THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


WORKING GROUP MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


ROCKY FLATS
 

The verbatim transcript of the Working 


Group Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held in Erlanger, Kentucky on 


November 6, 2006. 

 

2 

 6 

C O N T E N T S
 

November 6, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 


DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 


BACKGROUND AND PRIVACY ACT ISSUES 14 


COMPLETENESS OF DOSIMETRY RECORDS 63
 

OTHER RADIONUCLIDES 181 


D AND D 240 


LOGBOOK ANALYSIS 275 


1969 DATA GAP 299 


NEUTRON DOSIMETRY ISSUES 333 


SUPER S 343 


SAFETY CONCERNS 347 


MATRIX 358 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 387 

3 

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

 

4

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 

5 

IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS
 

BARKER, KAY, ANWAG 


BARRIE, TERRIE, ANWAG 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC 


BUCHANAN, RON, SC&A 


CHANG, CHIA-CHIA, NIOSH 


CHEW, MEL, ORAU 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 


FALK, ROGER, ORAU 


FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 


FIX, JACK, ORAU 


HOFF, JENNIFER, ORAU 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


JESSEN, KARIN, ORAU 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


LABONE, TOM, ORAU 


LANGSTED, JIM, ORAU 


LITTLE, CRAIG, ORAU 


LOPEZ, TERESA, ORAU 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MEYER, BOB, NIOSH 


MINKS, ERIN, SEN. SALAZAR 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


POTTER, GENE, ORAU 


RICH, BRYCE, NIOSH 


ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 


ROBINSON, AL, ORAU 


SHARFI, MUTTY, NIOSH 


SHIELDS, LASHAWN, NIOSH 


THOMAS, ELYSE, ORAU 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 

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P R O C E E D I N G S


 (10:00 a.m.) 

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WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO


 DR. WADE: Good morning out there, this is Lew 


Wade. The working group is just starting to 


get itself together, so it won't be a moment or 


so before we begin. Bear with us. 


We're going to begin our deliberations. This 


is Lew Wade and I have the pleasure of serving 


as the Designated Federal Official for the 


Advisory Board, and this is a working group 


meeting of the Advisory Board. This working 


group really is looking at issues surrounding 


the Rocky Flats site, both site profile and SEC 


issues, although it's been, you know, 


sharpening its focus on SEC issues because of 


the time criticality of such issues. But this 


working group does have broad responsibilities 


for Rocky Flats as it goes to site profile. 


Let me ask if there are any Board members on 


the phone. I know Mike Gibson, who's a member 


of the working group, is on the phone. Are 


there any other Board members on the phone? 

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 (No responses) 


Any other members of the Advisory Board? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. It's important I do that to establish 


the fact that we don't have a quorum of the 


Board. This is a working group very ably 


chaired by Mark Griffon. Its members are Mike 


Gibson, who's on the phone, and then in the 


room with us are Wanda and Robert. So I guess 


we would begin by introducing people around the 


table here, then we would introduce people on 


the phone. I would ask that when we do get to 


the phone that NIOSH people, other federal 


employees who are on the call as part of their 


work, identify themselves; representatives of 


SC&A, representatives of Congressional 


delegations or representatives or actual 


petitioners or their representatives. 


But let's start around the table. We'll do the 


introductions and then we'll go back and do the 


conflict of interest discussions for the NIOSH 


team participants and the SC&A team 


participants. Let's do the introductions, then 


we'll go back and do that as a -- as a separate 


item. 

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Again, this is Lew Wade and I work for NIOSH 


and also serve the Advisory Board. 


 MS. JESSEN: Karin Jessen, ORAU team. 


 DR. ULSH: I'm Brant Ulsh with NIOSH. 


MR. MEYER: I'm Bob Meyer with NIOSH. 


 MR. RICH: I'm Bryce Rich, (unintelligible). 


 MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn, the Board. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Robert Presley, the Board. 


DR. NETON: Jim Neton with NIOSH. 


DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Joe Fitzgerald with the SC&A 


team. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, SC&A. 


 MR. CHEW: Mel Chew with the ORAU team. 


 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffon with the Advisory 


Board. 


 DR. HOFF: Jennifer Hoff with the ORAU team. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, let's go out to Envision Land 


and let's start with members of the SC&A team 


that are on the phone with us. 


 DR. BEHLING: Hans and Kathy Behling. 


 DR. WADE: Good morning, welcome. 


 DR. BEHLING: Good morning. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is Kathy Robertson­
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Demers. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Ron Buchanan, SC&A. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome to both of you. Other SC&A 


team members? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, let's look at NIOSH/ORAU extended family 


sort of team members. 


 MR. LITTLE: Craig Little. 


