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 


MEETING 44 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. I 


DAY ONE 


The verbatim transcript of the 44th 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Cincinnati Marriott 


Northeast, Mason, Ohio, on Feb. 7, 2007. 

 

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C O N T E N T S 

Feb. 7, 2007 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL 

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STATUS OF NEW BOARD MEMBERS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH/OCAS 

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DOL PROGRAM UPDATE 

MR. JEFFREY KOTSCH, DOL 

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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY REMARKS 

MR. GLENN PODONSKY, DOE 

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SUBCOMMITTEE ACTIONS 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, ABRWH 

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SELECTION OF REMAINING PROCEDURES TO BE 

REVIEWED BY SC&A UNDER TASK 3 

MS. WANDA MUNN, ABRWH 

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PUBLIC COMMENT 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 208 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

BEACH, Josie 


Nuclear Chemical Operator 


Hanford Reservation 


Richland, Washington 


CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


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 

 

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LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 


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


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


POSTON, John W., Sr., B.S., M.S., Ph.D. 


Professor, Texas A&M University 


College Station, Texas 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 


SCHOFIELD, Phillip 


Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 


Los Alamos, New Mexico 

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SIGNED-IN AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS
 

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH 


BALDRIDGE, SANDRA, PETITIONER 


BEATTY, SR., EVERETT RAY, FERNALD MEDICAL SCREEN 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON OFFICE 


BURGAN, LARRY, DOW/SCI 


CALLAWAY, ALLEN, FERNALD MEDICAL SCREENING 


CALVERT, CHARLES, MOUND 


CHANG, C, NIOSH 


D’ANGELO, JAY, ATTORNEY 


DONG, MAXIA, NIOSH/OCAS 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 


ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH 


EVASKOVICH, ANDREW K., LOCAL #69 


FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 


GAFFY, VICKI 


GRANT, ROGER 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


JERISON, DEB 


KOTSCH, JEFF, U.S. DOL 


LEAVY, GLENDA, NIOSH 


LEWIS, MARK, ATL 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAUT 


MCKEEL, DAN, SINEW 


MILLER, RELADA, NIOSH/OCAS 


PRESLEY, LOUISE S., WIFE OF ROBERT PRESLEY 


RAMSPOTT, JOHN, SINEW 


ROLFES, MARK, NIOSH 


SCHAEFFER, D. MICHAEL, SAIC 


SCHNORR, TERRI, NIOSH 


SENTKER, TED, G.E. 


SKINTIK, ED, DOE 


TABOR, ROBERT G., FERNALD 


ZACCHERS, MARY JO, ORAU 


ZIEMER, MARILYN 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(1:00 p.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO
 

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


to call the meeting to order. This is the 43rd 


(sic) meeting of the Advisory Board on 


Radiation and Worker Health. We welcome you 


all to southern Ohio. Southern Ohio today is 


like southern Indiana. Everything is snowy, so 


we have a bit of a snow delay. At least one of 


our members is yet to arrive, but we certainly 


have a quorum. 


STATUS OF NEW BOARD MEMBERS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

I'd like to begin our session, and before I 


call on Dr. Wade to make some remarks, I want 


to call attention to the fact that we have just 


recently seated two new Board members. They 


are so new, in fact, to the Board that their -- 


their table tags are still temporary. But if 


you're real good, we'll get you new ones by 


next time. 


Let me introduce them. First of all, Josie 


Beach -- Josie's a nuclear chemical operator 

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and lead hazardous waste trainer for C2M-Hill 


in Hanford, Richland, Washington. 


CM2 -- CH2M-Hill -- let's get it right, yeah. 


All those acronyms sound alike. Josie is a 


nuclear chemical operator. She's had 20 years 


of experience at the Hanford Reservation. She 


started her career in the plutonium finishing 


plant there and was active in the final 


plutonium production campaign. In the mid-'90s 


Josie became involved with some of the worker 


training programs and was -- has been involved 


in developing health and safety classes there 


at the facility. And more recently with CH2MHill has been involved with the tank farm waste 


operations group and is also a member of the 


United Steelworkers Union Local 12-369. 


Welcome, Josie. We're pleased to have you join 


the Advisory Board. 


MS. BEACH: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then also another new 


individual on the Board is Phillip Schofield, 


who is from New Mexico. Mr. Schofield worked 


at the Los Alamos National Laboratory for 21 


years. He's had extensive experience in 


handling and in processing plutonium and 

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americium. He's been involved with actinide 


chemistry processing, a lot of different 


activities related to that. He has spent the 


last five years as an operations center 


specialist. He -- running and monitoring 


systems at the TA-55 plutonium facility. He 


has been on medical disability and has been 


working as a volunteer at the Los Alamos 


Project on Worker Safety. So Phillip, we 


welcome you to the Board as well. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now we do have a quorum. We 


believe that -- I think that Michael Gibson is 


on the line. Mike, are you with us on the 


line? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, Paul, I'm here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And then, Lew Wade. 


 DR. WADE: Let me formally welcome you to the 


Advisory Board, and as I always do, I'd like to 


thank the Board members for their service. I ­

- I welcome the two new Board members and we 


look forward very much to their participation 


and to overworking them, probably starting at 


this meeting. But -- but thank you. They've 


been through an orientation with the folks at 

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NIOSH and Dr. Ziemer, and I think they -- they 


come to us ready to -- to begin their service. 


So again, thank you all and Paul, please. 


NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE
 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH/OCAS


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We're going to begin our 


session this week with the program update from 


NIOSH. Larry, we'll welcome you back. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Good afternoon, ladies and 


gentlemen of the Board, and colleagues and 


members of the public. We're so happy that 


everyone arrived safely during this bout of bad 


weather that we've had here in Cincinnati. 


Want to open up my presentation here with just 


a -- a notice to you all and to those out on 


the -- on the phone line, NIOSH is very pleased 


to have announced that we have an ombudsman now 


on board for Subtitle B dose reconstruction and 


SEC petition processing. And Denise Brock -- I 


don't know that she's arrived yet but she is 


supposed to be here in attendance at this 


meeting, and I certainly would like to make 


sure that you know about her existence in the 


program as the ombudsman, and we'll walk you 


through a little bit of her duties and contact 


information. 

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I'd also like to introduce to you as well 


Laurie Ishak, who is -- Ishak-Breyer, who is 


now married, as the SEC counselor. She's not 


here also. I -- I think she's in travel status 


bringing new computers to the new Board members 


right now. So when she joins us, please 


introduce yourself to Laurie. 


For Denise as the ombudsman, you have -- in 


this slide you have her phone contact 


information. It's a toll-free number. I know 


she has an e-mail address but we -- I think 


she's trying to change that and we don't want 


to give that out until we get the final e-mail 


address. 


Her duties as ombudsman under Subtitle B or 


Part B of the Energy Employees Occupational 


Illness Compensation Program Act includes these 


various bullets as you see here -- to provide 


advice to the SEC petitioners in compiling 


their materials, their information and the 


documentation that's necessary for filing an 


SEC petition. She'll also assist petitioners 


in making their presentations to this Advisory 


Board. Denise will work with -- with the 


petitioners as they encounter difficulties in 

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this technically-complex and -- and difficult 


process of -- of pushing their petition through 


to closure. And she's also there to assist 


Subtitle B claimants who may be experiencing 


some difficulties in the dose reconstruction 


process, and she can answer questions or help 


guide them through that process. 


 Laurie Breyer, or Laurie Ishak-Breyer, has her 


contact information here, both the office 


number as well as an 800 toll-free number. And 


if you wish to write her by e-mail, you may use 


the OCAS e-mail address. 


Her duties involve assisting individuals who 


are thinking about or desirous of submitting an 


SEC petition. She assists petitioners in 


understanding the process that their petition 


must go through and helps them in the 


development and the submission, and works 


alongside Denise Brock in that regard. 


She'll work with petitioners in overcoming 


their frustrations or any confusion that -- 


that may result in their working their way 


through this process. 


Both Denise and Laurie have talked about 


holding Special Exposure Cohort outreach 

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meetings as part of Denise's responsibilities 


and Laurie in support of that. They intend to 


help individuals understand this complicated 


process of moving a petition forward for 


acceptance and evaluation, and final 


determination of what should happen. They're 


going to hold meetings that'll be open to the 


public that'll be approximately a half a day 


each. The -- I don't believe they settled on 


the total number of these meetings yet. They 


will deal with all requests for meetings of 


this sort, and identify where they need to hold 


such a meeting to have the greatest impact. 


So to request such a meeting, I'd simply ask 


that you contact either Denise or Laurie Breyer 


Ishak and they will assist you in setting up 


those kinds of meetings. 


Is there any question from the Board about the 


duties of these two individuals? 


 (No responses) 


If not, I'm going to have to change slide shows 


then. 


(Pause) 


As I do at every Board meeting, I -- I try to 


give the Board and the public, the people in 

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attendance who are so interested, an update on 


the dose reconstruction program and the SEC 


petition process and where things stand in that 


regard, and so we'll just jump right in and 


talk about the overall number of claims that 


have been sent to NIOSH for dose 


reconstruction. 


A little over 23,000 to date have been 


submitted to us. We have completed 81 percent 


of those, or 18,659 have been returned to the 


Department of Labor for a decision. And you 


see here, of that 18,659 cases, those that are 


broken out this way -- 16,664 have actually 


gone to DOL and there's been a decision made; 


652 claims have been pulled by the Department 


of Labor for a variety of reasons, and I'll get 


into that later. There are currently 1,343 


cases that have been currently pulled for 


examination by DOL as to being eligible or not 


for SEC class. That leaves us at NIOSH around 


4,213 or another 18 percent that are still 


active, or are claims that are in our process. 


And this -- these numbers are as of January 26 


this year, 2007. We have 213 cases, or one 


percent of the total, that has been 

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administratively closed under dose 


reconstruction, and I'll speak more about those 


kind of claims in a moment. 


Of the 16,664 dose reconstructions that have 


been returned to Department of Labor for a 


decision, DOL has found 28 percent, or 4,594, 


to have met the compensability requirement of 


greater than 50 percent POC, or probability of 


causation, at the 99th percent credibility 


limit. They've also found 72 percent, or 


12,070, of those claims had a non-compensable 


determination. These are only dose 


reconstructed claims. 


When we talk about how we do dose 


reconstruction, as the Board knows, there's a 


variety of approaches that are used in our 


efficiency process, and these are the different 


types of dose estimations that can be done. 


This information is provided to the Board so 


that you can better plan your review and 


sampling of concluded cases for your review. 


The -- by and large, the -- the overestimation 


of internal and external dose, as you can see 


here at 11,026 cases, have been completed using 


that kind of a -- an overall approach. I won't 

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go through the rest of the list. You'll have 


it -- you have it in your briefing booklets. 


Of the 4,213 cases remaining at NIOSH for dose 


reconstruction, we would show that 1,023 of 


those are currently assigned to health 


physicists. They're in the process. They're 


being reconstructed. Another 878 initial draft 


dose reconstruction reports are currently in 


the hands of the claimants and we're awaiting 


their return of our OCAS-1 form which imparts 


that they have no further information to 


provide us on that particular dose 


reconstruction, and we are enabled then to move 


that claim on to the Department of Labor for a 


decision. Two thousand and -- 2,312 cases are 


being developed or are awaiting assignment, and 


being developed means we're collecting the 


information necessary from the Department of 


Energy. We're also conducting interviews with 


the claimants. We may be -- there may be some 


of these cases that are held up awaiting a 


Technical Information Bulletin or a Technical 


Basis Document development before we can 


complete them. 


There are 1,896 cases that are older than one 

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year in this subset of claims, so about 45 


percent of our active claim population are 


greater than a year old. That's important to 


us because we want to get to -- we have a 


strategic goal that we're trying to achieve 


this year where we take one more step closer to 


steady state, and that is not to have a claim 


in our process over a year old. Once we 


achieve that, then we'll revise our strategic 


goal and attempt to -- to refine it to a better 


goal for the benefit of more claims. 


As I mentioned, we are particularly interested 


in working on the oldest claims first and 


getting them out the door, if possible, so that 


these folks can have a decision. Here you see 


in this slide -- and if we look at our first 


5,000 claims, our oldest claims in-house, we've 


completed 4,350 -- 4,315 of those. There have 


been 51 that were administratively closed under 


dose reconstruction. The Department of Labor 


has pulled back 269 claims out of this 


population of 5,000. 166 claims in this 


population have been pulled for SEC classes, 


and 48 are in hands -- dose reconstruction 


reports in the hands of claimants. You see 

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these listed here in white because we feel 


we've completed our work on those. 


The next one you see here are the returned 


cases from DOL. These are returned for various 


reasons I'll speak about in a moment, but they 


are -- they've already had one dose 


reconstruction and now we're being asked to 


revise that dose reconstruction, so it's more 


work back on our plate. 


The -- the red that you see here, the 81 claims 


that are awaiting dose reconstruction, those 


are the remaining active claims in our first 


5,000 that we're working on. And I'll break 


those down a little bit more for you in a 


moment. 


 Our traditional slide of showing you by 


increments of 1,000 -- these are the tracking 


numbers that are used. When we receive a 


claim, we assign a tracking number, and so in 


sequence, if we break them out into 1,000 


increments, you can see how we're doing against 


each 1,000 and how we're doing against the 


total population of claims. The blue bar 


indicates cases that are completed. The green 


bar -- part of the bar indicates cases that are 

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pending for some reason; there's no activity on 


those cases until we can get a resolution of 


whatever the issue may be or the obstacle may 


be. And then the red bar indicates those cases 


that have been pulled or administratively 


closed. 


As I've mentioned to the Board in the past, I 


want this slide to be more informative and to 


also show the SEC claims that have been 


processed under the new classes that have been 


added, and those are not in this graph yet -- 


be forthcoming. Not much time had passed since 


the last Board meeting and we just haven't -- 


we've been working on other things that have a 


higher priority than updating that particular 


graphic. 


Here this graphic shows you the number of 


claims in blue -- in the blue line -- that have 


been sent to NIOSH from the Department of 


Labor. And you can see that in the early days 


of the program, in October of '01 -- October 


17th I think is when we received our first 


batch of claims -- that result-- that 


represents the backlog that we were dealing 


with. The green line indicates those cases 

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that we have completed a dose reconstruction 


report for and have moved it on to the 


claimant. And then the red line actually 


reflects some of the activity coming out of 


that green line and represents the final dose 


reconstruction reports that have been provided 


to the Department of Labor. 


Here we show -- to just determine in this 


graphic whether there's any trend in our 


administratively-closing claims under dose 


reconstruction. And again I'll remind you this 


is where a person may become so frustrated they 


just will not sign our OCAS-1 form enabling us 


to send it on to Department of Labor for a 


decision. And at that point we give them 60 


days to provide us the form or to provide us 


new information. If at the end of 60 days we 


don't hear from them, we send them another 


letter giving them another 14 days of grace on 


this issue. If at the end of 74 days we have 


not heard anything or we don't have any 


indication that the claimants have new 


information or have an intent to sign the OCAS1, we administratively close the dose 


reconstruction. 

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Now we can open this -- reopen this dose 


reconstruction at any point in time, and we do 


so upon request of the claimant. They can 


either request that -- that we reopen it and 


submit the OCAS-1 so that we can move it on to 


the Department of Labor for decision, or 


they'll indicate to us that they have found 


additional information they want us to 


consider, and we will do so. 


We really don't see any trends in this analysis 


at all. If you -- if you look at the spikes 


that are seen here, there's usually something 


accompanying a spike. Our production level 


increased dramatically, or a new Technical 


Basis Document come on line, or we run into a 


set of claimants that were just so fed up and 


frustrated with the process that -- that they 


found it just more beneficial to them I guess 


not to sign the OCAS-1. 


When we receive a claim back from the 


Department of Labor asking us to rework the 


claim -- and you'll see that in this graphic 


under the green bar. I apologize, this doesn't 


come out very well in this -- we're going to 


have to change the colors here I think. But 

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the green bar indicates those we've received 


from DOL and the blue bar indicates those that 


we have done our work on and made the revisions 


and sent them back. 


Again, there's a -- the majority of these 


reworks are for situations where the claimant 


has acquired another cancer, or identified 


additional employment history, or some 


demographic change has occurred in the -- in 


the claim itself. Very few of these come back 


to us as technical reworks. We may see more of 


them in the future as we get more involved in 


changes that we've made to our approaches and 


DOE -- DOL sends us the claims for rework under 


a modification to our -- to one of the 


approaches that we use. 


When it comes to response to our requests for 


exposure information from the Department of 


Energy, they've been very forthcoming. We're 


only working on a limited number of claims as 


you see here, 322 open requests out there. DOL 


sends us, on average, about 200 new claims a 


month. That's been pretty steady state. So 


what you're seeing here is really the -- the 


new claims that have been sent to us. You see 

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here is 70 claims have a request in front of 


DOE at some point where we're monitoring and 


tracking the response to those and 70 of those 


are over 60 days. Every 30 days we follow up 


with DOE and the point of contact at the DOE 


facility and seek out with them where they're 


at on responding to our request, and that is 


documented. None of these 70 claims are over 


120 days old at this point in time, and there 


are no particular sites that we're having any 


trouble with in this regard. So these are just 


-- really the -- I'm pretty pleased with how 


this looks right now. 


We've also just recently -- we do send 


supplemental requests to DOE to look for 


information that goes beyond the individual 


personal dosimetry or bioassay, and generally 


those -- on an individual basis, those issues 


may -- may slow down or delay the completion of 


the claim, but in this -- in this regard with 


coworker data, we've made a number of recent 


requests to the Department of Energy for large 


datasets that will be used in developing 


coworker data distributions to fill information 


gaps across sites. And I've listed the sites 

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here for you. These are very important to us 


because there is a -- a number of these gaps 


that these datasets are -- are looking to 


fulfill. So the sites as you see them here are 


Argonne National Lab East, Lawrence Berkeley 


National Laboratory, the West Valley 


Demonstration Project, Lawrence Livermore 


National Lab, Los Alamos, and the Sandia 


National Lab. 


Looking now at the Special Exposure Cohort 


class additions, there have been -- currently 


there are 1,342 claims at the Department of 


Labor and they're evaluating those claims for 


their eligibility with -- to stand within a 


class. You see the numbers here. Ames 


Laboratory, there have been 20 claims now at 


DOL awaiting that eligibility. Iowa Ordnance 


Plant, 336 for the first -- let's see, for the 


first class, the most current class, and then 


the -- there's one claim from that facility for 


the oldest class in time. Linde, we have 47 


claims at DOL. Mallinckrodt, for the early 


class, 94 claims; and for the later class, 56 


claims. And the Nevada Test Site, for that 


class we're -- have 188 before DOL. 

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 Pacific Proving Ground is another class that's 


been added and 20 claims are represented here 


going through the eligibility process. Y-12 


early class, we have 82 claims; Y-12 later 


class, 277. The Oak Ridge Institute of Science 


and Engineering class, there are three claims. 


Los Alamos National Lab, the RaLa class, there 


are 214 claims working through eligibility. 


And in S50 we show four claims. 


If you were here earlier this morning you heard 


some working group discussion about procedures 


review, and I want to apologize to Wanda Munn, 


the chair of that working group. I was 


confused when you were talking about Y-12 


documents. They sounded to me like site 


profiles and some of these documents here I'm 


going to present in a moment go to site 


profiles. So Technical Basis Documents that 


are currently in use in our dose reconstruction 


program right now total 150. There are 60 


Technical Information Bulletins that are 


approved for use in the program. 


We currently have 12 Technical Basis Documents 


-- and these may be a chapter of a full site 


profile or serve as a -- as a site profile in 

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and of themselves, and they -- these documents 


are being developed by the ORAU team for 


Harshaw, Sandia National Laboratory, the NUMEC 


sites in Pennsylvania, Metal and Controls 


Corporation, Sandia National Laboratory 


Livermore, the West Valley Demonstration 


Project, and Ames Laboratory, the Battelle King 


and Jefferson Street facility, the Peek Street 


facility, and the Extrusion Plant also known as 


RMI, and the General Electric Vallecitos 


facility. 


Likewise at -- our Battelle technical 


contractor has also been working on Technical 


Basis Documents, the uranium metal trades, the 


-- this is a group of Atomic Weapons Employers 


that did similar processing of uranium. 


That'll be covered in that document. And also 


the uranium refinery -- refining Technical 


Basis Document. 


 Battelle's efforts are devoted to working on 


1,400 claims that cover 256 facilities. That 


represents 15 percent of the total claims that 


we have, and also 85 percent of the covered 


facilities. So as you might imagine, this is a 


very small number of claims per facility here, 

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and in our early strategic planning we focused 


our efforts on the larger facilities where we 


had the largest claims. And we're now -- and 


we're now providing the attention that these 


Atomic Weapons Employer facilities I think 


deserve. 


There are 221 dose reconstructions that have 


been completed by Battelle, were -- and are in 


our technical review or have moved on to the 


claimants; 312 dose reconstructions have been 


provided to the claimants. 


As you know, under our Special Exposure Cohort 


rule we are enabled -- when we identify that we 


cannot do a dose reconstruction, we can use 


that as initial class definition and so -- 


that's called 83.14 in our parlance, it comes 


out of our regulation, and it speaks to this 


particular situation where a dose cannot be 


reconstructed. So we have identified these 


facilities that have -- we're writing up 


professional judgments and we're checking to 


make sure that there is no source of 


information that we have not yet identified, 


and making sure that we have all of the 


identified sources of information collated into 

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a folder that will serve as our evaluation of 


these facilities. They include Combustion 


Engineering, Kellex-Pierpont, the Lovelace 


Respiratory Research Institute, the SAM 


Laboratories at Columbia University, Lake 


Ontario Ordnance Works, the Massachusetts 


Institute of Technology, the Naval Research 


Lab, Norton Company, University of Rochester 


Atomic Energy Project, Watertown Arsenal 


Building 421, University of California and Dow 


Chemical. 


I've been providing a report to the Advisory 


Board each meeting on our efforts on 


construction workers. Unless I hear otherwise, 


I'm probably going to drop this from -- from my 


presentation and cover other matters for the 


Board, but to conclude with this, we're -- 


we're dealing with about 4,600 cases that have 


a construction trades title in their job 


history. And of those we have submitted 3,881 


claims to Department of Labor, 28 percent of 


which have found to be compensable by Labor; 74 


percent have found -- been found to be noncompensable by -- by Labor. We have 723 cases 


remaining of construction trades workers to be 

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reconstructed, and we're working hard on those. 


Just a note for the Board, since you've had a 


request from the Center for Protection of 


Worker Rights on the -- asking for the Board to 


review construction trades worker claims, the 


Board in its first 80 dose reconstructions 


looked at seven that had construction trade job 


titles. And another 40 dose reconstructions 


are in the mix that -- that the Board is 


getting -- selecting from under their seventh 


review. 


When we make a change in one of our technical 


approaches to doing dose reconstruction, or in 


our risk models for Interactive RadioEpi 


Program that determines the probability of 


causation, we're required by regulation to look 


back at the claims that have been completed and 


found to be non-compensable and determine 


whether or not that particular change is going 


to affect the decision outcome for that claim. 


