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International’ Chemical Workers Union. And it
was there from 1946, they started it. In fact
Blockson was on strike and they got rid of all
the people that was in that union. I think
there's eight people that came back, walked
across the picket line to keep a job. And that
was back in the '40s.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That was
, wasn't it?
Yes. He was the
president.

See, now that's an
example of a fact that we are just learning
tonight. And there are multiple people who
confirmed that. So there's information that we
think we know, but we obviously we don't know.
And. you fellows can you tell us about that.

MR. HINNEFELD: I would like to
confirm one thing you just said. You said
there was a strike in 1946 and eight people
came back across. Was that strike in 1946,
'47?

It was declared a

Wildcat Strike by the International Union.

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My name is
My dad's name is (inaudible)
. My dad, he started to work at Olin.

in 1951. My dad did not live to have a
retirement. My dad died in 1983. According to
NIOSH's report, my dad had chronic exposure
from 1951 to 1983. It's here on the report;
however, my father's claim was denied in
October. His claim went through until October.

My dad -- I was born in '54.

And my dad, when he came home, we thought he
had soap powder on his clothes. Our clothes
were all washed in the same washing machine. I
don't know if it has anything to do with it,
but my mom, my brother and I, we all have
thyroid disease.

My dad was a good man. And he
worked -- He volunteered for World War II. He
was just a great guy. I don't know. My
family, we really miss him. And he did work as
much overtime as he could because my mom was a
stay-at-home mom. And you know, that's all I

have to say.
MR. STEPHAN: You jogged my memory.

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Page 29 P
When it came to do the final

regular run of a piece of equipment, or pump,
or whatever it happened to be, I was the one
that went and did the final alignment and gave
the okay that that was ready to run. When I --
Also I worked on the repairing of every pump in
that building because I was a pump specialist

at that time.
I did all the work on the 2CGs,

the 3CT, to whatever they happened to be and
also on all of the valve systems They had what
they called Durco valves. I was the only one
in the plant that worked on Durco valves. If I
removed one, I took it back to the shop, I
stuck it in a water bath and tried to get the
stuff off of it.

If I just repaired the pump in
place, I would chip out all of the "Yellow
Cake" that blocked up everything using the
scraper or whatever it happened to be. I had
no protection whatsoever. Okay. So I was in
‘there all the time because I had a P anda Q

clearance.
I did -- Like I said, I did

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MR. LEWIS: Hello everybody.

(A chorus of hello.)

MR. LEWIS: I really, really am
surprised by how many people are here, and very
pleasantly surprised. I appreciate you taking
time this cold, cold night and coming out and
talking to us, because the only way we are
going to get any information from the workers
is to look at you and talk to you. I really,
really appreciate it. I expected maybe a third
of this amount of people.

My name is Mark Lewis. I have
called a lot of you up and talked to you about
coming here. The Mayor of the City was nice
enough to let us use the facilities here. And
we are trying to work on this Power Point to
get it going, but we do have handouts to give
out as to the talking points we will be going
over tonight.

I am from a site myself in
Portage, Ohio, southern Ohio. I am real close
to Kentucky, that's why I have this accent.
I've worked in a nuclear plant, (inaudible),

been there about 33 years. I am on a leave of

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us.

I just want to compliment you
guys for taking the time to ask the right
questions. I ran -- For 27 years I worked at
ComEd. I did training, ran the training
department for ComEd for seven of those years.
I am very much aware of what kinds of
qualifications, safety precautions you take.
And this is the first time I've heard somebody
ask those questions that are pertinent.

Again, thank you for that.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to them
because they've got something to say. None of
us would agree to go into a work situation like
that today. So don't make them martyrs or feel
guilty because they did. They did what they
were told to do. As said, they
just did what they were told. Again, thank you
so much for your time and patience.

(A round of applause.)

: is my name.
You asked the question of how many people were
in 55 at one time. During the strike they took

people from the lab to work in 55, 14 hours a

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That's good. In
Building 55 you must have known that was kind
of a special building, right?

The only way we know
it is a special building is because it's a
Government building. And we had --

Mr. (inaudible) was there. He is the one that
took the names. There was nothing -- There was
no reason to say it was a special building with
safety equipment. It was only because it was
Government.

It was guarded, right?

He was just there
taking the names of the fellows that come in
there.

Here's the question:
One of your people just said you had to pass
through two locked doors to get through the
building.

Ox you knock on the
door. If you're a laborer you went back and
forth. It wasn't -- Maybe just for security
sake, but it had nothing to do with safety or

anything like that. We went in and out, we

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Page 83 4
really. There was four of us. |

MR. STEPHAN: or Stu, do
you have.any questions for this gentleman?

MR. HINNEFELD: I have a question in
general of this gentleman or someone else that
can help. I am trying to understand. I heard
people refer to the gyp pile or the gypson. I
was wondering, just to make sure I am clear on
that, at what point does this -- This is

essentially a waste or a byproduct?

It was a waste.
MR. HINNEFELD: It was just discarded
in a pile, a discard pile on the side?
No. They call ita
gypson pile, but it was phosphate rock at one

time.

MR. HINNEFELD: Essentially what's
the -- It's essentially the rock comes in, you
throw in some acid, the acid goes with the
stuff you want, what's left behind is this
gypson?

»: Right.
MR. HINNEFELD: It's just dropped

down the pile to dispose of?

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with the workers from Mallinckrodt, from Dow
Chemicals in Madison, Illinois and also from
General Steel Industries in Granite City,
Illinois.

And we are -- At all of those
cites we were working on Special Exposure
Cohorts. And some of you may understand that
Mallinckrodt downtown Special Exposure Cohort
was the first petition that was awarded under
this program. All the previous SECs had been
done by legislative action. So by now there
are many SECs of which Blockson is one of the
most material. It has been through a lot of
different stages.

And since I had a lot of
experience (inaudible) with me tonight, having
worker meetings at General Steel and at Dow, I
am really here to help facilitate the work that
Mark is going to be doing. And I would like to
talk to the workers in particular and stress to
you that tonight is a real serious opportunity
for you all.

The reason this meeting is being

held is because everybody acknowledges that our

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August of '06. And we had to have a password
to clear NIOSH to talk to us because I will not
talk to people that don't belong. But the
money, like I said I don't want this in the
paper, went for his care in there. And if he
had the money before he went to the nursing
home, I could have had some. I have nothing.

I am just hoping you people will
understand. Like they said, these are human
beings you are dealing with and their lives.

My husband has cancers in the arms that went
down to the bone. He's too ill to have the
rest of them removed. He's had other
illnesses. He's only got half the capacity in
both lungs from working out there. He's got
calcified deposits in both lungs.

ZI have three drums in my garage.
I have all the information that came up for
trisodium phosphate drums. We used that as
soap. Our daughter died from breast cancer.

: worked there from 1950 to . And he
had a heart attack out there and drove home for
me to take him to the hospital. He wouldn't go

from Blockson or from Olin.

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reconstruction, I am not a lawyer with all this
scientifically,. but can you guys put it in like
a laymen's term? Like my father was like over
20 something percent. Is that like a jar

full?

MR. HINNEFELD: Can I talk to you
when we're done?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Is it a barrel
full? I would like to know in laymen's terms.

MR. HINNEFELD: It's hard to put in
those kinds of terms, but I might be able to
help a little bit if we can talk at the end
here. Okay. ,

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I don't think
you can say enough. Even if you were denied
once, basically everybody got their cases
opened again, right?

MR. HINNEFELD: They are all going to
be reopened.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: What's the
time frame of the evaluation?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Is it another

seven years?
MR. HINNEFELD: I know you may have

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Executive Assistant to ~~ when the
company merged to Olin Chemical company. And
we took over about seven or eight chemical
plants throughout the country.
As far as I was concerned I had
a good boss, I made good money. I couldn't
believe I was making $221 as a First Lieutenant
out of the service a month. And I got hired at
$500 a month in 1955. I couldn't believe I
doubled my salary. But the thing is I think
you're spinning your wheels. You've been
working at this for three years --
(Audience yelling six years.)
Six or whatever it-is.
You've spent millions of dollars. You would
have been better off proving that I was there
during those years. Very easy to prove through
your pension records. All these people got
pensions from Prudential. I still get mine. A
lousy $25 a month, but it's okay. It pays for
a tank of gas.
, You would have been better off
verifying employment, give them all $150,000 if
they worked in that vicinity, and they would

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clothes. They also had some beautiful patent
leather shoes that were yellow. You went from
one locker room into another locker room and
did that.

You also had a monitor that you
stuck in your lapel to monitor your exposure to
any radiation. I only had one time that I
had -- to where it was overloaded, and I had to
get out of there and change my clothes and
things like that. My main function, I had
hoped, would be total maintenance of the

because they did all of their
own.

Like I said,
(phonetic), who was the head of the group. I
was there with him. Most of the people that
was learning how to operate that reactor were
Government people, like warrant (phonetic)
officers, Navy people, whatever it happened to
me. JI happened to be one of the few civilians.
When Blockson went back off of strike in
January of '58, I went back there because I
knew I was going to go to supervision. And

that's where I ended up as a supervisor,

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of the Atomic Energy Commission being involved
at Blockson or Olin at all, in any way; a
training program, rules and regulations they
had, inspections?
(A chorus of no.)
No. I worked there and
I don't have any knowledge of any of this.

MR. STEPHAN: Atomic Energy
Commission. AEC for short.

, The only time they ever
came around was when they did a wipe, 16 years
later after the plant was done processing.

MR. STEPHAN: Who is they? You mean
the AEC?

Yeah.

MR. STEPHAN: And you knew at the
time that that's who they were?

No, I didn't know. I
never knew until I put the claim in.

MR. HINNEFELD: Sixteen years after
the uranium was closed would have been about
the time (inaudible) was doing their
investigation.

MR. STEPHAN: I just have a couple of

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Page 43 i

Kelly cloths out to make a change and put new
Kelly cloths in, you give it an acid bath and
you change the cloths. When you change the
cloths, you pull the old ones out. And when
you pull the old ones out, there is still mud
sticking to the cloth.

And when you take the electric

lift and lift them over to a platform where you

can take the Kelly cloths off and replace them
with new Kelly cloths, you have a hard time
cutting the Kelly cloths off; therefore, you
had to take your gloves off with your open
hands and a knife and cut the cloths. That's
where you come in contact with the liquor.

Now, as we all know, if you get

something that's plugged up and you pour liquor

in that unit that's plugged up, you know if
there's a hole there, it's going to drain out.
If there was a small hole in the Kelly cloth,
it will take a long time for all of the liquor
to drain out. That's when you come in contact
with the liquor again. Okay.

My job was to help the number

one operator out. And I ran -- I took track of

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there. They would rather let you die than tell
you you can be killed doing this.

(A round of applause.)

I am here for the
mechanics. I am one of the operators from
Olin. T worked '53 -~ years at Olin.
I got in Building 55. Fortunately I guess, I
am going to say fortunate because so many of
our members have been sick, I didn't work too
much in there. I operated the calcite rock,
the rock that came in from Florida, to the
river, to the furnace. And I cast ironed. I
took all the impurities out to go through the
process. ,

One thing, I don't know if we
mentioned we also had sulfuric acid pans and we
used sulfuric acid in the process. We used
(inaudible). And I really don't know why we
have to be telling you all these things because
you should be able to get all this information
from the Olin people or from Blockson. There
is a such a law that you can get all this
information.

We have several chemists here in

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Page 152

STATE OF ILLINOIS )
)

COOK OF COUNTY )

I, Sharon Thompson, a shorthand
reporter doing business in the County of Cook
and State of Illinois do hereby certify that I
reported in machine shorthand proceedings in
the above-entitled cause. I further certify
that the foregoing is a true and correct
transcript of said proceedings as appears from
the stenographic notes so taken and transcribed

by me on January 24th, 2007.

Sharen Shops
Sharon Thompson

CSR No. 084-004429

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Page 39 |.

All the equipment was
dismantled. I don't know who bought it. I
feel sorry for the people who bought it because
it was contaminated. And it was sold as either
used equipment or junk, one of the two. There
were tanks in there, these big Kelly: presses,
pumps of all kinds. The pumps by the way were
manufactured in Blockson. It was a Blockson
design pump. They did not buy outside pumps.
So they made all their own parts.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: After the
building was dismantled inside, they still used
it as a warehouse.

MS. ANONYMOUS: Yes. My husband
worked in there. He was one that went in there
to clean up when they had the spill in there.

MR. LEWIS: It was a warehouse after
that?

Yes.

MR. LEWIS: Because that was one of
the questions we will be going through.

MS. ANONYMOUS : Here's what they did
with Building 55. They blew it up.-
Thirty-pounds of dynamite. Then my husband

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than that it was nothing about safety, about
uranium. I come in there just come out of the
service. I never knew about that stuff, you
know. And nobody ever questioned it, you know.

But the process started in 40
and (inaudible) sulfuric acid and started
pressing it down. And the operators that I
know, good Lord, they are deceased. The
operators that worked there, they're deceased.
But all of us that worked for those (inaudible)
years, sometimes we worked in there.
(Inaudible) If we were fortunate enough, we
were in there. And you say yes, we have to
sweep the yellow dust. If you want to wear a
mask or you didn't want to wear a mask, you
know, it doesn't matter.

My question is this: So

you worked mostly outside of Building 55,
right?

I worked about 60
feet away from the cast iron. I had an
operation, too. I had an operation about eight
years ago, but my operation turned out that my

growth was benign at that time.

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Page 108 |:

questions to make sure --

The radon, I did hear
them talk about the radon out there in Building
40. And radon, I think, the phosphate rock and
acid mixed together would cause that.

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. It would be
released during that, yes, it would.

Well, that's where a lot
of it was.

MR. STEPHAN: That would be
consistent, right, with what they were saying
about Building 40 previously? ;

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. That's where
the acid dissolution occurred and the acid
dissolution would probably generate radon from
the rock.

