat around and was less pure. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So basically we’re not 


using the 62 ppb for anything? 


 MR. RICH: We really are not. And for -- And 


for the reasons that I’ve explained. 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. I’m just trying to 


understand what’s happening. 


 MR. RICH: Sure. Sure. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And then sometimes we take the 


4.5 ppb and apply that and sometimes we reduce 


it by a factor of ten? No? 


 MR. RICH: That -- That -- That was -- That 


was given as a -- a -- an option if you wanted 


to get closer to the average. That’s an 


option. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s -- That’s in the sample 


dose reconstruction. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Did they reduce it though? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I believe so. At least that 


was Joyce’s conclusion when she looked at the 


number. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I need to look through -- 


We’ll bring that up later when we look at that 


example. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Why don’t we -- I think 


it’s -- it’s number seven or eight. 


 DR. NETON: I’m not clear why we would have 


done that actually. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s what she concluded. 
I 


just got it this morning from her. 

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164

 DR. NETON: That's fine. That's fine. 


 MR. RICH: The -- The -- The reduction -- we 


-- we did list the -- the fact that the average 


was a -- a certain factor below the maximum 


that we used as the primary default. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. RICH: And -- And if you wanted to 


reconstruct the dose on the basis of average 


values why that was provided as a -- a guide. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- But there’s no sort of 


operational guidance to that is there? I mean 


 MR. RICH: Not -- Not -- Not in the TBD. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Not in the TBD? 


 DR. NETON: I think it’s in the TBD. I’m 


looking at the dose reconstruction and it must 


have referenced why they did that if that’s the 


case. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But I mean how would the DR know 


which --


 DR. NETON: See, I’m looking at -- this may 


have been a machinist -- a machinist operator 


who’s working with the already cleaned up 


uranium maybe. See, and, you know, when the -- 


when they would come in there -- they’d have 

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the trained (inaudible) issue. Once they go 


through this cleanup phase and recast it there 


still may be something there and -- 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- and I’m just guessing at this 


point but there may be some justification for 


reducing that in a -- in a metals (inaudible) 


effort but I -- I’m going to look through that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It’s still more of a DR question 


anyway. 


 DR. NETON: It seems to me that, yeah, it did 


not --


 MR. GRIFFON: It’s not an SEC issue, right. 


 DR. NETON: If the upper range is valid then 


yeah. 


 MR. RICH: Another point of effect on that is 


that Y-12 and the handling of highly enriched 


uranium was unique to Y-12 and -- and resulted 


in operations where a -- a good share of the -- 


the top of exposure could -- would occur. But 


you will notice in looking at other processes 


that a -- you know, it’s -- the -- the value of 


the material is so great that the -- the -- the 


cleanup efforts were more effective and as a 


consequence the concentrations of the recycled 

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uranium contaminants was less coming in on the 


ACU than it was in other enrichment materials. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Which makes sense, yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It seems to make sense. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anything else on this topic? 


 MS. MUNN: Don’t think so but there is the 


action item to potentially beef up this section 


in the TBD. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, right. 


 DR. NETON: We’re -- We’re certainly going to 


do that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But probably not an SEC issue. 


 MS. MUNN: No, not --


 DR. NETON: No, no, no. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's right. 


 MS. MUNN: Not for us today. 


ISSUE 4: POLONIUM-208
 

ISSUE 5: EXOTIC RADIONUCLIDES
 

 MR. GRIFFON: Issue four is the polonium. I 


think we got -- do you want to go through that 


and then --


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we can break for lunch? 
I 


think that’ll be probably a good spot. 

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 DR. NETON: I’ve kind of lumped these two 


issues together in my mind. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The exotics and the polonium? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, they’re -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- cyclotron-related issues -- 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- although they are different. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Issues four and five. Even 


better. 


 DR. NETON: All right. Well, I’ll pass these 


around. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do you need more coffee, Jim? 


 DR. NETON: No. I got a good night’s sleep 


last night. I’ll try the better night’s sleep 


first. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I’m going to try the coffee 


first. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. What I -- What I handed out 


here is sort of a -- a compendium of issues 


related to cyclotrons so we can skip the first 


section on external dose information until we 


get to that issue. That’s more relevant to the 


exotic radionuclides. And then cut to the back 


of this handout which includes some -- some 

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incident and -- and health physics reports from 


the era of the polonium operations. 


And let me just preface this -- these remarks 


by saying that we last time at the Board 


meeting and the working group and the 


conference call that, you know, we were aware 


of the incidents that were countable in this 


Delta View database. In fact we got a -- a 


very good sense that a number of hits on our 


queries of the database that -- that spoke to 


incidents, investigations, all that sort of -- 


sort of thing. And we were fairly confident 


that we would come back here full of -- full of 


incident reports to show and demonstrate that ­

- that these things were followed up. Well, 


the fact is that we queried the database; we 


got -- depends on which query you use but the 


most refined query we had which was incident 


investigation in the SEC period showed up 


somewhere (inaudible) to 80 titles that looked 


to be of interest. And remember these are all 


over there on this 400,000-plus page Delta View 


database. We’ve pulled those reports, looked 


at them, and in fact we can’t at this point 


provide any compendium of incidents for 

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internal dose investigations for cyclotrons or 


for the polonium operations. That fact is a 


big shock to us. It is what it is. I mean I 


can’t make up incident reports when they don’t 


exist. It also does not necessarily mean that 


there were a large number of incidents that 


went unrecorded but the fact is we just can’t 


put our hands around the issues at this time. 


What I do have though is some -- some of the 


health physics reports that we actually had in, 


you know, at the last Board meeting -- 


available at the last Board meeting that talked 


about follow-ups of issues. This first one on 


a polonium-beryllium spill I think we can kind 


of not ignore but we don’t want to talk a lot 


about it. Really it’s just a intent to show 


the flavor of -- of follow-up when there were 


incidents. This was a polonium-beryllium 


source which really has nothing to do with 


polonium 28 but, you know, they did a detailed 


follow-up with fecal sampling and -- and 


exposures and tracked the guy out for months of 


sampling and that sort of thing. I think I 


turned my attention to the accelerator section 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Jim, that first report, is it -- 


I’m sure it has a date somewhere in there. 


 DR. NETON: It’s July -- It was a health 


physics report between July through December 


1951, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, it’s -- it’s on the top. 


Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: In that same time frame, in July 


through December ’51 we also have an 


accelerator section that was written in a -- in 


an HP report where they tended to be fairly 


detailed about what was going on with the 


cyclotron. There’s a general section on -- on, 


you know, the progress of where they are, how 


they were making gallium at the time. More 


significantly, when you get to page 39 you’ll 


see a section labeled exposure analysis. And 


here they -- they -- they go to some great 


length about exposure monitoring for cyclotron 


operators and it’s a pretty big deal. These --


They were very high dose exposures, that sort 


of thing. At the very bottom you’ll see a 


thing called airborne contamination. Here they 


summarize a report saying that there were 61 


air samples obtained during this six-month 

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period at the cyclotron and they divided these 


into four groups, and they provide these in -- 


in results in table 8 which I believe is on 


page 41. Now, the airborne contaminate that 


we’re talking about here, the best I can 


decipher from this is related to contamination 


from polonium 208. That was the main isotope 


of interest when they started the cyclotron in 


1951. In fact they made a lot of, of the 


stuff. The nature of the production of 


polonium 208 was that it was not amenable to 


being irradiated within a clad geometry. 


Absorption of the protons in the cladage 


(inaudible) so these -- the -- the (inaudible) 


I think which was the target, was irradiated 


there. That created a pretty large contaminant 


problem. If you look at table 8 you’ll see 


that there -- as high as 15,000 DPM per cubic 


meter of cyclotron during the operational area 


-- in the operational area and down from there. 


So again we have 60-something samples that were 


taken in this -- in this period. We know what 


the level of work. I mean we’re not flamboyant 


here. We knew that there were general airborne 


contaminants of polonium. We have, of course, 

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no access to bioassay samples for polonium 208 


that we could find. So at this point the 


polonium reconstruction, we have this report. 


And remember polonium reconstruction only 


bracketed 1951 and part of ’52. I think it was 


September of ’52 when it stopped. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


DR. NETON: So the next report is on a similar 


line, January to July of ’52 you’ll see on 


table 7, airborne contamination during shut 


down and then on page 24 of that report, 


airborne contaminants are in the normal 


operation levels. These levels are -- are much 


lower but they’re still very high compared to 


the limit which they site here as 70 DPM per 


cubic meter. Now, there are statements in here 


that say we require everyone to wear 


respiratory protection above 70 DPM per cubic 


meter which begs the question then, well, 


people were breathing up to 70 DPM per cubic 


meter and then there’s also the issue of -- of 


the representativeness of the air samples and 


that sort of thing. We’re left in a bit of a ­

- a pickle here right now with this polonium 


issue. I -- I don't know where we’re going 

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with this but certainly we weren’t able to 


produce what we -- we really firmly believed 


that we had, you know, 70/80 of these incident 


reports. In fact, I think ORAU went back and 


did a wider search, opening the title search, 


and pulled out 800 documents and looked through 


all those. And -- And the well is dry. You 


heard George speak earlier today that the data 


may actually reside now at X-10 because this 


was really an X-10 type operation. Now, you 


know, I think though that the time is running 


short and frankly maybe going to run out on us 


on this issue. So I honestly am here to say I 


don't know where we’re at with this other than 


we have air sampling data that we could use for 


bracketing polonium. How robust that is and 


how that allows us to reconstruct doses for the 


workers right now is still a question mark in 


my mind. 