And here we call these Program Evaluation 


Reports. Seven have been completed thus far, 


and I've listed them here for you. The Hanford 


Bias Factor -- these are on our web site, the 


Board has been made aware of them, the public 

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can get access to them -- Misinterpreted 


dosimetry records that result in an 


underestimation of dose for the Savannah River 


Site; Error in surrogate organ assignment 


resulting in an underestimate of X-ray dose to 


the Savannah River Site claims; fourth one is 


the effect of adding ingestion intakes to 


Bethlehem Steel cases; fifth is 


photofluorography at Pinellas; then we have the 


external dosimetry target organ for prostate 


cancer; and finally the evaluation of the 


effect of Revision 2 of the Bethlehem Steel 


site profile. 


We've modified our program evaluation review 


procedure to include what we call a PEP, or a 


Program Evaluation Plan. We use this where we 


encounter large numbers of cases that might 


potentially -- that will need to be reviewed to 


determine whether or not the change that has 


been initiated affects claims. And it -- this 


is a -- if you will, a screening effort to 


identify the universe of claims that needs to 


be examined one by one. That's in a plan 


called a PEP, a Program Evaluation Plan. 


Once we have the plan, it will -- and we work 

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through the cases that have been identified in 


that universe, then that will become a Program 


Evaluation Report and will be also posted on 


our web site to show what we found in that 


review. Not all PERs will need a PEP, as I 


said. If they're not large enough, the 


universe is small, we'll be able to look at 


those on an individual basis and finish up the 


Program Evaluation Report with no need to 


provide a plan. 


 Two Program Evaluation Plans have been 


completed to identify how we're going to deal 


with our change to the lung model and the risk 


that's associated with lung cancer. We've also 


got a large effort on our lymphoma change, and 


so both of these required a Program Evaluation 


Plan, and we're working through those now. 


I might say that we are tracking in our 


management plan about 20-some-odd other program 


evaluation reviews that need to be done, and 


we're working on those. 


 In our communications efforts we have made some 


progress I think in dealing with concerns and 


criticisms and complaints we've heard about our 


communications with regard to letting folks 

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know that we've received their claim from the 


Department of Labor. This is what we call our 


acknowledgement. We send an acknowledgement 


packet to a claimant informing them that we now 


have their claim and we're working on it, and 


what's going to happen with that claim, what 


are the next steps. And so the Board -- Board 


provided us review comments on this new 


communication piece and it's now in effect. 


It's being sent out this -- this month -- or 


last month, in January. So from that time 


forward, that's the kind of acknowledge packet 


we'll -- we'll use until we change it again. 


 We're also involved in revising and 


reformatting our draft dose reconstruction 


report that goes to the claimants to make it 


more claimant-friendly, to make it more 


informative and make it more understandable to 


that particular audience. We've heard concerns 


that our reports have been developed really for 


a different audience, a health physicist 


perhaps, which is perhaps true. So we're --


we're striving to revise and reformat that 


report and I'm not sure how soon we're going to 


get it out. We have to do a little bit of 

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retooling before we can put it into place. But 


we also have Board comments on that and we 


appreciate the constructive input that you've 


given us. 


We have completed our effort on producing a 


video that explains dose reconstruction. I 


didn't bring one up here to hold up with me, 


but the Board members should have got an e-mail 


this morning that indicated that we'd like to 


know what format you want your video in. You 


can have DVD, CD, VCR -- you tell us and we'll 


get you a copy of it, as many as you want. 


These are available to the public. We're going 


to distribute them upon request. We'll have 


them at our public meetings. You can sign up 


and get one. We're going to place them in the 


Department of Labor Resource Centers around the 


country so that they can play them for 


claimants and use them as they see best to 


their advantage. We'll also have it running 


live stream I guess on our web site so people 


can take advantage of this information there. 


We've made some accomplishments in 2006 that 


I'd like to draw your attention to. We've 


completed all of the oldest claims in our first 

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5,000 except for a few, as we talked about 


earlier. I can break them down into right now 


three specific categories. The NUMEC claims -- 


we had some difficulty with NUMEC. We had to 


threaten some subpoena action on them to get 


the data that -- that we needed for those 


claims, and we're very pleased when they 


finally were forthcoming with that information 


because there's very rich data and it was -- 


enabled us to do a very high-quality dose 


reconstruction for those claimants. And we got 


that information late in November or early 


December, and so it -- we just didn't have 


enough time to finish up the 31 that you see, 


and I think there's more now in that category ­

- 31 in the first 5,000. 


There's 170 claims in the first 5,000 here that 


are -- are awaiting that eligibility 


determination. I put it on this slide because 


they may come back to us. DOL may find that 


they're not eligible for a class, and we'll 


have to re-- we'll have to reconstruct those 


doses for those claims. 


And there's always a possibility that this 


category of DOL-pulled will come back to us as 

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well. If -- the prime category there is if a ­

- if a person was pulled because there's no 


longer a survivor on that claim and a new -- 


they do find a survivor, they can send it in to 


us. They can also -- there's a large number of 


this 324 that have been pulled by DOL that are 


chronic lymphocytic leukemia. And as you know, 


we're working to develop a prototype risk model 


and get it in front of the Board with the hopes 


that someday soon we can add CLL to this 


program and reconstruct dose against that 


particular tissue. So those kind of claims can 


come back at us out of the first 5,000. 


 Another accomplishment is that last year, in 


2006, we completed over 5,700 draft dose 


reconstructions. That was a -- that was a high 


water mark for us. That was much thanks to 


ORAU team capacity that they built, as well as 


the Battelle folks and what they were doing on 


those 1,400 cases that we talked about earlier. 


We achieved 82 percent of the dose 


reconstructions being completed within 60 days 


of assignment to a dose reconstructor. This is 


a GPRA goal, a Government Performance Results 


Act goal that we are on the books for. So once 

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a dose reconstructor is assigned a claim to 


work, we like to see that done within 60 days. 


Last year we had 80 percent. This year we -- 


we achieved 82 percent in that regard. 


We -- for our reworks that -- that we respond 


to DOL's request to rework a claim, we 


accomplished 75 percent of those cases within a 


60-day turnaround time frame. The year before 


I think it was in the 60s. 


 We've completed -- as I reported earlier, we've 


completed draft dose reconstructions for 80 


percent of the claims that have been referred 


to NIOSH, and I think that's pretty remarkable. 


I know it -- it's -- that's a hollow-sounding 


statement to claimants who have not gotten 


their decision yet, but -- or for those 


claimants who have been waiting for three or 


four, five years. But this, I think, still is 


a remarkable accomplishment. 


We completed the dose reconstruction video that 


I mentioned. We completed the revision to the 


acknowledgement packet that I already talked 


about. And eight new classes representing 


eight sites were added to the Special Exposure 


Cohort in 2006. So there's different ways you 

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can parse numbers here, but those are the 


accomplishments of 2006 in that regard. 


And I think that's all I have in my slide show 


for you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Larry. We'll 


open the floor for questions. Let me start by 


asking you on -- I think it's slide eight which 


is the submittals versus production slide. I'm 


trying to interpret the -- the blue line for 


Labor. Has that leveled out or is it going 


down still? I'm -- I'm -- I'm trying to -- I'm 


sort of asking I guess what do we project in 


the next few years. Is it going to -- are we 


going to have a steady input of, what is it, a 


hundred and -- hundred and -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: It's around 200 a month. 


 DR. ZIEMER: A month? That's --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Little bit more, as you see 


there, but it goes -- it spikes back. I don't 


know what to say in answer to your question of 


what my expectations are. I do know, to -- to 


give you some sort of an informed response, DOL 


is going to do some new town hall meetings I 


believe -- I don't see Jeff around here -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Jeff is here. 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: -- scheduled where they're going 


to go out and talk about what their efforts 


have been under their new rule on Subtitle E. 


But whenever they go out and do an outreach 


like that, we tend to see more claims come in 


to us, so that could spike it up a little bit, 


but I don't know that -- I don't anticipate 


that we're going to see a big jump up to 600 a 


month. There's certainly -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Was -- was there not --


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- people out there that have 


never filed a claim. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Initially wasn't there an 


estimate of the potential number of claims 


based on what we knew about the size of the 


work population or... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Does any -- anyone remember what 


those numbers were and... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't have a recollection -- 


there's different ways that -- that were used 


to provide estimates on this. You could start 


out with how many workers were involved across 


the complex --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and you hear different figures 


about that --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so that's --


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- ranging from a hundred and -- 


hundred and -- you know, hundreds of thousands 


-- 600,000. If you take 40 percent of that, or 


45 percent of that, the -- the national average 


of those who get cancer, you could come up with 


an estimate. I don't know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't have a recall of the 


formal estimates that were given at the start 


of the program. 


 DR. ZIEMER: On the 83.14 list I noticed the 


Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute on 


there. I guess I was a little surprised to see 


them on there since I'm at least somewhat 


familiar with that program. The 83.14 


identification suggests that you can't 


reconstruct dose, and the implication is that 


there's a lack of information there. It just 


was surprising. Is this -- do you know whether 


that's just an early part of their -- of their 


program? 


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 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- at this point in time. I --


we are awaiting the professional judgment, 


which is a document that's developed to say 


this -- we can't reconstruct a portion of dose. 


I -- I think -- I think it's important to say 


to this audience that when we -- when we put 


forward an 83.14 and it starts with our 


professional judgment document, we -- we do 


that based upon our recognition that there's a 


component of dose that can't be reconstructed. 


We don't go the next series of steps to 


determine are there other types of dose that 


can't be --


 DR. ZIEMER: Understood. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- reconstructed. We sort that 


out as we move forward -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- in dose reconstruction 


efforts. And if we have to broaden, you know, 


the explanation of why we can't reconstruct 


dose for one of these facilities, we will do 


that. But in order to facilitate this process, 


once we recognize a component of dose that 


can't be reconstructed, that's when we call and 

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throw the flag up in the air and it becomes an 


83.14. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All right. Okay, I'm looking for 


other questions. Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Larry, I think you mentioned 


there were 20 or so other PERs in -- in review 


-- development. Is there any way we can get a 


listing of those? I -- I would understand we 


wouldn't see any kind of draft reports, but 


even a listing might be helpful because I think 


some of the things that are coming up in our 


case review might be on that list, you know, so 


it would --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- be good for us to be able to 


just say it's under review in the PER process 


or --


 MR. ELLIOTT: I wrestled with giving you a list 


at this meeting, and the reason why I didn't 


come up with a list is because right now that's 


-- it's somewhat pre-decisional. Some of those 


may drop away. Some of them are dependent upon 


-- we -- we think they're going that way, but 


there may be a Technical Basis Document that 


will influence it the other way. So as soon as 

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I can put together a list that -- that we think 


are for sure going forward as a PER, we'll 


bring it to you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Bob Presley. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Larry, on the DOL returned cases, 


are most of those cases that -- where data is 


coming on board, new data, or can you explain 


why you would -- why DOL would pull that back ­

- push that back to you? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Most of those cases that we have 


seen in DOL reworks are due to the claimant 


identifying another cancer, the claimant or 


somebody else identifying additional 


employment; a new survivor coming to -- to the 


fore that needs an interview, that has a right 


to go through, you know, that part of the 


process and say what they need to say, offer us 


whatever information they've got to offer us. 


Where we see what we call technical reworks, 


we're getting -- we get those -- primarily they 


have come to us where we haven't attended to a 


certain type of dose that the claimant appealed 


on. In the early days, ingestion at Savannah 


River, we saw a number come back at us on that 


until we got that corrected. So that -- you 

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know, I hope that answers your question. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah. Many of them wouldn't be 


dose reconstruction re—re-dos then, would they? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, these are all dose 


reconstruction re-dos. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. Thank you. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Once they come back to us, we -- 


we have to revise the dose reconstruction in 


some regard, either because there's a cancer 


that we didn't reconstruct for the first time, 


or there's additional employment that needs to 


be added to the reconstruction, or a -- as I 


said, a new survivor appears that may have 


information that has bearing on the claim; we 


need to hear them out and make any revisions as 


appropriate. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, other comments or questions? 


Yes, Lew. 


 DR. WADE: Larry, just to follow up on Dr. 


Ziemer's question about the -- what we might 


expect in the future, I wonder if in -- in 


future presentations to the Board you could 


give some thought to where the work is going in 


the future in terms of 83.14 petitions, in 

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terms of SEC petitions, in terms of site 


profiles so that the -- the Board could start 


to look at its future and imagine its work out 


into the future. I think that would be most 


useful. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I understand, and we'll do our 


best to try to fulfill that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I recognize some of these are very 


hard to predict, but it does appear to have 


reached a kind of steady state, at least, and ­

- at least on the numbers of claims. 


DOL PROGRAM UPDATE
 

MR. JEFFREY KOTSCH, DOL
 

Okay, thank you, Larry. Let's move on to the 


Department of Labor update, and Jeff is here 


with us again today. Welcome. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Good afternoon. This'll be the 


presentation for the Department of Labor, the 


summary for -- for the activities. 


 The program at Labor currently consists of two 


-- two pieces or parts. Part B, which was 


originally given to us and became effective in 


July, 2001 is basically the cancer portion of 


the -- the program. It also includes beryllium 


disease and silicosis and things related to the 


Department of Justice's RECA program. 

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Primarily I'm going to talk about cases, but 


here we also list out claims. On the Part B 


side we've had 55,499 cases, having 79,642 


claims. The claim number will always be higher 


because obviously in some cases there'll be 


more than one -- one claimant. Of those, 


35,594 have been cancer cases and of those, 


23,062 have been referred to NIOSH. 


Now I have to make the observation that I don't 


think any of our numbers match NIOSH's numbers 


that Larry presented because, first of all, 


each slide has a -- has a date at the bottom 


which is our snapshot date. That even varies 


in this presentation, so that's one factor. 


Another is just the way that we account for 


cases versus how NIOSH accounts for cases. I 


know they've been working -- both our 


Departments have been working to try to get 


those better synchronized, and I don't know 


that that'll ever happen, so -- but I think the 


thing is to look at the general size of that 


number and not the actual, you know -- I don't 


know, even -- even ten digit on that thing. 


 The other half of our program is the Part E 


portion of the program, which used to be with 

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the Department of Energy. But with an 


amendment to the Act in October of 2004, that 


piece of the program came to us, the Part E 


portion of the program, which is basically the 


exposure to toxic materials. And on that side 


there are 44,200 cases from about 59-- 50-- 


what's that, 60,000 claimants. 25,632 came 


across from the Department of Energy at the 


time that we effectively took the program, 


which was June 2005. 


To date, or as of anyway January 24th, the 


Department of Labor has provided $2.4 billion 


in total compensation. That breaks down as 


$1.8 billion for Part B and the two largest 


portions of those are $1.3 billion for cancer 


claims and $216 million for the RECA or the 


Radiation Employee Compensation Act of 1990, 


which again is administered by Department of 


Justice. $556 million are Part E payments, and 


there's $128 million for medical payments -- 


actually for both Part E and Part B. 


One thing generally is when we have a com-- 


compensable case on the Part B side, it 


transfers over to Part E and basically goes 


through as a fait accompli basically. It's a ­
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- it's an automatic, almost. And then you see 


on that side about 73 percent are Part B claims 


-- or payments, I'm sorry. 


On this side, if you try to do the math on this 


one, it -- it doesn't work out. But the top 


number, the 27,000 roughly total payees is a 


claim number. The -- some of the other numbers 


are case numbers and I think what I want to try 


to get apart -- across here is just the 


proportion of the cases, you know, the way the 


pie distributes, basically, that -- the fact if 


you got 35,000 -- 35 percent cancer cases, the 


RECAs are 16 percent. The other Part B, again, 


primarily beryllium and silicosis are 21 and 


Part E is 17 percent. 


For the Part B cancer case status, again, 


there's a list of the numbers there -- 35,594 


cases and then the claim numbers. 25,208 cases 


have final decisions, so that's 69 percent are 


final decisions. We've got 14 percent at 


NIOSH, seven percent are recommended decisions 


and eight percent are pending. That means 


they're in our initial pipeline as a -- as we 


prepare the case to be sent to NIOSH, we do the 


employment development, we do the medical 

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development, things related to survivors, 


things like that to prepare to send to NIOSH. 


Just a little distribution on cases that are 


finally -- final decisions that are approved 


and final decisions that are denied. Approved 


are 9,282; denied, 15,926, and then the 


distribution off to the right for the -- the 


principal reasons that go into that. The 


primary bar is of course coming from the NIOSH 


dose reconstructions, the fact that the 


probability of causation is less than 50 


percent. But the other ones are just that 


we're unable to find covered employment at a -- 


at the particular facilities, insufficient 


medical evidence in -- in Part B space that's 


evidence of a cancer or beryllium disease or 


silicosis; non-covered conditions, which now -- 


used to be on the Part B side when that was 


solely in effect where -- were, you know, other 


heart conditions, kidney problems, other lung 


problems. Now those would obviously be 


addressed on the Part E side. And then 


ineligible survivors is a -- is a small portion 


of that. 


We've referred -- again, the numbers don't 

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match, but 23,062 cases to NIOSH. We've had 


dose reconstructions come back on 18,504; 1,408 


of those have -- were withdrawn by the 


Department of Labor for some reason, which 


leaves you with 17,096 dose reconstructions. 


This number, the next number, 925 reworks, 


doesn't even agree with what I have later in 


the presentation, but that's a difference in -- 


in databases. And we've got 4,558 initial 


referrals at NIOSH, so that would be their inhouse number -- or our number of what we 


think's in-house there, but I know that's 


different. 


Dose reconstruction case status, 16,171 have 


dose reconstructions. We've got about -- so 


that's -- so we've got -- 83 percent are in 


final decisions, or have final decisions; 13 


percent have recommended decisions but no 


final. That's -- initially, after the dose 


reconstruction is returned to the Department of 


Labor, the District Office issues a recommended 


decision to the claimant. They have the 


opportunity to ap-- appeal and then it goes to 


the -- basically appeal, and then it goes to 


our Final Adjudication Branch who renders the ­
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- the final decision. And we have 697 pending 


recommended decisions, which is about four 


percent. 


This slide is -- is an ol-- I mean I update it, 


but an old folder concept which will phase out. 


Basically it's just presenting both for 


approved and denied claims, the numbers of the 


specified cancers in each of those categories 


as well -- and then the number of non-specified 


cancers, the 22 specifieds if they had them or 


the non-specifieds. 


 The new SEC-related cases, we're showing or -- 


anyway, our number is basically 1,271 withdrawn 


for SEC review. We've got 975 final decisions, 


which is about 76 percent; 17 percent are at 


the recommended decision state and we've got 


about seven percent, or 85, that we're 


indicating as pending evaluation at the 


District Office. Again, they come in and 


basically are looked at for employment and 


medical information to make sure they fit into 


the class, they have 250 days or -- like at 


Nevada Test Site or Pacific Proving Grounds, 


the equivalent of that, which is 83 continuous 


days if they were on-site continuously, things 

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like that. 


The NIOSH cases -- for NIOSH cases related to 


compensation, we've paid out $667 million in 


4,460 cases. That breaks down as $572 million 


of dose-reconstructed cases. That's 389-- I'm 


sorry, 3,827 cases and $95 million on added SEC 


cases, which were -- there's 633 cases. 


And I think in a previous meeting you asked a 


little bit about, and Bob asked again, why we ­

- or what we -- we sent back. This is -- these 


are numbers from my actual database from the 


first one that I think I sent back on July 


25th, 2003 through the end of 2006, and the 


general reasons. In my 2,002 number, which is 


the total -- some dose reconstructions that go 


back for rework have -- have not just one 


reason. They may have two or three reasons. 


They may have an employment issue plus a 


medical -- additional cancer, and then they may 


even have a third or fourth issue. So that's 


not the total number, that's just -- what I was 


trying to do there was just address issues that 


drive a rework and not the number of cases that 


are actually reworked. Predominantly what 


drives a number of reworks are medicals, the 

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addition of cancers primarily. The deletions 


of cancers, if they're below 50 percent, 


usually don't go back because that would only 


drop the dose and the probability of causation. 


But there are other things that go into the -- 


there are other issues. We have medical -- 


sometimes we -- we interpret the ICD-9 code, 


which affects the models that NIOSH uses, and 


then we determine that it has to go back. 


Employment issues are the next big thing, 


addition of employment, deletion of employment 


if it's over 50 percent. Maybe a different 


site -- maybe the wrong site was designated and 


-- or it was a close site like at Oak Ridge 


where they -- maybe it was a Y-12 but it should 


have been a K-25 or something, or Sandia versus 


Los Alamos or something like that. 


Administrative -- that's my category for the 


ones that primarily are -- we find an 


additional survivor, and we call those specials 


because we don't ask NIOSH to actually do a 


dose reconstruction, we just ask them to -- to 


interview the additional survivor. And this is 


only for under 50 percent. If it's over 50 


percent it's not going to make a difference, 

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but if it's under 50 percent we ask them to 


interview the additional survivor or survivors 


and determine whether there's anything 


significant in that -- in that interview that 


would affect the dose reconstruction. There's 


actually a couple in there that relate to the 


wrong Social Security number. I think we heard 


one of these at a -- at a previous meeting, but 


that's that and then a technical one are 


primarily, by category, four things that are 


driven by things that we find in review of 


technical objections that come into our FAB 


group. When I review them or -- or our other 


health physicist reviews the objections, we 


find issues that are reasonable. Like Larry 


said, in the early days it was ingestion of -- 


at actually Bethlehem Steel or Savannah River, 


things like that. We have some recently -- 


things related to like Chapman Valve or even a 


new Bethlehem Steel one where they come in 


where we know that there's something in the 


process that's on the web site, or ev-- on the 


NIOSH web site, or even the lymphoma model. If 


they come in with an objection that's saying, 


you know, hey, we know there's a new lymphoma 

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model, it's our position that we have to send 


that back for a rework even though NIOSH will 


eventually catch that in their net -- in the 


PER net for the lymphoma. But there are other 


ones. Occasionally we -- we come across things 


where either then -- either we identify or the 


-- the claimant objects and there's some issues 


like with Super S that have been raised. We've 


been seeing some of those at Hanford we've been 


sending back. If things are -- also if they're 


citing also SC&A things that are in process now 


and they have not yet been resolved with NIOSH, 


we lean towards sending those back for dose 


reconstructions and allow them to be basically 


held until NIOSH resolves whatever that issue 


is because we -- we don't -- we don't have -- 


we can't adjudicate that with -- you know, 


because we don't know the answer to that 


question yet. But anyway, the predominant 


number is medical and employment. 


I took a couple cuts at the things that when we 


see them in cases that are initially above 50 


percent and then we get something else in that 


unfortunately drives us to send them back for ­

- for dose reconstruction -- I mean for rework 

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of the dose reconstruction. For the medical 


side that's primarily a change in the number of 


cancers. The dose reconstruction was performed 


for three or four -- or two and one of them 


disappears. It was considered to be -- or it 


might have been looked at by our District 


medical consultant or -- or some other 


information determined that it was recurrent 


and it was actually a -- or a metastases of a 


primary or something like that. Some of the 


other ones, the purple is what earlier data -- 


no, that -- the purple is -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Do we mean less than 50 percent 


here --


 MR. KOTSCH: No, that's greater than 50 


percent. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's greater. 