MR. ROBINSON: Al Robinson, ORAU. 


 MR. FALK: All right. This is -- this is Roger 


Falk, ORAU. 


MR. LANGSTED: Jim Langsted with the ORAU team. 


MS. LOPEZ: Teresa Lopez, ORAU team. 


 MS. THOMAS: Elyse Thomas, ORAU team. 


 MR. FIX: Jack Fix, ORAU team. 


 MR. POTTER: Gene Potter, ORAU team. 


 DR. WADE: Any other members of the ORAU/NIOSH 


extended family? 


 MR. LABONE: This is Tom Labone, ORAU team. 


MS. CHANG: Chia Chia Chang, NIOSH Director's 


Office. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MR. BROEHM: Jason Broehm, CDC Washington 


office. 


 DR. WADE: Other federal employees who are here 

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as part of their employment? 


 MS. SHIELDS: LaShawn Shields, NIOSH. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch, Department of Labor. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome, Jeff. Anyone else, federal 


employees? 


 (No responses) 


 What about representatives of the petitioners, 


the petitioners themselves or members of an 


interested Congressional delegation? 


MS. MINKS: Erin Minks here from Senator 


Salazar's office. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome. 


 MS. BARRIE: This is Terrie Barrie with ANWAG, 


and also Kay Barker will be on soon -- later 


this morning. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you very much for joining us. 


We're always better when you're with us. 


Anyone else? 


 (No responses) 


We have one new member in the room. 


 MR. SHARFI: Mutty Sharfi with the ORAU team. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Now before I turn over to -- 


to Mark, I would ask that maybe, John, you 


could work us through your team in terms of 

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conflicts, however you would want to do that. 


DR. MAURO: Perhaps the best way is the members 


sitting around the table and on the phone do 


not have a conflict with regard to Rocky. Bob 


Bistline is part of our team but he is 


apparently not on the line here today. He 


would have been the -- the individual that 


would have a conflict. I believe that's 


correct, if I -- that's... 


 DR. WADE: Hearing no objection. And then for 


NIOSH, Jim, do you want to -- 


DR. NETON: I think Brant would be better. 


 DR. WADE: -- or Brant, walk us through. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Actually I think what I'd 


like to do is maybe just go through the list 


again of people who introduced themselves and 


identify whether or not they have a con-- a 


conflict, so why don't we start with Karin. 


 MS. JESSEN: Karin, no personal conflicts. 


MR. MEYER: Bob Meyer with the ORAU team, no 

conflicts. 

 MR. RICH: Bryce Rich, no conflicts. 

 DR. ULSH: Mel? 

 MR. CHEW: Mel Chew, no conflict. 

 DR. ULSH: All right, how about -- let's start 
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-- maybe Jim Langsted? 


MR. LANGSTED: This is Jim Langsted. I worked 


at Rocky Flats in the dosimetry organization 


for several years. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, Gene Potter? 


 MR. POTTER: Gene Potter, I also worked at 


Rocky Flats. I'm conflicted. 


 DR. ULSH: Let's see, Teresa Lopez I think is 


out there. 


MS. LOPEZ: No conflicts. 


 DR. ULSH: Roger? 


 MR. FALK: Yes, I worked at Rocky Flats and I 


have conflicts. 


 DR. ULSH: Is there anyone else that I've 


missed? 


 MR. LITTLE: Craig Little, I have no conflicts. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Thanks, Craig. 


 MR. FIX: Jack Fix, I don't have any conflicts. 


MR. ROBINSON: Al Robinson, no conflicts. 


 MS. THOMAS: Elyse Thomas, I'm not personally 


conflicted. ORAU has a corporate conflict. 


 DR. ULSH: Anybody else on the NIOSH/ORAU team? 


 MR. LABONE: Tom Labone, I have no conflicts. 


 MR. SHARFI: Mutty Sharfi, no conflicts. 


 DR. HOFF: Jennifer Hoff, no personal 

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conflicts. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. In terms of members of the 


working group --


 MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffon, no conflicts. 


 DR. WADE: Mike? 


 MR. GIBSON: No conflicts, Lew. 


 DR. WADE: Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: No conflicts. 

 DR. WADE: And Robert? 

 MR. PRESLEY: No conflicts. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. I mean the only other thing I 


would say before I turn it over to you is that 


I'd ask you all to practice good phone 


etiquette. You know, keep the phone on mute, 


if possible -- except when you're speaking, 


obviously. And you know, obviously let us know 


if you can't hear or you have any difficulties 


at all because we want to make this as -- not 


only as productive a working group as possible, 


but also as transparent a working group meeting 


as possible. This is obviously a topic that 


has a great deal of interest surrounding it 


and, to make progress, I turn it over to Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. I think I -- I put 


together a little draft agenda just this 

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morning of main topics to hit. I also did, in 


preparation for this meeting, put out a revised 


matrix. So at -- at -- at least at the very 


end of the meeting I think we'll -- we'll try 


to step through quickly and make sure we didn't 


miss any -- any actions and -- 


 DR. WADE: Is there anyone who would like a 


copy of that matrix? I can have it worked on 

while we're meeting. This is... Okay, thank 

you. 