I have a document from a

that came out of Florida. He's
involved with the Institute For Phosphate
Research of Florida. I did an investigation
because I used to have to clean the tanks in
Building 40. And in around the 1980s due to
EPA and OSHA regs, all of them were forced to

put in super scrubbers on top of these

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Page 130 |:

the dust, the products being done, coming from
the river by barge. And these people are
exposed just as much as anyone else that was
employed at Blockson Chemical. And we want you
to take those concerns into consideration.

Thank you very much.

I am . . My dad
is . He had numerous positions
there at the plant. He was in maintenance, he
was a mechanic, he was also a crane operator on
the river. And he's not here tonight. He's in
Arizona enjoying himself. And hopefully you
will be calling him or someone will be calling
him.

I do have a minute detail that I
want to clarify. And it's a small, but very
important detail that needs to be clarified.
Building 40 where the (inaudible) was made was
previously known as Building 25, and they are
one in the same. And I want to make sure that
you people understand that because some guys
might refer to it as Building 25. Some of the
other people may refer to it as Building 40,

but it is the same building. And I want to

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Page 49 |
knew was they were extracting uranium from the
product from the phosphate where they made the
material all up. And it came -- most of it
came over in our department, and that's how
come I knew it was uranium.

, Can you put that in the
context of Building 55? Where was the
extraction made, the first extraction, the acid |
extraction step?

I can't answer that.

Was it outside of 55?

It was outside of 55,
but it was in Olin Chemical.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Was it coming
from Building 25? |

I can't answer that. :

So when you saw it, you
were only working inside Building 55?

Yes.

What did you get in 55?
What did it look like when it came in?

What the liquor looked
like?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Milky.

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Page 91 i

there at the plant, you know, was it just a

group of 5 to 12 people who were there, and the

next day those same 12 people, and the next day

those 12 people? What you're saying I think I
have heard is that there were other people.

The pool -- The overall pool who worked in 55

was larger --

Pretty high. Because
after they shut down for the uranium, they made
a warehouse out of that for awhile. So you had
truck drivers going there.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My husband.

And people were on the
lift truck. And there was storage in there, so
they went in and out of there all the time.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Painters and

electricians.
We are talking about two

different times. We are talking about a period :

when the restriction was on. That's when it
was confined down to 13 people at the most,
because you had to be investigated. But after
the restriction was taken off, anybody could

come in there.

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Page 12)

called an SEC. I think everyone is familiar
with what that means. Basically it's kind of a
Government version of a class action lawsuit,
but it doesn't take place in court. It's just
a waiver many of you (inaudible) together.

And the Board was potentially
going to vote on the SEC that day. They
elected to postpone their vote so that they
could get more information and so that they
could seek essentially a second opinion from an
outside agency, which they have done. So we
have NIOSH's opinion, we have an outside
agency's opinion of that group application.
And most likely that petition will be decided
upon in May or will be discussed at the next
Advisory Board meeting in May.

Is that roughly -- The agenda
hasn't been determined. The point I am trying
to convey here is that what you say here
tonight hopefully will be used -- it will be
reviewed over the next couple of months and it
will be used at the meeting in May when the
Board meets again. Is that fair to say, Stu?

MR. HINNEFELD: That's our current

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Page 5 .

up, but, you know, if not and you think you
will be fine. where you're sitting, that's good
too. We are here not to tell you anything. We
are here for you to tell us stuff. That's the
thing.

With that I would like to
introduce myself and I would like -- Stu, you
mind talking a little bit? And I am going to
get involved and Robert.

MR. HINNEFELD: My name is Stu
Hinnefeld. I am the Technical Program Manager
for the office of NIOSH, National Institute For
Occupational Safety and Health, that is engaged
in this program. This program being the Energy
Employee Occupational Illness Compensation
Program.

NIOSH's role in this program is
to reconstruct, if we can, radiation doses
received by people who worked at a designated
covered facility, Blockson is one of those
facilities. These various companies and
locations did work for the Atomic Energy
Commission or the Department of Energy, those

predecessor agencies as a part of the nuclear

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were in 1995 I had prostate cancer. In 1902 --
2002.
In 2002 I had bladder
cancer. And I (inaudible) both of them. I
made my last trip back to my cancer doctor with
my bladder. I have been five years since then,
and everything has turned out good, so I am
happy about that. Thank you very much.
(A round of applause.)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: So you were
there during whole the duration. I started
there in '73. I worked in and around the same
building you're talking about. Now that
building was fully operational as far as
filtration was concerned when I started in
October of '73. (Inaudible) Was that building
ever shutdown for a short period of time when
they moved out all of the equipment? I know
the equipment off the first floor was removed.

Well, see, I signed out
of there in 1957. And the plant was a straight
operation. You see, in 1957 they took the
restriction off of it, that anyone could sign

in. But see, when I went in there, I had to go

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because because my health is more important
than getting $150,000 that I probably won't see
anyway. I am tired. This needs to be
politically settled because you're going to
keep spending million of dollars to try to
reconstruct all the stuff. The records are not
available.

I've had at least 10 people call
me, how do I prove that I worked there. I
said, do you get a pension? They went back to
Prudential and found out they had records in
fact that they worked at Blockson during that
period of time. That's the only records.

There are no records. I tried to get records.
I was in the office there, but there are no
records. There are no records at all. Believe
me.

The plant is destroyed. It's
highly contaminated. They are going to turn it
into a dump. They are still out there
monitoring the soil out there. Contrary to

- what they said, with me it was a good place to
work. I was out of the Army two weeks and I

got a good job. And then I went in as an

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were in there changing the pump --
MR. STEPHAN: The maximum number.
That would be hard for
me to say. I can't say.

MR. STEPHAN: Maybe 3, or maybe 10,
or it's hard to say?

Too hard. You could
have pipe-fitters, you could have mechanics in
there, you can have a greaser in there.
There's not just one thing going to go down
each time. Maybe if a unit went down, you may
have 9 or 10 people in there working.

MR. STEPHAN: Can you come up with an
estimate of the maximum number of any workers,
not just maintenance workers, in Building 55
when you were in there? An estimate when you

were in there.
For any period of time?

MR. STEPHAN: No. Just when you were
there.
For one day?
MR. STEPHAN: Right then, yes. Like
I can estimate there are 60 people here or 50

people. When you were in Building 55, how many

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BLOCKSON CHEMICAL NIOSH OUTREACH MEETING

Report of Proceedings had at the
Blockson Chemical NIOSH Outreach Meeting held
at 150 W. Jefferson Street, Joliet, Tllinois,
on the Wednesday, the 24th day of January,

at the hour of 7:00 p.m.

APPEARANCES:

MR. MARK LEWIS
MR. STUART L. HINNEFELD

MR. ROBERT STEPHAN

MR. THOMAS TOMES
MS. MARY ELLIOT

MS. LAURIE ISHAK-BREYER

2007

Page 1

ORIGINAL

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Page 112 [|

story. The reason we are asking everybody is,

you know, at different times different methods

could be used. And some people said there were
machines that did it.

And we want to know among the
people who are here tonight, are y'all aware
that there was any machine used to load the
drums. And so the answer I think is, no, not
that the people here know about.

MR. STEPHAN: The second question
that I wanted to focus on is the dust. We
heard a lot about dust tonight. It's here on
your list of questions. So in terms of the
dust, was the average dust level non-existent,
was it medium, was it high, was it, you know,
visible? And if it was visible, how much did
you see and where was it in the building?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: When they blew
the building up, the dust went all over.

MR. STEPHAN: True. When the

building was operational, when the building was

. up, particularly for the maintenance folks,

, when you would go in and clean,

and some of the maintenance folks, how much

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they (inaudible) these cancers. His whole
body's been cancered (sic). They don't know
how to send it to NIOSH. They don't know how
to. I have that little card. They said we
have to send it to Medicare first and then Blue
Cross/Blue Shield. They've never dealt with
the Federal insurance.

MR. HINNEFELD: Steve, do you have an
office or a number for the Department of Labor
District office in --

MR. STEPHAN: Kentucky.

MR. HINNEFELD: The Resource Center
would be in Paducah. Cleveland would be the
District Office. If you have a number for the
Department of Labor, Cleveland District Office,
and they should have probably a claims examiner
for your case, and if you would speak to that
person at the Department of Labor, they may be
able to explain things or may be able to assist
you, particularly if additional cancer lesions
are being removed. So I would recommend that
you do that.

Unfortunately we at NIOSH have

nothing do with the administration of benefits.

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How many in here, curiosity,
with a show of hands, worked at the Blockson
cite yourself?

(Audience members raising hands. )

MR. LEWIS: I have 10 that I called
up and said they would probably be here, and we
got 10 tonight, so I hope that we have 10
tomorrow night, too. That's good. ,

Can I get you 10 workers, if you
don't mind, would you get closer to the front
here as much as you can? I really would

appreciate it. That way it would be better for

us.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible. )
MR. LEWIS: All of the Blockson
plant.
During that contract,
yes.

MR. HINNEFELD: I am not particularly
concerned about (inaudible). Everybody who
wants to talk, we would like to hear them.

MR. LEWIS: I want to introduce the
people up here, too. Like I said, my name is

Mark Lewis. I would appreciate it if you come

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dust would you see or, if any, dust?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It's all over
their clothes. It was yellow. When they
brought their clothes home, it was yellow
powder.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My dad would
come home and he looked like -- we would call
him the snowman. My mom used to make him strip
at the garage and (inaudible) and I used to
laugh. He came home looking like that. He
would have to go downstairs and take a shower.
My dad was there. There's no doubt my dad was
not there. My dad was there from '50 to '69.
He worked in Building 55.

But yet -- I know this is an
individual problem, but I mean my father died
from lung cancer. I thought I understood that
they were questioning, you know, the time
working, which he was there from '50 to '69.
The problem happened during '50 to '60 or '6l1,

or whatever that time is we are talking about.

I also thought -- My father died i

from lung cancer. I thought the claimants were

deserving of it if they died from lung cancer.

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Page 34 |,

You went ahead then and ripped it apart, did
what maintenance had to be done on it, got it
back together again, it went to the warehouse
in the stock. It's a pump put into the
category as a pump. It was not designated that
it came out of Building 55. Yes, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Did you have a
special place to eat, or did you eat in that
same building?

You mean the workers?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, the
workers.

You know, I don't
remember that to be honest with you.

They had a lunchroom
upstairs in the locker room.

That's right. Now as
far as an exhaust system in the building, they
were -- On the outside walls all around they
had these great big fans and there was a
(inaudible). They just turned those on and
that's it.

The clean up operation was if

anything got spilled, you wash it down the

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MR. STEPHAN: Mark, do you want to
try to take a break?

MR. LEWIS: Yeah, let's try to take f
about a 10 minute break. And the people who ;
want to talk to (inaudible). There's some 7
things in there -- I want to make sure for the
workers and the site, is there anything in here
that we really didn't get to? ,

MR. HINNEFELD: I just have a couple
of things that are on the list that I wanted to
cover. I want to make sure I understand the
solid waste and the liquid wastes that are
generated. I heard about -- The gypson was
essentially a solid waste, right, disposed of
in a pile; is that correct?

Yes.

MR. HINNEFELD: Were there other
quantities of solid waste from the various
presses and filtrations that were not -- that
were not going to end up as product, they were
just going to be disposed of? And was there
special treatment to those? Where they hauled
to a particular place? Were they used for some

other secondary process like a fill for

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Page 88 !

Well, yes. I would be

there. I had to make sure the pump was oiled
after it was put in.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That's at
least three, plus you got the two or three

operators that were there.

You weren't talking

about the --
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Any people --

His question is everybody in that building;
maintenance, electrical, laborer.

MR. STEPHAN: Anybody in the
building.

You had two upstairs on
the presses, right. You had two downstairs on
the shed. That's four there. You had the
guard. Five. And then whatever maintenance
people that came in there.

But what's the reason for you
wanting to know how many people? It shouldn't
make any difference how many people worked in

there.
MR. STEPHAN: What we are trying to

determine is that we believe that -- And what

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these pictures. And there's some questions
that you may possibly want to ask some of these
employees who were employed there during that
time.

MR. STEPHAN: I am going to turn that
over to Mark. I think is going to
address the group. And then that information,
that's exactly what we are going to discuss
tonight. Okay. If anybody has any questions,
certainly of me or the representatives from the
Congressman's office, we will be here, but we
are not going to participate in this group
discussion. I just want to make sure that's

clear.
You have 10 workers,

but you have my husband who was a worker and
who I am the Power of Attorney of. And I have
my legal paper here. He was interviewed by
NIOSH on ~ : 2006, at the nursing home
by two of your men, if you recognize the names.

MR. STEPHAN: By NIOSH?

MS. : Yes.

MR. STEPHAN: If you have information
that you think is pertinent, Mark will, you

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Page 58 :

In Building 40 there were

approximately four people on shift times a
seven day, approximately 16 people, with a
vacation there would 17 people there. There
would be approximately four more people that
worked in the front end of Building 40 which
recovered the sodium sulfur fluoride after the
phosphate production and created sodium sulfur

fluoride.
From there it went over into the

middle, which was the DSP, MSP mix area where
there would be 12, at least 13 more people in
the mill that produced the MSP, DSP mixes.
From there it would go to Building 55 where
there were usually two operators on that sat in
a non-environmental booth area just ona
make-shift bench and stuff. So there would be
at least eight people there that was just in
filtration just for the monosodium liquor for
phosphate -- for sodium tripolyphosphate
production.

MR. STEPHAN: Sir, you believe there
were eight workers at the dock, and not four

workers at the dock?

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Page 100
recreation and all of a sudden they are getting
sick too? (Inaudible)

MR, STEPHAN: Mark, do you want to
take a break? Stu or , you want to q
make sure you get your questions in of the
workers? Are there any workers who are not
going to make it tomorrow night?