 MR. KOTSCH: This is a -- this is a small 


subset of all the medical ones, but it -- but 


in a way it's indicative of just the types of 


things that are medi-- examples of changes in 


medical information. Earlier date of diagno-- 


I'm sorry, earlier date of diagnosis is another 


significant piece of that pie where, you know, 


the -- it was misinterpreted, whatever -- 

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there's other information from a pathology 


report that --


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm missing a point here. Why --


why would you be doing a rework if it's already 


greater? 


 MR. KOTSCH: Because the information that -- 


that resulted in the -- in a -- this is at the 


recommended decision stage. If it was greater 


than 50 percent and we find out now that one of 


the -- say one of the cancers was invalid that 


drove it over --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, it --


 MR. KOTSCH: -- you know, we have to send it 


back for a rework. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, it may have been an error in 


 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I gotcha. Okay. 

 MR. KOTSCH: That's the primary one. The other 

ones, like I said, a couple of the other 


significant ones are earlier date of diagnosis, 


which will -- not always, but generally drive 


you towards a lower POC. Different cancer 


organs, again, sometimes we have issue with how 


these cancers are identified, especially in the 

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early days. And if the pathology report is 


older, a lot of times the ICD-9 codes were 


improperly coded or absent, and then sometimes 


our claims examiners who were not physicians, 


but now that we have physicians on all our 


staffs they have the opportunity to go back and 


look at those things and make a better call at 


those things. 


Again, things -- POCs greater than 50, but we 


have some employment issue. The primary driver 


here is about 75 percent of the cases is 


decreased employment. That is, it's now 


verified that there's actually less employment 


than NIOSH used -- than we told NIOSH to use in 


the dose reconstruction. The other big one is 


occasionally incorrect or what I call different 


employment sites. Again, the three sites at 


Oak Ridge, they may have -- we may have chosen 


the wrong one or -- or the ones that were at 


Los Alamos, Albuquerque, we may have for some 


reason picked the wrong one. Occasionally we 


get non-verified employment. We have maybe new 


exposures in there or some commercial exposures 


in there that that needs to come out. 


And then last just the -- some of the numbers 

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for some of the things that were going to be 


discussed at this meeting, and I'll just talk a 


little bit about Fernald. You see there 1,347 


cases. NIOSH we're showing 710 dose 


reconstructions. We've got 1,070 final 


decisions, 307 Part B approvals, 235 Part E 


approvals and the whole compensation for 


Fernald of $57 million. 


Mound, 626 cases, 347 dose reconstructions. 


We've got 472 finals -- again, that number's -- 


includes potentially, you know, other things 


besides the NIOSH dose reconstructions; 118 


Part B approvals, 81 Part E approvals and $22 


million in compensation -- total compensation. 


And that's it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jeff. I want to ask 


one other question. I know that your numbers 


don't track completely with NIOSH 'cause there 


are those time differentials and so on, but one 


set of figures I'm most curious about is the 


sixth slide where you show 9,000 denials on the 


dose reconstruction and NIOSH shows 12,000 with 


POCs less than 50 percent, so there's a 


difference of about 3,000 there. Is that 


simply that you haven't made the final decision 

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on the rest of those? 


 MR. KOTSCH: I think -- I think that's probably 

it --

 DR. ZIEMER: 'Cause those numbers are really 

too far apart. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, I -- I would think that's 


it, probably, just looking at it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So when NIOSH -- or when Larry 


says that 12,000 cases have POC of less than 50 


percent, this is not an official final decision 


number at that point. It's what you think it 


is --


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's correct --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- based on the dose 


reconstruction. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's correct. It's what we 


think DOL will find the decision to be. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. KOTSCH: I mean you have to remember when ­

- when Larry -- when NIOSH sends the dose 


reconstruction to us and then we come out with 


a recommended decision -- recommended decision 


-- between the time a recommended decision is 


issued and the time a final decision is issued 


can be up to a year --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Right, so there's --

 MR. KOTSCH: -- so there's quite a bit of lag 

there. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Gotcha. Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: Jeff, as always, thank you for 


coming and in the information. On your summary 


of rework activities slide, the number that 


jumps out at me that would be of interest to 


this Board is the technical reworks -- I think 


the number is 106. Would you agree that that's 


something that should be of interest to the 


Board? That's where DOL is -- is of the 


opinion that there needs to be a rework for 


technical issue --


 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, but again, I -- 


 DR. WADE: -- and if that's the case, could we 


get some more grain from you as to what that 


106 might represent? 


 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, I mean I can provide more 


detail maybe next time. Generally, like I 


said, some of the things that factor into that 


are if things like -- well, recently we've seen 


Chapman Valve and the new Bethlehem Steel come 


back because people were citing -- like at 


Chapman Valve, the enrichment -- chip burner 

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issue. I know that NIOSH is looking at that. 


But again, because that's in -- something 


that's in transition, basically, or it -- we 


send it back for adjudication because we can't 


resolve the issue. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It's because you already know that 

it's a --

 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, we know it's -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- technical issue at NIOSH. 

 MR. KOTSCH: -- an issue, or -- or people cite 

something from an SC-- SC&A report and we talk 


to NIOSH and we determine that -- that ha-- 


that issue has not yet been closed and -- but 


to -- to continue the adjudication process, we 


send those thing back, too, until they're 


resolved -- again, after we get resolution one 


way or the other, and then we'll proceed with 


the decision. But there's other things that -- 


that -- you know, occasionally we find problems 


with say the input, what they call Attachment 


A, the input to IREP, there'll be some 


discrepancy. Some of our claimants are very 


meticulous and they'll -- they'll run all the 


numbers and they'll say well, geez, you know, 


this is missing, and then we'll go back and 

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we'll say well, we'll talk to NIOSH and -- and 


look at the thing and say yeah, indeed, not -- 


neutron dose should have been there or -- or 


some kind of ambient dose should have been 


there, some element is missing and -- or we 


pick that up ourselves, just knowing what we 


know about the sites. There-- there's a number 


of things, and most of them are -- are -- 


there's not like one major one that jumps up 


other than something like when a Chapman Valve 


comes through and we get a series of -- you 


know --


 DR. WADE: I do think that would be of interest 


for the Board to see those -- 


 MR. KOTSCH: We can do that. 


 DR. WADE: -- so thank you. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I would add to this that I think 


it -- it should be of great interest to the 


Board on these technical reworks, especially 


the category of technical reworks that are now 


coming back to us based upon a -- a Board 


deliberation comment, I'll phrase it that way. 


SC&A provides some concern or comment or 


constructive criticism about how we went about 


doing our work, and the claimant will pick that 

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up and use that in their appeal and the FAB at 


DOL, the Final Adjudication Branch, will kick 


that back to us more than -- more likely than 


not it'll come back to us. We'll have to pend 


that until we see the resolution of the Board's 


deliberations, and this is something that -- 


that we've talked with DOL about just as early 


as last week -- or as late as last week. It's 


something that we're all concerned about. If 


Pete Turcic were here -- I don't mean to speak 


for DOL and Jeff certainly can -- can chime in 


here, but Pete would be telling you that this 


is becoming an issue. Things like the Board 


deliberation on Rocky Flats. You know, there's 


-- there's claimants there that are in this 


category that are waiting to see how this is 


all going to get resolved. And the longer we 


take, the more frustrated they get. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, the -- people cite in their 


objections -- they will cite, you know, 


attendance at a Board meeting or review of the 


meeting minutes or something on the NIOSH web 


site, like we know you changed the lymphoma one 


-- lymphoma model, we know you changed the lung 


model. You know, that's part of their 

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objection, and of course the lung model we can 


handle because that's a POC one, but the 


lymphoma thing, Larry talked about there is a 


PER in process where we're working with NIOSH ­

- we're about halfway through that process that 


-- they're identifying the ones that change and 


are -- are going out to determine whether we 


have to -- we actually reopen those cases and 


send them back to NIOSH. 


 DR. WADE: So I think for a number of reasons 


it would be of interest -- 


 MR. KOTSCH: Sure. 


 DR. WADE: -- to the Board. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments, questions, Board 


members? 


Mike Gibson, you still on the line? Do you 


have any questions? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I'm still here. No 

questions. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, thank you again. 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY REMARKS
 

MR. GLENN PODONSKY, DOE


 Next we're pleased to hear today from the 


Department of Energy. Let me make a few 


comments about the speaker before he begins. 


Glenn Podonsky has recently assumed what I 

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would describe as the highest position in 


Environment Safety and Health and Security at 


Department of Energy. He reports directly to 


the Deputy Assistant -- or the Deputy Secretary 


of Energy and has responsibility, I believe -- 


and Glenn, you can correct me when you come up 


here, but I -- I know under the reorganization 


he's responsible for all the Environment Safety 


and Health oversight and the Security oversight 


as well, so -- and -- and part of Glenn's 


portfolio does give him some responsibilities 


with respect to liaison with the NIOSH 


activities and the providing of the records 


from DOE for this program. So we're very 


pleased -- and I might add that I had the 


privilege of working closely with Glenn in the 


early '90s when I was at DOE myself. So Glenn, 


we welcome you here. We're pleased to hear 


your report from Department of Energy. 


MR. PODONSKY: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer, and Board 


members and members of the public. My name is 


Glenn Podonsky and I appreciate your putting us 


on the agenda. I wanted to come and talk to 


you a little bit about the new organization of 


Health, Safety and Security and why Secretary 

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Bodman and Deputy Secretary Sell thought this 


was important and how that affects what you're 


meeting about here today, because Department of 


Energy's role in this is getting the records 


and making them available to NIOSH, to Labor 


and to the Board. 


Let me first start by just mentioning a little 


bit about the creation of the Office of the 


Chief Health, Safety and Security office. It's 


an office that's responsible for all policy for 


health, safety and security in the Department, 


with the exception of cybersecurity. It's 


responsible for all technical assistance in 


those areas, as well as enforcement, which is 


the Price-Anderson* 820 Rule, the 824 Civil 


Penalties Rule, and equally as important as 


anything is the 851 Worker Health and Safety 


Rule. 


Also we have the Office of Classification and 


the Office of Technology Deployment, as well as 


an office called the Defense Nuclear Facilities 


Safety Board Liaison Office. 


Now what's most important with the Secretary's 


initiative in reassembling three very 


formidable offices, which was the former Office 

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of the Assistant Secretary for Environment 


Safety and Health and the Office of Safety, 


Security Performance Assurance and the Office 


of Departmental Rep, is it's all under one 


organization, and I will give you some 


anecdotal examples of how in the last -- in our 


first five months, we're just entering our 


fifth month, on how we partnered with Labor 


Department and NIOSH to redouble our efforts to 


get the records that are so important for the 


work that's going on here. And I have to say 


that Secretary Bodman is very committed to 


worker health and safety, and that's why he 


wanted to put all these offices together, to 


get a synergy on little things like the Board 


member Clawson's clearance that got dropped. 


Security is under us. We were able to get that 


reinstated right away. An order to make sure 


that the Department doesn't say that we can't 


give you the records because they're OUO. The 


Office of Classification is in our 


organization, and we've had the Director of the 


Office of Classification working very closely 


with the Department of Energy's program offices 


to make sure that the Department doesn't -- 

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doesn't stand behind this bureaucratic 


administrative control called Official Use 


Only. It's not a classification, it's an 


administrative control and our Director of 


Classification has been working -- very 


successfully, I might add -- with some of the 


organizations in the Department that have 


heretofore been somewhat reluctant. Not 


because they're mean people. They were 


ignorant in terms of what they should be doing 


relative to some of these administrative 


controls. 


Larry mentioned in his presentation about the 


large datasets. Larry, you have our commitment 


that our office, under Dr. Pat Worthington and 


her director, Libby White -- one lab director, 


one manager blinks that they don't -- can't 


find the records, we're going to go out and 


redouble our efforts to help them find those 


records. It's very important to us that we, 


the Department of Energy, provide you all the 


records that you all need to do your job. Dr. 


Ziemer, we commit that to the -- to the Board, 


as well. 


 We started working with Labor Department in 

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September -- I did -- when the HSS organization 


-- not to be confused with HHS, this is HSS -- 


HSS, Health, Safety and Security, the 


Environment, and Health is -- is focused in 


there. We started going around the complex of 


DOE looking at all the sites, talking to all 


the site managers, contract managers, unions, 


to find out how we can help as an organization 


to enhance the worker health and safety. We 


also asked Labor Department to come with us to 


open up some doors that were previously closed 


because of access. And Pete Turcic from Labor 


Department came out with us, Shelby Hallmark 


also came out with us. And just give you 


another anecdotal, we were at one site that 


Labor was not able to access some of the 


records from some of the former workers -- 


again, just through ignorance of the 


Department. And with that one meeting we have 


opened up those doors and those records are now 


available. 


 Los Alamos, the Medical Center, we were having 


difficulties with records from the Medical 


Center and Libby White and her staff, through 


encouragement from my office and support from 

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my office, were able to move forward to get 


those records cleaned up -- not from radiation 


exposure, but from the Hantavirus, so that 


those records are available and hopefully 


within the next two months we'll be able to 


turn those over to you. 


 The Mound records, I just found out about this 


a couple of weeks ago and I -- and I asked my 


folks why are we as a government not finding 


those records? We have to examine what's in 


there, but the public needs to know, the Board 


needs to know what's in those records. And I 


believe, from everything my staff is telling 


me, that it's something that we need to 


seriously look at whether or not the government 


goes back and digs those records up. 


Now I will tell you candidly, the price seems 


rather steep. But how do you put a price on 


people's records that they want to have and so 


that you can do your work and NIOSH can do its 


work? It's very important. So on the issue of 


Mound records, I've asked my staff to go back 


and not only get as much data as we can as -- 


so we know what are in those boxes, but find 


out exactly what are the real costs of digging 

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those up and cleaning them, and not just take 


the first numbers that we got and then turn 


around and walk away from it. It's not what 


we're about. That's not what Secretary Bodman 


wants us to do. It's not what my staff wants 


to do. We want to do what's right and provide 


all the records that we can. That's the job 


that we have, to provide you, NIOSH and Labor 


Department with those records. 


I didn't start out by saying I didn't have any 


slides, for the gentleman on the phone, but 


there are no slides. I just thought I would 


open up the -- the discussion for any questions 


that you might have for the Department of 


Energy, and just re-emphasize for the Board, 


for NIOSH and for Labor that the Department of 


Energy is committed to helping out, and 


wherever we can find the records and wherever 


there is any kind of stubborn reaction from the 


Department, we will put all of our HSS 


resources to bear, including the Secretary. 


And just one correction, Dr. Ziemer, I actually 


report to the Secretary. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's good. Well, thank you very 


much, Glenn, and yeah, I think -- I think when 

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I originally chatted with Clay Sell about the 


reorganization, I think he had indicated you 


might be reporting to him, but I'm -- I'm glad 


to hear you're even at a higher level, which -- 


MR. PODONSKY: Well, the -- the Secretary's 


made it very clear to me, Mr. Sell does write 


my performance, but the Secretary expects me to 


report to him --


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. 


MR. PODONSKY: -- on everything we're doing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Well, we certainly 


appreciate the commitment you've made, both to 


Labor and to NIOSH, as well as to the Board, to 


assist in whatever records are -- are needed, 


including the literal digging up of some 


records, if necessary. And I don't know if we 


know at the present time whether those are 


necessary. But perhaps as you get a better 


handle on exactly what's there we'll be able to 


make an informed -- better informed decision of 


what the -- what the balance is on cost and -- 


and the records. 


Board members, let's start with -- Dr. Lockey, 


do you have a question? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Thank you, Glenn. I wonder, is --

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is Department of Energy going to have any type 


of oversight committee about this, 


representatives from Labor, et cetera, that are 


involved with this process of making sure that 


all records are made available as soon as 


possible? 


MR. PODONSKY: I'm -- I'm not understanding the 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's his job. 


MR. PODONSKY: We -- we are the oversight, so 


we -- we are ov-- in our office we are 


responsible for providing independent oversight 


of the entire Department. We do -- we do not 


run any operation throughout the Department. 


We oversee the Department, and we not only 


report to the Secretary of Energy, but we 


report to Congressional committees on how well 


or how poorly the Department is doing its job. 


 DR. LOCKEY: So is Labor involved with that? 


MR. PODONSKY: Labor is involved in our 


relationship, and we've redoubled our -- our 


efforts. As I mentioned, Shelby Hallmark and 


Pete Turcic have -- have worked with us. My 


respective staff under Dr. Pat Worthington and 


Libby White, we're -- we're in -- in weekly 

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phone calls. So there's a lot of dialogue that 


was not there as frequently or as supported 


from a high enough level in past years. So I 


apologize, I don't under-- I don't fully 


understand the -- the question of oversight. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Well, I -- I guess I meant does 


Labor have a chair at -- in this process? 


MR. PODONSKY: Yes. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Yes. 


MR. PODONSKY: Yes, and we're -- and we're -- 


and we're -- I just met with the Director of 


NIOSH, as well, and -- and we're looking to -- 


you know, we recognize our role. Our role in 


the Department is to provide the records to 


Labor, to NIOSH and to -- and to the Board. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Okay, do un-- does the union 


representatives have a chair in this process? 


MR. PODONSKY: I don't know the answer to that. 


If they don't, then they should. We've reached 


out to the labor unions in the new organization 


of HSS. In terms of what we're doing, we have 


a very open process. In fact, we ju-- I just 


sent out a letter to all of the Assistant 


Secretaries in the Department, all the Program 


Officers, all the Contract Managers, that HSS, 

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my organization, is starting a Safety, Health 


and Security Manager's forum that will meet 


twi-- meet every two weeks and we're going to 


invite different folks in from -- from the com­

- complex, the unions, and talk to us about 


their issues. We're not trying to circumvent 


the Department's existing venues for -- for 


employee concerns of that nature, but we're 


trying to open up -- get another avenue of 


dialogue that the Secretary of Energy wants us 


to have with the employees out there, to 


include the unions. Just yesterday I met with 


the Government Accountability Project, Tom 


Carpenter, so we're -- we're reaching out to 


everybody so that we can in fact serve in the 


capacity of -- of our job of overseeing safety, 


health and security of the Department. We 


can't do that in a vacuum. We have to have 


input from everybody. Does that -- does that 


answer that? 


 DR. LOCKEY: That answers my question. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Phil. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: I've got a question for you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All right, turn -- make sure your 


mike is on. 

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 MR. SCHOFIELD: You're talking about possibly 


retrieving the Mound records from Area G. 


Being familiar with that area, how much 


assessment have they done on the biological and 


radiological hazards those workers would face 


going into Area G to retrieve these records? 


That is substantial. That is a very, very 


nasty area. 


MR. PODONSKY: I don't have a direct answer for 


you. What I asked my -- my organization to do 


is -- because what I had heard originally in -- 


in full disclosure is elements of my 


organization said we don't -- we don't believe, 


from what we've heard from NIOSH and -- and the 


Board, that -- we don't believe that the 


records may be worth the cost, value-wise. And 


I asked the question, candidly, if those were 


your family records and the government said 


that they buried them, whether it was 


legitimate or not, I'm not here to question 


that, there is a perception of a lack of trust. 


And we're all taxpayers here. We all play a 


different role. And I, as a government 


official and a steward of the tax dollar, we 


feel compelled to find out the answer to is -- 

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are these records retrievable. No, we don't 


want to put anybody else in harm's way. But at 


the same time, it's wrong, in my estimation -- 


my personal opinion, it's wrong for the United 


States government to say we buried them, we 


have no access to them, without thoroughly 


exploring every possibility. And the answer to 


your question is I don't know how -- how dirty 


the area is. I do know that people have come 


back with a high price tag, and I question that 


price tag because in a previous administration 


when I worked for Secretary O'Leary, we also 


had a similar situation looking for human 


radiation experiment records, as well. So my 


long-winded answer to you is we need to explore 


what are all the pluses and minuses to get 


everything we can to get these records. And at 


the end of the day, if -- if my office spends 


one and a half million dollars and -- and we do 


it in a safe way or maximum safe way, and the 


records are not as valuable, I still think, 


personally and professionally, that at least we 


are beginning to build trust with the American 


people that we're not just a bunch of 


bureaucrats. 

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 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay, you know, I'm just 


concerned the potential hazards that are in 


that area --


MR. PODONSKY: I understand. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: -- worried about the dollars. 


MR. PODONSKY: We -- we -- my independent 


oversight ES&H office -- for example, out at 


Hanford, you know, we did a report on the tank 


farms and the vapors, so we're ver-- we're very 


concerned about how the contractors are 


applying safety for the workers -- the current 


workers, so we're looking at that. So at the 


same time we'd be equally as -- as concerned of 


-- and share your concerns in that area, as 


well. But I must emphasize, from -- from my 


point of view, just getting involved in this, 


is that it's very important that we do 


everything we can so that we just don't give 


the answer that they're buried. 


 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer --


 DR. ZIEMER: I assume you at least are doing -- 


or your people will do a risk assessment as 


part of the, quote, cost evaluation -- 


MR. PODONSKY: Absolutely. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- you're working on. 

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MR. PODONSKY: Absolutely. 


 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer --


 DR. WADE: If I might make a comment -- Glenn, 


thank you very much for being here. Please 


apologize --


 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer --


 MS. MUNN: Mike's trying to --


 DR. WADE: Oh, okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Hang on, Mike. 


 DR. WADE: Please -- I mean -- accept our 


gratitude for being here. We do appreciate 


that. I think -- to set the record straight, I 


don't think the Board has offered an opinion on 


whether or not the Mound records should be 


pursued or not, I -- and towards the end of 


continuing a dialogue with the Board, I would 


certainly invite you or your representative to 


the next Board meeting, or several Board 


meetings, so that we can engage in that kind of 


dialogue as -- as you determine factors 


surrounding that recovery and the Board can 


then offer you its opinion. So I -- I would 


appreciate if you could make your -- your 


representatives available. 


And then lastly, we would be remiss -- I would 

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be remiss if we didn't recognize Libby White 


and her staff and the tremendous efforts that 


they've brought to bear. We've seen the fruits 


of that. We applaud that and we thank her for 


that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Mike Gibson is on the 


line with comments. Mike -- or a question. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, Dr. Ziemer, I'd just like to 


address Mr. Podonsky for a minute. I worked at 


Mound and I was union president and vice 


president there, and many of those records, 


when they were shipped out, were loaded 


(unintelligible) LSA boxes by Mound laborers, 


without any (broken transmission) physics 


protection, non-protective gear. Many of these 


records were not hot, radioactively hot. They 


were sent out about a month after Mound -- the 


union found -- filed a Mound class action 


lawsuit against the company for inadequate 


radiation protection. Is -- are -- is the 


Department of Energy moratorium on burying 


records still in effect? Or for destroying 


records? 