 MR. CHEW: Jim, this is Mel. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. CHEW: I think I faxed you, too, this 


morning -- remember, we went out to the ORNL 


library to look for X-10 information to see if 


we could find inference to either incidences or 

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the way they operate. And I think I sent you a 


-- or faxed to you this morning -- we looked at 


the progress report, April 1, 1951 to June 


30th, 1951 is the cover page. And the second 


page it says 86-inch cyclotron. And 


considerable attention has been given to both 


personal protection from alpha activity 


associated with cyclotron components. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. CHEW: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, I -- I’ve looked through 


that, Mel, and -- and I think that there -- 


there is a pretty good picture here that -- 


that the health physics program paid a lot of 


attention to this activity. I mean there are ­

- there are air samples like I just talked 


about. There are recommendations for hand and 


foot monitors. There are protective equipment, 


clothing recommendations. And there is 


certainly indications of use of respiratory 


protection. 


 MR. CHEW: But I -- I want to --


 DR. NETON: I put this in a situation though 


where we have monitoring data. We have -- We 


have indications that there was a -- a 

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reasonable health physics program but 


everywhere I look in here there are indications 


that -- that say that they are maybe below the 


maximum permissible levels. You know, they put 


respirators on when they reach 70 DPM. Yet we 


have acknowledgement then in their own reports 


that there were exposures. Yet we have no 


confirmatory bioassay data to -- to rely on to 


validate that that actually happened. And so 


I’m in a little bit of a quandary myself right 


now as to how -- how robust those data are in 


order to cover polonium exposure for cyclotron 


workers. That’s where we are so I wish -- I 


wish we had more to offer. We certainly firmly 


believed we had -- had the data covered. 


 DR. MAURO: What kind of doses are you talking 


about at 70 DPM? 


 DR. NETON: Well, if -- if one -- and I haven’t 


run this to ground but if 70 DPM were the -- 


were the back or the MAC or whatever you want 


to call it in that period, you potentially, you 


know, at the -- in that time frame 15 rem to a 


critical organ maybe? 


 MR. RICH: It was -- It was set up for 


uranium. 

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176

 MR. GRIFFON: Do you think that was a week 


though? I mean I don't know if they’d be doing 


that for --


 MR. RICH: -- for the uranium. 


DR. NETON: What’s that?


 MR. RICH: The 70 DPM was set up for uranium. 


 DR. NETON: Right. So that was not clear to me 


why they were using 70 DPM alpha in the 


polonium 208 facility. That -- That doesn’t 


jive. 


 MR. RICH: Well, that’s a relatively short-


lived isotope. 


 DR. MAURO: Yeah, that’s what I was going to -- 


 DR. NETON: Well, it’s two years. It’s not 


that short. So you’re going to get your 50­

year dose within six years or so maybe but we 


could run that calculation and show what -- 


what workers were exposed to, if they received 


the maximum allowable exposure at 70 DPM. Is 


that plausibly bounding? I -- I’m not sure. 


Let me look through that and say well, is this 


-- what do we do with that? 


 DR. MAURO: Is there an endangerment issue 


here? I mean that’s what -- 


 DR. NETON: Well, yeah. 

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177

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAURO: I just wanted to make sure I 


understood that. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, I -- I think with 70 DPM if ­

- if, you know, it’s -- it’s an alpha activity 


so let’s assume it’s similar to uranium in 


terms of its dose premiere intake. I think 


it’s lower but it’s in that ballpark. You’re 


going to get into the range of doses that would 


endanger health. Okay. No doubt in my mind. 


Now, there’s a whole additional piece. The 


cyclotron only operated for polonium for a year 


and a half period 


 MS. MUNN: Sure. 


 DR. NETON: But there may have been some 


residual contamination issues here. I mean it 


was clear they couldn’t get rid of the problem. 


Once they -- once the polonium kind of 


distributed itself in the process it was kind 


of hard. You’ll -- You’ll see the locker 


rooms had contamination at this point so -- but 


yeah. I really wish we had some polonium 


bioassay samples, which I thought we had but we 


don’t, to bracket. Again, the health records 


program seemed to have done everything they 

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could to limit exposure below the maximum 


allowable dose. But again it’s been our 


practice in the past not to use that as a -- a 


logic path to say that that’s what the maximum 


are. We’ve just not been comfortable doing 


that. So again I’ll leave the issue open at 


this point but I guess that’s as much 


information as I can present to you at this 


time. 


 MS. MUNN: Jim, there -- this report -- you had 


to turn in this report. 


 DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 


 MS. MUNN: It indicated that there were 63 


names identified in 1951 as being associated 


with this. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: Is this pretty close to the -- to 


the worker population we’re looking at -- 


 DR. NETON: I think --


 MS. MUNN: -- in the ’60 to ’70? 


 DR. NETON: I think it’s our opinion that 


that’s in that ballpark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It’s fairly close. 


 MS. MUNN: Just about covers it? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. We -- We had heard --

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179

 MS. MUNN: And we have well less than 100 


people. 


 MR. KERR: There were some people coming and 


going here as far as --


 MS. MUNN: Oh, yes. Yeah.


 MR. KERR: -- depending on what was being done. 


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


DR. NETON: But it’s our understanding from 


interviewing people who were involved with the 


process and others that cyclotron operation was 


a relatively small process operation relative 


to Y-12. Many of the people were actually X-10 


workers --


MS. MUNN: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- not Y-12 workers and, you know, 


(inaudible) of physicists, technicians with 


some supplemental maintenance staff -- 


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- that worked there. Certainly 


it’s our opinion it’s less than 100 workers. 


 MS. MUNN: And the whole thing lasted less than 


a year and a half? 


 DR. NETON: Well, for polonium. 


 MS. MUNN: For polonium, yes. 


 DR. NETON: The cyclotron -- 

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180

 MS. MUNN: Yes, the cyclotron. 


 DR. NETON: But the number is a relative, 


numbers of people working cyclotron I think 


stayed about in that ballpark. 


 MS. MUNN: Okay. 


 MR. KERR: Some of the, those studies done 


after -- immediately after this (inaudible) 


where radiation (inaudible). It was 


(inaudible). So it wasn’t really radiated 


conferences. 


 MS. MUNN: These workers should be fairly easy 


to identify, shouldn’t they? 


 MR. KERR: We have to. That’s what I said. 


We’ve got -- we have obtained at least three or 


four memos that have the names of people -- 


 MS. MUNN: You know just exactly -- 

 MR. KERR: And we know --

 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 MR. KERR: -- and has badge numbers. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: A complete listing or as best you 


know? 


 DR. NETON: Be careful. As best we know. We 


know --


 MR. GRIFFON: As best you know, right. 

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181

 DR. NETON: We have written memos but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: We know it’s a small group, a 


relatively small group. 


 DR. NETON: The cyclotron facility. We have 


that list. We have worker lists. 


 MR. KERR: We have some of the lists of people 


who have been monitored. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You know, I don’t -- you probably 


haven’t done this yet but do you know if all 


these people are in a similar department or -- 


or is there any consistency there? Probably 


not because --


 MR. KERR: Not now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- groups and other, yeah. 


 MR. KERR: We have people that have keys to 


their (inaudible) and those you can -- I’ve 


looked at departments that they’re out of. And 


they’re mainly out of I think the department 


number for molecular nuclear -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I counted up here some of the -- 


 MR. KERR: And the other one was electrical 


maintenance had some people with keys and a 


research support group has several -- a number 


of people with keys. So those --

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182

 MR. GRIFFON: That’s about it, yeah. 


 MR. KERR: -- about three departments. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I’m just thinking of other ways 


if you didn’t -- I'm not sure your list is 


complete. Maybe you could know with 


departments, you know. I mean but --


 DR. NETON: But nonetheless, I’m still not 


clear how we’re going to put a bound on this. 


 DR. MAURO: That’s what I was going to ask now. 


What I’m hearing is if you do go down the road 


and try to place a plausible up or down, what 


I’m hearing is you have fair measurement data 


to have quite a large distribution. So the 


handle you might have -- the only real handle 


you have is to somehow use that data -- and I 


don't know if this is (inaudible) own data or 


(inaudible) data but somehow come up with a 


number that you’re going to say this is a 


plausible up or down and apply it to all of 


these workers. Is that -- one -- one thing 


that’s --


DR. NETON: That -- That -- That would be at 


this point given the data that we have, that 


would be an option. 


 DR. WADE: And the other option would be to -- 

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183

 DR. NETON: Revise the SEC evaluation and add 


this cyclotron worker class. 


 DR. WADE: And so as we pursue this option it 


would be good to have discussions obviously 


with DOL as I’m sure the Board will have 


questions for DOL related to that at the next 


meeting. 


 DR. NETON: I think you know -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: How about the other nuclides? 


mean you --


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: This is polonium, right? 


 DR. NETON: The story -- The story gets a 


little murkier --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. NETON: And that’s where I -- I --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That would be the easy part. 


DR. NETON: True. At least we have some air 


monitoring data for the -- Now, you have these 


other exotics, so-called exotic radionuclides 


that Mel Chew and his team did a great job 


putting together the table. We know when they 


were produced now, you know, under what time 


frames and what they weren’t. Or it pretty 


much covers almost the periodic table as to 


I 
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what was produced. We found no -- we would 


hope that these incident reports would have 


fleshed those out as well. And there’s nothing 


there. So now we don’t know how to bracket 


those potential incidents that may have 


occurred. It seems unreasonable to me to 


believe that none occurred and that’s why we 


don’t have any incident reports. I just --


just have trouble believing that because in the 


1960s we have some reports that we actually 


showed. That gallium is a good example of 


that. And we said, geez, this -- it was 


actually one MAC into the -- into the 


(inaudible). So they’re out there somewhere. 


They may be at X-10. We don’t know. I also 


mentioned early on that the external data for 


the cyclotrons are not all necessarily in the 


CER database. Some maybe but not all. Given 


that then we’re in the position of -- of having 


to say that let’s go to the Delta View 


database. Sound familiar? You know, we can -- 


we can pull these data out. They may be there. 