BACKGROUND AND PRIVACY ACT ISSUES


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. But as -- in terms of just 


a draft agenda to work from, I -- I thought 


let's -- let's front-load some of the -- the 


biggest items, most important items that we 


have remaining. And one is -- is -- number one 


would be completeness of dosimetry records, and 


this is a product that SC&A put out and then 


NIOSH I think -- middle of last week or last 


week -- gave a response to, a reply to. 


Second topic is other radionuclides, which I 


think has sort of gone down the same path. We 


had a response, then a reply. 


Third topic is this question of D&D, dosimetry 


for the D&D work -- work -- period for the 

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workers. 


Fourth topic is the log books, and mainly what 


I'm referencing there is the analysis provided 


by NIOSH in looking at the log book data versus 


the individual radiation records or individual 


files. 


The fifth topic is this question of what we've 


been calling the '69 data gap. 


Sixth topic is the -- sort of a catch-all 


related to the neutron dosimetry stuff. I 


think we have four or five mini-action items in 


there related to neutrons or N/P ratios, et 


cetera. 


Seventh topic is super S, and I think -- we may 


have a -- a little new information there, but 


you know, as you can see, the more serious 


topics I've tried to front-load when we're all 


fresher. 


Eighth topic is the safety concerns. And a --


and again, I think we had a lengthy response of 


all the safety concerns that -- documents that 


were pulled. 


 And then finally, again, at the end I think I ­

- we'll walk through the matrix quickly and try 


to check that we haven't missed anything in our 

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matrix. This -- this matrix -- I don't think I 


had refreshed it since the July 27th meeting, 


so there's been a couple of meetings in between 


where I hadn't gone back to this, so I figured 


it was time to resurrect it and kind of update 


it and --


 MS. MUNN: Thank you, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we tend to forget where 


we've been. 


 MS. MUNN: We sure do. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And actually -- actually, on that 


note, I think it's -- before we get into the -- 


going into the completeness topic, I -- I 


thought it was -- it was worth it for me, 


anyway, to sort of step back and -- and look at 


-- at where we've been with this data 


reliability question. And the -- the -- you 


know, it -- my recollection in looking at some 


transcripts and some previous meetings, I -- 


I've sort of tried to put together an account 


in my mind of how -- how we've gotten to where 


we've gotten. And we -- we started off, if I 


recall accurately -- there was a question of 


the -- on the coworker models, and the coworker 


models relied on CER data, the CER data and -- 

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and I think my -- my instinct, probably coming 


off the Y-12 meetings, was, you know, well, 


what's the pedigree here. You know, did you 


verify that this wasn't a truncated epi sort of 


database or was it, you know -- is it reliable 


for this kind of work. And the response was to 


do an analysis of CER versus the HIS-20 


database, so I was sort of in a position of 


believing that HIS-20 was the gold standard of 


-- of data. The analysis indicated that 


although there were differences, at the end of 


the day the intakes estimated from either model 


would have been very close to the same. And I 


don't think there's much dispute -- I don't 


know, I'm -- I don't want to put words in 


SC&A's mouth, but I don't think there's much 


dispute on that. 


The -- then the question became well, the 


question of HIS-20 versus the raw records, and 


I think we -- we pursued that to see if -- 


well, you know, let's again look at the 


pedigree and make sure HIS-20 is reliable. And 


there was an analysis -- I think this was the 


Craig Little analysis, is that -- is that the 


right -- I sometimes get this wrong, but I 

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think it was the Craig Little report that 


looked at the raw radiation files, sampled from 


those and compared to the values in the CER 


dat-- or in the HIS-20 database, I believe. 


And the conclusion was -- I think that -- that 


there was a high degree of -- of agreement. It 


was 96 percent agreement, or something to that 


effect. 


 DR. ULSH: 98, yeah, something like that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, 98. So then -- and behind 


all this also was the sort of indication all 


along that -- that the coworker models -- 


unlike Y-12, the coworker models here for Rocky 


Flats were not going to be used for most of the 


cases because a high degree of individuals had 


their own radiation records, so -- then -- 


nonetheless, we kept pursuing this. And part 


of the reason for -- at least in my mind, part 


of the reason for comparing to the HIS-20 


against the raw records was it was a heck of a 


lot easier to compare log book information to a 


database than log book information to 


individual radiation files. And I thought if 


this HIS-20 is in fact the gold standard, we 


can save ourselves a lot of digging out of 

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individual files to -- to sort of corroborate 


the reliability of -- of the data we're using. 