MR. PODONSKY: As -- as far as I know, it is in 


effect. Now those records were sent out prior 

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to our existence as an organization, but that's 


why you -- you heard me answer Phillip's 


question with some degree of passion here, 


because we do need to find out what's in those 


records. I have heard different accounts as to 


when they got shipped out and why they got 


shipped out, but at this point our office is 


committed to -- to what I said earlier, to 


finding out what's the fea-- what is the real 


feasibility of retrieving these. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, well, sir, I just want to 


say for the record, I can tell you many of them 


were shipped out about a month after a class 


action lawsuit was filed and before discovery 


motions could be issued. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Mike. And I --


I presume from what I'm hearing that, although 


the records may not have been contaminated at 


that point, perhaps were intermixed with 


hazardous materials of one sort or another, 


biological or radiological, and subsequently 


may have become contaminated. Is that what I'm 


hearing? And Phillip is shaking his head yes. 


Okay. 


 Mark Griffon. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Actually Lew -- Lew asked two of 


my questions. One, I would -- I think we need 


a -- the question of communication or dialogue, 


and I think if you could be present at least at 


the next number of meetings, that'd be very 


helpful 'cause we -- we'd like to know status. 


I think we also, as a Board, may have some 


requests regarding data that the Board needs 


access to or NIOSH has been unable to get 


access to or whatever, so it would be helpful 


for -- for you to be involved, at least one of 


the days out of the three. 


The -- another thing, just to follow up on 


Mike's questioning, I think there is still a 


moratorium in effect, but if -- if I remember 


correctly, it's really -- it -- you may have to 


-- it may be worthwhile considering rewriting 


that moratorium because I think it's steered 


toward health and safety for environmental 


records or health and safety records only. I 


don't know that it's -- it's -- really has the 


language covering EEOICPA. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Epidemiological. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Epidemiological, that's correct, 


epi-- yeah, so -- so those records that might 

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affect epi studies, correct. 


MR. PODONSKY: Well, we'll -- we'll definitely 


take a look into that and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: As opposed to records that may be 


useful in compensation programs. That might be 


different things, obviously, so it may be worth 


considering. 


MR. PODONSKY: The other thing for -- for both 


Lew and -- and yourself, Mark, is I've asked 


Libby White and/or Pat Worthington, Dr. Pat 


Worthington, to be at every one of your Board 


member meetings, not by phone but in person so 


that if there are questions, if you do need to 


have dialogue, or if the public needs to have 


dialogue with DOE, we have somebody there at 


that level. So we will be here unless you dis-


invite us, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good, thank you. Brad 


Clawson. 


 MR. CLAWSON: So we've got moratorium, I guess 


my -- one of my questions is is it kind of 


surprises me to see a lot of these documents be 


destroyed like that, but are we taking action 


for in the future that these can't be destroyed 


like this or -- I -- I guess what I'm trying to 

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say is what -- what is stopping from records 


being destroyed now? Is there moratorium on 


these records or... 


MR. PODONSKY: I'm -- I do not have a good, 


straightforward answer for you other than I 


would tell you that -- and maybe Larry or -- or 


Libby -- Libby, why don't you come up to the 


microphone and -- since you've been working 


this for years. But what I will tell you is 


that we will do everything we can to make sure 


that the records are preserved. Irrespective 


of what Libby's going to tell you now, that's 


what we're going to be doing in the future. 


MS. WHITE: That's actually what I was about to 


say. We're doing a couple of things. We're 


beginning work with the CIO's office, our Chief 


Information Officer's office, to look again at 


the procedures we have in place for the 


destruction of records. We're looking at 


what's included under the epi moratorium. 


Actually soon after the enactment of EEOICPA, 


there were some additional records collections 


added to the epi moratorium. But we think it's 


probably time again to look more closely at 


that and consider adding additional collections 

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of records so we're going to go out to all of 


our records contacts in the field and get their 


input. 


 And then lastly, we're working on a letter that 


could potentially go out to all employees, or 


at least to the records officers at the DOE 


sites, reminding them about the epi moratorium, 


asking for their input on an ongoing basis as 


they come upon these records collections so 


that we can keep this an open issue and on an 


ongoing basis add records collections to this 


epi moratorium. But any additional suggestions 


that you have, we -- we would most definitely 


appreciate. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Libby. Larry, you want 


to follow up and... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I would like to follow up and 


give you a little bit of process-related 


concept here that goes on. When DOE identifies 


a system of records that has achieved, in their 


records retention schedule, a time to be 


destroyed -- you know, they have a records 


retention schedule that calls for destruction 


at a certain point in time. We are notified --


NIOSH is notified in -- in two different groups 

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at NIOSH. The research group at NIOSH is 


notified of that, and my office is notified of 


that, and we're asked what are our thoughts 


about these -- this set of records that are 


proposed to be destroyed. Are we okay with 


that or do we want to essentially say no, don't 


-- and advise not to destroy those, and they've 


heard us out on those situations. 


 The moratorium, as it's been referred to, is an 


epidemiologic moratorium, so it's records that 


go to epidemiology. Not necessarily does that 


cover the type of records that we need for 


compensation purposes, so I'm -- I'm happy to 


hear that they're looking at changing the 


language in that, if they do. 


 MR. CLAWSON: And Paul -- and -- and one thing 


that I wanted to bring up and -- and Idaho's in 


the process right now of a lot of facilities 


being tore down and so forth like that, a lot 


of our radiological information of when we're 


tearing out certain areas, they're -- they only 


have a life expectancy of two years before 


they're destroyed. And -- and I think it'd be 


very beneficial for us to look at this, 


especially tearing into some of these buildings 

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that have histories of 50, 60 years, because 


they get into some very interesting stuff. 
I 


know that we have logbooks of most of the -- 


that they're trying to figure out what to do 


with right now, and I hope they save them. But 


they're trying to justify, as a contractor, 


especially CMH2-Hill on INL side, there's 


nothing in their contract for them to take over 


these logs and I -- I know that many of them 


have been lost in the D&D process and I think 


that we're really making a mistaken and we need 


to look into it. 


MR. PODONSKY: You raise a good point and we -- 


we would welcome any -- any areas that the 


Board wants to recommend for us to change the 


way we're doing business because -- again, as I 


-- as I said and I'm now going to reiterate my 


point, is that we are committed -- Secretary 


Bodman is committed, the Department is 


committed -- to providing you, the Board, 


NIOSH, Labor, with all the records and there 


are things that you're bringing up that, quite 


frankly, I'll have to talk to my staff and ask 


why we haven't thought about some of these 


things. But maybe they have and maybe they've 

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addressed it, and maybe they've had some -- 


some difficulties within the Department. But 


I'm here to tell you that with -- with the 


creation of HSS, we're not the Shell answer 


man, but with the creation of HSS we anticipate 


making some inroads in areas that we haven't 


been able to do before because we have such a 


formidable group together now under one 


umbrella. 


 One example is recently we went out to all of 


the site managers and asked for them to 


designate a point of contact for us and Labor 


Department so that we don't have to keep on 


guessing at each site who do we go to. And 


then we are holding those site managers, those 


lab directors, personally accountable for 


working with us. We're using the -- candidly, 


we're using the force of the office of which I 


report to, which is the Office of the Secretary 


of Energy. 


 MR. CLAWSON: And I'd also like to thank you if 


my help -- for your help getting mine back, but 


one thing that did bother me was that even the 


I-- our site didn't have a very good 


understanding of what this Advisory Board was 

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for. It re-- it really surprised me, and I 


think it was Greg Lewis that helped me and he 


was quite surprised, too, but he was assured 


that he'd help me take care of it, so I 


appreciate it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Bob Presley. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Glenn, as somebody that -- that 


works in this at least four days a week, I'm 


glad to see you on board. I don't know where 


you remember me or not, but I'm from Y-12 and 


now, as a retiree, that's what I'm working on 


is the old -- old records throughout the whole 


complex. 


One of the things that -- that I'm having a 


problem with that you all need to look at, the 


-- the older records are deteriorating so bad 


that a lot of times you'll pull a piece of 


paper -- back many, many years ago they used 


mimeograph machines. You look at that piece of 


paper and the mimeograph ink has totally 


dissolved. The questions are gone, but the 


answers -- if somebody put it in ink or pencil, 


the answers to the questions'll be there. 


That's one of the things I've found. 


And the other thing that I've found that the 

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site are doing, and this is -- this is -- I 


can't say totally complex-wide, but in four or 


five of the sites that I've pulled records from 


in the last ten years, they will hire contract 


personnel that all their job is to do is take a 


piece of paper and slap it on that Xerox 


machine and -- or the computer scanner and hit 


"scan," and they don't care if the quality of 


that thing -- if it's skewed to where you can't 


see it, they may pull it fast, and a lot of the 


documents that I have had to go back and look 


at that have been scanned -- I hate to say it ­

- are not legible. And that's something that a 


-- a lot of the people that have gone out here 


-- here's a guy shaking his head right now -- 


you look at this stuff from the sites and -- 


and it's a real problem, especially the stuff 


they've got scanned on the computer systems. 


And the other thing is there's a tremendous 


amount of data that we have all over the 


complex that they've gotten rid of the machines 


to read it. Y-12 has the big disk. It's got 


all kinds of stuff on it, but there's no 


machine that can read it anymore. We have 


millions of clock cards and there's no machines 

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to read those things. And those clock cards 


are what the dose reconstruction and HP records 


and all that stuff are on, but you can't go get 


them; they're worthless. 


If I can help, holler. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Thank you. I'm glad to see you 


on board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Phillip, I think you're next. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay. Yeah, I want to say that 


-- kudos to you for trying to retrieve those 


records. I hope you succeed. But I do -- like 


I said, in the strongest terms, that before you 


send anybody in there, please send them in 


there with the proper safety gear. 


MR. PODONSKY: I hear you loud and clear. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Brad? Okay, I --


 MR. CLAWSON: Sorry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Anyone else? 


 (No responses) 


Thank you again, Glenn. We appreciate it. We 


look forward to future interactions with you 


and your -- Libby and others on your staff. 


MR. PODONSKY: Thank you very much. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to take a 15-minute 


break and then we'll reconvene. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:10 p.m. 


to 3:35 p.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let us now resume our 


deliberations. We're going to begin this 


afternoon -- is Mark leaving? 


 DR. WADE: Mark. 


SUBCOMMITTEE ACTIONS
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, ABRWH


 DR. ZIEMER: We're -- we're going to begin with 


the subcommittee report. Mark Griffon, are you 


ready? Preventing him from getting his coffee, 


I think, but -- kick us off here, Mark, on the 


actions and recommendations of the Subcommittee 


on Dose Reconstruction. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You caught me sliding way there 


for -- didn't realize I was on the agenda next. 


Yeah, the Subcommittee for Dose Reconstruction 


met this morning and we primarily focused on 


looking at the seventh set of case reviews 


where -- at the last meeting, and then 


continued on the last phone call meeting on 


January 11th -- we had come up with a -- a set 


of cases that we were interested in. And --


and this time we did it a little differently 

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than -- I know a lot of people were here this 


morning but I'll repeat it -- a little bit 


repetitive. We did it a little differently 


this time. We -- we sort of asked NIOSH -- we 


wanted to pre-screen some of these cases and we 


selected some cases and then we asked NIOSH -- 


come back with some more information so we have 


a better understanding what types of cases 


we're -- we're actually going to review because 


we don't want to see a lot of the same types of 


cases that we saw the first six sets of reviews 


that we did. 


So we had -- total I think we had about 60 -- 


61 cases to make our selections from. And this 


morning in the subcommittee meeting we selected 


-- we came up with a final total of 28. SC&A 


had asked for around 30 so that they can do two 


batches in this -- in this year to get their -- 


their contract total for the year is 60. We 


ended up with 28, which I think we'll move -- 


we're -- we're offering back to the full Board 


as a recommendation to proceed with our seventh 


set of cases, these 28 cases. And I guess we 


can -- do we want to --


 DR. ZIEMER: I think you should identify and 

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make sure everybody has the main -- the main 


set from which to make the selections. 


Board members, this should have been 


distributed to you. 


DR. ROESSLER: I think we have two sets. Can 


you tell us which --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, one has --


 DR. WADE: Slightly -- slightly different 


registry on the front, but they're the same 


numbers. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I think they're the 


same thing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The -- the heading on the -- 


there's actually two -- two sets here in one 


packet. One says first pre-selected set, 


December. And then if you go down to what's -- 


page 5, I believe it is, near the bottom of the 


page it says second pre-selected set, January. 


That's the total of the -- of the sets from 


which you're choosing. Is that correct, Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now I said mine is on the bottom 


of page 5 and I'm -- I'm noticing yours is 


what? Do we have the -- do these match up? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know if it matches these. 

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 MS. MUNN: No, they don't match. 


(Pause) 


 DR. ZIEMER: There may be a slight difference 


in formatting on these two sets, but I think 


it's the same set. 


 DR. WADE: It's the same set but -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to identify the cases 


by number and description, so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we'll go through in order 


on the pages so you can follow along, and I 


guess what I'll do is I can -- I can read out 


these numbers and then maybe give everybody 


tonight to look them over and we can -- I don't 


think we have to decide on these right now -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: We don't have to unless -- unless 


the Board members feel like they're ready to 


make the selection. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think people may want at least 


tonight to have a chance to look at them -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and maybe come back with 


questions tomorrow or whatever. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So you're going to read us a list 


of --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- I think 28 cases. 


 MR. GRIFFON: 28 cases, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So Board members, if you would 


mark these in some way so you know which they 


are --


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm going to just read the last 


three numbers in the ID -- selection ID. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then tell us what page you're 


on in each --


 MR. GRIFFON: First one is --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- case. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, 079. Now I'm on -- I'm 


on page 2, but this may be -- the -- the pages 


may not go exactly the same as the stapled 


copies. The next one is 063, 455, 335, 337, 


099, 056, 322, 354, 375, 013, 076, 017, 306 -- 


now you should be onto the second pre-selected 


set and we've got a number in a row here, 428, 


377, 379, 470, 370, 352, 060, 100, 340, 360, 


058, 421, 344 and 001. And that should total 


28 cases for the seventh set of reviews, so -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so these are the 28 cases 


that the subcommittee is recommending that we 


assign to the contractor for the initial 


review, working together with our normal review 

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teams, and then we would go through the review 


-- full review process. What -- what we'll do 


then, we'll take this as a recommendation from 


the subcommittee and agree to defer action 


until later in the Board meeting so you have a 


chance to look at those cases in more detail. 


Each -- the chart shows you the type of cancer, 


the facility, years worked, the decades worked, 


probability of causation and other information 


on each case, so you have the opportunity to 


look at those and, Board members, when we take 


action you have the opportunity to add to or 


delete from or accept these 28 cases as our 


next group for audit and review. 


Any questions on that? 


 MS. MUNN: So we're not going to -- we're not 


going to do anything now? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think Mark has suggested that we 


allow people overnight at least to have a 


chance to look at these in more detail. So 


without objection, we'll do that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I -- I did notice, and you -- 


if you look through these you may notice that 


in the second pre-selected set -- beyond that 


point there seems to be some kind of formatting 

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I 

-- number format problem because instead of a 


date DR was approved, there's a -- a number in 


there and I think that was an Excel problem. 


don't know if we -- it probably is okay in the 


electronic version if people have their 


electronic version. If they reformat that 


column to "date," I'm sure it's going to be 


fine. But right now it appears just to be a 


five-digit number. Right? And not -- it 


doesn't look like a date to me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I guess I would ask how 


critical that piece of information -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, and I --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- is. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I think it is. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not sure it is for -- for what 


we're doing here. So unless somebody needs to 


know that particular piece of information, it 


doesn't --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- seem critical to the selection 


process. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, I think you -- you have 


more than enough information, but if you are 


wondering why that's that way, I think it's a 

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formatting problem. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So we will take formal 


action on -- on those at that point. Mark, you 


have some other items from the subcommittee to 


bring before us. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, just -- just a -- a few 


other -- just a report back on what the 


subcommittee's working on. We have the fourth 


set matrix underway. This is the fourth set of 


cases we've reviewed. I think it's -- we've 


done 60 and that would be 61 through 80, case 


number 61 through 80. The matrix, for those of 


you who are not familiar with that process, we 


-- SC&A brought back a report -- that's our 


contractor -- brought a report to the Board on 


their findings when they reviewed these 20 


cases. We tried -- SC&A then put those 


findings into a matrix -- a summary of the 


finding actually, in the matrix and then we 


bring it back to our subcommittee process and 


we go through a com-- a comment resolution 


process. There -- it's a little more involved 


than that, but basically Board members are 


involved before that, but actually -- anyway, 


the -- the finding is discussed in the 

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subcommittee and NIOSH gives us a response to 


the finding. And then at that point the 


subcommittee, along with SC&A and NIOSH, 


discuss it and try to come to a resolution on ­

- on the finding. And at this stage on the 


fourth set of cases we're -- we're close to the 


end of the resolution process. There are some 


outstanding actions for NIOSH to complete, and 


I think a few for SC&A as well. I've -- I've 


edited the fourth set matrix to include the 


resolution from our last meeting. I'll just --


I'm -- I'm going to distribute that after this 


meeting to the subcommittee members as well as 


SC&A and NIOSH. And we're hoping to have a 


meeting probably sometime in April, in between 


Board meetings have a subcommittee meeting 


where we can do our final deliberations on that 


fourth set matrix. 


We also have a fifth and sixth set that are out 


there and underway. The fifth set matrix --


we're almost ready to deliver that to NIOSH, 


and at that point NIOSH will -- will go back to 


their team members and -- and review each 


finding and give us their comments on the 


findings, and then we'll bring it into the same 

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process, back to the subcommittee. 


The sixth set is a little earlier on. SC&A has 


completed their review and they're just about 


ready, as I understand it, to meet with 


individual Board members and go through each -- 


Board members are assigned certain cases to 


review, and SC&A does usually conference call 


meetings with the Board members to discuss the 


findings on the cases that were assigned to -- 


to each Board member, and they're just about at 


that stage now. After that's completed, then 


it'll come through the same process. So we're 


-- we're teeing these up to -- to catch up to 


the seventh set of -- of DR reviews. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, if I could interrupt, this 


is a good point to raise an issue. As we do 


the sixth set, we want to integrate our new 


Board members into the review process. I --


I'd like to find out if Kathy Behling is still 


on the line. Kathy, are you on the line? 


 MS. BEHLING: Yes, I am. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Kathy, do you have at your 


fingertips the current list of teams that you 


were going to use for this sixth set? Or do --


 MS. BEHLING: I do not have that at my 

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fingertips at the moment but I can -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Could you --


 MS. BEHLING: -- get it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- pull that out in the next few 


minutes readily? 


 MS. BEHLING: I will attempt to do that, yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then -- and we'll come back in 


a few minutes. What I'd like to do is -- in 


fairness to the new people -- not require them 


to be a team by themselves without the 


experience of these veterans, but to take a 


look at the team assignments that you had for 


number six and we might want to change those 


slightly, integrate Josie and Phil into one of 


the existing teams, or two of the existing 


teams, and go from there. So we'll come back 


to this. 


 MS. BEHLING: Okay, very good. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And the -- the last two items -- 


really the last item we discussed for a fair 


amount of time was blind reviews. And early on 


we had talked about doing some of the dose 


reconstruction reviews in a blind review 


fashion and -- and to date we haven't done any 

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blind reviews. So we had a -- a fairly good 


discussion about, you know, what that would 


involve, not only from a -- a sort of technical 


standpoint, but also from a process standpoint 


for the subcommittee. I -- I've -- I've 


offered to -- to draft sort of some protocols 


for that blind review within the subcommittee, 


bring it back to the subcommittee and then 


certainly will bring it back to the full Board 


for approval before we go ahead with any blind 


reviews. But I think we're -- we're 


anticipating the eighth set may include a 


couple of blind reviews anyway, but we want to 


better define -- when we say blind review -- 


exactly what the protocols are and what the 


process will be. And -- and like I said, we'll 


do that on the subcommittee and bring it back 


to the full Board. 


And the final thing -- and we didn't really 


have time to discuss this much in the 


subcommittee, but just -- just so you have it 


in the back of your mind maybe, most of the -- 


in the original scope of work for the DR 


reviews we had basic, advanced and blind 


reviews. And I challenged our subcommittee and 

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-- and certainly all Board members to 


reconsider the scope as it pertains to the 


advanced cases to make sure that -- 'cause I 


believe there's -- there's at least a few items 


within that scope that we are not currently 


addressing in our reviews and we may want to 


ask SC&A to address some of those in future 


reviews. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And you will make a specific 


recommendation on that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yes, I think we'll do the same 


thing, but --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- at some point. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we -- we didn't really discuss 


that much in the subcommittee due to -- due to 


time this morning. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But we'll -- we'll report back 


more on that. But if anybody has input along 


those lines, I'd -- I think we'd certainly 


appreciate it as well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, let me ask if any 


of you have any questions for Mark or for the 


subcommittee -- or comments? 


 (No responses) 

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How are your fingertips doing, Kathy? 


 MS. BEHLING: I have the information in front 


of me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right at your fingertips, okay. 


 MS. BEHLING: For the sixth set of cases, there 


are five teams of two individuals from the 


Board and I will list those for you. One team 


is John Poston and Robert Presley. Second team 


is Genevieve Roessler and James Lockey. Third 


team is Mark Griffon and Bradley Clawson. The 


fourth team is Michael Gibson and Paul Ziemer. 


And the fifth team is James Melius and Wanda 


Munn. So those are currently the five teams 


that have been selected for the sixth set. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. I -- I think the 


best way to do this would be to -- we'll make a 


sixth team and -- and pull somebody from each 


of two teams --


 DR. WADE: You only have to pull one really. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Huh? 


 DR. WADE: If you pulled one --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, all right, we'll pull one 


and that'll leave the other one open. I'm hav­

- I have trouble with these advanced concepts. 


Okay. And this is kind of arbitrary I guess. 

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Let -- let me --


 MR. GRIFFON: Two teams. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we -- let's see, but we -- 


we need --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- as many teams as -- I think 


teams of two worked out pretty well last time. 


How about if we -- let me pull Lockey off and 


perhaps -- let's -- let's put -- how about if 


we put Phil with -- Phil with Gen Roessler. Is 


that all right? 


 MS. BEHLING: Dr. Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 MS. BEHLING: Excuse me, the -- if we proceed 


with having six groups, we'll have to reassign 


the cases for the sixth set because currently 


each of the five groups has four cases, and so 


we would have to reassign the cases for these 


two new --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, I see what you're saying. 


 MS. BEHLING: Yeah, I'm not sure what you're -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, would it be easier for this 


sixth set just to -- to put the two new people 


with an existing team, then? Is that what 


you're --

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 MS. BEHLING: I -- I believe that's the easiest 


approach. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We'll -- we'll do that then. 


Thank you very much. Good suggestion. So 


we'll go back to -- to -- I'm just going to 


take them in order, so let's add Phil to team 


one --


 MS. MUNN: Who's team one? 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's Poston/Presley. And then 


we'll put Josie with Roessler and Lockey. Is 


that agreeable? And that will give them 


experience with the process and then -- 


 MR. PRESLEY: Paul --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we'll be set next time around. 