They may be at X-10. So we have no way to 


reconstruct right now internal exposures from 


which I believe were fairly low doses, but we 


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have no way of proving that. And secondly the 


external exposures at this point are not 


covered by any of our existing co-worker 


models. So the cyclotron worker issue really 


looks to me to be fairly, you know, -- I don't 


know what word to use on that. We don’t have a 

lot of data. 

DR. WADE: Fairly clear. 

DR. NETON: Not very clear. 

 DR. WADE: Well, it is clear. I mean our 

actions will be clear. That’s what we’re -- 


that’s what we’re here to do. So look at the 


reality and make decisions. 


DR. NETON: We have to make decisions. I’m not 


saying that we’ve -- we’ve made that decision 


at this point but you -- given the -- given the 


weight of the evidence that we presented here 


it’s going to be hard for us to come up with a 


bound -- a plausible bounding analysis. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I think part of that 


consideration might be the small number of -- 


 DR. NETON: It’s a small number of workers on 


top of that so then how much effort do we 


expect. I believe the reports are there 


somewhere. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: But do we spend a massive amount of 


man-hours to pull these records out to prove 


that those doses were small? 


 MS. MUNN: Has there been an effort to? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Because out of those -- 


 DR. NETON: Yes, Mel mentioned that they were 


yesterday looking for incident reports in the 


library for X-10. We found the investigations. 


They -- They typically, the ones we’ve looked 


at, the ones that I’ve seen, two or three, are 


related to external exposure where someone 


walked into the area -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Unlocked. 


 DR. NETON: -- unlocked and they received an 


exposure. They did nice to follow up. I would 


have expected to see a similar level of 


attention paid to internal. Now, it may be 


because as we’ll talk about later in that case 


study that John threw over our side, you know, 


the mindset in this time period was not so much 


let me figure out what a person’s internal dose 


is but are we concerned at all that workers are 


above the maximum permissible amount at that 


time. Very much like TLV for industrial 

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hygiene. As long as we know workers are below 


X they weren’t really concerned with 


calculating a detailed internal dose. That 


just wasn’t the way business was done back 


then. And -- And this may be what we’re up 


against. Everyone recognized that these are 


short liberated nuclides. Yeah, you blow a 


little bit into the air but it goes away so we 


don’t have a good way to hang our -- well, it’s 


anything to hang our hat on right now. So I 


cut that pretty short but that’s -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: You did. 


MS. MUNN: There’s nothing to argue about. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I was just going to ask -- I know 


what I was going to ask. A lot of the 


claimants -- I don't know if you have a way to 


figure this out but how many were potential 


cyclotron workers? 


 MR. KERR: I think we’ve been looking back at 


that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Have you looked at that? 


 MR. KERR: There’s two at Y-12. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So we’re talking -- 


 MR. KERR: And I briefly looked through the 


(inaudible) and I wasn’t able to identify 

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anybody, you know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So we’re talking 65 to 100 in the 


whole population and two in the claimants? 


 DR. NETON: Well, maybe in the claimant 


population. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe a few more in X-10, yeah. 


 MR. KERR: I looked at X-10 and I -- just a 


quick look --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: I think there’s a third which is 


the gallium incident one that we found in the 


‘60s that led us down this path -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- thinking, oh, my gosh, look at 


the wealth of --


 MR. GRIFFON: It is significant, yeah. 


 DR. NETON: We went into a detailed 


investigation of this gallium and we thought, 


well, this is great. Everybody must have some 


similar level of documentation and it’s turned 


out to be --


 DR. WADE: Are there cyclotron operators 


outside the period covered by this SEC? 


 DR. NETON: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

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 DR. WADE: So it’s -- could re-- depending upon 


our judgment it could result in an identified 


class. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Expanded year class. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, it would be expanded year I 


think. 


 DR. WADE: Or by us as -- as another class. 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, yeah. 


 MR. KERR: In 19-- 1960 -- 1960 and 1961 an 


operation of the cyclotron went entirely X-10. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. KERR: But it was used for us. 


 DR. NETON: You’ve got to be careful though. 


Under the change of geographic location, the 


way we’re doing business right now is -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- is an X-10 -- it’s a Y-12 


operation. 


 DR. WADE: It opens up various issues 


inappropriate for us to look at. It’s really 


what is supposed to come from this process. 


It’s a good thing. 


 DR. NETON: I think for purposes of this SEC 


for instance if we were to make a supplement to 


add cyclotron, I think we -- we would cut it at 

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’57 with the understanding that we would have 


an ongoing investigation into an additional -- 


I just don’t want to delay -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- for the effort. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Because if you were to find 


claimants who would fall outside of that time 


frame --


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


 DR. WADE: -- then we could work with those 


claimants. 


 DR. NETON: We could work with them through the 


process or whatever. 


 MR. KERR: System workers -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Did --


 MR. KERR: I guess what -- maybe after this ’57 


period we ought to walk through the monitoring 


data on the people who were working at the 


cyclotron when we go back in the early ‘50s 


which may make a difference. 


 DR. NETON: Example we had for gallium. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So we could leave that 


open. 

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 MR. KERR: Right. 


 DR. NETON: Because after ’58, you know, the 


recommendations to work were incorporated and 


they were a little better about internal 


monitoring although I don’t make any -- I don’t 


make any predictions any more about what was 


done. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s where we are, like you 


said, yeah. I think we’re at -- that’s the 


issue four and five actually. I don’t think 


there’s anything else to add on that. 


 DR. NETON: No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The only thing, I was looking 


back at my questions coming into today and 


eveything’s been answered except for the 


question, and it’s from an earlier issue we 


discussed but some of these memos -- all these 


memos that you’ve emailed, some of the memos 


have been cited by Mel and others. And can you 


just make sure they’re on the O-drive or 


whatever in that directory so we can look at 


them? 


 DR. NETON: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And also the -- the -- I think 


you used some of this data from these -- these 

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reports. I emailed you on this. These reports 


that were under classification review, the 


health and safety reports. Are they available 


yet or not yet? 


 DR. NETON: No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think you said they were still 


under -- under review or whatever. So if they 


become available you’ll post them, okay. 


 DR. NETON: As soon as we get them we’ll put 


them out. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I think we’re at a -- I 


think we need a break. 


 DR. WADE: To the people on the phone, so we’ll 


break and we assume we’ll come back at 2:00 


p.m.? 


 MR. GRIFFON: 2:00 p.m., yeah. 


 DR. WADE: We’re going to break contact with 


the call now. 


 MR. CHEW: All right. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was held from 12:55 to 


2:10 p.m.) 


ISSUE 6: 1948 AND 1949 SALVAGE AND RECYCLING
 

WORKER INTERNAL DOSE
 

 MR. GRIFFON: Jim, we’re on the record now. 


guess we’re going to pick up with issue six. 


 DR. NETON: Issue six. 


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 MR. GRIFFON: ’48 to ’49 salvage and recycle 


worker internal dose. 


 DR. NETON: I don’t have a real handout for 


this so I can just talk through it but it’s a 


fairly straightforward issue in my mind. The 


issue is that we -- as people -- you recall we 


have no bioassay data for ’48 and ’49 for 


workers at Y-12, at least none that we have 


access to. I think there is some but we just 


don’t have it. So it turns out we took workers 


with bioassay in 1952 and -- and used them to 


recon-- to -- to predict what the maximum 


intake could have been in ’48 and ’49 given 


what the excretion rates were in 1952. And we 


came up with what we believed to be some fairly 


generous estimates. And I think in general 


there was agreement --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


 DR. NETON: -- among the working group that 


that seemed to be a reasonable approach with 


the proviso that we had to demonstrate somehow 


that, you know, we’re the subset of workers who 


were called the salvage workers in 1948 and ’49 


also present in 1952. And as importantly was 


their distribution similar to the overall 

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distribution of workers in 1952 or were there ­

- is there some subset that we should account 


for and -- and increase their dose? That’s the 


story. Now, the result was that we found there 


were 352 workers who we had monitored data for 


in 1952. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think you did send something on 


this issue. 


 DR. MAURO: There was something. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. I did. That was the -- in 


fact I can pass this out. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: This has actually -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that’s it. 


 DR. NETON: -- a hodge-podge of -- of 


information. And what’s relevant is item 


number one here on the chart that talks about 


393 ID’s with urinalysis data in 1952. We 


check the job categories or titles of those 


people and nine have salvage related job 


titles. Okay. We also went back and looked at 


workers -- the job titles of workers who were 


there in -- prior to 1950 and it turns out that 


there were nine people with job titles of 


salvage workers before 1950. So we have gone 

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back and actually looked at the distribution of 


the nine people who have salvage job titles at 


Y-12. And of the people who were listed as 


salvage workers the minimum bioassay was zero, 


the average was 24, and the maximum was 576. 


And these are in DPM for 24 hours. If you look 


at the total population of 393 workers the min 


was -1, the average was 33, and the max was 


38,000. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Where are you reading from? 


Sorry. 


 DR. NETON: I’m reading from my own private 


piece of paper here. I'm sorry. I didn’t mean 


to be facetious. I -- I’m sort of elaborating 


on that -- that first sentence on the sheet 


that was just handed out that said internal 


bioassay review. It talks about the 393 ID’s. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah. Right. 


 DR. NETON: We went back and looked at the -- 


at the bioassay records for those nine salvage 


workers and I was just comparing the 


distribution -- a rough comparison of 


distribution. And it turns out that the 


average value for the overall population is a 


little higher than the average value for the 

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nine salvage workers. They’re in -- it’s in 


that ballpark. There doesn’t seem to be any 


issue with -- with them being way out of whack 


which -- which is kind of consistent with what 


we were thinking is these people were pulling 


residual contamination of uranium off the 


pieces and parts. I guess one could -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Jim, is this -- is this salvage 


related job titles, what -- is there any -- 


there was a salvage department I saw in some of 


the health physics reports. 