So we -- we continued to do this sampling of 


the log books compared to the databases, and I 


think the latest reports -- well, my personal 


findings from doing some of this was that, 


number one, I wasn't finding a lot of in vivo 


measurements that just weren't there, and I 


didn't even -- I sort of truncated my review 


and just e-- I think I had e-mail 


correspondence with NIOSH and said, you know, 


is there a separate database for the in vivo 


'cause I'm not finding a lot of these and I -- 


you know, I think some -- you know, maybe I'm 


looking at something wrong, but this isn't 


working. The response basically was I think 


that -- that the in vivo especially had -- had 


already been understood to have some problems 


with some of the data, especially in the 


earlier time periods, that it was -- it was 


incomplete and NIOSH and ORAU were well aware 


of that and that, you know, I wasn't proving 


anything that they didn't know already. And 


also -- a key part, I think, is that they don't 


use that in any of the dose reconstruction. 

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They don't rely on in vivo or -- in any of it, 


am I overstating that? 


 DR. ULSH: A little bit. We don't rely on -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: For the most part -- for the most 


part, they don't rely on the in vivo, it's more 


on the urinalysis records. 


Anyway, then -- then to look at the bioassay 


records, again, log books looking at bioassay 


records, found some -- some problems, 


differences, with HIS-20; found some elevated 


values in HIS-- or didn't find some elevated 


values in HIS-20. Then we said well, we look 


at the CER database and actually some of these 


same elevated values are in there, so it -- it 


became this confusion of, you know, what -- 


what's going on. We thought -- I thought, 


anyway -- that HIS-20 was kind of a pretty 


robust and -- and gold standard database. And 


I think the last product was -- Donna Kragle*, 


did she author that -- or -- or -- 


 DR. ULSH: Phil Wallace. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Phil Wallace of the 


NIOSH/ORAU team produced a document looking at 


CEDR versus HIS-20, and I think concluded that 


there were -- and I forget the -- the way this 

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turns, but in -- in the earlier years one of 


the databases had more data and more 


individuals, and then in like mid-'70s or early 


'70s it switched and the other database had 


more data and more individuals, so -- and it 


wasn't just a few more people, it was -- it was 


large differences of numbers, if I recall, at 


least in several of the years. 


So I think at the -- the -- and I know -- I was 


trying to pull this document up before the 


meeting began and I don't have a hard copy of 


it, but basically I think party of your 


conclusion there was that this -- this would be 


more of a problem if we were relying on 


coworker models. We -- we admit now that there 


is more -- more extensive problems in HIS-20 -- 


or maybe not admit now, but -- but there are 


some problems in HIS-20 and -- and -- but at 


the end of the day we've got the individual 


radiation files. Is that -- is that accurate, 


Brant? 


 DR. ULSH: That's a pretty close summary, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: We did discuss in the evaluation 


report some of the known limitations of the 

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HIS-20 database, and the comparison between 


CEDR and HIS-20 -- we started with, as you 


mentioned, evaluating the intake that you would 


calculate using either one, and we found 


minimal difference. However, you noticed, 


Mark, and were curious about why during some 


years, in the early years in particular, there 


were more records in CEDR than in HIS-20. That 


seemed counter-intuitive. I think that's why 


we went back and took a look -- Donna Kragle 


and Phil Wallace did their report. 


And in response to that question, Donna and 


Phil wrote up their report and we know that -- 


this is one of the other limitations of HIS-20 


that we talked about in the ER, the evaluation 


report, is that individuals who worked at Rocky 


Flats prior to I think 1972 -- don't take that 


particular year to the bank; sometime in the 


early '70s. If they worked at Rocky Flats 


let's say prior to 1972 and they terminated 


employment prior to that date, and they were 


not drawing benefits, those records were not 


captured in the HIS-20 database. We know that. 


We talked about that in the -- in the 


evaluation report. And that accounts for those 

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early year-- oh, now there's a little bit more 


to the story before I move on. 


Some of those people who were not captured in 


HIS-20 were later reloaded into HIS-20 if they 


were part of the long-term medical monitoring 


program. But not all of them. So we know that 


in the early years there are some people who 


are not in the HIS-20 database, and that is 


consistent with what we see in terms of in the 


early years having more records in CEDR than in 


HIS-20. 