 MR. PRESLEY: -- can we go ahead and get them 


sent, a copy of the cases? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let -- let me see what legal 


counsel is -- I'm -- I'm -- my warning signs 


are going up. Liz is approaching the mike. 


Liz. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I just want to remind you 


that you need to review whatever cases the 


teams that have been assigned -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yes --


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- make sure that they don't 

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have conflicts before you assign -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and those have not been 


assigned yet, have they? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yep. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Or have they? 


 MR. PRESLEY: They have been. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay, yes. Who -- team one is 


doing -- well, let -- let me ask Kathy, do you 


have those assignments? What team -- what 


facilities are the team one -- is the team one 


group doing? Any -- any --


 MS. BEHLING: I -- I was just -- I do not have 


the assignments in front of me. It was easier 


for me to pull up the fifth list and so I could 


get the --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let -- let me do the 


following and Wade can help me on this. If 


there's a -- if there's a -- for example, if 


team one is doing a Los Alamos, we'll just 


switch Phil to another team, and likewise with 


Josie, if that's agreeable. We'll just go down 


the line. 


 DR. WADE: All right, we'll take care of that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Emily, uh-huh. 


 MS. HOWELL: If I can make a recommendation, 

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just knowing the conflicts without knowing 


who's assigned which cases -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MS. HOWELL: -- if you keep Mr. Schofield with 


his current assignment, that will be fine. If 


you wanted to move Ms. Beach to Dr. Melius and 


Ms. Munn's group, that would also -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Then we know that there's probably 

not --

 MS. HOWELL: Then there won't be -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- any conflicts there, yeah. 

 MS. HOWELL: -- any conflicts. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, that'll -- that'll make it 

easy. Thank you. 


 MS. MUNN: 'Cause she has the same conflicts I 


 DR. ZIEMER: Without objection then, Josie, 


we'll put you there with... 


 DR. WADE: Now this is just for the sixth and 


then the seventh --


 DR. ZIEMER: Just for the sixth set and we'll 


have a new set of assignments. Okay, without 


objection, those'll be the assignments for the 


sixth set, then -- okay. Thank you. 


Any other items for --

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 MR. GRIFFON: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Earlier today Larry Elliott 


introduced the new ombudsman for NIOSH, but she 


wasn't here. But now she is -- Denise Brock, 


identify yourself -- there she is. Welcome. 


MS. BROCK: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


(Pause) 


SELECTION OF REMAINING PROCEDURES TO BE
 

REVIEWED BY SC&A UNDER TASK 3
 

MS. WANDA MUNN, ABRWH
 

The workgroup on -- workgroup on -- I'm 


thinking of the title, something to do with 


reviewing procedures. 


 DR. WADE: Procedures review. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn's workgroup met earlier 


today and Ms. Munn has some recommendations. 


 MS. MUNN: Technology has failed me. I had a 


nice little three-page presentation that I was 


going to throw up on the screen for you so that 


you wouldn't have to try to deal with the 


numbers that I don't have copied for you, and 


for some reason it came up as all Ys on the 


screen. So I don't think -- that's not w-i-se, it is in W, X, Y, so... 


I've asked some help in getting copies of the 


tables that we were working with this morning 

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so that you would have a better feel for what 


we were looking at. The question before us was 


the number of -- which cases we were going to 


select from the procedures that SC&A was to 


review for us under their contract Task III. 


And the members of the Board have this 


information that we were working from in your 


electronic files. I'm sorry I didn't have it 


copied for you because I really thought you 


were going to have it in front of you. 


SC&A has submitted us three tables giving the 


information with respect to what they have 


already reviewed, what they have reviewed under 


other tasks, and what they have not yet 


reviewed. Currently -- during our last meeting 


we looked at the published documents that were 


not officially reviewed by them underneath this 


particular task, but which had been reviewed -- 


essentially they've already been done because 


they've done them under one of the other tasks. 


I'm stalling a little bit because I keep 


thinking that LaShawn's going to show up with 


the printed copies of the tables I'd hoped to 


have for you, but she hasn't yet. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me help you stall. 

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 MS. MUNN: All right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Number one, there are several 


charts that the Board members may need to refer 


to, and it may be that what we will want to do 


is something similar to what Mark has done, and 


that is to identify today the procedures which 


the subcommittee is rec-- or the workgroup is 


recommending for approval, and then allow the 


Board some time to digest those, particularly 


if they need to go back and pull up some files 


and get the full list. And I don't -- I don't 


have any feel for whether other Board members 


outside the workgroup have those other charts. 


Board members, do -- do you know what charts 


are being referred to? They are -- they -- SCA 


-- SC&A had a list of procedures that they had 


reviewed and ones they hadn't. They had a list 


that Stu Hinnefeld prepared of all the various 


procedures. We had a recommendation I think 


from SC&A as to additional procedures that have 


been reviewed under the other process and 


others that they recommended. So there's 


various pieces of input to this that form the 


basis for the recommendation. So I'm -- I'm 


saying if the Board members don't have all 

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those pieces, you may simply want to identify 


the particular procedures and then we can take 


action on it tomorrow. 


 MS. MUNN: I may be forced to do that since 


I've given my only original copy to LaShawn to 


be copied. We'll -- we'll see how far we get 


here. For those of you with your electronic 


files up, on January 9th John Mauro sent Lew 


Wade a memorandum which incorporated the three 


tables that we started to work from, so -- 


 MS. BEHLING: Excuse me, Wanda --


 MS. MUNN: Yes, Kathy. 


 MS. BEHLING: -- this is Kathy. I believe that 


when I sent this to you on January 12th, I sent 


all the Board members my recommendations for 


the procedures, I believe along with 


attachments of both Stu's attachment of all the 


new procedures or -- or all of the listing of 


procedures, and also that Lew Wade/John Mauro 


memo, if that's any help to those people who 


have elec-- who have their computers with them. 


I think that was January 12. Sorry to 


interrupt. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah -- no, that's quite all right, 


and that's correct. Most of those -- all of 

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those attachments were there. The complete 


list of procedures is not very helpful to us at 


this juncture because it's too voluminous and 


doesn't segregate them appropriately. But if 


you -- are we doing okay finding this 


information on your --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me ask, are their Board 


members who do not have the needed charts at 


this time, or tables -- there seem to be 


several. 


 MS. MUNN: Tables 1, 2 and 3. Well, the 


printed copies are coming very shortly. 


Let me read to you the titles of the procedures 


that we looked at last time the Board met, when 


it was suggested that we might incorporate some 


of the procedures that had already been 


reviewed under other tasks. There were eight 


of those, and they were given in Table 2 of 


these lists of tables that we're talking about. 


Shown -- the first one was OTIB-26, external 


coworker dosimetry data for the K-25 site. The 


second was OTIB-27, supplementary external dose 


information for Rocky Flats Plant; OTIB-29, 


internal dosimetry coworker data for Y-12; 


OTIB-30, external coworker dosimetry data for 

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the Hanford site; OTIB-31, external coworker 


dosimetry data for the Paducah Gaseous 


Diffusion Plant; OTIB-32, external coworker 


dosimetry data for the Savannah River Site; 


OTIB-35, internal dosimetry coworker data for 


K-25; PROC-0042, accounting for incomplete 


personnel monitoring data on penetrating gamma 


ray doses to workers in radiation areas in the 


Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant prior to 1961; and the 


final one was OCAS-TIB-0014, Rocky Flats 


internal dosimetry coworker extension. 


Those were given to us as suggestions last -- 


at our last Board meeting for potentials for 


incorporating. It was the agreement of the 


working group this morning that those should in 


fact be incorporated and should be included as 


Task III completed reviews that SC&A will have 


done during the Fiscal Year 2007. 


The discussion this morning revolved primarily 


around what the next six should be. We had six 


that had been suggested to us by SC&A, but of 


those six we ultimately chose only two because 


at this time there is under-- in process at 


NIOSH a group of revisions or new OTIBs which 


will be of considerable interest to this Board. 

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So the choices that we made with respect to the 


final six for SC&A to deal with were PROC-0044, 


Special Exposure Cohort; PROC-0086, case 


preparation, complex internal dosimetry claims; 


OTIB-0045, historical evaluation of the film 


badge program at the Y-12 facility in Oak 


Ridge, Tennessee, Part 2, neutron radiation; 


TIB-0060, internal dose reconstruction; TIB0063, Los Alamos National Laboratory bioassay 


data project; and PROC-0096, initial quality 


control, technical editing and final quality 


control of dose reconstruction reports. 


Those were the six last procedures that were 


recommended by the workgroup to the Board for 


acceptance as Task III in SC&A's charge. You 


will have a copy of those before we -- perhaps 


when we get back after our break. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Wanda, the only action needed 


is on the last six. Isn't that correct? 


 MS. MUNN: That's correct. We -- we -- and 


agreement that the -- the eight which we had 


nodded our heads and said we'd think about at 


our last Board meeting, I -- I don't believe we 


actually took action on those. I think we 


accepted them as a recommendation, but the 

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working group had not met and discussed that 


and I believe that they're -- that's our action 


today. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And Wanda, could you 


clarify -- when you read the list that the 


Board had looked at last time and which appear 


in Table 2 with an asterisk -- 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I thought that I heard you say 


OTIB-0031, which on my table doesn't have an 


asterisk. Was -- was that on your list, 0031? 


 MS. MUNN: No, it was not. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: 32 and 35 were, but 31 was not. It 


was --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, so --


 MS. MUNN: -- 30, 32 --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I may have -- I may have 


heard the -- heard you read that wrong, but if 


that was -- if that was read earlier, that 


should not be included. 


 MS. MUNN: No, it should not, only the eight 


that had the asterisk in Tables -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- 2 and 3. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Okay, Board members, is 


there agreement that we'll defer action on this 


till you have a chance to see those, or do you 


wish to act now? 


We'll defer action, I think, make sure that 


everybody has the written copy. 


 MS. MUNN: Again, I apologize --


 DR. ZIEMER: And also -- will there be copies ­

- there should be copies for the members of the 


public as well on this so -- 


 MS. MUNN: We'll -- we'll get more copies made. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we'll make sure that everyone 


has a copy so they can see what we're talking 


about. 


 Okay, thank you very much. 


 MS. MUNN: My apologies again. My computer has 


failed me. I need another one. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to have a brief break 


before we have a public comment session. We 


have some folks that will be commenting by 


phone. We want to make sure all of those are 


hooked in and ready to go. 


Lew, do we have any housekeeping items we need 


to take care of before we take a quick break? 


 DR. WADE: Nope. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We want to begin the public 


comment period sharply at 4:30, so please take 


a quick break and then reconvene at that time. 


Thank you. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:10 p.m. 


to 4:30 p.m.) 


PUBLIC COMMENT 


DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

 DR. ZIEMER: We are ready to begin the public 


comment session of today's meeting. As many of 


you know, in the public comment session 


generally we're not prepared to deal with 


individual cases in the sense that if you have 


a case problem we ask that you take that to the 


NIOSH case representatives. Now you're 


certainly welcome to share problems and issues 


with us, so this is kind of an open session 


where you can express your views or -- or bring 


your problems. It's -- it is not a situation 


where we will delve into individual case 


histories in any detail, but try to learn more 


about how the program is working or where the 


problems lie. And you're welcome to comment on 


any of the issues that are on our agenda or 


other issues related to the program. 


We're going to hear in a few minutes from John 

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Ramspott and from Dan McKeel, both of whom have 


addressed the Board before. They represent the 


southern Illinois nuclear workers. And working 


with them is Vincent Kutemperer, who is I hope 


on the phone, and Vincent has been involved -- 


has actually published on the issue of 


accelerator activation, which is one of the 


issues John raised to this Board when he gave 


public testimony before. And Vincent, are you 


on the line? 


 (No response) 


 Vincent Kutemperer? 


 (No response) 


I'm not hearing -- maybe we'll go ahead with 


John and I -- Dan, do -- do you have a -- do 


you have a number you can reach him 


independently and -- or John does. I'm 


wondering, Dan, would you like to go first or 


would you rather wait till he testified? I --


 DR. MCKEEL: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll wait just a second. 

 DR. MCKEEL: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Again, Vince, are you on the line? 

MS. RAMSPOTT: This is Christine Ramspott. 
I 


could call Mr. Kutemperer. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, thank you, Christine. 


I think John is just trying to reach -- your 


husband is just trying to reach him on the 


line. 


MS. RAMSPOTT: Okay. If I need to make a call, 


I'm available. 


 DR. ZIEMER: John, your -- your wife has 


offered to try to reach him. 


Also let me check to see if -- if Daronda Pope* 


is on the line today. We'll be hearing from 


her I hope this afternoon. Daronda, are you on 


the line? 


 (No response) 


 Daronda is -- represents the Rocky Flats group. 


 (No response) 


 Apparently not yet. Let me also ask if there 


are any other members of the public on the line 


that wish to make comment today. 


 MS. CLAYTON: Yes, Dr. Ziemer. This is Dorothy 


Clayton. I'd like to make a couple of 


comments, please. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Dorothy, why don't you go 


ahead and proceed, and could you spell your 


last name for our court reporter? 


 MS. CLAYTON: Yes, C-l-a-y-t-o-n. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Go ahead and 


make your comments. 


 MS. CLAYTON: Yes, I was at the Las Vegas 


meeting in September, and I presented about 


four years of records to the Board on my 


husband's -- the discrepancies in the DOE 


radiation exposure history. So I have a 


question for Doc-- well, for Mr. Podonsky, 


please. Is he there? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think Mr. Podonsky has left, but 


you can cert-- we can certainly relay your 


question to him if --


 MS. CLAYTON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think one of his colleagues is 


here who might be able to answer -- 


 DR. WADE: Libby White is here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Libby White from DOE is still 


with us. 


 MS. CLAYTON: Right. I don't know if you 


remember, but I have about -- almost 1,400 


pages of my husband's employment at the Test 


Site, Nevada Test Site. All these records have 


been declassified and I -- I -- I wanted to ask 


him about one specific year. I -- I note that 


he had mentioned that he was going to go for 

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records which would prove radiation exposure. 


I pulled out another year of my husband's 


records, 1970, where -- this was from May to 


December of 1970. We had 32 nuclear shots in C 


Tunnel, these were specifically in C Tunnel. 


The radiation exposure history for the -- the 


DOE in Las Vegas is issuing to the widows that 


I represent, they're all coming back with a 


zero radiation. However, in the records that I 


have which shows a number of crafts such as the 


miners, the electricians, operators, plumbers, 


fitters and others, and these are from -- this 


information is directly from the radiation 


exposure -- radiation safety monitor logbook. 


These are handwritten records which shows that 


in these -- specifically in C Tunnel where 


these men were working, the radiation levels 


were from 200 millirem to 5,000 millirem. And 


I was going to ask him if -- I know that these 


records were put into my hands, but after they 


were given to -- my husband's records were 


given to me, the widow whose husband worked for 


my husband there in the same tunnel, the 


records were denied. They can't get anything 


except the radiation exposure history, which is 

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terribly flawed. I just wanted to know if -- 


if he would take any of the records that I have 


in -- as supporting evidence and -- and apply 


them to the other men that worked in that same 


area. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. What I'm going to suggest ­

- Libby is going to come to the mike, too -- we 


do need to make sure that -- that NIOSH has at 


least copies of the records for your husband. 


And if they have some application to other 


workers, I suppose those other workers may have 


to somehow refer to them. Let's see what Libby 


has to say here. 


 MS. CLAYTON: All right. 


MS. WHITE: I was just going to say I -- I work 


for Glenn Podonsky, who unfortunately had to 


leave right after his presentation, but I will 


take that back to him and I think what -- what 


you're telling us might give us some leads as 


to what to look for at -- at NTS and -- 


 MS. CLAYTON: Right. 


MS. WHITE: -- and so certainly that needs to 


get to NIOSH. And also in general it would be 


helpful to know where those records came from 


and -- and the types of information that were 

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included, as you just described. 


 MS. CLAYTON: Right. 


MS. WHITE: So maybe if I could give you my 


phone number, we could talk separately about -- 


about this and -- and I can make sure to be in 


touch with our -- with our contacts -- our 


records contacts at the Nevada office. 


 MS. CLAYTON: Okay. 


MS. WHITE: And my number is 202-- 


 MS. CLAYTON: All right. 


MS. WHITE: -- sorry, 202--


 MS. CLAYTON: Uh-huh. 


MS. WHITE: --586--


 MS. CLAYTON: 586. 


MS. WHITE: --3632. 


 MS. CLAYTON: 3632. 


MS. WHITE: And my name again is Libby White. 


 MS. CLAYTON: Libby White. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Did you get that, Dorothy, then? 


 MS. CLAYTON: I did, 586-3632, yes, I did, and 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, and we want to make sure 


that -- and maybe, Libby, you can help make 


sure that the records also will get into -- 


NIOSH database if they're not already there. 

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 MS. CLAYTON: I did give -- at the Las Vegas 


meeting I did give Larry Elliott four years of 


-- of records that showed discrepancy -- 


terrible discrepancy in the radiation exposure 


history that is being given out to the widows 


at the Test Site, and -- so he does have four 


years in his hands. But there's so much more 


that's available here that -- that somebody 


needs to take a look at because -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MS. CLAYTON: -- I had these records in my 


hands within two days. I had tried to get them 


for months, and our Nevada senator just called 


the DOE and -- and told them to get all the 


records ready. I had them in my hands within 


two days, so I know records are there that can 


be used, and I certainly would appreciate it if 


-- if someone -- if they could use these 


records, because the men did work for -- I know 


the men personally that have passed away that 


worked for my husband. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We have an additional 


comment from Chris from NIOSH. 


 MS. CLAYTON: All right. 


 MS. ELLISON: Ms. Clayton, this is Chris 

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Ellison from NIOSH. I want to assure you that 


I have been told that we do have those records 


that you're referring to. 


 MS. CLAYTON: Thank you. 


 MS. ELLISON: You're welcome. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 


 MR. FUNK: Dr. Zimmer (sic) --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 MR. FUNK: -- this is John Funk. I -- I got 


sick and I didn't get a chance to get my 


paperwork in. There is a couple things I -- 


although it -- it slightly applies to my case 


individually --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, John, can you hold on just a 


moment? We had another individual on the line 


that is scheduled first and let -- 


 MR. FUNK: That's quite all right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, if -- are you okay standing 


by a few minutes? 


 MR. FUNK: Oh, yeah, I can stand by for a 


couple of hours. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, well, you're pretty hardy 


today, okay. You might do better than I do. 


 Here's -- Vincent, are you on the line now? 


 MR. KUTEMPERER: Yes -- yes, Dr. Ziemer. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, welcome. You may proceed 


with your comments. 


 MR. KUTEMPERER: Okay, thank you very much, Dr. 


Ziemer. 


As -- my name, as I stated before, is Vincent 


Kutemperer and I'm calling from Brookfield, 


Wisconsin. I understand that this is a meeting 


of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 


Health. I also understand that there are 


members that -- in this meeting from NIOSH, 


ORAU and Board auditors and there are also 


members representing the Department of Labor 


and also there are members of the public. 


Thank you very much for taking my call. 


Let me introduce myself and give you my 


background. I was a professor of physics at 


the Milwaukee School of Engineering from 1968 


to 1978. Before that I was teaching physics 


and math at Lakeland College in Sheboygan, 


Wisconsin. While I was at Lakeland College I 


had the opportunity to work on a nuclear 


reactor at the (unintelligible) National Lab in 


Chicago. I use to take the students with me to 


participate in various types of student 


experimentation at the reactor, 

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(unintelligible) National Lab. In that process 


I got interested in what is known as the 


neutron activation, and later on when I came to 


Milwaukee School of Engineering in 1968, I 


continued to take interest in nuclear reactor 


experimentation and the process of neutron 


activation. 


I also had opportunity to go to 


(unintelligible) Nat-- excuse me, Oak Ridge 


National Lab in Tennessee. I also had 


participated in other types of scientific 


activities at the Texas A&M University, Kansas 


State University and other universities in the 


midwest. 


When I became professor of physics at Milwaukee 


School of Engineering, I came across the 25 


million electron volt Betatron that the school 


used to do industrial radiography. And at that 


time I became interested in what is known as 


the photon activation and I started to compare 


photon activation with the neutron activation. 


And needless to say, since I had the 25 million 


electron volt Betatron at the Milwaukee School 


of Engineering, I started to learn more and 


more about it and I started to understand the 

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phenomenon of photon activation in more detail 


than what I originally wanted to do. 


(NOTE: During the following portion of Mr. 


Kutemperer's statement an unidentified person 


was also on the line. He seemed to be unaware 


his comments were audible. This could have 


affected the accuracy of the transcription as 


two people were speaking simultaneously.) 


In that process I discovered that when 


industrial radiography is done using 25 million 


electron volt Betatron, there is a tremendous 


amount of radiation used in both industrial 


parts. I became very curious about finding out 


the level of activity that is induced, and also 


what effect it might have on people who handled 


these industrial parts. And in -- in -- in 


that regard, I did a lot of experimentation and 


-- and in 1974 I published a paper, which is 


titled "Photon Activation of Materials 


Subjected to Betatron Radiography." The 


conclusion of that paper, which was published 


in 1974, was that not too much attention was 


given to the sample that is being radiographed 


by this powerful X-ray machine, and so I 


pointed out the fact that there could be some 

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health hazards associated with activation of 


these materials which are being radiographed to 


determine if there are any (unintelligible) 


inside. That was in 1974. 


 That paper was followed up with another paper 


which is referred to as "Photon Activation of 


Alloys and Elements Used in Industrial 


(unintelligible) High Energy (unintelligible) 


Radiography." In that paper I went into more 


details about the activation that I noticed in 


different types of industrial parts that were 


radiographed. Now keep in mind that some of 


these industrial parts were very sizeable. It 


ranged in size from -- for example, one pound, 


ten pounds to castings that weighed a couple of 


tons. And these parts were exposed to several 


thousand Roentgens of radiation and in some 


cases the exposure lasted several hours to a 


couple of days. And (unintelligible) 


situations where phantom castings were exposed 


to radiation and after I published these two 


papers, these people who were working there 


were aware of the radiation (unintelligible) in 


it and as (unintelligible) of that, especially 


when they knew that there was a nickel in -- in 

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these alloys, they waited at least a day or a ­

- day or two to go near the sample that was 


just radiographed because, as you know, nickel 


becomes radioactive and the half-life of the 


isotope that's produced is approximately 36 


hours. So anyone will say that if you have 36­

hour half-life, you may want to wait at least a 


couple of those half-lifes to go near it. 


 Well, anyway, after I published these two 


papers, I became convinced that most of the 


workers that are doing this type of radiography 


may not -- may not know the extent of the 


activation and that if these people come across 


these material and handle them without knowing 


that they are radioactive, and then later on 


they try to store these in a place before it is 


shipped to wherever they came from, and when it 


goes to the places where they are shipped to, 


they might polish it, grind it, and in that 


process if still there is a residual 


radioactivity left -- which I believe that -- 


that there are, if they grind and polish, they 


might be ingesting radioactive dust. And if 


they ingest radioactive dust, as most of you 


know, all of you know, that presents, in my 

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opinion, a health hazard situation. 