 DR. NETON: I actually think that they had 


salvage worker in their job title. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It did say salvage worker, yeah. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, that’s what Bill -- Bill 


Tankersley was clear on that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- that they did have a salvage 


worker title. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: So now, the other comparison was I 


think that there were -- of the people who were 


monitored, 393 who were monitored in ’52, I 


believe, and someone help me out, is about 140 


-- 40 percent of workers also had -- were also 

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working in the pre-’50 period. We don’t think 


that’s necessarily an issue of attrition so 


much as of maybe adding new workers but 


nonetheless, there was a very good overlap of 


workers in ’52 with the pre-’50. And in fact 


the nine salvage workers seem to match up 


between those two periods. So we don’t have 


what seem -- there doesn’t seem to be an issue 


here for us anyways that -- that what we’ve 


done is -- is a fairly reasonable approximation 


or if anything a claimant favorable 


approximation of their exposures. We do --


went back and tried to identify any air sample 


data that may be useful in helping to also 


corroborate this and couldn’t find it. That we 


did not find. It didn’t pan out for us. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Jim, I think that’s reassuring. 


I don't know if --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Give us the data and we’ll be 


able to see the, write the worker numbers down. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s -- That’s -- That’s what 


we asked for and, you know, it looks like 


you’ve done it so --


 DR. NETON: We -- We -- The good news is we 


were able to track it. We’ve identified it and 

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we’ll get you the data. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Good. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


ISSSUE 7: Y-12 WORKER DATA INTEGRITY ISSUE
 

REGARDING INTAKE INCIDENT
 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I guess we’re on to issue 


seven. 


 DR. NETON: Issue seven. That is the case 


study; is that right? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I -- I -- I looked at that 


case in the last conference call. I hadn’t had 


a chance to -- to review the case. And I sent 


around an email --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- I thought that was about a page 


response to the -- what I thought the issues 


were and I’m still on that -- on that bent 


that, you know, the spectra theory looked like 


there was in the K-40 there. And my knowledge 


of that system was that they were using a -- a 


complex technique that I wonder -- wonder why 


they do that but they did it nonetheless. And 


certainly it’s plausible that that 30 millirem 


contributing to the content continuing in the 


185 region. My guess is there’s about ten 

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(inaudible). I’m looking at the K-40 versus 


the --


 DR. BEHLING: That’s where I came out after I 


realized that I had missed the -- 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: I mean I looked at that and I 


said, why are they squeezing all of that 1.5 in 


the -- into 500 channels? I expected that to 


be --


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- 4,096 channel -- multi-channel 


analyzer and I looked at those two peaks and I 


jumped to a conclusion that it wasn’t -- the 


data wasn’t there for me to say no to it. It 


was only after you explained it that I 


realized. And the striking fact is that the 93 


and 186 are a factor of two apart. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: And the 66 and the 1 -- 4.6 


happen to be exactly --


 DR. NETON: I can sort of see how you came to 


that conclusion but I --


 MR. GRIFFON: The energy is written over those 


peaks but I realize --


 DR. BEHLING: Well, now, I wrote that in there 

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and there was --


 DR. NETON: (Inaudible) original (inaudible) 


and I said there’s more energies here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: It was intended to be an internal 


memo --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- which I had sent to John. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's fine. 


 DR. BEHLING: And I had said for -- for 


explanatory reason I’ll make the assumption. 


And it was an assumption that I had no qualms 


with because there was nothing there that says 


it’s 2.9 KV per channel. It could have easily 


been .4, in which case the two peaks would have 


corresponded. 


 DR. NETON: I think that counter was used for 


multiple purposes and one was to do thorium 


measurements. And I think if 228’s got a peak 


of 911 KPU that they would have used to 


quantify thorium exposures and -- and other 


issues. But you’re right. I mean I -- I don’t 


-- it doesn’t make a lot of technical sense to 


measure something. I’m pretty sure this was 11 


by 4 inch detector. That’s a pretty big -- 

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 DR. BEHLING: That’s a huge volume detector -- 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- that is not usually used for 


lower energy protons. 


DR. NETON: And that was actually what was in 


the mobile counter which this may be the count 


from was two of those detectors. The person 


was sandwiched between two of those detectors. 


Nonetheless, you know, they did try to account 


for that count being scattered but the problem 


is variable mass people, someone like myself 


versus a skinny person, the peak would change 


even in that. And so the ability to predict 


how many cesium counts were in that 185 region 


is pretty poor. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: And even worse in the 6393. One 


thing that should have tipped you off maybe was 


that the 93 should have had a (inaudible) of 63 


because that’s equally a (inaudible) that has 


the 93 before --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


 DR. NETON: -- the 234. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: Anyway, so -- so I think that issue 

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kind of goes away with the exception that, 


okay, how good is mobile counter and -- and 


what does that really mean in terms of the 


overall program ability to measure dose. Oh, 


let me follow up. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: They did follow up as I said, with 


a urine sample which the practice -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- to say, okay, I see an evidence 


of a positive uranium intake. Let me take a 


urine sample. It showed up I think it was -- 


 DR. BEHLING: 69? 


 DR. NETON: -- 63 or 96 DPM which was below 


their stated action level at that point of 90 


DPM per year. That 90 DPM, even as late as 19­

- I had to think about this for a little bit 


but even as late as May 1989 DOE workers were 


still being monitored under the old ICRP-2 


requirements. So you can calculate Q, the 


maximum body burden that could be in the lungs, 


but 365 a year and not exceed 15 rem per 


quarter. For a lung counter they’re only 


focusing on insoluble uranium. So that came 


out to be somewhere around 17 microcuries I 

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think, worked up in micrograms. And so they 


exceeded what they thought was over 15 rem 


potential exposure to lung if that were there 


all year. They took a urine sample and you 


could also calculate under the old ICRP-2 


concept what would be in the urine if I had 117 


microcuries using that old sample one model of 


a 120-day half-life in the lung. That comes 


out to around 90 DPM. So as long as I’m 


excreting less than 90 DPM per liter I don’t 


have the potential to exceed the -- 


 DR. BEHLING: Exceed 15. 


 DR. NETON: So -- So they took a sample. It 


was less than the 90. They go out. I got this 


issue going here. It’s less than 90, it’s good 


to go. And -- And it wasn’t their practice in 


those days to record any dose at all for 


workers who were just were below the -- 


 DR. BEHLING: You know, it seems so strange 


when I compare it to Rocky and then, you know, 


Rocky Flats, when you look at their TBD they 


introduced detectors. Subsequently they used 


high purity uranium -- detectors and they used 


urinalysis that would have an MDA value of less 


than one DPM in a 24-hour urine sample. And of 

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course, when you look at the MDA associated 


with Y-12, under optimum conditions 26 DPM in a 


24-hour period. And that’s optimum; more than 


likely twice that realizing that you’re 


potentially going to be looking at higher 


background in a -- in a proportional 


(inaudible). So I’m looking at that and sort 


of saying why did they risk, at that late date, 


up until September of 1989, they used gross 


alpha and urinalysis data that was so far out 


of whack with what the rest of the industry was 


doing. 


 DR. NETON: I totally agree with you. I mean 


that -- that’s something that I -- I actually 


went out -- went back and pulled their -- their 


procedures back in that era and they were using 


gross alpha with proportion in there. And if ­

- it was electrode deposition which attributed 


 DR. BEHLING: That’s 20 volumes. 


 DR. NETON: -- that appeared to be right out of 


the urine sample after it may have been 


digested slightly. So it -- it was a very high 


level. I guess one -- one could speculate 


that, you know, it met -- it met the need at 

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the time, you know. You want workers in 


plutonium. Plutonium had a -- a more stringent 


controls on it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I’m sure that was the rationale, 


right? I mean --


 DR. NETON: Why -- Why -- Why spend, you 


know, I can see management saying why spend 


$300 a sample when you can process it within -- 


within the regulations for 50. I mean I don't 


know if that’s true but that -- that certainly 


could be why. So, you know, that’s -- that’s 


the bottom line I think on that issue. I don’t 


really see that there’s -- I think the mistake 


that was made was to try to attribute the 


cesium P. 


 DR. BEHLING: No, I completely -- completely 


misread that spectrum. 


 DR. NETON: I’ve seen better -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s interesting because that 


caught my eye because I’ve heard people down 


there in interviews say the same thing, that I 


-- I came out high on my count and they just 


said -- they said, oh, do I hunt deer, you 


know, and they -- so this isn’t the first time 


that’s -- that’s come up. I never saw it in 

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writing like this but -- 


 DR. NETON: At Savannah River it’s even worse. 


I mean the -- the clay soil in that region for 


some reason binds --


 DR. BEHLING: Binds cesium. 


 DR. NETON: -- binds cesium. So then the deer 


graze on the vegetation and even fallout from 


years and years and years ago are still 


available for uptake in the plants. There 


doesn’t seem to be a kind of source for cesium 


for this worker and that doesn’t seem to be the 


issue --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. 


 DR. NETON: And I guess at the end the bottom 


line is that the DOE provided us every number 


that -- that we used to try to validate whether 


they did it right so in that sense we were -- 


we were focusing on the integrity of the data. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: I would say that the data were not 


sensitive. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: We could argue about the 


interpretation that they made but they provided 


us all the values in order to make that 

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interpretation. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I guess the other add-on is 


you’re not relying on that data to do dose 


reconstructions anyway. You’re using end data, 


right? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, lower -- the 69 DPM certainly 


comes into play. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, right. It does come into 


play. 


 DR. NETON: And I think this was a TIB 2 


approach originally that the -- the case -- I 


don’t want to get too much into detail -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


 DR. NETON: -- but I think the case was noncompensable first pass. 


 DR. BEHLING: I think he has the second cancer 


which will now be valued under the revised 


lymphoma DCF. 


 DR. NETON: Exactly. So the second cancer 


which -- what would be a different dose 


reconstruction but I believe that the urine 


sample was bounded by the two two over-estimate 


approach in the first pass. 