MR. HINNEFELD: Tomorrow night is the
same meeting. We are not going to do anything
different tomorrow, unless people come back
with information that they feel wasn't brought
up tonight that should have been mentioned. So
it's going to be the same meeting tomorrow.

MR. STEPHAN: I am just worried that
we may go a little bit more than two hours. If
we take a break, you may lose some of the
workers. We've still got several specific
questions that we need to get through.

MR. HINNEFELD: Robert, a lot of the
information on these have been answered.

MR. STEPHAN: , do you
have any questions? ; ’

I think there's two |

questions that haven't been answered adequately

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Page 79 }
have been millions of dollars ahead. That's
all I have to say.

(A round of applause.)
Thank you.
I want to talk a little bit about the equipment
that was in the building when we first started.
The dust collector, I think you want to know

what happened to them. I was there when they

took it out; the dust collector, the pans and
the small presses. There were two presses; one
press and one (inaudible). The other press

went down to Department 70.

The pans and the purchase part
was up in the hill, what they call it, bowl
(phonetic) yard. And there are Kellys. They
didn't touch anything with them as far as
taking them up. They were all stainless steel.
And I would assume when they changed over to
process liquor again through them presses, they f
just changed the cloths on them. And let me
see what else is there. They would be too
expensive to pull them out and replace them.

And then another thing we are

talking about, NIOSH wants to talk about dust.

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Page 40 |,

helped clean up the mess and put down the big
pile, which is here.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can I just add
the fact that after they closed the plant down,
I was informed that my father taught welding
classes in that building. , if you can
vouch for that. Did my father teach welding
classes in Building 55 when they took
everything out?

Yeah, /

Iam . And
I worked at Olin Chemical. And I worked in
Building 55 from October of 1954 until October
of . A lot of the things that I was going
to say had already said. But to go over
this sheet of paper that we have here, the
radiation protection, there was no radiation
protection, there were no film badges, and
there was no urinalysis program whatsoever.

As I stand before you I am going
to tell you the truth, and I am going to tell
you exactly how the operation went. There were
two operators on each shift with the exception

of days when days had three operators. There

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Page 52 i

is in -- it was 25 and then it changed to
building 40, after Building 55.

The liquid that came
back into that building was yellow. And when
it went in, it was two big storage tanks, that
was the color. And then the sweeps in there
just kept mixing it up until they were ready to
process it in the Kellys. And then the pumps
would pump it into the Kelly under pressure so
that the mud would accumulate on those Kelly
cloths. They were like a canvas, ship's

canvas.
: So you understand one of

the reasons we are asking questions like this
is we want to make sure that everybody who came
into contact with the uranium at any stage,
whether it was wet, or on the mud, or on the
presses, or the pure "Yellow Cake" itself, that
they get included as people exposed to the
uranium and that their doses get reconstructed
with that in mind.

So although we are highly
interested in what you individually did, if you

have knowledge of other parts of the plant and

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Page 121}

cites that you're talking about.

Now you're going to tell them,
we are going to tell you that you can only be
subject to this because our dose reconstruction
says that you could not have -- your illness
could not have been caused because this is how
we formulated it. How can you formulate
somebody's illness when you don't have any
records, when you did not protect them? You
did not do routine physical exams. You did not
do an urinalysis. You kept no records about
about how long they worked in that building or
if they worked overtime.

And my husband used to work
overtime as much -- Anybody in this room that
knows him would say he practically lived out at
that plant. So he was exposed. Do you know
that? Does anybody? Can anybody tell me that
they know how much he was exposed? I don't
think so.

So you know I have to say this
before I go. I know that this is for the
workers, but I am his wife, and I am concerned

that he be treated fairly. And up to this

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Page 57 |.

employment date calcite rock was already being

supplied from Florida. So they had natural

occurring radioactives in it. That's why it

was used. And it had a higher BPL or bang for

your buck for P205 phosphate production. In
building 40 there would be --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Didn't it go

through a giant (inaudible) before it came --

That was the calcite

that sat outside. That was the calcite where

worked.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There were

people involved there too.

All I know is » said

he did it. It could be around the clock.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The mechanics

went in welded (inaudible). All kinds of
maintenance inside this giant --

There was an assigned

mechanic force when I was hired in '73. It was

approximately 12 people that were called the

dirty dozen that worked in the acid plants. You

were one of them. You were a plastic

fabricator.

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Page 142

would think they would reuse it.

MS. BREYER: Stu introduced me
earlier, but I am Laurie Breyer. I also work
with NIOSH. And in listening to some of the
comments from the back of the room, I think
there might be some confusion, and it deals
more with claims than it does necessarily with
work at the facility.

But some of the comments I have
heard, people seem to be confused about what
cancers qualify, or some are saying more
cancers have come along, or people asking why
we keep the records even after a claim is
denied or approved. If you develop a cancer at
any time, it doesn't just have to be one
cancer, if you have lung cancer, and prostate
cancer, and multiple skin cancers, each of
those constitute an individual cancer.

So if your husband develops any
future cancer, it should go to the Department
of Labor. The lung cancer -- It doesn't just
have to be lung. It can be lung and prostate.

I talk to people on a regular

basis, claimants and workers. And a lot of

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Page 53
what went on there, that also will be very

helpful.
Well, I was going to !

mention before I was interrupted that if the

liquor came -- if the uranium was in the liquor i

when it came over to Building 55, then wherever
it came from, those people there in that
department were also exposed.
That's my point. That's
exactly my point. If any of those people are
able to talk about that, that would be a great

interest.
As I said before, the

people who worked at Building 55, they changed
clothes there, and they took their clothes
home, and their wives washed them, they are

exposed to it also.
: Did you go to lunchrooms

with your clothes, too?
MR. STEPHAN: Can you state your name

again?
I have a

comment about -- At a point you wanted to talk

about the uranium within the product. The

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Page 82 :

I worked on the river on the phosphate rock.
And I put in my claim, but they already said --
NIOSH said, naw, that ain't no good, but yet
they got people down in Florida that were
getting compensated for working with the
phosphate rock, but us no.

MR. LEWIS: Do you know of any
changes in Building 40 that took place to
augment Building 55's functions?

I don't think so, no.

If they made any changes to Building 55?

MR. LEWIS: Uh-huh.

No. They wouldn't have
to because they were already processing like --
I don't know. They were already making
monosodium, disodium liquor. They were already
making that.

MR. LEWIS: Any (inaudible) towers in
or nothing like that? You don't know?

No, not that I know of.
I don't think so.

MR. STEPHAN: And you would do
maintenance in Building 40?

Yes. Do the whole plant

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Page 92 f

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: How long is
it before the uranium disappears?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It's still

there.
Before it settles down

to non-radioactive it's 4.5 billion years.

MR. STEPHAN: You have anything else

to add?
No, I don't think so.
MR. STEPHAN: Are you a worker, sir?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.
MR. STEPHAN: Would you like to come
up?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Everything
said covered it. He's done a good
job.

I would like to speak
to one thing and then I am going to leave you
people alone and go on home. You have got to
remember people working in 55 probably got the
biggest feel of it, but everybody and anybody
that worked in that plant is getting just as
bad as they were in 55.

(A round of applause. )

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Page 47 ;
before the FBI, had to be investigated.

And during the time -- During
that time I did not know what they did over
there. The only thing I knew was that it was
Government work-related. Because where I
worked at I never got around to talk to any of
these fellows over there. And I didn't find
out that they were actually using -- making
uranium until I got in there.

And then when I got in there,
there was no safety that says you shouldn't be
in this area here, or you shouldn't be in that
area there, or what harm the material would do
to my lungs. I had no knowledge of that. They
never gave us anything in writing to say, hey,
if you eat here, you're going to get this; if
you eat there, you're going to get uranium. It
was just take a chance.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And I think ;
that it was so unfair that they didn't tell
people.

That's true. 4

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And if they

had known this, maybe people would not have

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I have three drums in my garage
that we used as a toy box. Our daughter died
of breast cancer. I am battling breast cancer
vight now. I use oxygen all the time. But to
bring the file in to help these other people, I
left my oxygen in the car and brought the file
in with my walker.

And I thank you for listening to
these people. And please, this radiation
dosage, I don't know how you can do it when
they blew that thing up, that building up, and
then the dust went all over. By the way, I
took a personal photo of them blowing the
building up. Some people borrowed my three
files, and that disappeared. I do have the
newspaper one that I gave to that gentleman
over there. He sat in front of me. And I have
more here. Thank you.

MR. STEPHAN: Mark, I think we are
close to. done. I did not state my name in the
beginning. I apologize for that. I raise that
point just because -- My name is Robert
Stephan. I am with Senator Obama's office.

Debbie is also here from Senator Weller's

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on the dust issue?
I think so.

MR. STEPHAN: You guys know all you
need to know about that. Any there any other
questions off the list that we have missed at
all? If not Mark, what do you want to do? Do
you want to take a break?

MR, LEWIS: I want to give the’
people -- What I will do is speak to the
survivors. All of the former workers have
spoken and we got all we want to hear. I want
to make sure that people get a chance to say
their peace.

MR. STEPHAN: Why don't we skip the
break. If you have something to say, come up
and say it. If you need to take a break -- We
won't leave until everyone has said their
peace. We would like to focus on what you know
as a survivor of the work that your husband did
that has not been mentioned yet. That's what
we are trying to find out.

I'm just going to come up
here real quick. My dad worked here for 30

years. His fame has no importance here

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so hard. But I guess it's true. I wish
something could be done about it. He's gone
now. He died of cancer. Thank you very much.

: My name is
My husband went to work at Blockson in '51. He
worked there until the mandatory time in
He died two months later. He worked in all
those departments and worked with
(inaudible).

There's a couple of things I
would like to remind people. Number one, when
they had the blowout, public service was right
next door. And they used to call the guys up
and tell them to cut it down because the air
was so bad.

Number two, when my husband came
home, especially when he was in 55, my kids, I
had four and one of them is mentally retarded,
anyhow, when he came home, he would take his
clothes off because he was solid with this
waste. And one time I caught my son, he had my
husband's shoes and he had a knife. He was
cleaning the "Yellow Cake" off the bottom of
his shoes. It was bad. Thank you.

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. Crew.

Page 131
make sure that you understand that.
MS. ANONYMOUS: I don't care to have
my name in the paper. I am here trying to help
these other people. My husband did get the
money. He did not get the lifetime medical
they promised him. I have proof where they
blew up the building. The dust went all over
and my husband cleaned up the mess, him and his

crew. The crew is all dead.

(phonetic), (phonetic),
(phonetic). They had to use their last names
because a lot of them called -- their first

names were
I have other documents here

showing the protective clothing was just a
vest. The gentleman wearing a white shirt, a
tie and a hat, that was , and he was
wearing protective clothing. When they blew
the building up, my husband was on the
(inaudible) truck. The Green Giant they called

it. And he cleaned up their mess, him and his

He's been four years in the

nursing home now. And NIOSH called him in

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absence now to help people get input to this
program from workers.

I was a union (inaudible) . Of
course, you know there was a union here years
ago, but it went on strike and there's no
union. With that being said I am still here to
represent former workers in getting the story
brought out.

We do have a reporter here,
court reporter tonight. And I am kind of
stalling for a little bit of time here while we
get this Power Point going. If it doesn't go,
then we will still be all right. But tonight
mainly what we are doing is we want to talk to
former workers. I know there's a lot of
survivors here, too, and you all have stories
to tell, too.

I would like to get the former
workers so we can hear you. I don't know if
there's a microphone here, but people can move
around, but this microphone is stationary, but
if you can get up close to the front as much as

you can. You can sit right up here at the

table around us or whatever.

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Page 149 |

what it's there for. Paducah. There's some
questions you can ask and they will be able to
really help you out.

Is there anybody else here that
would like to say anything? We are just about
winding down this meeting. I urge you to ask
your neighbors to come back tomorrow night.
Yes, sir.

I just like to say in
summation that we know from radiation --
uranium radiation causes cancer. We know the
incidents of Joliet from Olin Chemical and
Blockson Chemical is very high. All these
things are there. Now what percent? I don't
know. You people would say -- the doctors say
you have to have so much percent. Even if you
have five, six percent, it's there. And it
causes it. And that's what causes it.

Like said before, you
can't reconstruct back what happened. We know
there was dust there, we know that uranium was
there. And that's why the people have so much
cancer. That's the (inaudible) of the table.

So why is there so many cancers from Olin

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Page 110 q
documentation. ,

But this person here is sort of
contradictory. He's the president of whatever
he is at the International Phosphate Research
Project in Florida and Florida State University
(inaudible). He's telling me here that he was
familiar with the Olin site and what he calls
(inaudible) went into these digesters and
shoveled it out. He doesn't know if there were
any radioactive properties to that.

MR. STEPHAN: Guys, I have two more
questions I just want to make sure we cover off
of your list. Is that okay, Mark?

MR. LEWIS: Sure.

MR. STEPHAN: ~, back to
your question about how the drums were filled;
manually or by machine. One of the things we
heard is that manually was done by shovel. |
There was a pile of "Yellow Cake", and then the
"Yellow Cake" would be shoveled into a drum; is
that correct?

(Nods head.)

MR. STEPHAN: That's correct. Okay.

Does anybody else know anything about that?

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worked there that day.

As we say you cook the stuff,
you dump it. The operator fills the trucks
outside. We use our same clothes. The same
clothes that are filthy, which we use everyday
at other places. We can use it if you want to.
We don't have to. There was no rule that you
had to use them. And safety hazards come into
I don't know when. But we just wore caps,
whatever. So that's why a lot of these

families are here.

We took the dust home. We took
the dust home with them. There was never,
never anything said to any of us because maybe
they didn't know themselves. I think so. They
are people smarter than me with a high school
education. No. Nothing about safety.

As says they worked there, we
touched, this (inaudible), you worked with this
today so you go take a shower. Not like that.
The only time that we started taking showers is
when we started working on dust collectors and
other places that we are so dirty, so sweaty,

they give us each a half hour to do it. Other

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Page 56 q

involved in that process?