And so with these things in mind, in 1976 I 


submitted an application to NIH, which 


subsequently went to NIOSH, and the purpose of 


that grant was to ask for some money to help me 


further -- further evaluate and understand the 


process of activation that happens in these 


industrial -- industrially radiographed parts. 


Well, the result of my application was that 


initially NIOSH refused to fund it, but I had a 


further discussion with NIOSH officials and 


then they decided that there are merits in my 


application, therefore they agreed to fund this 


application. But it never funded. 


Now during those years I was still pursuing the 


activation process and as a result of my two 


publications, I was invited to participate in 


two international conference on the application 


of photon activation in trace element analysis, 


and these conferences were sponsored by IAEA, 


International Atomic Energy Agency, 


headquartered in Vienna, Austria. So I 


participated in one conference in Vienna and 


another conference in (unintelligible) France, 


and what they did was to look at the trace 

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element analysis of human hair using photon 


activation. There were -- if I remember 


correctly, there were 15 scientists from all -- 


all over the world, and I myself had the 


privilege of representing the United States in 


that -- in those two meetings, and we talked 


about all the different techniques used by 


different scientists in analyzing trace 


elements in human hair. 


And later on the following year I was invited 


to participate in a -- in a conference in a 


similar fashion which was to be held in Tokyo, 


Japan, but by that time I had changed my line 


of work from being a scientist and trying to 


split atoms into trying to split land. 


Personally I'm a land developer and a builder, 


and I practically lost interest in radiation 


and the effect of radiation in -- in biological 


samples since I was trying to establish my 


expertise in. And in 19-- excuse me, in 2006, 


on or about -- on or about the end of August, I 


had two very interesting letters from two 


people from St. Louis. One is a Dr. Daniel 


McKeel. I'm sure most of you might know who 


this person is. And then there was another 

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letter from John Ramspott, who wrote to me 


regarding them finding my publications and I 


asked them why and how they came across my 


paper, and then they talked about the people 


who are doing work at the (unintelligible) in 


Illinois and in St. Louis, and they talked to 


me about almost 800, 900 people who have become 


cancer patients and they have tried to relate 


their sickness to the fact that these people 


worked in these industrial places where they 


heavily used Betatrons, 25 million electron 


volt Betatrons, to radiograph uranium ingots. 


Well, that made me think about what I did 34 


years back and the fact that I had sent this 


application to NIOSH and asked for a grant to 


further investigation what I found out in 1974. 


And this is how this process started with me 


and since August of 19-- excuse me, August of 


2006 I've spent a considerable amount of time 


looking through my own papers. By the way, by 


the end of 1978 when I left the Milwaukee 


School of Engineering and went into real 


estate, I had a total of seven publications and 


a large chapter that I wrote with several other 


scientists from the United States, and this 

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appears in the Handbook of Clinical Laboratory 


Science and this also appears in the Nuclear 


Medicine section of the book. 


So I started to review all of these things and 


I started to think about actually what might 


have happened with the radiation workers at 


General Steel Industries. And I was told that 


these people were working on uranium ingots and 


these samples were irradiated several times 


with several thousand Roentgens of radiation 


from Betatron. And with my previous work I -- 


I started to get so concerned about these 


people because from my own experience, my 


thinking was that if -- and example is they 


radiated -- the radiation from that 25 million 


electron volt Betatron, my reaction is that I 


don't want to be near those exposed materials 


at least for a half an hour because as -- as is 


very well known, the most prominent reaction 


that happens is the gamma (unintelligible) 


reaction. And if you look in the periodic 


table, just about every element in the periodic 


table gets activated by gamma (unintelligible) 


reaction to some level or another. 

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137 

But the question is that when you look at the 


massive casting that contains the different 


elements, and when you expose them to different 


amounts of radiation, there is considerable 


amount of radioactivity in this, especially in 


the first several hours. And those people who 


never knew that this was happening and they -- 


they went near it and handled it with their 


hand and they move it and store it and shipped 


-- (unintelligible) it and polished it, my 


concern was that these people might have been 


exposed to tremendous amount of radiation over 


a period of time. 


And as all of you know, radiation effect is a 


cumulative effect. And if it happens once or 


twice in your lifetime or a couple of ti-- 


well, you know, at different times in your 


lifetime, that is not significant. But for 


those people who are in and out of the 


facilities and around the Betatron five days a 


week, 52 weeks a year in 30 years, my thinking 


was that it was very significant and it might 


have caused some damage and -- and this was my 


concern in 19-- 1974 and that's the real reason 


why I -- why I applied to NIOSH for grant to 

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study this, but it was -- it never happened. 


Now I know that there are lot of centers in the 


United States where they are concerned about 


explosion of a small dirty bomb by terrorists 


and things like that, and lot of people are 


looking at the effects of that kind of a bad 


happening. And my belief is that -- now when 


you expose, for example, an alloy consists of 


nickel and copper and other elements for a 


substantial amount of time, there's a lot of 


radiation coming out which is the same sort of 


radiation comes out of a -- a small dirty bomb, 


but the level of radiation might be different. 


But I'm not here to say that I know exactly the 


type of radiation coming from such a situation, 


but it -- they're somewhat comparable, in my 


opinion. That's my opinion, that unfortunately 


this was not studied before and now I know that 


there are several centers where they are 


studying it. 


 But anyway, the bottom line is that I believe 


that there is substantial amount of radiation 


coming from all these industrial parts that are 


being radiographed. I personally had an 


experience three -- three or four weeks back 

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when Dr. Mc-- McKeel and John Ramspott and 


myself visited a facility where they have a 


very, very old Betatron and they were 


radiographing industrial parts and I refused to 


be in the Betatron room before radiography and 


after radiography because, as you know, that 


Betatron itself presents a radiation -- 


because, you know, the parts that are in the 


machine itself, they have been activated 


several times in several years and I believe 


that there is radiation coming from a source of 


leak and the material itself and the reflection 


from the floor and reflection from the roof. 


There's all kinds of radiation coming out of 


that, so I myself refused to be in that room, 


especially when I know that this is a 45, 50­

year-old machine that has been operating day in 


and day out. 


So I believe that this is a situation that has 


to be looked into and the workers at GSI who 


worked there for several years, I don't know to 


what extent they were aware of these, but it is 


my belief that -- isn't -- that it is fair to 


them for this group of experts chaired by Dr. 


Ziemer is looking into it so that these people 

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140 

can be compensated if the Board decides that 


they have been exposed to radiation in the 


service of the nation because most of these 


industrial parts were radiographed and these 


parts went into all kinds of nuclear 


governments for the government and I believe 


that, you know, there was a considerable amount 


of radiation that came out of this. 


Now Dr. Ziemer, it's very interesting that 


after I got the letter from Dr. McKeel and John 


Ramspott, I -- I talked to John and said John, 


I believe that the same phenomenon happens in 


medical -- medical (unintelligible) that are 


around all over the country, and I said John, I 


don't have the time to look into it, but why 


don't you do some research. And he came up 


with a paper where Dr. Ziemer and another 


health physicist from Columbia University 


School of Medicine has published the same type 


of activation seen in (unintelligible) 


materials around (unintelligible). And I was 


so surprised to see that because the same 


findings were published by me 30 years back 


about the fact that these materials that are 


exposed to radiation become radioactive and the 

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141 

fact that Dr. Ziemer himself wrote this paper 


is (unintelligible) of findings that I came up 


with this material 30 years back. 


So my observation in this regard is that these 


workers that worked in these places might have 


been exposed to a lot of radiation without 


their knowledge. So I -- I'd like to answer 


any questions if any of the radiation member-- 


member committees have any questions. 


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


Kutemperer. Let me see if any of the Board -- 


oop, hang on. 


Thank you very much. Let me ask if any of the 


Board members do have questions for Dr. 


Kutemperer. 


 MR. KUTEMPERER: Okay. 


 (No responses) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, we thank you. We're 


going to hear from one of your colleagues now, 


from John Ramspott, and John's here in person. 


You're welcome to stay on the line and hear 


John's remarks and then Dr. McKeel will follow 


that. 


 MR. KUTEMPERER: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Then we'll get to John Funk after 

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142 

that. 


 MR. KUTEMPERER: Okay. 


MR. RAMSPOTT: Again I thank the Board for 


their time and their consideration. I've 


spoken in front of the Board before about the 


activation issue at General Steel Industries. 


And I'd like to start out -- I'll be fairly 


brief, but I found an article about -- oh, I 


guess a week ago and was able to actually 


recover it. And I think -- be pretty 


interesting at this moment, if I may. 


(Reading) The huge, super-secret Betatron which 


generates an X-ray so powerful and dangerous 


that the entire apparatus must be enclosed in a 


three-foot wall was completed a couple years 


ago. Wartime security kept it hidden until 


last week. Then even General Electric did not 


tell quite all, but GE did give a fair 


description of how the great gadget works and 


some broad hints about a few things that it 


will do. 


The Betatron, a close relative to the ordinary 


transformer which raises or lowers voltage of 


an alternating current, is an accelerator. A 


whopping electromagnet is energized by heavy 

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143 

current flowing through two coils made of one-


inch copper rods. 


Then skip on just a little bit here. (Reading) 


The X-ray shines through thick steel castings 


as if they were made of ice, but it will do 


other, even more interesting things. A silver 


half-dollar, for instance, held briefly in its 


beam become dangerously radioactive. The rays 


knock neutrons out of solar atoms, cutting them 


into unstable silver isotopes which breaks down 


into cadmium, giving off powerful streams of 


electrons. Some silver, too, is turned into 


palladium, while some of the copper in the 


coin's allow is turned into atoms of nickel. 


Now that kind of sounds, I thought, what Mr. 


Kutemperer was talking about and what we've 


thought all these years -- or recently. The 


date on this article -- and you guys know me by 


now. I try to find everything I can on them, 


so I have the original, which I bought, was 


dated Monday, October 29th, 1945, Time
 

magazine. 


Now it's not the exact Betatron, because the 


one in the article -- and I have a web site for 


you folks that you can pull it up. 

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144

 UNIDENTIFIED: On the phone. 


MR. RAMSPOTT: It was 100 million volts. We 


have 25 million volts. 


UNIDENTIFIED: On the telephone. 


MR. RAMSPOTT: We have documentation from Allis 


Chalmers saying that the most effective 


Betatron which will cause the most attenuation 


is a 20 to 30 million volt one. Over that is 


like a -- you gain nothing. So what we're 


saying is is what it says in this article, and 


I actually intend to follow up with Time
 

magazine, and I'm going to send them some of my 


stuff and say, you know, you wrote this in 


1945. I'd really like to see what you think 


about it now. Do you have experts who would 


look into it as well, because this is exactly 


what they had -- we think -- at GSI, and it 


sounds like the Missouri School of -- or the 


Michigan School of Engineering, as well, where 


Mr. Kutemperer worked. 


Now when we start talking about doing dose 


reconstructions, the main reason GSI ended up 


on the map for this program was the uranium 


ingots. But with more research -- and these 


are federal documents -- they weren't just 

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145 

ingots. There were dingots, there were slabs, 


there were slices, there were billets, there 


were rods -- and this is all in print. Part of 


it's in that 400-page book that I put together 


for you a while back. 


Now the other document we have, which is from 


Mallinckrodt where they made the ingots -- and 


the time frame covered at GSI was 1953 to 1966 


for the uranium work. Well, that time frame 


means that the ingots had to come from the 


Destrehan Plant and from Weldon Spring, because 


Weldon Spring didn't actually go into 


production till '80 -- or '58, so it came from 


two sites. And with some more research and 


going out to the Mallinckrodt Weldon Spring -- 


they have a visitor center, actually -- telling 


them what I was looking for, like to know more 


about the ingots, they pro-- they actually gave 


me a document. Those ingots are not 100 


percent pure. They're 97 percent pure. Then 


it's kind enough in the article to tell us what 


else is in it. 


 Well, then doing some more research, found out 


none of the ingots are pure, 'cause over that 


span of time they had a little bit of 

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everything. Some of the things that Mr. 


Kutemperer mentioned -- nickel, cadmium, 


manganese -- things that do some pretty 


interesting things, kind of like the coin, 


under a Betatron beam will cause a lot of 


problems. Now that's just the ingots. And the 


ingots -- they were 3,000 pounds. Most of the 


testing that's done now with Betatrons and 


accelerators, and even Mr. Kutemperer mentioned 


it in his article, and there are a lot of other 


articles, they use things the size of a 


pinhead. They don't use big subject matter 


because mass is really important when it comes 


to radioactivity. The bigger, the more you can 


put off. I guess radioactivity-wise, mass is 


important. Well, a 3,000-pound ingot is pretty 


big. 


So we started trying to do the research and, 


you know, we've had several conversations with 


NIOSH, been very helpful, trying to do a dose 


reconstruction on something that's that vague, 


that big, that different -- we don't even know 


what was in the ingots. We don't know what 


went over there -- we do know from invoices 


which are on the web -- you know, I have ingots 

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-- or actually invoices that say the Atomic 


Energy Commission at Mallinckrodt spent $3,500 


in a quarter for X-rays -- at a buck apiece. 


Well, were those invoices for ingots, ingot 


slices, slabs or billets? Did they shoot it 


one time, did they shoot it four time-- I don't 


know how you can do a dose reconstruction if 


you don't know what was in the ingots or how 


many times it was impacted. And on the ingots, 


we're told by workers -- we have -- and as I'm 


speaking, there are signed affidavits being 


finalized now, and we did provide these 


documents to everyone. They had to 


(unintelligible) those ingots four times -- I 


think I mentioned one time in one of my other 


conversations. Well, now we are talking about 


100 million volts. You don't even need 100 


million volts, though. They say that the 


activation point -- or the threshold, I believe 


is another term they use -- for iron is about 


seven million volts. We're way over that. So 


there's a lot of activation at that site with 


the uranium metal. 


 But then following up a little bit more with 


the Battelle TIB-6000, which we discussed in a 

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conversation and have pretty good understanding 


of it now, I think it clearly says in there all 


radioactive material during the contract period 


-- which 1953 to 1966 -- must be included in a 


person's dose reconstruction. Now it doesn't 


say all radioactive material ingots, it says 


all radioactive material. And there was cobalt 


at that site, there's iridium at that site, 


there were the activated castings and some 


people test two, three -- or maybe two-ton 


castings. Well, these guys are testing 60-ton 


castings. There were nuclear power plant 


parts. There were Polaris submarine parts, 30 


different alloys. I think it's impossible to 


try to do any dose reconstruction when you 


can't put all that together, so we don't -- 


we're definitely asking for the SEC actually 


now. 


Now know there's a TIB-6000 appendix being 


worked on. How do you work on something when 


you don't have all the details? That's got to 


be tough. So we've tried to provide the 


information. We don't think it can be done, 


not with the material that we know was there. 


That really just covers the article. I have 

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the documents, and I tried to help more. 


There's a Los Alamos document, and we will ask 


Department of Energy to help us with this 


'cause there's a document at Los Alamos library 


and it's document LAMS-2064. Title's pretty 


interesting, "Non-Destructive Testing, Report 


on Uranium." Well, I tried to get that, and 


the reply back -- (reading) Due to a mandate 


from NNSA, the Laboratory and Research Library 


policies, we are providing Los Alamos technical 


reports to government and military register 


addresses only. 


Now I tried to reach them, tried to get it. 


went off of their web site. And they said no, 


so I think that's at least a very interesting 


report to want to maybe take a look at. Now I 


can't guarantee they were testing it with, you 


know, an accelerator. I kind of guess it is, 


though, 'cause it's going to take something 


like that probably to go through an ingot, if 


that's what it was. My guess is it's probably 


something smaller. But that report'd be pretty 


interesting, I think. 


Now what I've done is put together copies of 


all the web sites that I've mentioned that I'd 


I 
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like to give you. And I promise, I'm not going 


to read all of Vincent's documents. And I'm 


going to give you a copy of them because before 


-- I talked a lot of times about here's the -- 


the hamburger and I got the bun and -- so this 


is the beef right here. These are the 


technical documents which should match up to 


everything that he said, and we have some other 


ones from him, as well. And we'll be happy to 


provide -- for everyone, that was the whole 


intention, working together with you. So if I 


could hand out these documents here, I 


appreciate your time. I'm going to be here a 


couple days. We've got backup proof on 


everything we have here. We'll be glad to 


assist you. And I've asked a couple times if 


anybody thinks nah, you've got the wrong stuff, 


Ramspott, please let me know 'cause that's how 


I'll find out if I'm wrong, but I don't think I 


am. Thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, John. Thank you, John, 


very much. And we'll follow up then with Dr. 


McKeel. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Hello to the Board and to all 


present. I'm -- Vince Kutemperer's remarks and 

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John's sort of set the stage for what I want to 


concentrate on, which is really some of the 


processes connected with the GSI 83.14 SEC 


which we hope to get approval for and a 


recommendation for soon. 


I just wanted to mention -- one of the things 


that was not quite clear, really not mentioned, 


was the 25 MeV Betatron not only produces 


activation products, but is also capable, 


through the photon process, to actually split 


uranium, and does so in both a symmetric and 


asymmetric way. And two papers that we have 


provided previously to NIOSH and to Battelle, 


as we did several months ago, actually all of 


Mr. Kutemperer's major works -- those two 


papers, one in particular by Schmidt and 


Duffield*, show that the symmetric and 


asymmetric markers that they use, which are 


cadmium-117 and barium-139, as markers of both 


the symmetric and asymmetric fission -- those 


markers themselves are radioactive. Cadmium117, the half-life is about 3.36 hours and 


barium-139 is about 86 minutes. So if you use 


Vince' reasoning -- I mean th-- we know that at 


GSI they bombarded Mallinckrodt uranium ingots. 

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I believe, from the testimony of the affidavits 


that we have previously provided a long time 


ago from several of the workers, that they shot 


the ingots with the Betatron four exposures of 


an hour at full power, so a total of four hours 


per ingot was the radiation. The men handled 


those ingots before and after the shot with 


their bare hands, no protection at all. So --


so that's the other thing. We have that 


phenomenon. 


I want to turn next -- and what I want to say 


to -- what I think basically is a timeliness 


issue. There has been a tremendous amount of 


research done on both sites by NIOSH and by 


ourselves. We certainly tried to provide 


almost all of the information that we find to 


NIOSH, and we have always assumed that that 


information is available as well to the Board 


and anyone else who's interested in this 


program. And -- and yet, in spite of all of 


that and in spite of us now being 16 months 


into the Battelle contract, we still are faced 


with the fact that we have more than 600 claims 


from this site. We've had four dose 


reconstructions. We've gotten redacted copies 

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of all four of those dose reconstructions and 


none of them factored in the Betatron or any of 


the other radiation sources that we just 


mentioned at GSI. And I think we've well 


documented that these were significant 


radiation sources. The only thing that was 


considered in the dose reconstructions was the 


uranium metal itself, covered in TIB-004. And 


since that time and since we know that, Larry 


Elliott has acknowledged that that TIB is not 


relevant and is inadequate for the work we are 


about to go -- for calculating doses for any of 


the GSI people. 


 So fortunately we have a partial TBD-6000 from 


Battelle, and we needed some clarification of 


that document. We knew going into our session 


which Jason Broehm was kind enough to arrange 


for us on January the 4th of this year with 


NIOSH -- there were about ten people 


represented, four from our southern Illinois 


group and the rest from -- the project manager 


from Battelle and -- and a number of people 


from OCAS were there on the -- on the call. We 


thought that this was a information exchange 


session, and it was very important to have the 

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communications be as clear and accurately 


recorded as possible and therefore we requested 


that we be allowed to record the session, just 


as we have done for all our affidavit meetings 


and the NIOSH outreach meeting. We offered to 


pay for a court reporter. We offered to do all 


that. And we were told that there is a OCASNIOSH policy that basically is formulated from 


the CDC that absolutely forbids people to 


record briefings. And we later learned also 


this extends to interviews in which the people 


themselves were a part. I was quite surprised 


at that idea because it seemed to me that 


that's the only way that such proceedings could 


be accurately documented, just as Ray is doing 


for these proceedings. 


I also talked to my daughter, who's an attorney 


in St. Louis, and was told by her that Missouri 


law in fact allows unannounced tape recordings 


of phone conversations if you're a party to 


that conversation. The only reason this is 


relevant here is it goes to the accuracy of 


information exchange, which I think is crucial, 


and it also goes to a policy which is adhered 


to which I think is a very, very poor policy 

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and needs to be re-examined immediately. 


Anyway, what -- what we did for this conference 


is we gave Larry Elliott 34 questions, 20 about 


Dow that I had and -- and GSI, and 14 that John 


Ramspott came up with, and Larry very nicely 


guided us through each of those questions and 


had prepared answers for all of them. I wrote 


notes as fast -- as fast as I could, trying to 


keep up and participate in the conference, and 


-- but nevertheless, at the end of that one of 


the crucial matters that evolved was when would 


we be getting the evaluation from NIOSH of the 


Dow SEC petition, which we'll hear more about 


tomorrow. What I heard him say was that that 


would be delivered sometime during the third 


week of January, and I wrote down in my notes 


16 to 20 January, and Larry and all the people 


at OCAS apparently heard quite clearly that 


they said January the 24th. So that's just one 


example of miscommunication. I'm not sure who 


was right. I'm not sure who was wrong. But 


the point is, if it had been transcribed and 


recorded, we wouldn't be having any doubt about 


that. 


Why was that important? Well, it was important 

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because we had this meeting coming up and we 


needed that evaluation report in time to 


evaluate it, as did the Board. And we -- we 


really could not get it any later than that, so 


-- so that was an important thing. We still, 


by the way, do not know when we will receive 


that report except I understand from a report 


that LaVon Rutherford is about to give that it 


will be sometime in April. And I would note 


that that's eight months after our 83.14 for 


Dow was announced to us. 


With respect to TBD-6000, I think this is 


extremely important. During the January the 


24th conference we -- we discussed the fact 


that the heart and soul of that document is the 


site-specific appendices, so there'll be one 


for Dow and there'll be one for GSI. We still 


do not know when they'll be available. They're 


being worked on, we were told. 


Further, there's a section in there for 


thorium, Section 7.2, which is marked reserved. 


And that section is completely and totally 


blank, so we still don't know when that will be 


forthcoming, and that directly relates to the 


Dow SEC and its thorium metal work. 

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We were also told then -- we were quite 


interested and one of the -- one of the 


questions we had was well, when will we be able 


to see the methodology you all will use when 


you say you can reconstruct doses for GSI? 


That's the reason we're -- have not been 


awarded an 83.14 SEC, so it's crucial that 


NIOSH be able to validate and verify their 


methodology. Anyway, they said that that will 


be forthcoming. We really don't know when. We 


were told some hints, and that is that the 


uranium work would -- part of the dose exposure 


would be calculated by Battelle and that the 


rest of the sources at GSI, the cobalt, the 


activated products -- Betatron, the iridium and 


so forth -- they would be calculated by OCAS 


in-house. So that's where we stand on that 


issue. 