 DR. BEHLING: Uh-huh. 


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trying to say in my last sentence of my write-


up that we need to look at this through the 


lens of modern interpretation and dose models 


which I think we’re doing. 


 DR. BEHLING: I did look at the historical 


other -- I checked on data and get an 


understanding of just the insensitivity of that 


because if you look back, and I brought a few 


photocopies with me that are, you know, crossed 


out, blackened out the name I can distribute, 


but they had in one instance a historical 


whole-body count or chest count -- they really 


didn’t distinguish between them -- where the 


uranium 235 was recorded as -99 micrograms 


negative meaning that between plus and minus 


100 there was really no way of determining 


whether or not you had anything in you. 


 DR. NETON: Well, the problem depends on where 


that -- I’m very familiar with the Y-12 mobile 


-- mobile counter. It was used for (inaudible) 


but I had -- I had on my desk data, this being 


for all the workers and for all that had been 


measured with that counter and it’s very, very 


subject to radon fluctuations in air. You can 


imagine you’re doing this count, and you do it 

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in the -- in the afternoon hours your 


background when there’s a conversion -- 


or whatever and the next thing you know it’s 


attracting a huge amount of radon background 


that’s not there in the situation. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: And you -- I can usually see 


getting --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- any negative numbers. My 


recollection -- strange I remember this but the 


detection limit for that system is 5.2 


milligrams of thorium uranium 238 and about 38 


micrograms reportedly in good conditions for U235. For some reason that rings a bell because 


there was a lot of workers that had those 


notations there. Yeah, it probably was -- 


yeah, the lung counter, we need to look at what 


it was about. The lung counter was not as a 


primary mechanism for control of exposures. It 


was a sort of follow up to make sure they 


weren’t exceeding the 5 -- 15 rem lung doses in 


that time period. And the urine sampling 


program was more sensitive than the lung 


counter by far but were insoluble. If you 

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believe the 120-day half-life that was used in 


the -- I can't remember -- But interestingly 


enough it does -- Jerry Barber at Y-12 went 


back and looked at all the monitoring data 


historically at one point and published an 


article on how physics -- he came up with what 


he called Q-class uranium which it fit pretty 


well. Quarterly clearance class rather than -- 


than monthly. And it came out about 120. Most 


of the uranium at Y-12 was in that -- that 


ballpark. Interesting -- Interesting 


exercise. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: A couple of questions just for 


clarifying the scientific issues in my head. 


One would be that essentially the in vivo data 


has to be disregarded even as a validation so 


far as uranium is concerned because I mean 


using the subtraction from them it becomes 


quite variable and, you know, you have no idea. 


It seems from the data that Hans showed me -- 


it seemed to be very difficult to make sense of 


the in vivo data and I just wanted to -- 


 DR. BEHLING: The low doses? 


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-- not the studied idea. 


 DR. NETON: It’s very low incidence levels I 


think that, you know -- this came up in the 


original review, the Y-12 site profile; why 


aren’t we using the in vivo data more. And the 


answer was that the urine sampling was much 


more sensitive and would be more representative 


of workers’ exposures. Now, it doesn’t mean 


though you can’t use the in vivo data as a 


bounding estimate of some point to say okay, I 


-- I -- my urine sample shows me a very massive 


intake for some reason. It is a contaminated 


sample. And I’ve got a -- and I want to see if 


it possibly was. And I’ve got a urine -- I 


mean in vivo count that was done and it shows 


that it’s much lower than what you’d expect. 


Within certain limits one can make those 


comparisons and -- and -- and use it to your 


advantage. But -- But you’re right, Arjun, 


you’ve got to be careful when you start using 


in vivo to do anything. In vivo normally -- I 


never say always anymore but you will normally 


use the in vitro urine data -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


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 DR. MAKHIJANI: It -- It would seem to me that 


if -- if the setup of the counter, and you 


know, this is obviously I don’t have field 


experience in the way that you do -- but just 


looking at the theory of how it was done and 


the -- the data that Hans showed me and your 


explanation, if -- if -- if the frequencies of 


interest from the uranium and the thorium are 


left and -- and -- and the counter is merely 


centered on the cesium peak and you’ve got a 


back stabber that you’re subtracting out that 


would alter significantly, if you -- you would 


be left with a piece of data that would be 


extremely uncertain and -- and very unreliable. 


So my -- my question is how could you use -- it 


would seem to me that so long as the other was 


arranged in the way that this one seems to be 


that you could not use that in vivo data; that 


in vivo data has become unusable for uranium 


235. 


DR. NETON: Within certain limits. I mean I --


I -- I can -- I can guarantee that if you put 


enough in front of that detector you start 


seeing a photo 185. It’s not insensitive. 
I 


mean the intrinsic efficiency of that detector 

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is virtually 100 percent for 185 KPU’s, so 


thick it’s got 100 percent intrinsic efficiency 


capturing those photons. The question is when 


does that intrinsic rise above his continuum 


there --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- amidst the noise that might be 


present from radon and (inaudible). There was 


a calculable value there and it’s not 


worthless. I mean I wouldn’t characterize it 


as that at all. I’d say you have to be careful 


because if you get somewhere above 100-andsomething micrograms I’m very certain you could 


start to see -- you could start to see photons. 


 DR. BEHLING: But like I said, I -- I made a 


copy of some of his historical and you can 


certainly say one thing. Every time you see a 


negative value that’s obviously an error 


because by definition that’s an impossible 


situation. And so it lends you some 


understanding of the limitation of the data 


when you have a minus 99 there’s no explanation 


for that other than to say it’s in error. 


 DR. NETON: Well, it’s... 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, it’s an indication of the ­
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- of the statistics. By stripping something 


out you end up unfortunately at times with a 


negative value. 


 DR. NETON: It’s -- It’s not an error. It’s ­

- It’s -- It’s a number generated as a result 


of this measurement process and it’s -- it’s an 


indication of variability of the process. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: It’s a valid number based on the 


measurement. Now, how valid -- how uncertain 


that is and can you come up with minus 99, how 


does that bracket the uncertainty distribution 


that we’re trying to measure? That’s 


informative. It’s not in error. 


 DR. BEHLING: Uh-huh. 


DR. NETON: I mean I’m clear on that. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Looking at -- Looking at the 


sort of rather large amount of stripping that 


would have to have some value for -- for the 


back stabber people from cesium, that -- that 


would really -- I mean you’d have to have a 


pretty well defined instruction for dose 


reconstruction when they could use this because 


a vast majority of them -- the vast majority of 


this in vivo data would appear to be unusual up 

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to mid-1989. 


 DR. NETON: Again, I don't know unusable or 


not. I mean within a certain limit. Now, 


again we don’t put a lot of -- of emphasis in 


using the in vivo data other than for 


confirmatory issues of let’s say a person had a 


sample here and someone argues you had an 


incident a year ago and you -- you could have 


had an intake or who knows how many micrograms. 


Well, you can say, well, no, there’s no 


indication in this -- this path given, you 


know, whatever the reliability of system. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I would also say we’re getting 


into TR discussion more than SEC discussion. 


 DR. MAURO: I’d like to point out that just 


listening to this discussion, the level of -- 


of knowledge -- experience that’s reflected in 


this conversation. This I guess is caution. 


If you’re in a production mode and you’re 


moving out large numbers of cases and you have 


300 health physicists moving through the 


process, the kinds of judgments you’re talking 


about I certainly trust what I’m hearing. 


Incredible health physics but I think that 


you’re in an -- in a -- in an area now where 

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you’ve got to be really careful. 


 DR. NETON: Oh, yeah. 


 DR. MAURO: Because this is not just turning 


the crank now. There’s a lot of judgment being 


made here. 


 DR. NETON: Again I don't know -- I’m not aware 


of any program -- could be where the workers 


had in vivo accounts without urinalysis. I 


mean we don’t have any. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: It’s not -- It’s not like they 


used in vivo as a cheap way out to monitor the 


workforce. They are almost -- there may be 


instances but typically they’re always on some 


prior assay frequency for urine and then a 


lesser frequency for in vivo. Almost as a 


safety check -- check, you know, are we missing 


something here big time? Matter of fact, 


you’ll see big peaks on some people; more than 


likely it’s because external contamination. It 


is possible. I -- I’ve seen positive counts 


on these -- these -- these counters and I can 


assure you that they are observable and, you 


know, there’s one, granted, what we would call 


a standard peak search by today’s technology, 

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but the detection limit is here. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. I just wanted some -- 


some clarification. 


 DR. NETON: I totally agree that we have to be 


careful in using the in vivo counter data. 


 DR. BEHLING: And what would be the default 


value for in vitro urinalysis given the fact 


that probably 30 to 40 DPM per 24-hour urine 


excretion is probably the MDA value and -- and 


would you be interested in looking to assign 


that for all instances where there is below 


MDA? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. That’s our standard 


practice. We’ve done that a lot. Most of the 


lung cancers that get paid on this program are 


the result of a missed dose calculation -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- for people excreting urine below 


-- what class below the detection limit in the 


measuring process. So this means that if the 


detection was 24 DPM we would assign not 


necessarily 24 DPM, probably half of the MDA, 


you know, if I modeled it, the uncertainty 


propagated on there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Zero to 24? 

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DR. NETON: Yeah, I think so. Zero to 24 --


That’s been our standard approach and again 


we’ve been -- we’ve had many -- numbers of 


people go through here and never excrete a 


positive sample in their -- in their work 


histories that are coming out with lung doses 


that are compensable based on just that and I 


have no problem. That’s the -- That’s the 


technology, limit of the technology. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we’re through that one. 


ISSUE 8: INTERNAL DOSE DATA VALIDATION
 

Issue eight and then we’re done. 


 DR. NETON: Here’s coffee, too if you want. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Don’t need it now, right? 