(Inaudible) I can give
you a general amount of people.

We are particularly
interested in the stream that wound up in
Building 55 making "Yellow Cake".

At that time we had a
dock crew of three to four people --
(inaudible.)

MS. COURT REPORTER: I am having a
hard time hearing him. Do you mind stepping to
the podium?

{ You had phosphate rock,
which was delivered by Florida to Olin
Corporation via barge or by rail car. There
would be approximately at least four people
involved in the unloading and transport of
that. That would go to the storage
(inaudible). From the storage (inaudible) at
that time frame I believe it was calcite. It
was another guy named (phonetic),
who was the calcite operator. The pillar still
stood when I was employed there.

At a later date, at my

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Page 105

separating out radium or radon? Anybody ever
mention that word?

No, not that I know.
I never probably -- I probably couldn't even
spell that word. I never knew nothing about
that, that we started making atomic bomb :
equipment. No. Never. None of us, that I
know of, ever related to something like that.

And like I said, the security it
was really -- He's not here. He was
just, to me, taking names of the fellows that
went in and out. Nothing about shoes. Nothing
like that. And like I said, we just went in
with our old -- We didn't get plastic helmets
until about what, '47, '50 for safety. We used
our own gloves.

Sir, we had our sandwiches. We
all did. We had our sandwiches. We didn't
have a lunchroom. We had a locker room if you
want to eat, the locker room. Way up there.
You put a sandwich, like all of us, in your
pocket, and you ate that sandwich. If you work
in that building there, if wanted to, you ate
your lunch right there. We didn't have

q

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Page 30}

total maintenance. I didn't do any
pipe-fitting or welding, but if I had to go
inside of a tank to change the sweeps in there
that kept the material moving, I went in there
and did it. And they were four-by-fours that
were in there. If something happened to the
Kelly press when they opened it up, and down in
the mixer if the chain broke, I would have to
go down there.

Now, as far as protection,
nothing. There was nothing. I also -- You're
talking about equipment. Now, when the stuff
was loaded, how did they do it. They put it in
some pans that were about as square as this top
is, about two inches deep. It was the mud.
They put it into this rack. This rack went
into a steam oven. It was dried. It came out,
and then they dumped it into a hopper, and that
hopper was piped in with a dusk collector.

The dust collector was right
behind it. It was was about a six-by-six dust
collector barrel that was underneath that
hopper where the pan was dumped into. And the
dust collector would take any dust off. Any

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Page 26
far as I was concerned. I was not a full-time
employee on the plant. I had a specific job
of -- I had a secret clearance from the Army
and then I got a secret clearance again from
the Navy Department because I was in

office when the Department was i

activated.

And my job was to go there into
the plant twice a day, 11:30 and 4:30, visit
with the chief chemist and take a quality
control report and a quantity control report,
go back to the office, put it in a special
envelope, and it would be mailed to the Atomic
Energy Commission. No film badge, no mask.

The shoes that I wore at the
office, I walked through the plant and I went
home with it. Never gave it a second thought.
That's my story. Very limited. I was not
there eight hours a day. I was there from -- I

went to work in 1955 in the office as a

A year later when they merged
with Olin-Mathieson, I went into

office as his assistant. At that time we took

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Page 109 |

digesters or phosphoric acid lines.

I was involved in cleaning the
vessels and I was involved in cleaning the
scrubber units. I became concerned about
radium and radon based on why we are here
tonight. _ _ e-mailed me back, as for
working in the digester, we call that the
attack (inaudible) or reactor down here, I
really can't say exactly what the chemical and
radiological characteristics of the mud or
(inaudible) materials might be.

I talked to this guy. He
doesn't know of any radioactive studies that
might have been done on them. They may or may
not have been radioactive. Now, I believe this
person is listed as a reference in one of your
dose reconstruction booklets that you put out.

The reason why I remember that

name is because I was also in contact with

and _, who have
since passed. was the first initial
(inaudible) on this and _ was

directly assigned to AEC production right

afterwards, and then they both sent me

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Page 38

You stated about my
father. Thank you. And he did pass away five
years ago from lung cancer.

Since then I go back
every year for a colonoscopy. And I just went
a month ago and I got cleared, so I am all
right. I have a stack of papers that's got to
be that thick about Olin. I have a stack Erom
Argonne National Lab. And the surprising thing
is that the Federal Government never said to
me, yes, you worked up at Argonne National Lab.
They had me up there for 10 days. And just
‘recently I got an inquiry to finally where they
recognized I did work at Argonne as a
7 ', That's how long it took.

(A round of applause. )

MR. LEWIS: After they got done with
the phosphate production, what activities moved
in there after the uranium extraction was done
in Building 55? Do you know what happened to
that? Were you there then?

What happened?

MR. LEWIS: What happened to Building |

55 after --

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. don't know anything about Building 55's records

Page 119 4
My name is
My father was
My name is
; , and this is my husband

And I would just like to say we know some
things. We know that these people worked
there. We know they were not protected. We
know they worked under conditions which you
wouldn't want them to work under today. They
wore no badge disseminators, they were no :
protective clothing. And they did not know
what they were working with. We know that.

We know for a fact that they
were there. We also know that they had
illnesses that could have been caused by
working in that environment. Because when they |
made the claims, at some point in time they
would have given them an early denial, instead
they said stay with it, you may be compensated.
Don't give up. You may be compensated.

Now, what we don't know is we

because there are none. The building is no

longer in existence. And we do know that there +

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Page 140}

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, can you
give us an address where we can --

MR. HINNEFELD: I can give you a
business card. The business card has our
address.

MR. STEPHAN: If we have questions
about claims, can we do that afterwards,

because those can get specific?

This is about the
process of uranium. They had a pilot lab where
they did all the research up there, and that
was -- They called it a pilot lab. It was a

garage. What I was wondering is what did they

do with the radium that they extracted and --

What did they do with it? I got a pretty good
idea where it went.
MR. HINNEFELD: You're talking about
the uranium they were extracting?
Yes.
MR. HINNEFELD: They were trying to
prove that they could do it.
Right. Now what
happened to the uranium they extracted?
MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I don't know



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Page 62
That was very useful.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There was a
few union things there about things they did

that our union didn't know. This is in respect

to the company. It's got nothing to do with

this. The company was not a safe place to work
for. We didn't know this.
May I stop you for a

minute? I must interject this. There is a

conception at NIOSH for this meeting that there
were no unions at Blockson Chemical.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Oh, yes there

was.
Now, this is a serious

question. We need to clarify that. If y'all
would tell us about that, that would help a

lot.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There was a

union, yes.

What union was it and
the local number?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Chemical

Workers Union.
The union was Local 4,

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Page 116 |.

collectors were working pretty decent and put
in a new (inaudible), they were pretty good;
but if they were not working decent and they
had a defective head cover they had to change,
it was more dust.

But you still had to
wash it down and clean it everyday regardless
of whether the dust collector was working or
not, right?

Right. That was the
policy in probably all of the buildings. At
the end of your shift, you always had to clean
up before the next shift came. But we are
talking about 55 with the fans. That stuff had
to be awful light to go 25 feet up in the air
and suck it onto the roofs and go outside.

MS. ANONYMOUS: My husband was on the
clean up crew in 55, then he worked in the
temporary warehouse. And he's in a nursing
home now for four years. NIOSH interviewed him
in there just in August. We had a five-way
conversation. I gave you the names and you

copied them down. He answered the questions.

MR. STEPHAN: Thank you. Are we okay :

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Page 80 E

They had fans on the south side of that
building, three big fans that blew out from 55
itself out to the road. And when they did the
sweep, there was plenty of residue out there.
Well, anywhere there was a roof fan. It was
probably down at the dock even. I don't know
how they could determine what amount of, you
know, dust was in the air. It was too hard.
You couldn't do it. They did it for 10 years,
that was blowing out there.

And the people that came in
after that, it took them 16 years before they
came in and did a wipe. And we never knew
nothing about if it was contaminated or not.
They hid all of that from us. So there were
people, and I did too, I did greasing after
they started in there and crawling around in
there. I didn't know. I didn't have no clue
that it would be on my clothes. I don't know

what else I could tell you.

MR. STEPHAN: What years did you work |

there?
1947 to years.

MR. STEPHAN: I am sorry, what was

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Page 32

had to reach in there inside and unhook the
stocking on this bar that ran across it, then
you had to unhook it down below and pull it out
of there.

What did they do with it? It
went out to the junk pile south of the plant,
just like those timbers did. As far as what
they did during the day as far as anything --

MS. ANONYMOUS: There's the dump.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Did you wear
special clothes when you did that?

No, there were no
special clothes.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: So you took
all that stuff home?

You just used your
regular work clothes that you went in with.
The precautions taken at that time, as you came
in there was a guard there. Usually it was

either , or or --

Yeah. One of them was
in there. You had to come in one door first.

They checked you in and then you went through

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Page 98

still selling it the other (inaudible). He
worked out in the pond there. And they sold
that to the farmers to put out in their fields.
When Olin quit there, they sold it to somebody
else and they are still getting stuff out of
the pond.

MR. STEPHAN: Ma'am, would you do us
a favor too and make sure you get Mark's cards
because Mark will call your husband because he
wants to speak to him directly.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I have another
question to the panel. Right.now there's talks
about making this big gypson pile that they
have out there into a dump site.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It's already
passed.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And they also
want to cover over this gypson pile. And my
question is: Where is the EPA on this? Who
has checked this out?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: They want to
make a golf course out there eventually.

You need to call Will

County. The whole Board meeting, I think

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Page 13]

plan for a schedule. We have research to do in
the meantime. This meeting is gathering
information and there's other information to
gather in order to address all the questions
that need to be addressed in that petition, but
it is our current plan to complete that
research and have the report available in the
May meeting.

MR. STEPHAN: And the last item that
I received dozens of call about, and hopefully
we can clear this up tonight, the group
application that has been submitted for you,
it's called an SEC, Special Exposure Cohort.
NIOSH had developed an opinion and a
recommendation about that group application,
and they have since withdrawn their opinion so

that they can study the matter a little bit

more.
And then, Stu, can you also just

clarify for me, because some of the workers are
very confused, as to what it means by their
dose reconstructions? Does that mean that all
of them are going to be reopened and reviewed,

because so many folks have already been denied,



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Page 81 |:

your job title, your function?
I worked maintenance at
the end for about 15 years, so I spent quite a
bit of time in there.
MR. STEPHAN: And how often were you
in Building 55?
Quite a bit.
MR. STEPHAN: No, I mean like on a
weekly basis, a daily basis, a monthly basis.
We would be assigned to
like say, your area you had like four or five
buildings. The boss would say well, this week
you're over in this building to work, you know,
So it depends on you, how much equipment you
had to work to grease it, or oil it, or
whatever it took.
MR. STEPHAN: You might be in there
everyday, but you might not. It just depends?
True.
MR. STEPHAN: Did you ever have an
urinalysis?
No. Never had one. The
only thing I did like I said earlier when I

first started -- not when I first started, but

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Page 87 d

people could you estimate that were in there?

I would say at least
five to six.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: At one time or
the whole year?

Just one day.

Normally when
maintenance went in there, they went in there
and did the whole shot. Whatever had to be
done. Some things could be build up and, you
know, if it got like a pump you say, but they
always had back ups. They didn't have to be
changed right now, but they would put it on.
And then when they shut down (inaudible)
processing the liquor or putting the two Kellys
up there, then they would do it, organize it so
it would be convenient.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER; When you
changed the pump, how many people were there,
one? :

Each had two to a pump.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Was there
“anybody else from maintenance there at that

time?

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Page 9]

tonight is just mainly for us to listen and
hear from the 10 workers who are here. Okay.

So certainly there are many children here, and

spouses here of workers who have passed on, and |

you have active claims. I think we will listen
to them. If you feel there's something you
have heard from your parent when they worked
there or your spouse that you think may be
useful, please, you know, jot it down, keep it
in mind, but let's wait until all the workers
are done speaking first before we let any of
the non-workers talk, okay? Just by way of a
ground rule.

The other thing is that, guys,
if we have questions -- I know I got a lot of
calls on the way up here. People who just have
questions in general about their claim, the
status of their claim, different questions.

Tonight is not really for that.

But is there something, maybe
afterwards, where folks can come up and address
those with you?

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Let me

introduce my colleagues from NIOSH. Laurie

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Page 115 |

Weldon Springs, for example, in the building
where a lot of the "Yellow Cake" was used, was
produced, they had a brick floor. And there
was a practice everyday to wash that floor
down. And so the workers there tell about
layers of yellow uranium oxide in and under the
floor, and around the bricks and so forth. So
that's what we are asking.

We understand that your clothes
were yellow. Most of the plants where there
was any exhaust stack, the material that came
out of the stack was yellow. We know that.

But we are also asking when you walked around
inside Building 55, did you see yellow oxide on
the floors, on the walls, on the benches, in
the rafters, or did the place look clean and
dust free? In other words we are trying to get
some idea of what was the ambience like in this
building. In this building the air is clear?

I know when work got
through after a day there, we had to clean that
building. How much dust we recovered in my
mind -- We had to sweep that building everyday

and wash it down everyday. If those dust

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Page 85 :

Where is Splicer's
quarry?

It's at the end of the
road. It's at the end of Splicer ROAD.

At the end of Splicer
Road?

Yeah.

And that's where the gyp
pile sits?

Yeah.

Does the gyp pile sit on
top of Splicers quarry?

No.

No, it does not?

No.

They kept building the
bank up around there making their own pond.
And they just kept pumping it, pumping it out.
That gypson, if it could be recovered, they'd
use it for wall board.

MR. STEPHAN: Sir, so when you would
be in Building 55 to do work, how many other
maintenance people were with you at times?