Now of course the obvious question there is 


well, what does that do to -- in terms of the 


reliability of the CEDR or HIS-20 data for 


coworker models. And the particular concern 


would be if that introduced some kind of a 


bias, in particular a low bias. That would be 


very -- of very great concern. But due to the 


nature of the way these people were excluded 


from the database, it -- it was essentially at 


random. We don't see any evidence of the -- of 


there being a bias. We don't see any 


difference between CEDR and HIS-20 in terms of 


the intakes that you calculate. So we don't 


see evidence of a bias there. And in fact -- I 

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mean just thinking hypothetically, I mean there 


might be even a little high bias because of the 


people who were later reloaded into HIS-20. 


Those are the people who were captured for 


long-term medical monitoring. They tended to 


be the people who had known and documented 


intakes. So if there's any evi-- if there's 


any bias at all, which we don't see any 


evidence of, it would probably be a little bit 


high. So we don't think that that would cause 


a problem in terms of using the CEDR database 


or the HIS-20 database for coworker models. 


Now, that's not to say, though, that it 


wouldn't be a problem in dose reconstruction. 


Obviously that would be a concern for dose 


reconstruction. But fortunately we rely on the 


hard copy individual radiation records for dose 


reconstruction, and so we haven't seen that 


kind of a problem with those. 


So it -- it's important not only to think about 


the limitations of the particular datasets, but 


the uses that we make of them. And you're 


right about -- in terms of the in vivo records. 


Those are not really all that reliable in HIS20 because they just didn't make an effort -- 

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they were primarily concerned with the 


urinalysis data. So you're right, if you're 


interested in in vivo data, the best place to 


go is the worker's hard copy rad file. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, so -- so for whatever -- I 


mean I -- I just think it's worthwhile stepping 


back and to see how we've gotten to where we've 


gotten because, you know, I know we've spent a 


lot of time on this one topic. But sometimes 


we thought we were going to get answers by 


doing something a certain way that then, once 


we got into that, we realized the answer was, 


you know, no, you real-- and -- and the -- the 


big specific here is that, you know, we -- we 


thought that, as a time saver really, you know, 


this log book comparison -- all I was looking 


for is this test of reliability and, you know, 


don't dig up all the individual radiation 


files. That's very time-consuming -- it's more 


time-consuming. It takes -- takes work. Just 


pull it up on the database and -- and check 


them, you know, randomly sample and check them 


and you're done. It's an -- couple of hour 


activity, maybe, so -- but -- but now, you 


know, I think as we've evolved through this 

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we've realized that in fact to test the 


reliability of this data we're back to those 


individual radiation files. So that's --


that's -- that's what I wanted to -- to point 


out -- that's why I wanted to step through this 


process, especially for people that are -- not 


been here for all the meetings. 


And part of why this task that -- that SC&A -- 


now -- get into item one of my agenda now -- 


the task on completeness. These -- for the 


last couple of meetings this task was -- was 


mentioned as in draft and they weren't -- they 


-- they didn't have it ready to offer to the 


workgroup or to NIOSH and I -- I wasn't sure 


exactly how many cases were being sampled. I 


think they ended up with 12 -- is that -- 12. 


But the -- the -- you know, the main reason for 


this was -- was that we were realizing that you 


can't really check these datapoints against the 


databases. That wasn't going to prove anything 


'cause, you know, we find them not there and 


the answer was well, yeah, we know there's a 


proble-- you know, we know there's 


incompleteness in the database, so it -- it was 


much more valuable to look and say okay, if in 

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fact, you know, the dose reconstruction's going 


to rely on the individual radiation files to a 


large extent, then we just need to make sure 


that those individual radiation files are 


complete -- they have enough data and the data 


is -- you know, can be cross-walked with log 


books, also, but it's also complete enough to 


be able to do a dose reconstruction. And 


that's where SCA took on this task and I think, 


as I said, they've produced a report and in the 


meantime -- or since the report was released -- 


I'm not sure wh-- was that a couple of weeks 


ago, or three wee--


 DR. MAKHIJANI: October 19th, I think. Joe --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, it was about a week and 


a half ago. 


 MR. GRIFFON: October 19th, and then -- and 


then very recently we got a reply from NIOSH on 


that same report. And I think -- I -- I had 


asked SC&A prior to this meeting if they were ­

- had enough time to sort of respond to NIOSH's 


memo back, and -- and here's where -- there was 


a little frustration the end of last week, but 


we -- the workgroup, as well as SC&A, basically 


got blocked off of the R drive, so we didn't 

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have access to claimant files so we couldn't 


pull up some of these specifics that Brant -- 


Brant's replies had some very specifics. You 


know, for instance, in some cases I think you 


said that -- that SC&A probably -- must have 


overlooked the data 'cause we found it; it was 


there for certain individuals. And so they 


were unable to go through this. I -- I checked 


my access and the same -- same problem, we're 


blocked out of these claims files now. I'm not 


sure why that happened, but we're blocked out, 


so we can't pull these individual radiation 


files to review them. And I think this is a -- 


is a problem. 