 DR. NETON: We’re winding down. Well, I don't 


know. Is issue eight the dose reconstruction? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, issue eight I added. This is 


kind of an -- an add on. 


 DR. NETON: Oh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But it’s the internal dose val-- 


it wasn’t really in the conference call -- 


DR. NETON: That -- That actually is included 


in I think some of the material that I -- I 


sent around yesterday. There is a -- a brief 


mention of August of ’55, the second item 

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listed speaks to an attempt at validating some 


of the later external data as you see back 


there. And the remaining one -- two -- two 


write-ups speak to looking at HP reports and 


trying to validate some of the -- some more 


urine data. Although I think in looking at it 


this morning it appears that the HP October ’53 


report is a rehash of what’s in our evaluation 


report. So really the only new one here that 


we were able to look at for the health physics 


 MR. GRIFFON: ’55. 


 DR. NETON: -- was the ’55 and the ’53 HP 


report which talks about average weekly 


excretion rates and DPM for 24 hours and 


there’s very good -- ex-- perfect agreement 


with the exception of sample number four there 


where you see that the electronic database had 


a -- a weekly average of U32 versus -- help me 


out here, Tim. These columns are labeled the 


same. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, they are the same. 


 MR. ADLER: The one on the left is the document 


that the report --


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particular individual had a weekly average that 


was slightly higher but there’s perfect 


agreement among the other samples. And I won’t 


ascribe any value judgments in there other than 


that’s what we can see. 


 MS. MUNN: We can see, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And similarly on the bottom 


table, right? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Except for the 110 versus 13? 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: Why is there a pretty big -- been 


labeled as average weekly if it’s at 20 DPM in 


the 20 -- I mean what does the weekly refer to? 


 DR. NETON: I don't know. These are weekly 


samples so -- and I didn’t do this comparison 


so I’m not going to be able (inaudible) labels. 


That must have been the label on the report and 


that’s just carried over from the report. My 


guess is, and I can’t confirm this at this 


point but if you take a weekly sample, usually 


they had a two-day -- two-day off the work 


period and took a sample. 


 DR. BEHLING: But it’s strictly a 24-hour urine 


sample that was? 

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 MR. GRIFFON: It says 24 hours. 


 DR. NETON: Unless -- Unless this is -- I got 


to be careful here. This could be actually 


over a period of time. Do you know what I’m 


saying? I mean if they had 52 weeks or a 


quarter. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. NETON: I honestly don’t know. I’d have to 


check --


 MR. GRIFFON: That might be good. 


 DR. NETON: -- with Bill Tankersley on that. 


But it’s a good question, Hans. I don't know 


the answer. 


 MS. MUNN: But in either case -- 


 DR. NETON: Even --


 MS. MUNN: The data agrees. 


 DR. NETON: -- the numbers appear to be fairly 


close. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And so the ’55, and that would 


report as one of the ones hung up in 


classification, right? 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That ’55? 


 MS. MUNN: I think what we’re after is 


agreement. The assurance that the CER is okay. 

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 DR. NETON: And, you know, this is sort of 


similar to concluding the cancer with the other 


-- They’re not perfect but they’re -- 


 MS. MUNN: No. You wouldn’t expect them to be. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess there was no more of 


those percentile curves though. 


 DR. NETON: If I -- I got --


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I was hoping for. 


 DR. NETON: I specifically asked that question 


could we get these percentile curves out of the 


data that are still not -- haven’t been 


reviewed for classification? 


 MS. MUNN: I can’t conceive it myself. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Those reports change over time. 


Different authors, different, you know -- 


 DR. NETON: Bill Tankersley assured me that 


there were no ones that he could locate anyway 


for comparisons. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: There’s one -- one discrepancy 


that’s rather large. 


 DR. BEHLING: And it’s that 110 13? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Everything else looks alright. 


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can follow up and see what -- what may be the 


basis of that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And just follow up and tell us 


what these values, you know... 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: In other words, it looks -- 


another piece of data to fill in. I think the 


internal one was the stronger -- you have more 


strength in the case there anyway. 


 DR. NETON: We have three or four -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- forms for comparison in this 


case. Again, 50-year-old data is never perfect 


but it gives at least me a pretty good sense 


that we’re -- we can chase it through this one. 


 MS. MUNN: In my experience one-year-old data 


is not perfect, transcribed from one thing to 


another. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: And any time you enter -- disperse 


information with human activity. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, then you probably have 


typos. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


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those percentile curves and all those graphs 


they did, all by hand. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: A lot of work. 


 DR. NETON: Look at those memos on the external 


side. I mean they were clearly using IBM 


keypunch --


MS. MUNN: Hodge-podge. 


DR. NETON: -- computer technology back in the 


early ’50s. 


 MS. MUNN: Yep. 


 DR. NETON: For -- To generate punch cards for 


-- for the data and keeping track of them and 


stuff. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think there were -- 


 DR. NETON: They were using modern technology 


to their advantage. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yes, right. 


 MS. MUNN: I think –-


DISCUSSION OF SAMPLE DR’S


 MR. GRIFFON: And then the last thing I have on 


the list is just a good discussion of the 


sample DR’s. 


 DR. NETON: Some of these are probably going to 


become not important at this point if we’re 

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going to rethink our approach to cyclotron 


workers. I think at least one, maybe two of 


them are -- are in that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Are related to that. 


 DR. NETON: In that area. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And about the plutonium one I 


don't think there was a question. 


 DR. NETON: Maybe -- Maybe I could start 


there, if there’s any questions on these. But 


I -- I really -- I prefer to answer your 


questions rather than me just go over them. 


But honestly I -- I have them here in front of 


me. I may or may not be able to answer 


specific questions because I -- it’s been 


awhile since I’ve -- I’ve refreshed my memory 


on some of them. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I have the same question on one 


and three. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Which was that it says that the 


highest exposed people were monitored for 


neutrons. 


 DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And I try to follow the 


reference trail to that statement and I went to 

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Dr. Kerr’s paper from 2004 I think, the part 


two of that extended dose paper. 


 DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And that actually referred -- 


that statement was not as strong in that paper 


but it was there. But it referred me to the 


TBD. And in the TBD I did not find a clear 


statement the neutron monitoring all the way 


back to 1949, that all the people with the 


highest exposure -- exposure potential were 


monitored. It did provide me a reference to 


the 1949 May health physics report which I then 


looked back and I did not find any statement 


about monitoring critical (inaudible). This is 


from a relatively quick survey of these 


documents. I might be mistaken. Let me just 


make that caveat. But as I understood the 


health physics report they -- they essentially 


indicated that that’s when they started neutron 


monitoring but no (inaudible) was indicated. 


 MR. KERR: Actually they started monitoring 


earlier than that for neutrons. 


 MS. MUNN: Get close to a mike, George. 


 MR. KERR: You’ll get in trouble. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 

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 MR. KERR: Here’s some neutron monitoring data, 


a little bit like from ’49. That was their 


first attempt. I think that it’ll start adding 


-- they used -- earlier they used some neutron 


sensitive ion chambers or PIC’s to get the 


workers. But in ’52 they started printing NTA 


films in the badges with the beta gamma. But 


if you go back and look, typically what they 


did --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: ’52? 


 MR. KERR: ’52 is when they started putting the 


NTA films in. If you go back and look the 


indications I have is that they were monitoring 


anybody who was in an area where they could get 


a neutron exposure. And I think you’ll find 


that’s stated in -- in the books. Here they --


if you were in an area where neutrons were 


being produced you had an NTA film. Now, the 


one thing they didn’t do is they didn’t always 


develop those films and look at them unless the 


HP in that area said that these people had 


worked in a neutron field that week. They --


Part of the reason they had some indication 


that he had, he was probably looking at the 


pocket ionization chambers. Then the films 

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were developed and read. But if you worked in 


a neutron area you had a neutron film in your 


badge. And I think in the cyclotron they 


probably -- anyone who went in and worked 


around a cyclotron that week, you know, had one 


of those. Now, some of the supervisors didn’t. 


As a matter of fact if -- if you look under 


cyclotron crew in 1954 you’ll see Alvin 


Weinberg’s name. But I doubt if Alvin Weinberg 


was over there every day working at the 


cyclotron. Because usually it says, you look 


at his badge, not used. 


 MS. MUNN: Not used. 


 MR. KERR: Not used. But anyway, they did 


monitor. Everyone had a potential for neutron 


exposures. If you worked in an area where 


there were neutrons you had an NTA film in your 


badge. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That -- That’s the statement 


that I could not find a reference for because 


it’s made in the BR’s, in both the neutron 


BR’s. I tried to follow the paper trail so far 


as I could and I’m sure I didn’t follow the 


whole paper trail. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: So you’re looking for like 

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something back in the -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: There --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- like an HP report or 


something that says all personnel and -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. Something like that. 


 DR. NETON: I have something to that effect 


here. I can’t locate it. I can provide you 


that. 


I think -- I think I just saw this in 


reference to one of these incidents where some 


people strayed into a neutron area 


accidentally. There was an evaluation in ’51 


and it basically talked about who was, you 


know, why people were monitored for neutrons, 


who was monitored. We need to pull that out. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And this was in case one and 


three? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, the same statement was 


made in case one and three. And the reason I 


kind of started tracking this is -- is -- well, 


one reason is that it went back to 1949 when 


there was very little monitoring going on so I 


thought it was -- would be rather extraordinary 


and so I wanted to track down the statement. 


And then -- But according to what you -- I’m 

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not sure -- I’m not sure I followed everything 


you said but the universal monitoring from 


neutron exposure would have started in ’52 when 


they put the NTA film. And before that they 


were giving PIC’s but there was some 


monitoring. 