It depends. If they

aaa SR

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Page 111}

I don't know anything
about that. When you hear me talk, I am
telling you about what happened during the time
when the restriction was on, when security was
on, when you couldn't get out of the building.
These other things what I hear, it happened
after I left. And I left during the time when
the restriction was on. But I told you we pull
out the buggy, and we put in a tray and we dump
it by hand. And we had a scale on it and we
weighed the drum.

MR. STEPHAN: So we have at least by

hand and and we also have by shovel.
I don't know.
MR. STEPHAN: At least one by shovel?
Yeah.
MR. STEPHAN: Sir, go ahead.
Can I interrupt you?
You got a picture up there. All of you got one
up there of the process. If you will just look
at it, it will show you how it's done. That's

why we gave it to you.
I think y'all need to

understand something. A picture tells one

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Page 96 |
Purity 2 and Purity 1-A. It was a (inaudible)
operation where they would sell P205 to
farmers, P205 is phosphate (inaudible) and sold
to farmers twice a year. That operation to the
best of my knowledge is still in effect at the
facility there. It's manned by someone other
than Olin. It may be manned by electricians or
something like that.

One of their total retention
ponds, I have documentation not with me
tonight, but when Olin was in operation they
were applying that to a test field in
New Lenox, Illinois. It was a testing outfit
out of New Lenox that did testing on this

filter.
They gave , who was the

head of Environmental at Olin Chemicals at the
time, a heads up that it was a radiological
concern coming up with that test field in
New Lenox, Illinois and it wasn't at action
level yet, but nonetheless they gave her a
heads up on it.

So there was affluence that

didn't go to the gyp pile that went to these

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Page 64

That's the one in '46. Okay. So what happened
is all these guys that were on that picket line
in June in that particular time of '47 were
offered their jobs back. ‘They could come back
to the thing because the International Union
said that was a Wildcat Strike.

So what happened is.X number of
people came back. And then Blockson hired
everybody from the outside. And I happened to
be one of them. And I went into maintenance,
and that's when I hired in, in of '47.

MR. HINNEFELD: Was there a union
after that?

Oh, yeah. It continued
on with that same identical union. The
chemical union, International Chemical Workers.
They were out of Cincinnati, Ohio.

It wasn't the best in
the world.

No, it wasn't the best
in the world. They were crooked.

MR. LEWIS: Were they there the whole
time?

Yeah. They were there

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MR. STEPHAN: What years did you work
there?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: 1950 to ~~” ?

MR. STEPHAN: And how often did you
do the urine test?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Every month.
We were not supposed to have over 50 parts per
million. And I found out when the nurse
retired -- The tests would have made no good,
because if we were to get over 50 parts per
million, we would be notified and not do any
lead burning through -- I don't know the
period. We were never notified of anything.

At the end of the nurse's work
there, she called me in the office and told me
that myself I had 430 parts per million in my
blood in one of the tests. JI don't know if it
was the last one. My buddy, who's passed away,
he had like 390. And the third man, who was

training with us at the time, had like 70 or

something, but he didn't do a whole lot of lead :

burning.

We were never notified. And

probably some previous times to that we were

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Page 22

the central topics that we need more
information about. And with that I will let
Mark take it from there.

MR. STEPHAN: As
mentioned, if there are workers who are not
here, hopefully you can contact them and
encourage them to come tomorrow, but we also
have made arrangements that they can speak to
Mark and NIOSH staff. We will schedule a time
where they can speak to them by phone.

So please, if there's somebody
you know who can participate who is not here
today, please make sure you get with Mr. Lewis
and get his card afterwards so that we can
arrange for them to speak to him. So with few
living workers, we need all of them that we can
to give input. Okay.

MR. LEWIS: Thanks, Robert. I have
been getting a few calls this week, too, from
people who said they couldn't be here all the
way from Mississippi, lot of people in
Missouri. But we will start.

Do you want to stay anything?

MR. TOMES: No, I am fine.

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Page 51 |)

anything about the extracted material outside
of Building 55?

No, I don't. I couldn't
answer.

I want to comment
that's one of the things we want to really find
out about. In other words, the uranium came
out in the original acid extract. So we are
interested in anybody here he would know about

those other operations.
I don't know.
That's fine.

I may be wrong, but I
am pretty sure that the acid was pumped in from
Building 40 into 55. And then from there they
took care of that.

And it went in two

storage tanks.

I never went in

Building 55, and I am glad I didn't, but anyway |

I am pretty sure that that's how it happened.
It had to be pumped from some place, and the
only place that they made acid from the

phosphate, and it was carried up from the dock,

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building. And they ran it through nine filters
for one part of the filtration process,

expelling the mud (inaudible) and to a gyp

pile. :

After that it went into
Building 55 and went through a series of
approximately four filters, not necessarily q
because (inaudible) needed to be produced based 4
on the (inaudible) of the entire site. After
the monosodium liquor that was brought back
into tripoly mix job.where they made sodium
tripolyphosphate liquor off of that, out of the
sodium tripolyphosphate liquor, which everyone
used for detergent at the time, they made
trisodium phosphate and other products off of

that. That's the whole stream.
Can I ask you about the

stream? Can you put a number of workers that
might be involved with those particular phases
like in Building 40? How many people were in

Department 40?
What are you looking to

be the end point?
How many people were

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: No. It's pumped out.

It went into a pit, more
water was mixed into it, that was pumped to
some rubber line pumps that were outside of
Building 40. And there were six of them -- no,
four of them in a line. Three of them ran
always at one time. It went then to a pipeline
that was up in the air, and the pipeline -- the
pipe was all rubber lined. And it went all the
way out to the quarry where the gypson was
disposed of, okay, out of the pipe.

As the gypson level came up
higher, they had pipes that were four feet in
diameter where the liquid would flow off into
it. But as the gypson raised, so did -- they
would put spool pieces in there to raise up the
level of the gypson. So they just kept adding,

and adding, and adding on.
Years before they had a

pile out there, all that went down a river.
Half of that -- Well, not half of it. Most of
it ended up in Peoria. Yeah. They were liable
a couple of times. They had to do some

drudging.

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Page 146

MR. BREYER: Right. But even if it's
a secondary cancer, it should be reported to
the Department of Labor.

2 They will get it if it's
secondary, right? If it's primary you ain't.

MS. BREYER: I am not sure of that
question. I think the Department of Labor will
look at the medical records and determine if
it's primary or secondary. -

That's what I was told.

MR. BREYER: I don't have an answer to
that. But I know any cancer should be reported
to the Department of Labor. They will make
that decision. If you had a skin cancer 10
years ago and had it removed, that should be
reported to the Department of Labor.

I just had it October
31st. I had four of them already. I just put
it in. And she told me that if it's a primary,
they don't care about the primary. It's got to

be a secondary.
MS. BREYER: No, that doesn't sound
correct. I would follow-up with more questions

about that. If you had skin cancers and that

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been sarcastic. It won't be that long.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My dad has
been dead for 10 years and it's been going on
that long, so I am not being sarcastic. I am
just being realistic. I will like to know.

MR. HINNEFELD: It won't be done
probably -- We talked earlier about the
petition being presented at the May meeting. I
don't think every case will be re-evaluated by
the May meeting. I think probably every case
will be re-evaluated this calendar year. I
would think it would be during this calendar
year.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That's a fair
answer. Thank you.

MR. HINNEFELD: Honestly I can't
promise that. JI think it would occur this
calendar year.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: When should we
hear back? My claim was denied right away.

And I have no way of knowing when it's going to
be re-evaluated.

MR. HINNEFELD: I really can't offer

anything better than during this calendar year.

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know, call upon survivors after all the workers
have finished giving their input.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I have a
‘question. Even though you were denied, why
would you save the application? Even, you
know -- If the claim was denied, we don't have’
to refile anything; but if it was denied, why
would you keep the application?

MR. STEPHAN: Stu, you want to speak
to that?

MR. HINNEFELD: You mean why do we
keep it?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. If you
denied it, why would you hold on to the
application so I don't have to refile?

MR. HINNEFELD: We retain all the
information on all the claims just as a matter
of course. All cases that are complete,
whether they are judged to be compensable or
non-compensable, we keep all the information
that we have generated on every claim in our
file, and we retain that. So we would just
pull that information back out from the

completed part, and we would go from what we

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specifically. I can speculate that they
provided it to the Atomic Energy Commission for
them to decide if it was good stuff, what they
wanted to get. I don't know that they did that
though. It would be pure speculation.

They probably just sent
them a sample. They didn't send them a whole
batch. I don't think.

MR. HINNEFELD: They were making it
for the Atomic Energy Commission.

MR. KEZELE: The point I am trying to
get at is they got a. sneaky dump out there
where they dumped a lot of stuff.

MR. HINNEFELD: It absolutely could
have. Absolutely could have dumped it.

Another thing. What
happened to all the equipment that was up there
when they were doing it? You were talking
about --

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, you were the

one who described the equipment that came out

- of 55 or somebody described it, (inaudible), or

sold to scrap. I guess they would do the same

thing there. They would probably reuse it. I

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Page 59 |

Yes. The unloading of
phosphate rock was eight people. There were
two shifts of four. The crane operator, a
greaser and two pushing the stuff over. And we
had to sweep those barges because it was very
extrinsic stuff. We had no muzzles, no .
nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: ‘They came in
barges and they were unloaded with little
bucket trucks into a hopper. And then the
hopper was taken up this giant belt up to the
top. But there was a lot of dust around that,
getting that rock unloaded and everything. And
these guys down in the barges, I don't know if
that stuff would affect them or not, but there
was plenty of that being inhaled. And then it
went into the process he's talking about, to

the calcite and into 40.
I just want to tell --

". mentioned something about tests. Me and
my best friends were lead burners there for
awhile, 15 or 20 years, I don't know how many
years, but we took a test every month for lead

poisoning and the urine test.

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Page 6 |

weapons program.

And the Energy Employee
Occupational Illness Compensation Program
provides a means of providing essentially
workers compensation judgments on certain types
of diseases for atomic weapons employers. only
Part B of the law applies. And the diseases
covered there are cancer, silicosis and
(inaudible). So our part at NIOSH, our only
involvement is with Part B of the law, only
with radiation-caused cancers. And so that's
the extent of what we can do anything about and
work on.

We are trying to gather
information about the work at Blockson and how
the work occurred as the uranium was recovered
during this 11 year period, in the early '50s
to the early '60s, to try to inform us and
allow us to do the best job possible in
reconstructing the radiation doses.

And then once we have determined
how high this radiation dose has been, then
there are risk models that relate how risky it

was for pretty much any kind of cancer, what

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Page 76 i
when I was sitting down. My name is
middle initial
. I want to make a political
comment for the people from the Senator's
office. This has been going on for three years
now. I am sure the Government has spent
millions of dollars in trying to reconstruct
all the information they need, trying to.
adjudicate what the problem is. And I
understand they have only paid eight claims.
There was probably a couple of
100 people involved in this thing over the
years. I don't expect to see anything. I
don't want anything because at 77 I am still in
good health. The Government would have been a
lot smarter just to go ahead if they could
verify the dates that they were there and the
fact that they worked around those conditions,
give them $150,000 apiece, they would be
millions of dollars ahead.
And this is going to drag on for
years. I will probably die.
(A round of applause.)
I don't want anything

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Page 31 |

special equipment, that hood, or anything else?
No.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: ?
Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Where was that

dust ejected to?
It went right into that

dust collector.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: What happened

to it? Was there any stockings outside of the

dust collector?
No. The dust collector

would collect it in a big -- they had stockings
on the inside. And then that dust collector
then would be shaken by chains on a daily
basis. The dust would come down into a hopper
in the bottom, and eventually a gate would be
opened up and the stuff would go into a barrel.
When it came time that that
stocking inside was coated far enough to where
it wouldn't be working anymore, then somebody
had to go and change that stocking. There was
some doors; one door up on top, one door on the

bottom that was about 2 foot by 1 foot. You

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Page 74

MR. STEPHAN: Like you would use at
home?

You take it home.
Throw it away.

MR. STEPHAN: How often did you go in
and out of Building 55?

It depends. If we
were with the labor gang, we might have been
there all day off and on. And I will tell you
one thing, too, we didn't have a lunchroom
there until much, much later. If you wanted to
eat your lunch and if you were in that
building, you ate it there. And that's what
the operators did. They didn't have no
lunchroom. Everything was in the open.
(Inaudible). It pays your rent.

MR. STEPHAN: It's 8:30. We need

The only thing I have
to say is there was never, never no safety.
There was. never -- Nobody ever told us, you
know, this place is bad, the whole thing.

Never.
MR. STEPHAN: Folks, I think we have

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Page 150 |:

Chemical?

MR. LEWIS: I could answer that. The
information you all supplied us tonight,
hopefully together with that it will help this
(inaudible) profile and the SEC petition. You
have done some good work for yourselves and
your coworkers. And I appreciate it.

Let's hope they change
the dosage.

MR. LEWIS: That's what it's all
about. If can you get some coworkers to show
up tomorrow night, some people that weren't
here tonight, I would appreciate them coming
in.

I really would encourage you to
call the Paducah office with any kind of claim

questions.
Do you have the number?

MR. LEWIS: I can get back with you.
I don't have the number with me. It's a
toll-free number. You know, I don't have it
with me. It's the Department of Labor.
I really appreciate you guys

showing up. You deserve a big hand yourself

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Page 67 |

there on the bench.

We had to call OSHA. Once we
called OSHA, within two days they were down
there putting a vacuum system in. The plant
didn't think about, you know, us as human
beings. We were just money makers.

MR. STEPHAN: Do you recall when in
your time that you worked there that you asked
for that to be done?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: When?

MR. STEPHAN: Yes. When you asked
OSHA to come, in what year did that happen, do
you recall?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I would just
have to take a guess. It would be '80 or
something like that. But they did it
immediately. It was within days that we had
the vacuum there.

That's all I got.

There's one thing I
want to let you people know about Blockson and
Olin Chemical. You'd think they were giving
away billions of money because they will not

let you know a dam thing that's going on out

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questions that are listed here, but these are
some of the questions.