We are not clear today that all of those other 


factors that Vincent and John have just -- 


pretty eloquently, I think -- provided further 


documentation were important. We've still not 


be-- have not been told definitely that they 


will be factored into how NIOSH can calculate 


doses at GSI. We frankly flat out believe it's 

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totally impossible. We've tried to give you 


the reasons for it. There are too many 


uncertainties. There's too much missing data. 


There is no comparable coworker data available. 


There's no film badge readings. There's no 


bioassay readings and -- and that was true the 


last time I talked to you and it's still true 


today, that NIOSH has or -- or, you know, that 


could be used for the dose reconstructions. 


Okay. The other thing I'd like to mention is 


about an issue that I think probably affects 


many different sites, and that is the issue of 


our affidavits. And we provided several months 


ago a set of DVDs with videotape recordings and 


verbatim court reporter transcripts of three 


meetings we had at each of the sites to collect 


data that would help support our SEC 


application. We, at the same time, obtained 


two types of releases from all of those workers 


which addressed Privacy Act and HIPAA 


regulations, and they were drawn up by one of 


the leading Illinois law firms that's helping 


us -- pro bono, for free, no strings attached ­

- and those releases passed scrutiny from all 


of their people. And those releases gave me 

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specifically authority to use those documents 


in any way that I saw fit to support our SEC 


application. Well, one of the ways that I 


think it -- they can support our SEC 


application is to be published on the OCAS web 


site for everybody to read and see, in addition 


to being available through the -- you all's 


normal distribution channels, O drive, et 


cetera, for you all to see. 


So I tried to get clarification for a long time 


when they would actually be put up on the web. 


After we got the -- had the meetings and those 


transcripts, we then converted those into 


affidavits which were signed and notarized by 


each of the affiants, and those were also 


provided. Yesterday the affidavits were 


published on the OCAS web site in redacted 


form. And you might say well, you know, what's 


wrong with that? Why -- why do you -- why do 


you need to know the people's names? And I 


might agree with that. You don't absolutely 


need to know that. But the redaction process 


took out the people's jobs, and they also took 


out the la-- the ending date of their 


employment. So you can read there when they 

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first started, but you can't tell when they 


ended, and this information -- which I will 


discuss in more detail tomorrow -- goes 


directly to the heart and soul of our SEC class 


definition. 


So I think the process that needs to be 


clarified is -- I thought and I think -- is why 


can't those affidavits be published and those 


transcript, just the way I sent them, as-is? 


have authority, I claim, to grant that that be 


done. And -- and the people involved have 


issued signed, notarized statements giving me 


that permission. 


So I tried to discuss that through Laurie 


Breyer -- who, by the way, has been immensely 


helpful to our cause, so I'm not being critical 


of her; she's really acting as a conduit. And 


I asked her, I said well, you know, we have a 


law firm that's helping us. Why can't we sit 


down and discuss this with their lawyers and -- 


and -- and Joe Kuzmerczyk*, who's our -- member 


of the Southern Illinois Nuclear Workers, he 


asked the same question, and we said and -- and 


at the same time we'd like to clarify that with 


your FOIA people so we can find out how you 


I 
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interpret the Privacy Act and how we interpret 


it and -- and come together on some common 


ground. Well, we were -- we were told, and 


this is really the -- the relevance of right 


now. We were told that the attorneys that OCAS 


employs only talk to the agencies. They do not 


talk to petitioners and they do not talk to the 


public. The request to talk to the FOIA 


officer has been made twice, and we've gotten 


no answer about that. 


So the reason I'm bringing that to you all's 


attention is there need to be policies about 


these sort of things. I personally think it's 


deleterious to the whole process to not allow 


one attorney to talk to another attorney to get 


things straight. That's all we're trying to 


do, to get things straight. 


Finally, the -- the third thing that I would 


like to talk about briefly is again to express 


great thankfulness for the work that Libby 


White has helped in getting us copies, the 


Board, SC&A, all of us -- NIOSH and ourselves ­

- copies of the main Dow/Rocky Flats AEC 


contract. And -- and as appreciative as I am 


of that and as relevant as that document is to 

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our SEC, I've also asked for additional 


information at least three or four times -- to 


the agencies, the subdivisions of Department of 


Energy, and more recently to Libby herself. 


And I know she's tremendously busy and so 


forth, but several of those documents -- like 


the administrative index to the administrative 


record at GSI when it was cleaned up by the 


Department of Energy in 1993 -- I've simply not 


gotten an answer about that. You know, today I 


think there's some movement forward, but it -- 


it still remains that from the public's point 


of view and SEC petitioners' point of view that 


I still don't think that our needs for records 


are being properly addressed at the Department 


of Energy. And I listened to Glenn Podonsky's 


very encouraging remarks today. I was 


encouraged. I was impressed. But 


nevertheless, you know, I did notice that among 


the people he was saying that he could help, 


the public was not included in that. And in 


this program, the public and the petitioners 


are really important, integral part of this 


process. 


So I just think we've all got a lot of -- lot 

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of work to do. I'm -- I'm highly encouraged 


that the work has begun. And that's really all 


I have to say for tonight. Tomorrow we have 


some -- we've learned, as Vincent said, some 


more information about Betatron operations that 


we think y'all will find very interesting and I 


look forward to tomorrow. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you again, Dr. McKeel, for 


those remarks. Now John Funk has been waiting 


patiently on the line. John, are you still 


there? 


 MR. FUNK: Yes, Dr. Zimmer (sic). 


 DR. ZIEMER: If you would proceed. 


 MR. FUNK: Okay. I have a -- a prepar-- a 


letter that I was going to send the Board. I'd 


like to read it. It does refer to my case, but 


my case is not unique for all. There's many 


other people suffering the same injustices and 


the same problems that I'm having so I want to 


bring some of these to your attention, how long 


it's took me to get a lot of these straightened 


out. I'll read this letter and I'll go back 


and show you from other documents that -- from 


another letter that NIOSH sent that a lot of 


truth is not being told here. 

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It says Dear Dr. Zimmer (sic), Dr. Lewis Wade 


and other members of the Advisory Board on 


Radiation and Worker Health. My name is John 


Funk. I have a commu-- I have communicated 


previously with you about the situation 


regarding former workers at Nevada Test Site. 


Recently I have received my third draft dose 


reconstruction, and once again I have run into 


serious problems. I have identified 37 errors 


in this draft. Further, I can tell you that 


Nevada Test Site Technical Basis Document, TBD, 


contains serious errors and omissions. Many of 


these errors were pointed out through the SC&A 


review, yet there has been no substantial 


changes in the TBD as posted on the NIOSH web 


site. 


In my own case, I am not -- I have not been 


allowed to talk to a health physicist about my 


dose reconstruction. Rather I have been forced 


to talk to a Mr. David Shatteau*, who has 


identified himself as an office manager, or 


other people who simply will only give you 


their first name and not their last name, 


leaving you with not being able to know whether 


you're talking to a health physicist or to even 

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know if there is a conflict of interest -- the 


person doing your dose reconstruction. Mr. 


Shatteau has refused to write down information 


I have provided without extensive 


editorializing or distortion. Such refusal is 


hardly claimant favorable, and I find it very 


disrespectful. I have refused to sign this 


dose reconstruction document as I feel NIOSH is 


trying to bypass my hot potato on the DOL. 


I have sent Mr. Dave Sundin of NIOSH/OCAS a 


letter with an itemized list of what was wrong 


with the third dose reconstruction draft, along 


with supporting documents. I'd like to share 


with you some of my concerns. 


First, the testing of nuclear weapons, whether 


above or below ground, was an unique, dangerous 


undertaking. One of my principal complaints is 


neither they -- they -- neither the identified 


primary authors of the TBD nor the person doing 


dose reconstruction have any experience with 


this unique undertaking. Yet they consistently 


deny the validity of experience of many workers 


who did work there. 


Turning to the specifics of my own situation, 


here are some of the prominent errors in my 

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third draft -- draft reconstruction. My 


employment dates are incorrect, despite my 


repeated attempts to correct this basic 


information. My work -- my areas of work are 


incomplete, as Area 12 is left out. This is 


where the tunnels were located. My hours of 


work in the tunnel are incorrect. I never 


worked less than 70 hours a week, but the draft 


indicates only 50. My payroll information will 


prove this. I am listed as a part-time worker. 


There was no part-time worker at NTS, at least 


in the forward area. Persons were either full 


time or laid off. Your interviewers say there 


was no red badges. Red-badged persons were 


allowed in secure areas. I sent Mr. Sundin a 


page from the RECo handbook that clearly states 


a red-badged person was allowed in secure 


areas. There are false statements about my 


having full body scans and other tests. I 


refused such tests and I have documents 


indicating this. The TBD indicates that only 


miners worked in the tunnels. I can document 


that 18 other crafts worked in the tunnels. 


Miners were used to mine the rest -- the rest 


of us did all the work to set up the tests and 

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associated complex equipment. There's an 


important issue of reuse equipment from 


previous shots. NIOSH claims any such material 


was processed through a rad-X* yard. Such a 


yard did not exist in -- such a yard did exist 


in Mercury, 75 miles away. But we never sent 


material there unless it was going to be 


surplussed. 


The interviewer has mixed up my statements 


about tunnel and down-hole work. There were 


three different configurations of tests in 


Nevada Test Site. Above the ground, these 


tests are responsible for wide-- widespread 


contamination at the NTS. We used to drag 


large drill rigs and (unintelligible) over this 


contamination with the power of up to six 


(unintelligible) bulldozers. The unique type 


of resuspension was not discussed in the TBD or 


in the SCA documents. 


 Below ground, down-hole, RECO had very large 


drills that were used to drill vertical holes 


and do -- in which devices were placed and the 


holes (unintelligible), sometimes emplacements 


were in (unintelligible) at the bottom of the 


shafts. 

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Below ground tunnels -- main tunnels were mined 


out and tests were conducted in 


(unintelligible). The main tunnels were used 


over and over, even though the main tunnels 


became quite contaminated with tritium and 


fission products. 


Each type of test created its own unique set of 


problems. In all cases there was a need to get 


diagnostic information as soon as possible. 


Some of these underground tests vented 


massively and the issue of the contaminating 


main tunnel was on occasion so serious that 


many workers were exceeding the dose limits. 


worked on both types of underground tests. 


Officially I was a carpenter, but I did -- also 


did a lot of welding and fabrication of steel 


work. I also worked with persons from the 


National Laboratory to build or rig special 


equipment that the scientists wanted for their 


tests. One unique experience involved 


assembling a communications satellite for a 


test of survivability in the vicinity of 


nuclear weapons. RECO's employee evaluation 


report cards indicate this type of work we did. 


Neither NIOSH nor ORAU is using the important 


I 
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source of information. 


I can provide you more information on weapons 


testing or on the errors in my draft dose 


reconstruction. However, I think the above is 


more than enough to indicate that the dose 


reconstruction process being used at the NTS is 


seriously flawed. Unfortunately the persons 


doing the interviewing and dose reconstructions 


-- those have no concept of what really went on 


NTS, and they refuse to learn. 


Finally, I think you know that medical 


screening was offered to workers for the 


purpose of early detection of illness. Medical 


screening questionnaires included information 


on lifestyle, ethnicity and family medical 


histories. This information is protected by 


law, and should not have been used for any 


other purpose. Yet NIOSH and DOL have these 


files, without the workers' permission, and 


they have admitted to using them. Thus the 


noble purpose of these exams have been thwarted 


and this information is apparently being used 


to disqualify claims on the basis of lifestyle 


factors. Because the NTS TBD is so flawed and 


the process is so inadequate and worker 

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unfriendly, I respectfully request the members 


of the Board stop any further dose 


reconstruction for NTS workers until this 


process can be straightened out. 


Now I want -- I just received a letter back 


from NIOSH. They have conceded, after six 


years, that my workplaces were incorrect. They 


have conceded that my areas of work were not 


complete, although they still hold true that 


there was a rad-X yard. I'm still trying to 


find somebody who remembers one out there, but 


I still can't do it. And they seem to lie with 


impunity. I would like to -- well, there's a 


section here where they say -- excuse me, I'm 


getting in my papers here -- they go through 


section by section by number and -- just one 


second. Okay -- that's not it. I beg -- I 


just beg you for you time, just for a little 


second here. (Unintelligible) somehow along 


the lines got mixed up -- oh, here we go. 


Okay, a letter that NIOSH sent to me, they 


concede most of everything, and in here there's 


one statement in particular, and I have a page 


from my draft dose documents, and I'm going to 


read you the line from that document, then I'm 

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going to read you their remarks about that line 


and I'll let you be the judge. 


(Reading) According to the interview, Mr. Funk 


worked in tunnels performing pre-event work 


which included welding and cutting of materials 


left in the tunnels from previous tests while 


in the tunnels. 


Okay. And it's line eight of the letter they 


just sent me the other day (reading) Our report 


does not include a statement about using old 


steel to build bulkheads or a description of 


(unintelligible) practice concerning how 


materials (unintelligible). 


You see what I'm saying? They just lie about 


it -- I mean they just -- anything they want to 


say. Now there is a problem here -- there is a 


con-- we have a right to know about conflict of 


interest when somebody calls you on the phone. 


I believe an applicant has a right to know that 


person's first name, that person's last name 


'cause there is a lot of conflict of inter-- I 


know the Board doesn't want to discuss it, but 


one example I'd like for you to look at is MJW 


has a total 100 percent conflict of interest. 


There's 18 people on their site, 11 dose 

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reconstructors all acknowledge they have a 


conflict of interest on the Nevada Test Site 


and the only reason the other seven don't 


because they're computer techs. 


There's also a rash of nepotism throughout this 


thing. I've uncovered 40 cases of nepotism. 


This nepotism goes all the way up to the Board 


itself and I'd like to point one of them out. 


Mr. Poston, Sr., his son is a dose 


reconstructor. His wife was a dose 


reconstructor a while back, or a relative of 


his. This -- this thing -- just rampant 


nepotism. 


Now I'm sure this may not be against the law, 


but I'm just wondering how Congress would think 


about this if they find out the EEOICPA has 


been turned into a private piggy bank for a 


select group of people. 


 That's -- pretty much covers what I was trying 


to get across and -- oh, there's one last 


point. In the closing remarks in my letter I 


got from NIOSH, (reading) The information you 


provided does not require a revised draft dose 


reconstruction report. If we do not receive 


your signed OCAS-1 form February the 15th, 

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2007, we will administratively close the dose 


reconstruction. If we do receive your signed 


OCAS-1 form by February 15th, we will make the 


changes indicated above in the final dose 


reconstruction report. 


Now there's a Constitutional problem here. On 


the OCAS-1 form when you sign a document, you 


sign so under -- under -- under penalty of 


perjury and a -- and a felony offense. They're 


asking me to sign my OCAS-1 form before I even 


see what they've written, and that's a 


violation of my Fifth Amendment Constitutional 


rights. I have a right to see what I'm signing 


for and I have a right to know who I'm talking 


to. And I have not talked to a dose 


reconstructor to date that I know of, only a 


David Shatteau, an office worker, and I don't 


know how he is qualified to do dose 


reconstructions, but he doesn't even show up on 


the ORAU team anywhere. And I'd like the Board 


to look into this. I know it's -- you -- it's 


my own problem, but I'm not the only one going 


-- I mean we're all having the same problems. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, John. Thank you for your 


comments. The Board has all heard them -- 

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174

 MR. FUNK: Well, what about me signing this 


OCAS-1 form even before I've seen them? Isn't 


that -- you -- you're going to allow this to 


stand? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the -- my understanding of 


the OCAS-1 form is you're only stating that you 


don't have any additional information to -- 


 MR. FUNK: But it --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- provide. 


 MR. FUNK: -- also says on there you're signing 


it under perjury of a penalty (sic) that 


everything on there is true and correct. What 


is to prevent -- now they've proven they can 


lie. I just showed you. What is to pro-- what 


is to prevent them from writing a whole bunch 


of garbage in there, then I got to live with it 


after I signed it? I have a right -- under the 


Constitution of the United States, I have a 


right to see what I'm signing for. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I can only tell you that the 


signing of the form -- you are only claiming 


that you have no additional information to -- 


 MR. FUNK: Well, I tried to provide him 


additional information. He refuses it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think you have provided 

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it. 


 MR. FUNK: Sir, I tried to provide 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: It's in -- it's in the public 


record that --


 (Whereupon, interruption on the line rendered 


understanding of either speaker impossible for 


a time.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: John, are you still there? We've 


got a bunch of noise on the line here, but we ­

- we may have to have you -- I -- I don't know 


if I can tell you any more than that. Signing 


the OCAS form, my understanding is, has no 


implication that you agree with the infor-- 


with the dose reconstruction or the findings, 


only that you don-- that you have no further 


information. 


Are you still there, John? We may have lost 


him, but -- okay, sorry about that. 


Let us then proceed with Warren Krull* -- 


Warren Krull, SAIC? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Warren has signed the wrong 


sheet. You -- Warren, you're obligated to talk 

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176 

for 20 minutes. 


Okay, I have another one that looks like it was 


cross out also, Vicky -- maybe it's Gaffey, but 


it's crossed out. Okay. 


 Larry Burgan, did you sign the right sheet? 


Okay, here we go. Larry's with Dow. 


 MR. BURGAN: Move the microphone closer to the 


table instead of the table closer to the 


microphone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's good. 


 MR. BURGAN: That's common sense. That's like 


-- that's a theme I'd like to use in this 


comments I'm making is common sense. 


I'm speaking on behalf of the Dow employees and 


Spectrulite employees who were -- as you 


undoubtedly know, with all the information 


you've been given, this uranium contamination 


in the amount they used -- I'm just going to 


glance over this because you have so much of 


this information already available to you. I 


just want to make sure that some of this is 


highlighted and -- and for instance, the -- to 


start off, you know, the contamination started 


in the '60s -- '50s and '60s. And these guys 


who handled this, you know, they should be 

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177 

compensated. They knew that this stuff was 


hazardous and I'm pretty certain they were told 


that it was not as dangerous as they was led to 


believe 'cause anybody sitting here with this 


information knows that they would not willingly 


work with this material now unless they was 


misled to believe it was harmless or not as 


dangerous as it was led to believe. 


 Now I've found out that the -- even the Corps 


of Engineers and the Department of Nuclear 


Safety was having difficulties in addressing 


the -- the dosage to the workers. In fact, 


these documents say that the Corps of Engineers 


inadequately addressed their dose to the first 


critical group, the workers, and ignored the 


second group, the residents. And this was in 


February 25th, 2000. And I'll submit t his one 


to you. 


Then the Department of Nuclear Safety came back 


a month later, and while they agreed that the 


removal of contamination is the only common 


sense -- the theme -- there remains a 


difference of opinion to the extent of the 


cleanup. And the difference of opinion is that 


they only want to clean up the uranium and not 

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the thorium. This made no difference to me at 


the time when I found this information out. It 


did later on. But as you all know, or should 


know, the Army Corps of Engineers have never 


found a record of any radiological cleanup 


whatsoever after Dow left. 


Now Dow said it was a small lot of uranium that 


was, you know, processed through this press, 


this machine. But yet the Oak Ridge National 


Laboratory in -- under the Department of Energy 


stated that they did this cycle -- this work 


cycles every month for 12 consecutive months. 


So they ran -- it says here, an estimate 20 


billets every month for 12 consecutive months 


from '57 through '60. That's four years. So 


if you do the math, that's over 960 billets. 


So each month -- they're right, it was a small 


lot of uranium ran per month. But when you 


total it together, 960 billets, and I've ran 


tens of thousands of billets through this 


machine. I've wor-- worked on it for 12 years. 


These billets had to weigh over 2,000 pounds 


easily 'cause I know the weight of aluminum and 


magnesium, and there's a -- there's a 


completely different scale. It's like lead to 

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aluminum. So these were well over 2,000 


pounds. So if you just do the simple math, 920 


billets times 2,000, we're talking over two 


million pounds of uranium was processed through 


this press over this short period of time. 


That is not a small lot. That is a large lot ­

- and I could -- I'm desperately 


underestimating this because I'm using 2,000 as 


a low estimate because of what my knowledge is 


of the weights of aluminum and magnesium. 


Now the other thing that they addressed -- or I 


should address, I should say -- is that the 


uranium that they found over the press, 


directly over the press, stated was 13.6 times 


above the surface contamination allowable 


limit, and this was in 2000. See, two million 


pounds of uranium just -- you cannot take every 


single pound back out of there. It's gone up 


in dust, 'cause every time that hot ram would 


retract -- you've got to remember, 900,000 


degrees, all that heat rises, and every piece 


of dust, smoke and everything goes with it in 


those beams to make it 13.6 times above the 


legal limit, or 13,060 percent above the legal 


limit. 

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180 

Now also they found at the time that directly 


above the press was between nine percent and 


100 percent was thorium-232. Now again, at the 


time this didn't ring a bell with me until I 


started looking at the information. And when I 


was looking through the processes of how they 


ran this uranium, I came across a customer that 


we did the exact same process for, and I -- 


like I said, me and my coworkers were on this 


press for dozens of years. We're not talking 


about hundreds of employees. We're talking a 


handful, less than a dozen, for a dozen years 


were on this machine. We never ran this 


process for any other customer except Martin 


Marietta, a very hard, dark gray, dense, heavy 


metal, extremely difficult to run. It was done 


in a work cycle basis, exactly like 


Mallinckrodt. It was -- used a carbon follower 


block, exactly like Mallinckrodt. We never did 


this process ever again for any other customer 


any other time all the years I worked there. 


And this machine, this press, which is from one 


end of the wall to the other long, of course, 


this is almost the size of a small locomotive, 


so this isn't something you can easily 

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181 

decontaminate, trust me. It's very, very heavy 


and dense. 


So to give you an extent of the radiation, 


you've probably seen these already, it's the 


extent of the contamination. It shows a giant 


red spot where they cleaned it up in 2000. 


Well, unfortunately, me and my coworkers' desk 


was directly underneath the red spot. Now if 


we had had this information prior, none of us 


would never have volunteered to work there. 


You've got to remember, those guys who worked 


back there in the -- in the '60s and '50s, they 


were given a choice. They had badges. They 


knew what they was working with. 


That choice was taken away from us, along with 


our health and our means of providing a living. 


And would any of you voluntarily work 


underneath this type of exposure and -- if 


you'd seen this, if you had the knowledge? 


Well, that knowledge was withheld from us. 


They knew this. Not only the government, but 


the owner of the factory. And when they did 


clean this up in 2000, the shipping manifest 


says that they removed 59,000 pounds of 


material. That's -- 60,000 pounds, that's 

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almost 30 tons. Now common sense tells you not 


all that was radioactive. But even if we say 


one half-percent, not even one percent of it 


but just one half-percent of this was 


radioactive, we're still talking 3,000 pounds 


of radioactive waste directly over our heads, 


'cause when they cleaned it up, they did not 


clean up the whole factory. They did not clean 


up the whole building. They just cleaned 


directly above the press where all this uranium 


was ran. 