 MR. KERR: Yeah, they had -- they -- they used 


PIC’s before. A cyclotron crew in ’50 and ’51 


had -- there’s -- there’s two kind of pocket 


ionization chambers you can find. One of them 


typically had boron in it so if you wore it on 


the body it was sensitive to reflected 


neutrons. And some of them actually had a, I 


want to say Teflon. I'm not sure if they had 


Teflon back in those days but they were some 


that had a some kind of a plastic in them that 


would give you a little better response to some 


fast neutrons. But I think the ones they were 


using mainly were the boron coated ones. And 


nevertheless, if you calibrated them on -- on a 


body and saw a reflected neutrons it’s just 


like the albito (ph) dosimeters today. You 


don’t see (inaudible) neutrons. 


 DR. NETON: I would also point out I guess that 


the -- the main source of neutron exposures 

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were the cyclotrons which is what we’re trying 


to do here. And depending on the outcome of 


our evaluation what we’re doing with cyclotron 


operators --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, a moot point. 


 DR. NETON: This may or may not be a -- a 


relevant issue. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This issue might go away. 


 DR. NETON: This issue would more than likely 


go away -- would go away if we added cyclotron 


operators to the SEC. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can I ask this one follow-up 


question? 


 MR. KERR: The only other known site was the 


(inaudible). That was another one where people 


were exposed to neutrons on a regular basis. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And the -- the criticality 


accident of ’58, was there a special treatment 


when you’d do DR’s for people that were 


potentially involved in that accident? Was 


there a --


 DR. NETON: You’ve got the whole report, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, you have the whole report. 


 DR. NETON: It was published yesterday by... 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I saw it -- I downloaded it 

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this morning. 


 DR. NETON: We have -- We have George’s write-


up which is out there for -- 


 MR. KERR: It was just put on -- it was put on 


the O-drive I guess for anyone that wants to 


look at it. 


 DR. NETON: I guess what you’re asking though 


is are dose reconstructors especially cautioned 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- other than through the fact of 


their training --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- through their training. 


 DR. NETON: -- and the fact -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: There’s probably -- There’s 


probably a listing of who was involved in this 


and --


 MR. KERR: If you’ll look --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and then it comes up a -- 


 MR. KERR: If you’ll look in the back of that 


there is a reference that says official use 


only. And that is the 20 -- the names and the 


Social Security numbers of the 23 people -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 


 MR. KERR: -- that we have data on, and that’s 

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on the O-drive. It’s not part of the report. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that listing, I’ve come 


across that and I think it only has a -- a 


photon disk doesn’t it, or does it -- what -- 


 MR. KERR: It’s got both. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It’s got both? Not --


 MR. KERR: Neutrons and gammas both. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Not what I saw so maybe I -- if 


it’s a -- it’s a specific case I won’t get into 


that. 


 DR. NETON: Well, the evaluation report went to 


great lengths to -- to figure out the neutron 


dose. I mean they actually irradiated a burro. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I know. I know. I’ve seen 


that report, too. 


DR. NETON: It’s pretty -- It’s pretty --


Scientifically it’s pretty interesting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah. They went to great 


lengths to recreate it. 


 DR. NETON: It’s not great that it happened. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. 


Now, are we going through case by case, Arjun, 


or can I bring up the case numbers and see if 


there’s -- have questions on those? 


 DR. NETON: Might be good, yeah. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: I mean can I -- can I go to the 


case numbers and ask if anybody has questions 


on this case? 


 DR. NETON: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I am -- case one we just kind of 


talked about, right? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. On case one I had one 


more question. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: We’re using the neutron photon 


ratio and I guess for an unmonitored dose 


they’re using the back. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So we’ve already discussed the 


back extrapolations. That covers that I think. 


 DR. NETON: I hope. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. I don’t want to go back 


there. 


 DR. NETON: It’s too late in the day. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think on -- on number one I 


don’t have any more questions. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you what, I may have an old 


file here but I have one, three, five, six, 


seven and eight. Do you have other -- you 


provided different cases than that, didn’t you? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, there’s four. There’s one 

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through eleven and three and two and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Should have gotten my other 


computer. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. I left the numbers on there 


because it got too confusing -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- to renumber them after we started 


doing numbers. Four, five, six, seven, eight, 


ten and eleven. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So anyway, One -- One --


Three is the next one, right? 


 DR. NETON: Three is the next one. That’s an 


unmonitored neutron reconstruction. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Three is similar, right? 


 DR. NETON: Similar, very similar. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I have the same question. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. How about four? 


 DR. NETON: Okay. Four is extremity. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Four -- I’m trying to open up 


Joyce’s file here. 


 DR. NETON: Four is extremity. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Four. Sorry, yes. I didn’t 


have any questions about four. 


 MR. GRIFFON: When you get to the recycled 


uranium one you have questions on that. 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: I want to open Joyce’s file. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


DR. NETON: Five is a uranium dose 


reconstruction with enriched uranium. This is 


during the period when there was no monitoring 


data so you’re looking at ’48 and ’49 and in 


’50. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So this is starting on the model 


you just described back in ’52? 


 DR. NETON: Right. So these co-worker intake ­

-


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm sorry. This takes me a 


minute. 


 DR. NETON: That’s all right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I want to assume -- I’m 


talking about -- that one assumes no RU because 


of the time period, right? 


 DR. NETON: Correct. It’s a straight -- pretty 


much straight out calculation if you buy the 


co-worker model. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Are we on five or four? 


 DR. NETON: Five. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Five? Yes, okay. All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anything on five, Arjun? Are you 


still looking? 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, co-worker model from ’48 


to ’49. I think we covered that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. Right. I -- I just 


want to review my notes in here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Yes, I had the ten times 


question. Yeah. No, I don’t have any 


questions. 


 DR. NETON: It’s not on file. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. And I don’t have any 


questions on five. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Arjun, is there -- this is a 


little bit of a side question, more -- more DR 


related but for my own education. Is there a 


Y-12 specific like DR guideline for how when 


you’re -- when you’re back calculating some 


real bioassay data how that this matrix would 


treat LOD values, how they’ll treat -- because 


you can either treat them less than LOD, real, 


and it has different implications obviously. 


Is there a guideline? 


 DR. NETON: I -- I suspect that’s in one of 


the tools or workbooks but I -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, there is a question on 

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five. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I’m sure that’s already in that 


tool. 


 DR. NETON: I know. I can’t give it to you off 


the top of my head but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: But those aren’t necessarily 


procedures. They’re --


 DR. NETON: No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- tools, right? 


 DR. NETON: Those tools are very -- I was 


looking at one yesterday for the -- I forget 


what it was now. Extremely elaborate. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. And they tend to be fairly 


prescriptive. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. PIC here, PIC there, PIC -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Joyce had a comment on number 


five. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: She said that chronic intake 


was considered and the most claimant favorable 


way would be to calculate acute intake on the 


first day of work. She got a somewhat higher 


dose. Not very much higher for the colon but 


it would make significant difference for other 


organs. That was her comment. 

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 DR. NETON: That’s sort of a generic comment on 


how we’re approaching this whether it’s chronic 


or acute. I mean that -- that may be tied up 


in this site profile review issue that Joyce 


has made. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Probably not an SEC issue. 


 DR. NETON: She’s made that comment in the 


past. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I agree. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s probably not an SEC issue. 


 DR. BEHLING: But what -- what would be the 


basis for you to --


DR. NETON: We acknowledge that this is another 


point of issue that we need to talk about with 


you guys but, you know, we need to get the 


plausibility versus reasonable. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I agree. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I would agree that it’s not an 


SEC issue. But you have Joyce’s comment. 


 DR. NETON: I understand. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So are we on six then? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, six is very similar in the 


sense that SC&A was looking for how we would 


handle all of these compounds and I think the 


various chemical forms of uranium in the 

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exposure scenario and -- and the dose 


reconstructor apply the more claimant favorable 


chemical form to come up with a dose for -- 


this was a colon --


I think there may have been a one-year recycled 


uranium exposure here because it ended in ’53 


which is a time period that recycled uranium 


came into play and it included that in the dose 


reconstruction so this is virtually the same 


dose reconstruction as number five with the 


exception that we had to pick the most claimant 


favorable solubility class. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And --


DR. NETON: And we had to do the recycled 


uranium which may get into Arjun’s question 


about what we used for recycled uranium. I’m 


going to stick to your question. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No. No. Feel free to -- 


DR. NETON: I’m going to hang myself on my own 


comments. Well, I -- Let me see. I don't 


recall honestly what we did here other than 


highly (inaudible). Attention, recycled 


uraniums were not included until ’53. They 


were not introduced --


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 DR. NETON: Well, until ’53 so they added all 


of ’53. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: I don’t see here -- 


 MR. RICH: Is there an indication of intake 


rate? 


 DR. NETON: Intake rate per day is assigned. 


It looks like it was assigned right out of the 


site profile because that -- that looks like 


the table that -- do you remember that table 


that was in -- George -- I mean Bryce? 


 MR. RICH: Yes. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: One of the cases I think she 


said this was not the only argued case, right? 


 DR. NETON: No. I think the next one is. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The next one is, yes. Case 


number eight I think was the one where -- 


 DR. NETON: Here it is. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- she found that one? 


 DR. NETON: I just want to look at Bryce Rich’s 


table real quick because I think it’s got an 


excerpt out of --


 MR. RICH: It has an excerpt out of the TBD. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. Where is that, Bryce? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The 110? 

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 DR. NETON: I thought the intakes were listed 


there but apparently they’re not. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Not the intakes. 


 DR. NETON: No, you’re right. There are what 


to assign. 


 MR. RICH: It just -- It’s just a ratio of the 


uranium and (inaudible). 


DR. NETON: I can’t speak to what these numbers 


were other than they appear to be standard 


recycled uranium numbers. There’s no 


indication in this dose reconstruction as to 


why they didn’t use the upper limit. I can’t 


speak -- does she make that comment on this 


example or is there another one? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: She made the comment on example 


number eight. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But the same may be applicable. 