So now we are going to the part
that says Radiation Protection. Radiological
controls. Were radiological controls in place?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No

MR. LEWIS: The answer is no.

There was none. None
whatsoever.

MR. LEWIS: Does anybody got any
other answer besides no? Radiologic controls
in place we have a no consensus.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: He's right.

Mark, can I make a
suggestion?

MR. LEWIS: Sure.

My suggestion is since
these remarks are going on the record, I think
it would be useful to also read into the record
the specific questions, you know, not just
radiological controls. Make sure that
everybody understands that we want to know
whether there were any training courses, etc.

MR. LEWIS: I have not got that far

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Page 41}

was a day man on there.

Now, the job that the day man
did was he did the filtering of the finished
product. When I say filtering of the finished
product, he would go through some cloths. And
I would help him open the cloths up and we
would scrape the "Yellow Cake" into a deep pan
about the size of like so. ,

After it gets into a deep pan,
we take it and we put it into an oven, and we
let it.cook overnight. After it cooked
overnight, then we took it out and we dumped it
into barrels. And the way we dumped them into
barrels is we had something shaped like a cone,
and we would dump it over in there. And there
was also a dust collector there, which had
said.

Now, I was the
operator. And the number one operator, he's
the one that took care of all the filtering and
all the liquor that came into the building. He
operated his job whereas when the Kelly -- it
was a Kelly press he operated. When the leads

in the Kelly got high pressure, it meant that

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Page 61
never notified if we had overdoses of it. Sol
just want to let . know that it wouldn't
have made any difference if they had tests or
not because we weren't informed of them.

MR. STEPHAN: has a
question for you.

My question was that
NIOSH has some urine samples in which uranium
was measured. And we were interested in
particular -- So you had urine samples taken
from lead. We understand that.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I just want to
say the tests -- They didn't tell us about the
tests. That's my point.

Did anybody tell you
that ~- Did you know they were testing for
lead? I mean, you were aware that's why you
were given a urine sample?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. To

protect us.
I understand that. Did

anybody say anything about using your urine

sample to test for uranium?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER. No. No.

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Page 27 !

over all the chemical plants and the Olin
Chemical Company, and Blockson happened to be
one of them. I never knew about Building 55
until I was given that job to collect that
information over the next six years, and that
was it.

I chose not to transfer to
‘New York. I quit and went into my own business
from that point out. I have no ill effects at
all. Because after I got out of the Army in
‘S55, I had to serve seven years in the Reserve.
So I had to go for an annual exam at the
arsenal because it was still an active Army
reservation and they had to document it, so it
was required that I have an annual exam.

The last few years I got
concerned after all this stuff surfaced. At my
own expense I got examined, and I have no
residual radiation. But again, I don't know
whether my family suffered or not because I got
married in I used to go home every day.
My wife became a cancer patient in my

daughter is mentally challenged out of
kids. I don't know if it has any affect

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—

Page 148 |

she's an Office Manager. But any questions you
guys have pertaining to claims, and multiple
cancers, things like that, that's who you
really need to talk to, the Department of
Labor. They are the ones (inaudible) in

Paducah, Kentucky.

My claim will be in

Cleveland.

MR. LEWIS: Through Paducah. I live
in Portage, Ohio. We have a claims office in
Portage, but all the claims go to Cleveland
from there, as well this one would, too?

Paducah don't look at
them at all.

MR LEWIS: They are the ones who --

Make a decision on it?

MR. LEWIS: No. They are the ones
who do the paperwork, help you with
verification of employment, and different
things like that, assign you a case worker and
then it goes to Cleveland. Same as my side. I
work at Gaseous Diffusion Plant there.

That Resource Center is there to

help former workers and claimants. So that's

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Page 94
construction or something like that, or a dump,
or was there some other waste generated
besides the gypson of any particular magnitude?
And if so what was its destination? And if
there were liquid wastes, liquids that were
attached to the filtration where in this step
the filtration -- it was good stuff, you were
going to have a liquid waste, did anything
happen with that besides just going off to the
sewer?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Liquid wastes?

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There were
four ponds on the property. And all of a
sudden they are all like filled in. They have
radioactive signs all over. Because our
father, he worked in Building 55. And then for
overtime he would sit by this water to protect
the wildlife. He sat there with a shotgun.

MR. HINNEFELD: Does anyone know if
there was a liquid waste discharge pond of the
liquids that they didn't want to send --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Why were these
things just filled in all of sudden? Just all

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come and worked there. And I don't think that
was fair.

That's true.

MR. LEWIS: , you have a
question?

Yeah, I do. How did you
find out that you were working with uranium?

When did I find out?

How did you find out
that you were working with uranium?

Someone told me.

Who, fellow workers?

Fellow workers, yeah.

One of the things we are
interested in and have not really talked about,
so there were absolutely no markings at all in

‘Building 55 that this was a radiation process?

No. JI do not remember.
I never seen it.

And was there a general
idea there among you or people that worked in
Building 55 that there were other operations in
the rest of the plant that involved uranium?

The only thing that I

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Page 89 |

is trying to get at, and NIOSH, and

our office is how many people were in the

building at different points in time. How many 4

people throughout the whole plant went in and
out of the building? Those are the kinds of
things that we are trying to determine.

You're trying to say the
people that were exposed by being in that.
building?

MR. STEPHAN: Right.

I just said before about
them (inaudible) throwing them it out on the
road and down the river. That could be
everybody.

MR. STEPHAN: Sure.
: SO you can't just say
four or five people.
MR. STEPHAN: You're right.

Let me pose the issue to
you a slightly different way. And I am not
sure my facts are perfect, but the number that
I have heard banded about is approximately 25
people were working in Building 55. But there

is other information that some people say

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Building 55? q
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: - Pardon me?

MR. STEPHAN: You did that in

Building 55?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. I was
blown out of a tank in Building 55, a lead tank
on the floor. Maybe a thousand gallon tank.

It held sulfuric acid. And I cut into a bubble
in it and it had hydrogen. It blew me out. I
got scared to death. My watch stopped.

Anyway, we worked there for a

long, long time, and there was never a clean up
that I know of in one (inaudible).

MR. STEPHAN: The pipe that you
worked on in Building 55, where did that pipe
go?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (inaudible)
Sometimes we fabricated them and did what we
could there before we took it on the catwalk.
And we did -- That's another little thing.
Then we went to the main shop. We went ona
bench. We did a lot of fabricating of lead to
be installed in the plant, and we asked for

suctions to take away the fumes while we worked

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considerably more people than that, if you took
all people that worked at Blockson/Olin worked
in Building 55, you know, some people say there
were many more people. And what I have heard
tonight just from being here is that most
people said that most workers who were at the
plant came in and out of Building 55 at one
time or another. So I would like to
substantiate --

, Are you just talking
about when they processed uranium for 10 years
or all the time? Now there's another --

The 10 years that went
on that's a particular interest.

That's by itself.

I think what we heard is
there were certainly people who processed
outside of Building 55 in the initial steps
where the uranium was extracted.

Right.

And then you have also
said that between 5 and 12 people may have been
in Building 55 at any one time. But if you

asked the question of all the people who were

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The strike in the '50s.
And he was there 14 hours a day. And I have
proof that I sent in, but of course that
doesn't mean anything.
My name is
My father also worked out there,
I remember when I was a kid, they used to have
family weekends out there or something. You
bring your family or kids out there, walk them
through the plant. Does anybody else remember
that?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.
You'd see these guys as
a little kid. They. would have their goggles
on, all covered with this powder. You walk
‘around the plant, the catwalks and everything
and see these guys, how hard they are working
and all that.
They go get your father, you

know. He would come up and see you. You would :

see all these men working. He would come home,
like most other people have said, with this
stuff all over him. What it was, nobody knew.

As a kid you just think you're dad was working

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Page 128 f
There were three people who called me talking
about fires and explosions. And two of them
were maintenance workers, and they would have
to go deal with the fire. Can any of the
workers who are still here speak about any
fire, or explosion of some sort, or the nature
of it, or even if it did happen?

They did have a fire
crew out there on certain shifts that if there
was any fire or something, they would respond
to it. There were fires there in the sulfur
mix, in the acid area. It didn't take much
spark to start that sulfur on fire.

A few times in the

silos (phonetic) where there was unloading
sulfur from the dock, a couple of them went off
into the tanks. You get a piece of iron going
through, it would set off a spark and it would
blow. They had them all sealed where they
wouldn't contaminate the whole building.
That's part of that.

MR. STEPHAN: Were there fires that
you recall that were in Building 40 or more

importantly in Building 55 that you can recall?

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Page 35 :

sewer. Now, what extra precautions were taken?
‘None. I don't think there was a thing.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Where did that
sewer go?
Where did it what?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Did all that
water go into the river?
Sure it did.
It went through a
purifier first.
It went through a
purifier first, ?
Yep.
Now, I worked for
Blockson from '47 to ' , so I was there and
a half years. In 1957 Blockson went on strike,
October of '57.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: November.
October. October ist.
Anyway, about October I got a job at
Argonne National Lab as a .
because of the clearances I had. I worked for
Argonne National Lab for — months

asa They had special

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Page 11

plant.
MR. STEPHAN: Perfect. A couple of

items. We have been through a few of these
meetings and they usually go very well. They
are always useful, but sometimes workers are a
little leery of saying things in public. And I
think we do have a couple of reporters here.
And I just would ask the reporters to in your
articles only refer to the workers in some
generic fashion as a worker, not by their name,
or just approach them afterwards and ask them
if it's okay to use their name, but I know some
workers would rather their name not be used.
Just so we establish that ground
rule. And I think we talked about that and
everybody is okay with that. Just to reassure
the workers nothing here is going to be used
against you. This is not a legal proceeding.

This is designed to help you.

And then last, I want to make
sure that all of you understand where we are in
the process, which is that in Naperville -- at
the Board meeting in Naperville, Blockson had a

group petition before the Board, and it's

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Page 143 |

times even the energy employees are dead and I
am speaking to the survivor. And I am looking
at their claim and they only have one cancer on
there. And as I am speaking to them, they will
say, oh, he had multiple skin cancers removed
over the last 10 years as well. Well, those
count as cancers. It doesn't have to be one.
It doesn't have to be something that you see as
being a minor cancer versus a major cancer.

, But you need to make sure that
the record is clear of all the cancers that
your father, or mother, or spouse, or you have
had at the time that you worked or even after.
And even if your claim has been denied, if your
claim has been approved, whatever has happened
with your claim, if another cancer develops, or
it's discovered that there is another cancer or
was another cancer, even if the energy employee
is dead, you can go back and add it to the

records.
A lot of the comments I heard

today there seems to be some confusion about
that. If you have any questions, you can speak

to me afterwards as well.

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for taking time out and coming here. I
appréciate it.

Thank you very much i

for coming out. :

(End of meeting)

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extract, right?

What was it in?

it was coming from.

tank?

it.

Page 50 |}

Just milky.
So this was the acid

Uh-huh. Yeah.

How did it come in?

They piped it over where

Piped it into what?
A tank.
An open tank, closed

It was a closed tank.

It had a wooden top on

So the first chance that

you all got to come into actual contact with

the liquid itself was in the presses that you

were talking about?

right, right.

Right.
Changing the cloths?
Right, right, right,

But you don't know

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Page 10}

Breyer in the back of the room is one of my
colleagues. She is a Communication Specialist
in our office. Tom Tomes at the end of the
table is a colleague. He, like myself, is a
health physicists, which mean we are radiation
protection people, radiation measurement type
of people. That's our occupation.

At the conclusion of gathering
information in general, the general information
about the site, we will stay and answer
whatever questions we can. We don't have
access to claim files here, so we can't tell
you exactly what's going on on your claim, but
we will try and answer any questions we can.

If you have questions about the
process, questions about some sort of
correspondence you have received, anything like
that, we will try to answer whatever questions
we can or at least get back to you with answers
after the meeting if we can't answer them
tonight. We will continue on with that.

I would prefer to have those
discussions after we have the more general

discussion about how things worked at the

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Page 44 |

putting a material they called Salt A
(phonetic.) And there were so many grams of
Salt A that had to be added to this tank every
hour. That was my job. And my other job was
to use hydro in another tank. Now what the
hydro did, I can't answer that.

But during that time, the
changing of the cloths and putting new cloths
on, there was material that would drop off and
fall down on the floor. And we would have to
go down and clean the floor up by washing it
down and using a squeegee. When we used a
squeegee, the material was real slick. And
that's about all that we did.

Now, I had made a list of what I
was going to say, and came up here and he
took about half of it off. There was no dose
reconstruction, we did not go to a doctor and
there was no protection as far as the clothing
protection was concerned. Some of the guys
would shower and some wouldn't shower. I would
shower everyday, but at the end of the shift
that I was working, I would take my dirty

clothes home, and that's when my family comes

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Page 124 y

day. I know that because my husband was one of
them. So there were people from the lab in
there.

And when they went -- These
people in the lab had to go to 55 to get
samples when they weren't working there. He
had just started working there, so he was a
sample carrier. This is tracked back from
there back over. That's why I brought that up
because there were many more people in and out.
There were no restrictions. They slept out
there during the strike. If you weren't union,
you stayed there. You maybe got home for a
couple of hours a week. He worked there and

that I know.
I feel like up until now they've

waited for everybody to die, and they won't
have to give anyone anything. It's easy to
deny when you don't know people. And I am so
glad you had this meeting.

MR. STEPHAN: Ma'am, we are talking
about the strike that lasted four months,
right? There's two strikes. This is the

strike that lasted four months.

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Page 23}

MR. LEWIS: My name is Mark Lewis.
And of course the purpose of the meeting you
see on the handout there with the topics on it.
The purpose of this meeting is to collect
information from former workers to help NIOSH
better understand the working conditions of the
plant during the time it did work involving
uranium recovery for the Atomic Energy ,
Commission between 1951 and '62.