 DR. WADE: I can -- I can speak to the issue of 


why. Right now there are issues about Privacy 


Act concerns surrounding the release of 


information that was pulled from those files. 


And until the attorneys and those involved in 


the process have a chance to get their mind 


around that, the appropriate action the 


government decided to take was to just suspend 


activity until all aspects of this could be 


looked at and a path forward found that would 


certainly provide the Board and the working 

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group with the information that they would 


require to do their work. 


So enough said on that. There are issues that 


surround Privacy Act concerns. 


MS. MINKS: This is Erin Minks from Senator 


Salazar's office. If I'm hearing correctly 


that NIOSH at this point in time decided they 


had concerns timed at this point merits 


suspending access of working group members to 


these files, we recall specifically being 


assured by Larry Elliott in a crowd of -- 


crowded room of people back in April during the 


working group meeting or the Advisory Board 


meeting in Denver that NIOSH would assure full 


access to these files as necessary for the 


working group to do their deliberations on the 


data reliability issue. The Senator's staff 


heard this. The entire Congressional 


delegation staff heard this. And if there's a 


Privacy Act assertion coming from the legal 


department at NIOSH right now to suspend access 


to these files, we would like to -- to get as 


much information as possible about the 


rationale behind this because the reality is 


the Senator's patience is really wearing thin 

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right now related to this data reliability 


concern which we are aware continues to be one 


of the key issues with this. So I just wanted 


to lay that out to the group that if this 


continues to be a concern, the Senator's 


patience is wearing very, very thin and we 


don't really see how the working group could 


deliberate continuously on the data reliability 


issue, even on this call, without access to 


those files. 


 DR. WADE: We understand the concern. 


MS. MINKS: And that will be -- that'll be a 


strong concern and we look forward to getting 


some -- some clear communication from NIOSH 


about the rationale behind that. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott, and if I 


might, I'd like to speak to this. SC&A -- and 


I've talked to John Mauro about this; I did not 


get ahold of you, Mark, on Friday afternoon as 


I wanted to after several attempts -- but we 


are not prohibiting access to these seven 


specific files. I can accommodate that. Under 


Task IV we have developed a process for 


accessing claim information, and that's the 


process that we should use in this regard. You 

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want to look at claim information and claimant 


files, then we facilitate that access, as we do 


under Task IV. 


Unfortunately, that didn't happen in this 


review that SC&A performed on these seven 


cases, and so we need -- we just need to follow 


this procedure that we have established in 


order to make sure that we do not violate the 


privacy of any of these individual claimants. 


We are not prohibiting access to these seven 


claims. We can share those claims with you, 


under the purpose that you have for looking at 


data reliability on Rocky Flats. We just 


cannot have open access to all of the claimant 


files. We have to facilitate your access in 


that regard. 


I hope that helps. I hope that explains --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- just a couple of -- 


'cause, you know, this isn't Task IV that we're 


operating under --


 MR. ELLIOTT: I understand. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and I think -- I will say -- I 


will say this, that I -- in this -- this task 


for SC&A was to look at the completeness of the 


radiation files within these claims files. And 

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to the extent their report went beyond looking 


at the completeness of the data available, I 


think that was beyond scope and not germane to 


what we were -- what we were doing here. For 


instance, I think there was some comments to -- 


that may have alluded to methods for a 


particular DR that -- that a certain technique 


was used to reconstruct the internal dose. I 


didn't think that was germane to the task that 


they -- that -- that was put forward by the 


workgroup. 


But to the extent that -- that we want to look 


at these files for data completeness, I'm not 


sure why we have to operate under such a 


restricted policy as Task IV. I understand the 


policy for Task IV, but -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm not talking about scope of 


work or task. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm talking about the 


requirements that we all have to meet -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- under the Privacy Act. And in 


order to make sure that we maintain -- in 


accordance with those requirements, we have 

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developed a procedure. We -- we don't -- it 


was unbeknownst to me that you all had this 


open access to a portal to the NOCTS claims 


system. We've -- from the day one we've 


always said for claims that contain this volume 


and degree of information, we need -- all need 


to have a purpose that's within our government 


duties to go into those claims and look at 


them. Okay? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Isn't -- isn't this our purpose 


right here, to look --


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm not -- I'm not quibbling with 

the purpose. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- at the completeness and 

reliability -- okay, okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm not quibbling with the 


purpose. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm quibbling with the process. 


