U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

Designation of Additional Members of the 

Special Exposure Cohort under the 

Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 

Designating a Class of Employees from 

Savannah River Site 

Aiken, South Carolina

HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation:

Savannah River Site, Aiken, South Carolina [SEC 00103] 
HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation: Savannah River Site, Aiken, South Carolina [SEC 00103] 

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I. Designation 

I, Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), designate the class of 

employees defined in Section II of this report for addition to the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC), 

as authorized under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 

2000 (EEOICPA), 42 U.S.C. § 7384q. 

Xavier Becerra, Secretary

[Signature on File] 

Date

August 18, 2021 

 

II. Employee Class Definition

“All construction trade employees of Department of Energy subcontractors [excluding 

employees of the following prime contractors who worked at the Savannah River Site in 

Aiken, South Carolina, during the specified time periods: E. I. du Pont de Nemours and 

Company, October 1, 1972, through March 31, 1989; and Westinghouse Savannah River 

Company, April 1, 1989, through December 31, 1990], who worked at the Savannah River 

Site from October 1, 1972, through December 31, 1990, for a number of work days 

aggregating at least 250 work days, occurring either solely under this employment or in 

combination with work days within the parameters established for one or more other classes 

of employees included in the Special Exposure Cohort.” 

III. Designation Criteria and Recommendations 

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384q, for the class defined in Section II of this report, the Secretary has 

determined, and the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (Board) has recommended, 

that

(1) it is not feasible to estimate with sufficient accuracy the radiation dose that the class 

received; and

(2) there is a reasonable likelihood that such radiation dose may have endangered the 

health of members of the class.

The SEC final rule states in 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(1) that it is feasible in two situations to estimate 

the radiation dose that the class received with sufficient accuracy. First, the rule states that 

radiation doses may be estimated with sufficient accuracy if the National Institute for Occupational 

Safety and Health (NIOSH) has established that it has access to sufficient information to estimate 

the maximum radiation dose for every type of cancer for which radiation doses are reconstructed 

that could have been incurred under plausible circumstances by any member of the class. 

Alternatively, radiation doses may be estimated with sufficient accuracy if NIOSH has established 
HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation: Savannah River Site, Aiken, South Carolina [SEC 00103] 

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that it has access to sufficient information to estimate the radiation doses of members of the class 

more precisely than a maximum dose estimate.

The Board determined that NIOSH has not established that there is sufficient information to 

estimate the radiation dose of individual members of the class with sufficient accuracy under the 

two abovementioned situations. The Board, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384q, advised the Secretary 

to designate the class as an addition to the SEC in a letter received by the Secretary on July 22, 

2021. 

IV. Designation Findings 

Infeasibility of Estimating Radiation Doses with Sufficient Accuracy

The Secretary established the infeasibility determination for the class of Savannah River Site 

(SRS) employees covered by this report based upon the findings summarized below. 

• The principal sources of internal exposure included potential intakes of tritium, uranium, 

plutonium, thorium, neptunium, americium, californium, and mixed activation and fission 

products. 

• The Board determined that NIOSH has insufficient information, including a lack of jobspecific radio-bioassay monitoring data for subcontractor construction trades workers 

(CTWs), and assurance of workplace monitoring and source term data, to enable NIOSH 

to estimate with sufficient accuracy all potential internal doses from radionuclides 

associated with fuel handling, reactor operations, fuel reprocessing, and/or research 

activities, to which the evaluated class of workers may have been exposed during the 

period from October 1, 1972, through December 31, 1990. 

• The principal sources of external exposure for members of the evaluated class were 

plutonium, uranium, thorium, neptunium, americium, californium, and mixed fission and 

activation products, as well as required medical x-ray examinations. 

• The Board determined that NIOSH has sufficient information to reconstruct external 

doses based on dosimeter measurements, workplace measurements, and complex-wide 

approaches for reconstructing medical x-ray exposures. 

• Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(1), the Board has determined that NIOSH lacks 

sufficient information to either: (1) estimate the maximum radiation dose, for every type 

of cancer for which radiation doses are reconstructed, that could have been incurred 

under plausible circumstances by any member of the class; or (2) estimate the radiation 

doses more precisely than a maximum dose estimate for the members of the class at 

Savannah River Site during the period from October 1, 1972, through December 31, 

1990. 
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• Although it is not possible to completely reconstruct radiation doses for the proposed 

class, NIOSH intends to use any internal monitoring data that may be available for an 

individual claim (and that can be interpreted using existing NIOSH dose reconstruction 

processes or procedures). Therefore, dose reconstructions for subcontractor CTWs 

employed at SRS in Aiken, South Carolina for the period from October 1, 1972, through 

December 31, 1990, but who do not qualify for inclusion in the SEC, may be performed 

using these data as appropriate.

• The NIOSH Director concurred with the Board’s dose-reconstruction infeasibility 

determination and recommendation to designate the proposed class to the SEC. 

Health Endangerment 

The Secretary established the health endangerment determination for the class of employees 

covered by this report based upon the findings summarized below. 

(1) Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3), the Board established that there is a reasonable 

likelihood that such radiation doses may have endangered the health of members of 

the class. 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3)(ii) specifies a minimum duration of employment to 

satisfy this health endangerment criterion as “having been employed for a number of 

work days aggregating at least 250 work days within the parameters established for 

this class or in combination with work days within the parameters (excluding 

aggregate work day requirements) established for one or more other classes of 

employees in the Cohort.” 

(2) The Board did not identify any evidence from the petitioners or from other sources

showing that the class was exposed to radiation during a discrete incident likely to 

have involved exceptionally high-level exposures, such as a nuclear criticality 

incident, as defined under 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3)(i). 

(3) The Board determined that the health of the class may have been endangered and 

defined the class according to the 250- work day requirement specified under 42 

C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3)(ii). The NIOSH Director concurred with the Board’s health 

endangerment determination. 

V. Effect and Effective Date of Designation

The Secretary submits this report on the designation of one additional class to the SEC for 

review by Congress, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 7384l(14)(C)(ii) and 7384q(c)(2)(A), as 

amended by the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 

2005, Pub. L. No. 108-375 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 42 U.S.C.). 

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384l(14)(C)(ii), as amended by the Ronald W. Reagan National 

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-375 (codified as amended 

in scattered sections of 42 U.S.C.), the designation in this report will become effective 30 
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days after the date of this report’s submission to Congress “unless Congress otherwise 

provides.” 

VI. Administrative Review of Designation

The health endangerment determination of the designation provided in this report may be 

subject to an administrative review within HHS, pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.18(a). On the 

basis of such a review, if the Secretary decides to expand the class of employees covered by 

this designation, the Secretary would transmit a supplementary report to Congress providing 

the expanded employee class definition and the criteria and findings on which the decision 

was based.