This handout I gave you, don't
feel limited by this thing. This handout is
just intended to help raise issues for
discussion. We initially were going to have a
Power Point put up here behind us with the
topics, but we had some technical difficulties
with the Power Point. But we do have a
handout. Thank God we did bring the handouts.

So does everyone have a handout
while I'm up?

(No response. )

MR. LEWIS: Well enough. Don't feel
limited to this. Your information you feel is
helpful is welcome like Robert mentioned and

mentioned. Don't feel limited to the

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Page 18
have. So there's no need to reapply. It will
be -- You won't have to do anything. We will :
initiate that ourselves. We've retained
everything we've ever had on the file.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: On microfilm?

MR. HINNEFELD: It's actually
electronic. It's actually a series of computer
files. The paper copies are all stashed away.

We could get them back out. They are all, you

know, images, computer files.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Even though I
was denied, I kept all of my papers.

MR. HINNEFELD: And we kept all of
them that we have generated for your claim.

MR. LEWIS: There's one more
gentleman I would like to introduce,

was real instrumental in

(inaudible) and Dow Chemical a few months ago.

I am very happy to see
such a big turn out. What I am going to try to
do tonight -- I ama retired physician. I was
on the faculty of Medical School for

years as a pathologist, but I have been working

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Page 7 g

was the risk of that cancer resulting from that
amount of radiation exposure. If that risk is
high enough, then the claim becomes
compensable.

So that's our role in this. And
that's what we are trying to do, find out what
we can about how the work proceeded there to
help us in our role of doing radiation
reconstruction. Sorry, I wasn't supposed to
tell you anything before Mark, but I thought it
would be helpful if you understand what our
agency's role is and what we can do something
about. What we are here to try to do is the
best job we can. I also grew up close to
Kentucky, so that explains my accent as well.

Now Mark, who else? Are you
going to introduce

MR. HINNEFELD: Robert Stephan is a
staffer with Senator Obama's office, and he's
shown quite a lot of interest in our program.

MR. STEPHAN: Thank you, Stu. Good
evening. Just very quickly a couple of things.
First I want to make sure that I introduce John

and Debbie, and they are with Congressman

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Page 136

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can I ask one
question? (Inaudible). My father was too sick
to do anything. He wasn't able to cooperate
with them. But we understood that we would be
able to file the claim (inaudible) for the
office calling my mom saying they needed
information, but we were told that since my dad
worked there from '50 to '69 and he was part
of -- in that building doing what they were
doing there, I understood that you had to have
lung cancer to file a claim. And that's what
my father was diagnosed with, lung cancer. And
he died and, of course my mom is the claimant.

Am I wrong in thinking you had
to have lung cancer to file a claim only?
That's what we were told. And we were denied
because my dad's position was termed
maintenance supervisor. They told us over the
phone that because he was a maintenance
supervisor that the only way they could
reconstruct his dosage at 24 percent instead of
the 50 percent was because he was a maintenance
supervisor and he probably wasn't that involved

in there. (Inaudible). He died from lung

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Page 114 }

But I understand there are still people that
are putting claims in who have gotten claims.
The people are still alive. But I guess I am
confused because my father's dose
reconstruction was 27 percent and he lived
there. He got pulled away from vacations.

My dad, even though he was the
maintenance supervisor, he did it all. He was
in there changing the things. My mom told me
how much he was doing. But, yes, my dad's dose
reconstruction was 27 percent. I think you had
to get 50 percent to get the claim. My mother
is trying to pay some of her bills. I don't
understand how -- Well, I want to know why
eight have already been settled, and my father
died from the lung cancer and he was denied? I
am confused, but I guess that's something I
have to have answered individually.

MR. STEPHAN: Can we get through
the -- It's a very valid question. Can we just
get through these last questions with the
workers?
a: I want to set the dust

problem in a different context for you. At

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Page 73 :

filled bags, we swept the floor. What I am
trying to tell you, sir, is there was nothing
ever said to any of us like you have got to
wear this, you have got to wear that. We just

assumed it was like any other building.

The yellow material on
the floor, the "Yellow Cake", that was uranium
oxide. Nobody ever mentioned that to you?

Never. Never in all
my 36 years until I hear it now. And I know
some doctors in Joliet. And you know it too.
The incidents of death from Joliet and Blockson
Chemical. You pick the names of all the
fellows that passed away at Blockson Chemical.
I am sure. I don't have the information, but I
bet you.

MR. STEPHAN: You said that if they
offered you a mask, you can wear it or not?

Yeah. In any of the
buildings.

MR. STEPHAN: What type of mask was
it?

It wasn't no mask.

It was just a (inaudible), just a cloth.

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Page 28

at all. I can't really say that it does.

I think you're entitled to know
the entire story from everybody here of how it
affected them.

MR. LEWIS: We are going to give them
an opportunity to say that.

How about the workers who worked
there during that time, like you suggested,
just come on up and do that then.

Just state their name as they
come up or what?

MR. STEPHAN: It would be good for
the reporter if you're willing to state your
name.

My name is .
And I was in that building right after the
construction. I was the Blockson millwrite
with the ironworkers. Blockson did not hire
outside millwrites. I helped install all of
that equipment in that building. The tanks
were put in by laskers (phonetic). And the
ironworkers were putting in all the mixing
equipment, the Kellys, you name it, all the

equipment necessary for the operation.

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Page 147 E

was related as an independent, separate cancer
and it wasn't secondary to anything, that
should be included on your records.

That's a doctor's
report. That's up to them now what they are
going to do.

MS. BREYER: Right. That will be up
to the Department of Labor.

That's who I talked to,
the Department of Labor.

MR. LEWIS: You filed your claim in
Paducah, Kentucky? The Resource Center in
Paducah, Kentucky, is that where you filed your

claim through?
No, in Ohio. Cleveland.

MR. LEWIS: There's a Resource Center
in Paducah that's better there to help workers,
help you guys file that claim instead of -- You
know there's a Resource Center, the Department
of Labor Resource Center in Paducah, Kentucky.
They report to the District office. The
Regional office is in Cleveland.

But Paducah, Kentucky is where

the lady there is . I think

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Page 14 i

etc? Can you speak to that?

MR. HINNEFELD: Any case that has
been decided so far will be re-evaluated
because of additional research. What has
happened is essentially a policy decision that
was arrived at after the original SEC petition
was written up that requires us to address
additional radiation exposure beyond what we
thought had to be addressed when we did the
original petition for it. So that prompts the
rewrite of the SEC petition evaluation.

; It also means that those
reconstructions that have been done up to this
time have to also be re-evaluated in the light
of this additional radiation exposure that has
to be considered. So any completed dose
reconstruction up to now will have to be
reconsidered and re-evaluated once we have
completed the additional research.

Now, that doesn't mean
necessarily that the compensation decision will
change in every case. There's a chance that
certain of them will. They will all be

reconsidered after the completion of the

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Page 145 |:

possible?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It doesn't
have to be drums. Dust.

: UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: If they
cleaned that dust collector, where did that
residue go? How long did that drum sit there
and age and grow, and grow, and grow before
someone decided to do something with it? Was
it rolled off in the corner for six months?
(inaudible) Did it go in the magic hole in the
ground? If you fly over it, that will show
what's out there now.

If we still live in our
homes when our dads or husbands worked out
there, we probably still got a hot spot right
in the basement where we did the laundry.

You're talking about
skin cancer, right?
MS. BREYER: I am talking about any
specific cancer.
s: Let's talk about skin
cancer. There's a way that you don't get it.
You either got to be a primary or a secondary,

right?

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the second door. Now, if you were bringing
over some supplies, or a pump, or something
like that, then they had opened a door that was
on a ramp for you to bring that stuff up the
ramp, and then they closed it.

Now, all the time they jotted
down when you came in and when you went out of
the place. The one fellow who -- "his
name was. was the first one that
would be dumping all this material. And

was the first one that came up -- that
had colon cancer, was operated on and he had
ended up with a bag on the outside. And
eventually he became a janitor. He got out of
there and went up on top.

I got colon cancer. I was
diagnosed in -- 15 years ago, and I was
operated on. They took a 12 inch hunk of me
out, and they piped me back together again. I
go every year for a colonoscopy.

Now, as far as that equipment in
there, let me put it this way, if a pump came
out of there and was taken over to the shop,

the only precautions taken was you washed it.

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Here's the question: --
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Manually.
Manually. By hand.
MR. LEWIS: Any ventilation there?
There was a dust
collector there, a small dust collector

overhead.
And when you took the

cake, the dried cake, how did you get it from
the pan through the cone into the drum? Did
you pick it up with your hands?

We picked it up, picked
the tray up and dumped it over.

All of it came off?

All of it came off and
went down the chute. The chute was formed like
this and goes right into the drum.

You got a pan. You
didn't have to scrape it with your hand?

No. No. The only
scraping that was done there was when the
"Yellow Cake" came out and when it was wet,
then we had hand scrapers, and we scraped it

off the cloth, then it went down in the pan.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: A lot of the
records are hard to get. The hospitals don't
even have them.

MS. BREYER: I didn't want take away
from the work that was being done. I kind of
got caught into a comment about the cancer. So
if you have any other follow-up questions, I
will be here after the meeting is over if you
want to speak to me about your individual
questions regarding your claims.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: With today's
technology, what was talking about, with
possible off-site material being dumped on
sites during that time and/or during the
remediation period, is it possible with today's
technology such as it was done in Ottowa at the
(inaudible) Company where there are still hot
spots in Ottawa, Illinois with radioactive
parts of property there that are fenced off to
date in the downtown area of Ottawa, Illinois,
isn't it feasible for the United States
Government to fly over this pile and fly over
this property and absolutely tell if there are

any buried drums of uranium there? Is it

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of a sudden they got filled in.

MR. HINNEFELD: I will talk to you
about that in a little bit. I got some
guesses, but I don't know.

Can y'all tell us the
time frame you're talking about? When were the

ponds there?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The ponds were
there -- My sister will be here tomorrow night.
And we have pictures of the ponds. They were

there two, three years ago. All of sudden they

are gone now.

What I really want to

find out is when did they first appear.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It had to be
in the '50s because my father was protecting
the wildlife with a shotgun.

So you think they were
there all along?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: Yeah.

The ponds he's referring
to are on Patterson Road. (Inaudible)
happening on the site anymore. They expanded
these ponds and they were called Purity 1,



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current research.
MR. STEPHAN: So if you have a claim

in, okay, you don't have to do anything. You
don't have to reapply, you don't have to send
anymore information. It just means that in a
sense even if you were denied, your claim has
lived to see another day even though it was
denied before. It does not mean that you will
be paid, but they are taking a look at some
more scientific information and they are trying
to take that into account. Okay.

I know people had several
questions about that from the article that was
in the newspaper. Thank you again.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you for
holding this forum.
My name is
“I worked in Olin Chemical from 1972 to
I have in my possession pictures of the
drumming operation with engineer
(inaudible). You've probably seen this picture
before. It also shows the (inaudible) which
proves there was a dusk collector on the

system. I would like to present the Board with

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at all-that are really important. One is the

question.about how the uranium oxide drums were

. filled.

MR. STEPHAN: Can any of the workers
speak to how the uranium oxide drums were
actually filled?

And the two competing
ideas are: Are they filled manually or either
with your hands, or with a shovel, or by a
machine? So we are interested in that. How
did the "Yellow Cake" get into the drums?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My husband

said both ways.
When the "Yellow Cake"

came out of the oven after it had cooked
overnight, it came out in trays. The trays
might have been about this size here. All
right. Then we had a small -- we hada
conveyer, a cone. And that cone was hooked up
to a small dust collector. Okay. And we took
and we dumped the cake into this drum -- into
this shoot that goes down into the drum. I
think the drum was setting on a scale I

think.

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lunchrooms until much, much later, a lunchroom.

Now, sir, Blockson Chemical
was -- the three Blockson brothers are the ones
that started that plant. To me now they are
looking at other things. It was very
primitive. It was a lot of stuff wasn't
improved. This other material that I speak of.
We also used to cook that, cook it in the
oven.

I say today that it should have
been a different way to have done that, but
that's the way it was done you know. So a lot
of, to me, primitive work that was there when
the Blockson brothers started that plant, and
they stayed for some reason or another. Thank
you.

Robert, the last
question is the last question that's on the
sheet, and that is: Everybody is aware I
presume that the Government entity was involved
with the Atomic Energy Commission who
commissioned the process to exact uranium,
which was responsible for Building 55. Are

there any of the other workers who were aware

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point I want to thank you for having this
meeting because this is the first time I felt
like he really had a chance to talk in a group
with some of his co-workers who could support
what he had to say.

When you talk to somebody on the
phone, they do a telephone interview, you don't
know who you're talking to, and that's
impersonal. And these are the people that's
going to make decisions about what happens to
him. And I just want to say I thank you for
this. I had to get that off my chest. And I
am done.

(A round of applause.)

I am the eldest daughter
of the family. I am' . I just want
to compliment the group here. I went with my
dad to his meeting in front of the person who
was supposed to decide what was going to
happen. And I will be honest with you, when I
opened up your pamphlet and saw the questions
you asked this time, those are the very
statements we were trying to get across to the

examiner. And he heard us, but he didn't hear

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Joliet that know all the involvements, but they
are not here to work with us because they
are (inaudible. )

Can I mention this? In
response to your question, the headquarters,
office for Olin Brass Company is right in East
Alton, Illinois right now. But I believe that
this is the first time actually in the last two
days that we have initiated talks with them.
And you're exactly right.

But you got to understand the
management of these companies is not
forthcoming, so that's why your information is
so valuable. But I want you to understand that
I agree with you, there needs to be a lot of
work at the other end because the company's got
a lot of this information that we need.

MR. STEPHAN: You worked there 36
years. Did you have a urinalysis test done?