The process that we've established under Task 


IV should be applied to any purpose brought to 


looking at individual claims. Okay? And that 


purpose says we -- that we have established, 


all within our government roles and duties here 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- but we cannot just go -- and 


we need to facilitate that access. Why? 


Because we all agreed that the Board and its -- 


and its contractor looks at adjudicated claims. 


So we want to make sure that that's what we're 


examining here. Okay? 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right, but that -- that was 


for dose reconstruction review purposes, I 


believe. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's what I'm asking about, 


Larry, is that if we're just -- and I -- and I 


will say that, you know, I think the report 


went a little beyond the scope of just looking 


at completeness of data. But if we're just 


looking at the data, in your own -- in your own 


folder it's under DOE data, it came from DOE. 


These are just that -- the records recovered 


from DOE. There's no reason for us not to look 


at those for all claimants. You know, it 


doesn't --

 MR. ELLIOTT: No reason whatsoever. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- have to be just adjudicated 

claims. 
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 MR. ELLIOTT: You could look at all those. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You state your purpose, you tell 

us how --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- what kind of a random sample ­

-

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, okay. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- what the criteria is you want 

us to select against. We'll select the claims 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and provide them to you, as we 


have under Task IV. But we're not -- we're not 


going to open up a portal --


 MR. GRIFFON: No. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- where anybody can go in. My 


staff cannot go in and just look at any claim 


they want to without having a stated purpose. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. WADE: But to the -- let's deal with -- we 


can return to the global issue, but for the 


working group's needs right now, what do you 


need to have at this moment, and then we need 


to see that you have it. 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: We can put those -- we can put 


those seven claims that SC&A wants to follow up 


with --


 DR. WADE: Well, is 12 all --


 MR. GRIFFON: Is it the 12? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You want all 12. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the 12. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay, we'll put the 12 claims in 

-- in a folder like we would on -- or we can 


give you a CD like we would under Task IV. We 


can put it in a folder on the O drive. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: It would be a timed folder. 


We'll take it back down after the period of 


time. Or --


 DR. WADE: So when can that folder -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- we can get a CD. 


 DR. WADE: When can that folder go up? 


 MR. GRIFFON: But it just -- in addition to 


that, I mean it'd just be -- well -- in 


addition to that, there's the -- the claim 


files that are referenced in Brant's report 


where you looked at log books and comparing 


them to radiation files. Now in most cases 


they're radiation files that are not even in 

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the NOCTS system 'cause they're not claimants. 


But in -- I think five or six of them end up 


being NOCTS claimant files, so I would say at 


least, at a minimum, those be included. And 


I'm not sure why we just can't request all -- 


all Rocky Flats claims. 


 MS. MUNN: You know, this -- this is Wanda 


Munn, and I probably shouldn't be getting into 


this argument since it's clearly something that 


our chair feels is necessary for him as an 


individual to see. But I have to say that from 


some members of the working group's point of 


view, this issue has been investigated -- 


excruciating detail, absolutely excruciating 


detail. I don't see that there's any 


information that's been necessary that has been 


denied to the working group. So far as I know, 


there's only one member of the working group 


that actually accesses those files on a regular 


basis. SC&A has certainly done an incredible 


job of -- of picking details on every single 


one of these claims that they felt were an 


issue, and NIOSH has done an incredible job of 


responding to them. I don't know how many 


files we have to look at and I don't know how 

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many files it's felt that we need to continue 


to look at, but I think it's a serious mistake 


to lead the Senator to believe that we have -- 


or -- or any member of Congress, anyone, member 


of the public, to believe that we've being -- 


that we are being systematically denied access 


to information that the working group needs. 


don't feel that that's so. And if there are -- 


if there are procedural issues that need to be 


addressed, it appears to me that procedural 


issues can be addressed. But I -- this appears 


to be another one of those situations where 


we've looked at this and looked at this and 


looked at this, and now we're complaining 


because we're not looking at it some more. And 


I guess it's -- it's a little frustrating to 


some of us to understand why we need to 


continue to pursue this course of action when 


the questions have been asked, the questions 


have been answered, and now we're asking more 


questions. This is really frustrating -- as 


frustrating for some of us as it is for 


apparently those out there. 


MS. MINKS: I'd like to speak to that. This is 


Erin Minks again from Senator Salazar. Thank 


I 
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you, Ms. Munn. I think that the concern that 


we have is the timing of this -- of this -- 


this access issue and that, as we see it at 


this time, regardless of whether the -- the 


entire working group feels that they've handled 


this issue repeatedly and that they've had 


enough access to the information to -- to -- 


you know, to deliberate to a level decision, 


the concern at this point is is that the -- the 


Senator can't help but see that, without access 


to these -- to these files or with the -- the 


closure without full explanation, then there's 


not much choice but to just approve what SC&A 


has recommended. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, I -- I hope you've -- I hope 


you've heard the explanation and understand 


that our chair now has access to whatever he 


wants, as does SC&A, as long as the procedure 


is understood. At least that's my 


understanding. Am I incorrect? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, that's not true. 