And when I found the process of how they did 


this and I connected that with Martin Marietta, 


how the same identical process, how they was so 


labor-intensive their employees -- how they was 


paying so much attention, so diligent, they was 


collecting every single chip. They even took 


the wooden crates that the billets were shipped 


in that came to our factory, which seemed 


unusual at the time but I didn't question it, 


it's all hindsight now. They took every piece 


of scrap they could with them. And to me at 


the -- it made no sense, but now it does 'cause 


what did we run? What was it that we ran? And 


the only thing I could think of is it has to be 

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183 

the thorium. 


 And the reason I came to that determination was 


there's a head of the laboratory, he's a 


department supervisor -- not a supervisor, but 


the department supervisor, over the foreman. 


His job in the laboratory was record all 


hazardous material coming in and out of the 


factory. And he would take ground samples, 


water samples, air samples and radiation 


readings. And his name is Dean Bartling*, we 


have a affidavit, and he is also ill and 


applied to the EEOICPO -- PA, and because of 


this he was also concerned because of his 


health being endangered. And he's testified he 


knows where all the radiological skeletons are 


buried around this factory, and he repeatedly 


was told to put down false readings. He was 


given inadequate equipment, antiquated 


radiological devices from the '50s, they were 


uncalibrated. He was used -- he was forced to 


use beta/gamma detectors on alpha particles. 


Now we know that's two different, completely 


separate things. One won't pick up the other, 


and he was writing down the low readings for 


the alpha particles using the beta scanner. 

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184 

He knew this was wrong. How did he know it was 


wrong? He spent six to eight years in the 


military monitoring nuclear waste, nuclear 


weapons and nuclear materials. That was his 


job in the military before he got hired at this 


factory, so he knew -- kept going to the owners 


repeatedly telling them you guys aren't doing ­

- using the right equipment. This is the high 


readings. We need to get ahold of the Nuclear 


Regulatory Commission. And he got so fed up 


with it that he finally quit, found himself 


another job. 


And his testament is very, very credible 


because he is -- he works for the State Police 


of Illinois as a forensics expert right now. 


And because of his health, because of his 


illness, he can't make it up here today and 


testif-- you know, to tell you his story, and 


along with a lot of other people who cannot 


come up here today and tell their story because 


their health and their illness and their 


financial situations. So that's why I'm here, 


to try to help tell them for them. 


And you know, this was all preventable from the 


very beginning. In 1989 when they took the 

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185 

first radiological survey in this factory -- 


remember, over millions of pounds of uranium 


was already ran through this machine, but the 


very first survey from the government wasn't 


till '89. And then they said it was in 


concentrations exceeding guidelines, thorium 


and uranium. 


Now why would thorium be there in '89? Well, I 


talked to coworkers. They got their license 


for thorium, to produce it, in '86. Bill 


(unintelligible) is an operator on the press, 


ran it for one day for this company in white 


suits -- Martin Marietta -- same process, 


carbon follower block, same as Martin Marietta, 


same type of procedure. He did it for one day. 


His coworkers on the other side, Jim Bland and 


Charlie Fulkerson*, they worked this one day, 


ran these six billets. They died four years 


later of brain tumors, both of them, about four 


months, six months apart. Now those were the 


guys who trained me. These guys worked on this 

press for ten years. Now I was taking over 

their place. 

Now when I ran it for Martin Marietta in '92, 


we did it in work cycles also. We did it for a 

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186 

full week, then came back a month later and ran 


it for three more days. The government came 


back in in '93, took surveys and said 


concentrations, again, were still exceeding 


guidelines. Now this is not a coincidence they 


came in the year after Martin Marietta runs 


this metal. I mean it's not like the 


government's walking down the street and said 


oh, while we're here can we take some read-- 


there had to be a reason they were there taking 


readings after Martin Marietta showed up. 


Now this press with -- bombarded by all this 


uranium, hot -- you got to remember, it got 


heated up to 1,000 degrees to get it through 


'cause it's a hard, dense metal -- it was for 


Martin Marietta, which was extremely different 


from all other alloys. I mean aluminum 


magnesium heated up is soft and -- softened up 


enough to squeeze through a shape, a die. But 


this was up to 1,050 degrees. Now how can I 


remember this 15 years later? Because anything 


I ever ran through that machine -- and like I 


said, I ran tens of thousands of billets 


through it, me and my coworkers. Anything that 


went up over 1,000 degree would either melt if 

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it was aluminum or burn if it was magnesium. 


So when they said to turn it up over 1,000 


degrees, I was like a cat. I was ready to hit 


that off button. It came out glowing orange. 


I've never seen anything come out of that 


heater glowing orange before. It was either 


burning or melted. It was a very high 


temperature. And this was a completely 


different process and we never did this again 


after they left. And seeing the connection 


between Mallinckrodt and what they did leads me 


to believe that it had to be the thorium is 


what we -- 'cause the only thing the employees 


would tell us it was -- and I asked repeatedly, 


different employees at different times whenever 


I could get them along, you know, what is this 


stuff; what is it, what alloy is this? And 


they all had the same generic response: It's a 


special alloy. And one gentleman even said 


well, I'm not sure, I don't know. Which seems 


very unlikely since he was taking all the 


information and dictating all the importance 


and temperatures and grades. I mean this was a 


very, very complicated process and it was never 


done again. 

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Now there was also a connection with this press 


with, believe it or not, GSI 'cause in '66, 


believe it or not, they got a crack in the back 


of this press. Like I said, it's -- it's from 


my -- one end of the room long and about as 


tall as that screen behind you. Now when it 


was sent over to GSI, they had it X-rayed for a 


crack after a repair. So there was even more 


radiation put into this machine, not counting 


the uranium dust raining on top of it for 


dozens and dozens of years, not to mention the 


uranium that was put through it for four years, 


not to mention the thorium that was ran in 


secret on us for those two years, but then they 


had to go over and send it over there and have 


it bombarded by a Betatron. 


 Now you'd think this press would be safe from 


the public and put away because of all its 


hazards. Well, not so, because I found it 


abandoned on a back road 50 feet on the other 


side of the county line. Now, there's three 


presses that was in this factory. I showed you 


that hot spot where we sat. The press on the 


far end was sold for a million dollars to 


another company in Georgia. This is in a trade 

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press magazine. The one in the middle was sold 


to a company in Russellville, Arkansas. This 


press that I'm talking about that ran all this 


radioactive metal was completely re-overhauled 


and built like brand spanking new in 2000 was 


cut up to scrap. 


Now this does not make sense, especially since 


the owner of the factory himself -- I heard him 


say this during a financial meeting -- this one 


machine's revenue was between $2 to $8 million 


a year. Now no one was going to rope this 


machine off and say don't get under this 


radioactive dust and stuff. It's like killing 


the golden goose. And when it comes to money, 


people will do just about anything -- lie, 


steal, cheat or not tell you the truth. And 


this is one of these cases. 


Now those gentlemen back there who had the 


choice in the '50s and '60s, that was taken 


away from us. But the radiation was still 


there. It was still affecting us, 13.6 times 


above -- this was in 2000. Now we're not 


talking about thousands of people who ran this 


machine. We're not even talking hundreds. 


We're -- a general consensus of all the 

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employees I've talked to, anybody who worked 


four years or more on this machine should be 


eligible because in the 1990s to 2000 alone, 


there's probably a dozen people that operated 


this machine. You had to have seniority to -- 


and when you got that, you held onto it because 


it -- there was a lot of overtime to be made 


here, and a person who worked four years 


probably got six -- five, six years worth of 


exposure because of the overtime. That's why I 


put it anybody from four years on should be 


eligible, because we're not talking about 


hundreds of people. We're talking adding just 


a dozen people just for the '90s to be included 


in this group. And not to mention the '80s, 


the two gentlemen that I spoke of that died 


earlier of brain tumors. They both worked at 


that same machine for ten years in the '80s, so 


we're still not talking hundreds of people or ­

- we're still talking two, three -- maybe three 


dozen, four dozen people at the most affected, 


with only a fourth ill. So these -- this has 


to be incorporated in your decision-making when 


you make your final decision to -- this is a 


not a handful of people, but this is a handful 

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of people that need the help, that are sick. 


 Now I've brought some affidavits of employees, 


and I want to submit them to you. I want you 


to know that, you know, these are not just 


letters from disgruntled employees that lost 


their jobs. We're talking about supervisors. 


We're talking about department supervisors. 


We're talking about company people, key 


information, who has guilty conscience, who has 


knowledge of this and was afraid of losing 


their job, their well-being, their welfare, you 


know, that's now not afraid to speak. This is 


important and need to be addressed before your 


decision is made. 


Now this is my health situ-- I was never sick 


in my life, and I've never been hospitalized, 


ever. I've never been in emergency room except 


stitches in my finger one time. Yet I'm on 


full medical disability the rest of my life. 


can't open a soda bottle. I can't open doors. 


I can't drive for long periods of time. I 


can't use my hands. I can't walk. My knees --


arthritis throughout my whole body. Maybe you 


might remember up in December in Naperville I 


had a pronounced limp, using a cane. Well, a 


I 
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week before that I was literally unable to walk 


for two days because of this. Fortunately I 


was able to break it up, it was loose -- up and 


swelling went down so I was able to attend the 


meeting up in Naperville, but this is the type 


of illness that I am experiencing. But the 


coworkers that worked with me on this press 


have the same respiratory problems, have the 


same rashes, have the same illnesses. And one 


more for instance, the employee who worked me 


that one week on that special alloy for Martin 


Marietta, he only worked on that job for two 


months, he was only in that building for two 


months, he was -- he had the least exposure of 


probably any employee on the machine, but he 


worked with that special alloy, the thorium 


that Dean Bartling said came into the factory ­

- remember, it was his job to record everything 


hazardous coming in and out, he knows Martin 


Marietta leased it -- he knows what they 


brought in, he put it down in an affidavit. He 


knows. Well, this employee, this coworker of 


mine, he has four inches of his esophagus 


missing. He has lung problems. He has heart 


problems. He had his gallbladder removed. He 

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had cyst on his liver and intestines. 


My wife has the exact same illnesses, exact. 


She had pericarditis, swelling of the lining of 


the heart; pleurisy, swelling of the lining of 


the lungs; intestinal problems. She's also 


applied for disability. Now his wife, her 


illnesses mimic mine exactly. Skin rash, the 


arthritis, the migraines. 


It's not a coincidence. This is not a 


coincidence. This is a pattern. And this is 


something that has to be addressed whenever you 


make your decision because it's not a handful 


of people -- I mean not millions, not 


thousands, but a handful of people that need 


your help. I mean when there's a car wreck, 


there's someone you can call. You know, 


there's an ambulance. If there a -- a 


accident, a robbing, a mugging, you could call 


a policeman. Your house is on fire, you can 


call a fireman. He'll risk his life to safe 


your hou-- he'll risk his life to save yours. 


But when you're sick from radiation, from 


factory, there's no 911. You're our first 


responders. You're the only people we have 


that can help, that can actually save our 

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lives, just as a policeman can, just as a 


fireman can. And we're -- we need the help. 


We have to have it. Remember, this choice was 


taken away from us. We didn't have it. We 


didn't -- you'd have to force us to work 


underneath this, and we was literally by not 


telling us the facts. 


So I hope you incorporate this into your 


decision. I'll give you the information that 


you need. And one other thing I'd like to 


address is the short time that I did work over 


in casting for one year, working in a 


department called leeching, is where they would 


take waste from the magnesium process and the 


sludge and dirt that was left over from the 


bottom, it sinks to the bottom, was 


reprocessed, reclaimed. Well, it was rumored 


through -- from the old guys, who knew what 


they were doing, that this was thorium-


contaminated sludge. Now I ask the employees 


that I work with, I says did you hear anything 


about this, and they said they had the same 


concerns and went through their supervisors, 


just like normally anybody would, and their 


response was -- varied from well, you have to 

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be allergic to it for -- and if you're allergic 


to it, you know, you'll know it, you know; if 


you're not allergic to it, it'll be fine. 


Other people -- other supervisors gave 


information that oh, it -- you'd have to be 


around it for 1,000 before it would start to 


hurt you, things of this nature. But not --


never the truth. 


Now beryllium was also used widely over there, 


even though it -- they may not mention it, but 


believe me, I had a bar sitting on my desk for 


over a year, using it as a paperweight. I got 


it from over casting, and the reason I remember 


it so well is -- when you look at it every 


single day, you don't forget it, and this 


silver ingot had the initials KBI on it, which 


I believe stands for Kawecki Berylco, 


Incorporated, and Berylco sounds too much like 


beryllium. I mean they had to be a beryllium 


producer. They had -- I talked to employees 


who worked in the department and they described 


to me how it used to come out of buckets and 


they had to chop them up in little ingots 


because when you melt this, you have to have a 


certain amount of weight. They may say 20 

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pounds, 14 pounds, depending on what alloy 


they're making. Well, it has to be chopped up, 


and chopping up produces dust. And this is a 


lot of the people's problems in this part of 


the factory is this process of leeching and 


casting is respiratory, and I believe that this 


thorium -- or this beryllium is the main source 


of that. 


 Now everyone knows radiation is genetic -- on a 


genetic level can affect people. I lost almost 


all my grandchildren but one because of this. 


My wife's health is poor. My health is 


declining. My first child of course was born 


with a birth defect. She passed away two and a 


half years later because of her birth defect. 


She had a tube in her throat. You may not be 


able to see it but it's a trachea. It's common 


with radiation, I'm sure, birth defects. 


Second child -- grandchild spent four months on 


a respirator. Four years -- I mean four months 


in an incubator before he was actu-- but he's 


still alive, but he still has respiratory 


problems. Now these were my son's children. 


Now my daughter's first and only child died at 


six months. She wasn't even born yet. It 

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wasn't a miscarriage. The baby just died. She 


had to deliver a stillborn. Again, this is my 


family line. 


My sisters -- all her family and children, 


grandchildren, healthy. My youngest sister, 


all her children healthy. My family line -- 


bam, just that bad. 


Now I know as a board of directors, I know what 


you're assigned to do. I know you can't give 


me back my friends, my coworkers' health, their 


lives. I know you can't give me back my wife's 


health or my grandchildren's lives, and you 


can't give me back my health or the years that 


I've probably lost due to this illness. I may 


not reach the age of 60. I know this and I can 


accept it. But what you can do is give us back 


our dignity, hope, a quality of life that we 


have lost because of this, that was taken away 


from us. Remember, we didn't slip in a 


bathtub. This was done to us. We was poisoned 


for profit, whether intentionally or 


unintentionally. Sure, they knew it was there. 


Well, maybe they won't get sick. Okay. Well, 


if they get sick, maybe they won't get too 


sick. Okay. Well, if they get too sick, maybe 

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they won't die. Well, if they die, maybe they 


won't figure it out. But it all goes back to 


the beginning, to knowing it was deadly, but 


they was just rolling the dice with our lives. 


So keep us from literally losing everything 


we've already lost, our whole lives, 


everything. Your decision depends on this. 


mean standing in line for food every month at 


the Salvation Army. You know, the financial 


part of this is only secondary. But medical is 


the most important. The financial would just 


bring a loan -- for my sake, a wheelchair ramp, 


a wheelchair for the future, things that I'll 


need, someone to actually mow my grass. This 


is what the financial could provide for us, 


food for our refrigerator. But the medical 


part, this is the part that can actually 


improve the quality of our lives, save our 


lives, extend it past -- I want to live past 


60. I want you people to help me do this 


because, like I said, common sense is what it's 


all about. You're the only ones can do this. 


You're the only ones can help us, and I want 


you to consider all these facts, please. It is 


so important to so many people. And like I 


I 
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said, if you think it involves thousands on 


this -- on this press, no. But in the pot room 


it could go up to two, three dozen people also 


because these people are exposed to beryllium 


and thorium. That's a separate issue that I 


wasn't involved in, but has to be -- you have 


to, you know, at least acknowledge it in some 


form whatsoever. 


 Now there will be people tomorrow to speak on 


Dow's behalf and SCI's, and I hope they have 


more information than what I've given you guys 


today. And I appreciate you being here and 


listening to us 'cause, like I said, there is 


no one else. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Larry, for a very 


moving account. 


 I have Randall -- I'm having trouble reading -- 


 MR. COX: Cox. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Cox, Randall Cox. There you 


go, Randall. 


 MR. COX: I won't get too dramatic or go into a 


tirade or anything, but I'm pretty pissed off. 


It took me a while to figure it out, but my 


father was an AWE in the '50s, and he worked 


for Associated Aircraft in Fairfield, Ohio. He 

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didn't work there long, but he worked in it and 


he was -- actually machined warhead parts. And 


this went on for a while and came all the way 


up to probably the late '80s, early '90s, all 


of a sudden everybody started getting cancer in 


my family -- everybody, all five members, 


including myself. I'm a brain tumor survivor. 


I may even be looking at a second one coming up 


soon as a MRI just turned up kind of strange 


here recently. But it took me a while to put 


it together so I don't know if it was secondary 


exposure from there or from Fernald, because we 


also lived near the Fernald Feed Materials 


Plant, within a few miles of there. 


And I was foolish enough to call up and ask 


about the settlement -- so-called settlement, 


I'll say that, because in my opinion it was a 


scam. They basically -- I've observed how they 


were running their grids with helicopters and 


stuff like that. I don't know if they used a 


rad chaser or what, but I do know rad chasers 


don't see through metal roofs on buildings. 


And this is also probably 20, 25 years after 


the fact, but I know my whole entire family got 


cancer, everybody. 

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This doesn't run in my family. There are no 


other cases of cancer anywhere in my family 


line. Recently, probably about three or four 


months ago, my 22-year-old nephew who's a 


member of our armed services was diagnosed with 


metastatic colon cancer, and I believe that's a 


result of some kind of genetic damage or 


something because shortly after he was born was 


when my sister, the first one, my youngest 


sister, developed cancer. Shortly thereafter 


my mother developed cancer. Well, they managed 


to get through the operations and stuff and 


survive for a while. Then my father was 


diagnosed with bone cancer. 


Well, that's the -- by this time I didn't 


realize what was happening to me, that this is 


like a slow creeping death that comes up on 


you, and I didn't actually realize what had 


happened till 2003 when I was diagnosed with a 


brain tumor. I had a 4.5 gram primary grade 


one meningioma, and I had it removed. I 


managed to get through it. It cost me most of 


my eyesight, part of my hearing, and I started 


putting two and two together. I thought well, 


it's com-- cancer is a pretty common thing 

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nowadays, but every member of a family, all 


within a few years of each other? This tumor 


that I had was a size -- my neuro-oncologist 


told me that I'd had it at least ten years. 


That would make it 1993 when I started 


developing it, which is also right in the same 


time frame when everybody else did. 


And I've been given the runaround. I called 


this Fernald thing that's handling this 


agreement. They told me that it specifically 


excluded health problems. Is that an 


agreement? That doesn't sound like an 


agreement to me. I asked them what -- what 


about the payouts. Well, all the money was 


gone. We paid most of it out to people with 


severe emotional distress. Try having your 


whole family die within a few months and talk 


about severe emotional distress. 


I -- at this point I'm beginning to see my 


federal government as a serious antagonist 


rather than someone who wants to help out. And 


I implore you, if you can do anything about 


this or investigate this, please do, because 


it's necessary. I'm not the only one. A lot 


of schoolmates, friends that I grew up with, 

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half of them are dead now. And I lived in 


Riley Township, which is next to Crosby 


Township where Fernald was. And out of all the 


deaths that were -- that I know of out there, 


almost all of them were cancer. There were 


maybe two that were heart attacks. 


I mean some of these people were young. My 


sister was in her forties, metastatic bone 


cancer. I mean this kind of stuff doesn't come 


out of the blue. There's a reason for that. 


mean all you have to do is sit down and figure 


the odds. I mean the odds of that happening 


are extremely remote that it was a coincidence, 


extremely remote. And basically I -- 


especially after I found out that I might have 


a second brain tumor, I'm beginning to lose my 


patience. And I can't really afford a good 


civil trial attorney. If I ever win the 


lottery, the government's in big trouble, you 


can bank on that. 


For one thing, I know where to look to find the 


radiation. They didn't. They flew over with 


helicopters, probably with '50s and '60s area ­

- aerotechnology. There are lots of places to 


look that they didn't look. They didn't do 


I 
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groundwater testing. They didn't do anything 


of that sort. They didn't test buildings where 


grain or feed were stored for livestock. The 


fact of the matter is, we lived on a 360-acre 


farm. We sold Hereford beef cattle every year. 


I wonder how many of those steaks were 


radioactive? Cows don't live that long, so 


there's no way of telling. They had cattle 


around Fernald up there, but you know, what's a 


-- what's a cow that lives to old age? It 


might live, what, ten years or something, 12 


years? Well, it took us 25 years before we 


started developing symptoms. And I'm just -- 


it leaves me scratching my head how a country 


that always seems to take the moral high ground 


on every foreign issue that comes along can 


simply turn their back on their own people and 


let them die off one at a time. It almost 


makes me believe that they're waiting for them 


to die, along with any survivors that had a 


chance of collecting benefits, just to avoid 


paying for it. 


 Financial culpability, I agree with the fella 


that talked last time, it's a matter of 


financial culpability, and that's exactly what 

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they're avoiding. And they're doing a very 


good job, too. I'm 53 years old. I don't even 


know if I'll live to be 60, and I never even 


worked with the damned stuff. I just lived out 


where it was being dumped on people's heads. 


And they said well, oh, the dust from Fernald, 


it only got out five miles maximum. Well, 


that's a crock. That would depend on the 


particle size, the type of material it was, 


what the weather conditions was, which way the 


wind was blowing, how high it went up into the 


atmosphere -- there are so many variables that 


they have no way of convincing me that they 


have all the answers because they simply don't. 


I already know they don't. If they do, they're 


concealing them. 


And I suppose it's been very profitable for 


them, especially since government contractors 


probably make billions in taxpayers' money. 


And I -- like I said, I agree with the last 


guy. I think it's purely a matter of money. 


They don't want responsibility and they damned 


sure don't want financial culpability for this. 


I think all it'd take is a really sincere 


investigation that would probably prove me 

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right. And I won't go on any longer, but I 


thank you for your time and thank you for 


listening to me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. I -- I might 


comment -- you may be aware already since this 


Board, by law, is only involved with those who 


worked on the sites and -- 


 MR. COX: (Off microphone) Yeah, I 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but your remarks are on the 


public record now, so -- 


 MR. COX: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- thank you for sharing that with 


us. 


This now -- these are all the folks I have on 


the list. Is there anyone else that wished to 


make public comment tonight? 


 (No responses) 


If not, I thank you. We will have a public 


comment period tomorrow evening, and the Board 


will be meeting in full session all day. 


You're all welcome to come back. We -- we will 


be here tomorrow and Friday, so please avail 


yourselves of the agendas to make sure that, if 


you wish to be here, that you're here at the 

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right time. So we'll recess till tomorrow 


morning. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting was concluded at 6:22 


p.m.) 

______________________________ 

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2 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 Feb. 7, 2007; 


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 


22nd day of April, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102