: Never. Never. In
all our time that all of us that worked at

-Qlin, we never had any compulsory anything.
When we worked -- If my job was done and maybe

I was unfortunate enough to go to 55, then I

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heard from seven workers out of 10 who are
here, and I hope we did not lose one.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My husband
would have been here today, but he's in the
hospital. He just went in today. I came in.
He's talked to several people here.

MR. STEPHAN: Let's go ahead, take a
moment and change the tape. Let's hear from
these other few workers here and then we can -~
We do have to go through some of these
questions for pretty specific reasons, and then
if some of the survivors' wives and children
want to comment, then you can comment. We need
to hear from these other workers first though.

(A short break was taken.)

MR. STEPHAN: The court reporter is
ready. We are going to hear from the rest of
these workers and then -- Mark, maybe we
will take a break. It will be almost two
hours. And then we will get some of your
questions of the workers. And then if some of
the claimants have something to offer about

work, then we will hear from them.

I gave my comments

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knowledge of what went on at Blockson is
incomplete. We do not know all the processes,
we don't know how many people were involved in
the different processes. And really, you know,
the workers who were there are the only people
who really know that.

Now, obviously workers talk to
their spouses and so there may be other
knowledgeable people here, but what we need is
new knowledge that has not come forward and to
help elicit that in this handout called NIOSH
Outreach Meeting Topics. Mark, and several of
us; the people from NIOSH, myself, we raised a
number of issues, scientific issues primarily
that we need information about and that we want
to use as the focus for you alls remarks.

And I think Mark plans on going
through these very systematically. So these
are all things we need more information about.
And I would lake to encourage you all -- I
believe that between NIOSH and the Department
of Labor approximately 60 invitations to living
workers were sent out for this meeting, so

there are at least 50 other people who did not

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We put the pan in the rack and we put it in the
oven.

Then the other question
was: There is interest and concern with
another radioactive element which is generated
during the course of uranium extraction and
purification. And that's thorium. Is that a

word y'all ever heard?
I never heard of that.

Any of y'all?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Never.

It's generated during
the course of decay of uranium. That was
really the question. Was there any information
about that?

No.

MR. STEPHAN: We have a question
about the radium and when it was separated out.
Are we okay on that? Whether it was in the
phosphate acid stream or in the --

I think we ought -- We
know that radium-226 is one of the elements
involved. In respect to that also radon. So

can any of the workers here comment on either

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yet.
Okay. All right.

MR. LEWIS: As the doctor mentioned,
training courses, were there any training
courses?

(A chorus of no.)

MR. LEWIS: There's no need to worry
about who taught them if there were no training
courses, right?

Yes, sir. :

Wouldn't it be
easier, you only have 10 people here, to let
them come up and tell their story instead of
all this stuff? Everything is different. I
think if everybody tells their own story, where
they worked, how they worked, how they were
exposed to it, you would get a better cross
section of how we were involved.

MR. LEWIS: I was hoping as we go
through this, that it would all kind of fall
in.

: I went over it already
and there are not too many positive answers to

this thing. I will be very honest with you, as

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uranium was in the product when it arrived as
phosphate rock and (inaudible), which sat near
a storage. This calcite was completely dried
and it was produced into phosphoric acid in
Department 40, which occurred by making up a
(inaudible), which is a consistency of flour.
It went in the digesters, it trickled sulfuric
acid on it causing a reaction.

After that vessel came to a
certain level, it would cascade into the next
vessel, and then the next vessel. Then it's
phosphoric acid full of mud. It goes through a
filter. (inaudible) phosphoric would come off
of this stream. These were stored in tanks
outside. They were pumped over to next the
building, which was DSP and became a DSP
mixture, where ~~ you worked prior to your
retirement.

There by adjusting the
phosphate -- by adjusting the PH and
temperatures, they made monosodium and disodium
phosphate liquors. Of the monosodium liquor
they ran it into the back room of that said

building, which is called the Roosevelt

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that's the same thing they were just talking
about. I think it passed the Board. You need
to call Will County. That's a County issue.
These folks have no idea what you're talking
about. I only knew because I was at the County
Board meeting, but you need to call the County
because they are the ones who work with Waste
Management to turn it into a recreation --
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Recreation

site.
Call the County and

call
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The Government
contracted that stuff to be dumped out there.
What she's talking
about is a new dump site. The County just

approved one.
MR. STEPHAN: These folks here

wouldn't have any information about that from

NIOSH.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I know they
don't. It's just the idea even of why anybody
would let them do something like that. ‘What's

going to happen in a few years when it's

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Page 37
maintenance supervisor.
Just to give you a little

background, I eventually became a

by the way. _

» when you went from
Argonne back to Blockson and you noticed what
you did at Argonne, did you at all ask or talk
about it when you got to Blockson? Question
it?
No, because I kept my
mouth shut about what I did up there at

Argonne.
, her dad was my
boss. And as far as the maintenance in that
building at various times as I became the
man, the and eventually
, I no longer went in there as a
worker. But I used to put people in there to
do the work. So offhand most of them are dead.
There's very few of us that are left.
, and the maintenance people. I am talking
about the maintenance people. ;

Yes, . E
q

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cancer.
I am confused over why we got
denied or my mother got denied and other people
got the settlement.

MR. HINNEFELD: You asked two
questions. The first thing was apparently you
were misinformed at the start about the lung
cancer. Apparently you were misinformed. A
claim can be filed for any cancer, except
chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Any other cancer
has -- is believed to have some radiation risk
associated with it, meaning the radiation
increased the probability of that cancer
occurring. So any other cancer is a reason
for -- a medical reason for a claim under Part
B of this lawsuit.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: He also had
(inaudible).

MR. HINNEFELD: As to the specifics
of your case, I will talk to you in a minute,
okay, because I would like to get a little more
information about it because I would have to
get back to the office to look it up.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The dose

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make it tonight.

So I am asking you, for all of
us, to please urge those other workers that you
may know that didn’t come tonight to please
come tomorrow. And also point out to them, and
I think Stuart would endorse this, the folks
from NIOSH would be happy to hear this kind of
input anytime in the future by phone, by
letter, etc.

But tonight we are going to
concentrate on these topics. And I would
strongly encourage anybody, you know, the
information that you, as working there, may
think is routine and trivial and all of your
fellow co-workers know is really probably the
very information that we need to know about.
And so if you see a topic here that seems to
relate to anything you did in the workplace,
please stand up and talk about it because we
need a much richer record than we already have.

And I will also tell you that
the topics that you see here are the very
things that are causing the Advisory Board and

NIOSH to do some more research. So these are

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all the time.
MR. STEPHAN: Sir, did you have
anything else to add about the work there?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Just some of
my best friends are all gone. His wife
is here. She can tell you some of the sickness
he went through before he passed away as well.
I will tell you that -- I meant
to tell you this: My partner, _ and I,
, (phonetic), we worked in
Building 55. We were lead burners. And all
the tanks out of Olin, almost all of them, were
lined with lead. And when they'd get a leak,
there would be steel, lead and then brick on
the inside to hold the lead. And it would leak
through them, the lead, and once it got through
the lead nothing stopped it.
So we were in Building 55 for --
Our shop was there actually. We handled
sometimes 50 foot pipe. And if we cut it, we
had to weld it back to together. So we didn't
cut it, if we could handle it. This was
plastic, not lead.
MR. STEPHAN: You did that in

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office -- Congressman Weller. I am sorry.

At any rate, if you have
something in the future that you would like to
add that was not covered tonight, you
absolutely can call back tonight. If something
has jogged your memory. Even if your claim has
been denied. Because at this time the claims
have been reopened. Okay. If you have trouble
reaching NIOSH or for some reason you feel more
comfortable speaking to us, you can certainly
call our offices, and we will relay that
information to them.

MS. ANONYMOUS: I have one more
question. They mentioned $150,000 at that time
in lifetime medical. What happened to the
lifetime medical?

MR. HINNEFELD: I am afraid that I
don't know much about that part. The actual
administration of the benefits is from another
governmental agency from the Department of
Labor. And I am afraid I don't really know
what rules, and what applications --

MS. ANONYMOUS: He has the medical on

the cancer. But if you go to these doctors and

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tonight, and everybody needs to understand
that. You guys need to open your ears and your
hearts as to what these people have tried to
tell you tonight. Building 55 was the hub of
that. I am not a chemist. I am not any of
that. That was the hub.

What they are trying to tell
you, and I heard it is as nobody, that this
stuff was everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.
In the plant, traced everywhere, blown
everywhere, blown out everywhere. I heard it.
They are trying to tell you that. And you keep
running the same question.

I am a Vietnam veteran. I get
the same thing at the VA. Don't do it to these
people. Don't do it to these people. They
have told you that stuff was everywhere. How
many times do they have to tell you that?
Every one of them brought it home. It got on
their families. But it was everywhere in the
cotton picking plant. It didn't stay in
Building 55. Open your ears and heart to that

fact.
(A round of applause.)

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was no site remediation done. And I know that
when you have a product like this, normally the
Government or whoever would go in, and clean it
up, and maké sure that that site did not have
residuals left over.

That building stood for a long
time. And you heard these people say they went
in and out of the building. They were in the
plant and surrounding that building. Some of
that material could have been in the
surrounding areas. And we know that.

Now, when they tore the building
down my question is: How did they do it? Did
they clean it up? Did they clean up the
residuals or what? Because my husband had
worked there for 44 years. That means he could
have been exposed outside of that unit as well
as inside of that unit.

Now, how can you reconstruct

something that does not exist? I know you said :

you base that on another unit that you have
somewhere else. But these are individuals, and
these people were in unique situations which

had nothing whatsoever to do with those other

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Dicker's office and Congressman Weller's
office. They have been working on this for
five or six years, so certainly we appreciate
them being here to work together on this
issue.

When we asked -- When Senator
Obama asked the Board several weeks ago to host
this meeting, there were several folks from
Blockson, both workers, and claimants, sons,
and daughters, and spouses who said, you know,
we have been through so many meetings that we
don’t want to go to another meeting. I just
want to reassure you that tonight is different
than anything that you have done before.

Tonight is specifically a
meeting on the record so that we can listen to
workers and use what you have to say to
potentially help you, to potentially help you
become compensated, maybe not. Something
someone has to say here tonight may in no way
be useful. Go ahead and say it, and let these
experts figure it out later on. If you think
something is important, just blurt it out.

But I do want to stress that

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ponds, and that (inaudible) sunlight probably :
evaporated or being recycled as (inaudible).
And yes, there was an automatic shotgun out
there that needed to be gone up to and refilled
with Winchester ammunition to keep the wildlife
from it, because once the wildlife hit the
(inaudible), they never got out of it again.

i: My dad reported -- My dad
is . And he had various positions
out there at the plant. I would like to have
‘you people call him. He's out in Arizona right
now. But I do recall him saying that at one
time they were selling some of the gypson to
grape vineyard owners. It was supposed to be a
good fertilizer for grapes. I think he said at
one time they tried to make concrete blocks out
of it, but it didn't seem to pan out too well.
I don't know what else they did to it.

MR. LEWIS: Give me a number so I can
call him.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: One of the
ponds out there they are still selling
fertilizer to the farmers. I don't know the

name of it. My husband knows it. They are

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the liquor had came through and the cloths were :
plugging it up, so he would open the press up
and he would wash down the Kelly clothes.

His job as he washed down the

Kelly cloth was to look to see if there was any F

leak in the cloths. If there were leaks in the
cloths, then he would shut the unit down and
call me. And I would come over there and we
would take the leads from out of the Kelly
press with an electric lifter.

During the time that we were
taking the Kelly cloths out, they were held
into the press with four nuts and bolts. And
there was a total of maybe 8 or 10 cloths that
were in there. And these 10 nuts and belts,
you had to take your gloves off in order to get
the nuts and bolts off. That's when you come
in contact with the liquor, when you took the
nuts and bolts off. So if you were working in
contact with liquor, that's where you came in

contact with liquor.

Now, when you wash the Kelly
cloths down, all the dirt on the Kelly cloths

doesn't always come out. So. when you take the

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(No response.)

MR. STEPHAN: They didn't know. So lI
just wanted to make sure we clarified that
while we had the opportunity.

They had people that
would --

MR. STEPHAN: Respond.

Yeah.

MR. STEPHAN: Ma'am, I think you were
going to make a comment. Did you want to come
up?

Yes, Thank you very
much. My name is . And my
husband was employed at Olin/Blockson Works for

years, having started there in 1957. He was
a . Consequently he went to the
departments that were doing the products and
ran the samples to make sure they were up to
quality control.

And he had brain cancer and

passed away in 1998. He was diagnosed in 1996
with brain cancer. But we just like for you
people to know that there were other people

besides Building 55 that were exposed to all of

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radium or radon?
(No response.)

MR. STEPHAN: We had a worker,
maybe we lost him, that spoke a lot about that,
the separation process.”

MR. HINNEFELD: I think the situation
would probably be that nobody paid any
attention. There was probably no analysis done
to find where the radium went. From other
similar plants there is some.

Just for the record and
for the court reporter, nobody who is here
tonight has knowledge of either radon or
radium.

MR. STEPHAN: , is that
right? You did some separation, you took out
some impurities. Do you recall radon or
radium?

What ?

MR. STEPHAN: You did some work in
the separation process, and you took out some
of the impurities you said.

Yeah.

MR. STEPHAN: Do you ever remember

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in contact with it, because I have spent four
or five days or longer working in those same

clothes. '
Now number one, I liked to work

overtime, everybody knows that. And I am very :

glad that I did because it was a good place to
work. So when you take and you make a dose
reconstruction of a unit that has been blown up
and you say that you can make something that
will be comparable to that, I don't think you
can. And if one person out there works more
overtime than another person works overtime in
the same building, he is more susceptible than
the ones that's working there. Why? Because
he puts in more time. I like money like
anybody else, you know. But that's the facts.
So everything that I told you
tonight is actually what happened. And I think
I've got everything covered here. And there
was no protection as far as clothing was 1
concerned. ;

What physical ailments

have you had?
Oh, my physical ailments

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