 DR. NETON: Well, let me look and see what the 


table -- tables may be. Number eight doesn’t 


even list the tables. That’s interesting. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I think -- it didn’t seem 


to me that in the case of this worker that a 


factor of ten reduction should be taken. 


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in here. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: It doesn’t say that but that 


was how her calculation -- when she used the 


ratio --


 DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- she got numbers that were 


higher than hers. 


 DR. NETON: Let’s -- Let’s make a note of that 


and we’ll get back to you because there’s no 


indication there’s dose reconstruction. That’s 


what they did. I trust Joyce’s calculation. 


We just need to go back and figure out if we 


indeed did that why we did it and explain it. 


If not then maybe this -- this was improperly 


done. I can’t -- I can’t answer the question 


now though. It would have been nice if the 


table had been in here. We’ll -- We’ll get 


back to you on that. Number seven was --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Before we move, number six I 


think she had the same comment. It didn’t say 


so explicitly but that I can see from her 


comment that there is a kind of implicit idea 


that there should have been some acute intakes. 


Application of -- I’ll just read what she said 


instead of trying to interpret it. Application 

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of chronic intake using MDA with the 


(inaudible) not claimant favorable. Two sets 


of data should have been applied to determine 


the missed dose, 1/1/50 to 5/30/52 and 7/15/52 


to 12/31/52. I can -- I can put these in a 


little file --


 DR. NETON: That would be good. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- and send them to you. 


 DR. NETON: Just send them to us and then we 


can react to them. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The -- The ones that -- that ­

- ones that are outstanding maybe I’ll just 


write a little memo for you. 


 DR. NETON: I think that would be good because, 


you know, these are difficult technical things 


to try to --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. That’s why as I was 


reading it I realized it’s not -- 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I’m not good enough to do 


these type of calculations in my head. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I’ll just send you. 


 DR. NETON: I think that would be good. Okay. 


Then number seven was the -- was the -- was not 


a dose reconstruction. It was essentially a 


placeholder talking about the Paducah plant ash 

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material --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- and why we didn’t believe that 


was a -- a dose reconstruction or SEC issue 


anyway. And then ten goes away and eleven, the 


polonium aspect goes away. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And there wasn’t a nine so -- 


 DR. NETON: Nine I dropped because -- for some 


reason. I think we had the general -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we were --


 DR. NETON: Now, eleven is a polonium and 


plutonium. Right, right, right. And so, you 


know, we’re talking about the polonium exposure 


for the cyclotron workers and how we -- we may 


not be able to do those. The polonium was 


reconstructed right out of the -- the Delta 


View data center. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Plutonium. 


 DR. NETON: Sorry, plutonium. And so in my 


mind we took the highest values out of that 


data set to reconstruct them. And so I think 


there was some comments made that we didn’t yet 


have a valid co-worker model but this was to 


serve a plausibility bounding analysis so we 


said, well, let’s pick the highest value we 

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have of anybody exposed to plutonium in -- in 


that time period and use it. And that’s what 


we did. Of course, the -- the values came out 


pretty high. Lung, bone and liver were all 


well over 90 percent. Colon, interestingly 


enough, though, was still less than 20 percent. 


Which is what you expect. I mean these were 


metabolic organs for plutonium and based on 


missed dose from any plutonium intake you’re 


going to have them in fairly large -- large 


doses. And plutonium was exposed in the 


calutrons, right? That was --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Uh-huh. Yeah. 


DR. NETON: They were -- They were separating 


and enriching the plutonium in some isotope I 


think. Interestingly enough when I -- I first 


started graduate school I measured plutonium in 


autopsy tissues of people who died in the 


Bowery of New York City and I got always great 


plutonium 242 as a tracer. It always came from 


Y-12. Now I know exactly how it was 


manufactured. I always wanted to say how do 


you get plutonium 242 pure as an isotope by 


itself? This is the way. Kind of interesting. 


MS. MUNN: See? If you stick around long 

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enough you learn all kinds of stuff. 


DR. WADE: And then you forget most of it. 


 DR. NETON: And you forget most of it. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: You have a brain with the 


magnitude to store it all, too. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that brings us through the 


cases, right? 


 DR. NETON: I think so. 


 DR. MAURO: I just wanted to mention something 


before we started getting close to the end. 


Joe Fitzgerald just mentioned to me that he 


thought this might be an -- since we’re 


finished up early he was planning on getting 


Brant Ulsh on the line to talk a little bit 


about Rocky. Is there any interest in staying 


on about another half hour or so? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just to do an update though. 


 DR. MAURO: Just an update -- just a -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Not a -- Not a --


 DR. MAURO: -- where, you know -- sort of -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Not a transcribed -- 


 DR. MAURO: Not transcribed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: What I think we said was an 


informal call. 


 DR. MAURO: Right. An informal, non­
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transcribed, just to take advantage of the fact 


that we’re all sitting around the table. 


 DR. NETON: That's fine. So we’re going to go 


off the record at this point? 


 DR. MAURO: Close it out first. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, first make sure -- we’ll 


close it out first, yeah, but I think -- I 


think we could do that, yeah. 


 DR. WADE: One thing I’d like to talk about -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know how we’d get to the 


airport right now either with that thunder and 


lightning. 


 DR. WADE: I’d like to talk a little bit about 


what might unfold in our meeting in June. Now, 


I did allow a significant amount of time for 


the Y-12 SEC discussion. I guess the -- going 


into it is there’s the possibility that NIOSH 


could be issuing an addendum to its evaluation 


report. You know, that addendum could be 


presented to the Board. And then the working 


group could present. The Board could decide to 


vote, to take it off the table and vote. The 


Board could decide not to. So I guess we need 


to be thinking about those things as we lead up 


to -- lead up to the meeting. 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Wade, if an addendum is 


actually presented I want -- it would be good 


to have some sense from Wanda and Mark whether 


we would be doing something with that or 


whether we just sit back and watch the rest 


unfold and whether we’ve kind of done our 


support work for the Board sufficiently that 


you don’t expect anything more of us other than 


the one or two cleanup items here. But I think 


the one on the table 45-B I think is what I’m 


responsible for. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. Those are about the only 


issues I can --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- think of. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean it partially depends on 


what your addendum says so -- 


 DR. WADE: But hypothetically speaking the 


addendum could go to the issues of calutron 


workers. It could go to the issue of an 


additional building for -- or buildings for 


thorium. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And then maybe issues where we -- 


we as a worker Board or Board, whether we’ve 


discussed it enough with SC&A and there’s no, 

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you know -- or we may get it and say, you know, 


depending on what we add in, we may. 


 DR. NETON: Lew’s right. If we did --


 MR. GRIFFON: Need further assistance, right. 


 DR. NETON: If we did add cyclotron workers -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- and the appropriate buildings 


for thorium in it seems like the technical -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right.


 DR. NETON: -- issues are, with the exception 


of the -- the co-worker model and some -- some 


checking of table 45-B -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- were pretty much -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we’re there. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think so, I just wanted to 


make sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think so, too, but I don't know 


how you’re going to come out yet and neither do 


you, right? So --

 DR. NETON: Yeah. I -- I can’t -- I don’t 

want to --

 MR. GRIFFON: The Board’s unlikely, but I think 


 DR. WADE: The Board might have some questions 

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for DOL at that point. We’ll try to get DOL 


there. So depending on how it plays out it’s 


possible the Board will be voting on the Y-12 


SEC petition. That’s also a possibility. 


 MS. MUNN: I’d hope so. 

 DR. WADE: Well, I personally hope we do. 

 MS. MUNN: A lot of people hope so. 

 DR. MAURO: Mark, I presume we’re still in a 

sit and wait for further directions from you 


and the working group on whether you’d want us 


to prepare any work product? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, you have the one task that 


Arjun mentioned --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Yeah. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- with the --


DR. MAKHIJANI: And I’ll -- I’ll do that. I ­

- I need some information from NIOSH to be 


able to do it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And then I know you guys will be 


keeping track of some -- small -- smaller items 


but -- but --


 DR. NETON: I -- I will -- I’m not going to be 


available next -- starting Saturday through 


next Friday. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Me, too, so --

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 DR. NETON: I know time is of the essence -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: I’m going to try to read email but 


I’m going to be way far away. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I can help coordinate -- 


 DR. NETON: So make sure anything that goes to 


me also is cc’d to -- to Bomber so that he can 


at least be aware of the issue and somehow get 


the message to me that I may need to do 


something although I’m sure he’s totally 


capable of --


 MR. GRIFFON: Some of these points -- I mean 


some of these things I saw you taking notes but 


 DR. WADE: I got it all down I think. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just putting some of these 


documents on the O-drive, and the faster that 


can happen obviously. 


 DR. WADE: But I don’t want to hold up for 


example this 53-B analysis. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. WADE: I think it’s important. The quicker 


we can get a consensus on this issue the better 


off we’re going to be and if it takes a small 


phone call among ourselves again, you know, 

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we’re probably willing to do that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Whatever -- Whatever it takes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I would leave open the -- if 


we need another informal call in between now 


and then. I think it’s totally appropriate. 


 DR. WADE: We, of course, can’t issue our 


supplement to you until we -- we issue it in 


general to the petitioners as well as the 


Board. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. WADE: But as soon as that happens we’ll 


notify you that it’s available. And I know 


there’s going to be pressure on us if we’re 


going to issue a supplement to get it out 


sooner than later. There are certainly 


requirements about federal register notices and 


just common courtesy that need to be -- be 


brought into play. 


 DR. NETON: We have our Board meeting in about 


three weeks out? 


MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Amazing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I think that we’re set to 


close out. Anybody else have anything else? 

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Then I think we can adjourn this -- adjourn 


this work group. 


(Whereupon, the working group meeting was 


adjourned at 3:15 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

255 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of May 18, 2006; 


and it is a true and accurate transcript of the 


testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


19th day of July, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102