 MS. MUNN: Am I right? 


 MR. GRIFFON: We're negotiating it. It may not 


be --


MS. MINKS: I don't think that's clear yet -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- negotiable, you know, I don't 


know. 


MS. MINKS: I don't think that's clear yet, and 


at this point in time, we will continue to do 


what we can to ensure that the claimants get 


the adequate consideration that they deserve, 


and that's where we -- our interests lie, and 


at this point in time there is significant 


concern about this. 


 MS. MUNN: Okay. Now you said that was not 


clear? That's not clear to us here? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No. I think we're getting closer 


 DR. WADE: Well, there's no --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I think we're getting close -- 


 DR. WADE: -- there's no negotiation. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: What access do you want, and we 


will afford the access. We're not going to, in 


that, allow all of NOCTS to be opened up. 


NOCTS is all of the 22,000 claims that we have 


in our system. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay? The purpose has to be 


established for your access. So if you want to 


see all dose reconstructed claims that have 

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been adjudicated, then we'll set that aside for 


your access. That's all I'm asking for. Tell 


me what --


 DR. WADE: So we need --


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- how to narrow this down. 


 DR. WADE: We need now for the working group, 


as a body, to speak or the working group chair 


has been empowered to speak to -- to -- to form 


that -- that request. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, well, this -- this may be a 


bigger question for the entire Advisory Board 


to consider, actually. But I mean in the 


meantime I want to at least make Rocky 


workable, so I -- Arjun had a comment, though, 


I --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I have a question, Mark. I'm 


puzzled on a couple of points in regard to 


privacy. We've all signed -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- the privacy concerns and 


gone through the training. The -- the site 


query database has been closed to the public 


because when you go into the documents on the 


site query database there's an enormous amount 


of personal information in the DOE documents on 

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claimants and non-claimants. And obviously it 


contains sensitive privacy information and I've 


always felt it proper that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- but we've always had access 


to it, and I don't -- I don't understand how 


the claimant files are more sensitive than 


people who are not even claimants, whose 


individual --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean if --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- data can be readily 


reviewed. We would have -- we would not be 


able to do any part of the job that I've done 


so far without access to the site query 


database. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This raises a question as to... 


 MR. GRIFFON: I would definitely agree that if 


we -- the workgroup or SC&A -- put out a 


product that -- that violates the Privacy Act 


provisions in any way, then -- then, you know, 


we've got to police that. I mean I -- I think 


 DR. WADE: And there is a concern about that 


that's --

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 MR. GRIFFON: Now how to police that --


 DR. WADE: -- being looked at right now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I don't -- I don't -- I guess 


the problem I have is I didn't think the way to 


police that was to just cut off access and have 


to request each claim. So I mean we've been 


going along -- and I don't know, maybe it 


wasn't so obvious, but in all these workgroup 


meetings I've been working in, I've been 


referencing -- you know, I pulled a number of 


claims and compared measurements, for Y-12 


even, and found, you know, data that supported, 


it matched, this looks good. You know, nobody 


ever stopped me and said Mark, wait a second, 


how are you pulling those claims files. You 


know, I wasn't revealing privacy information, I 


-- so I thought all along -- I didn't think I 


was going through any back doors or pri-- trap 


doors or anything like that. I thought that 


was there for us to use. And now I feel like, 


you know -- I agree that if anything's released 


that violates the Privacy Act provisions, then 


we need to police that and -- and strongly 


police that. But -- but to close that system 


off, it just seems a overreach of the -- a way 

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to do this. Now I'm willing to work within 


that, but I just think it -- it slows down the 


system, too. I mean I guess we can request -- 


each time part of the requesting, you get into 


this system that I've -- I feel like I've 


worked against for years within DOE in 


requesting records is that if you're not sure 


what's there, you don't know what to request. 


Now with claimants' files it might be a little 


easier. We might be able to say for a certain 


facility all adjudicated claims or -- you know, 


or a randomly -- of ten percent of the 


adjudicated claims or something like that. But 


I just still don't understand why -- you know, 


why that whole thing's -- why -- why it's 


blocked off at all if we -- you know, can -- 


can we not police it on the other side better 


and keep it accessible to the team. 


DR. MAURO: I'd like to speak a little bit to 


this, if it's okay. Speaking specifically 


about the 12 cases and how we got to the point 


where there was thought to be a good idea, 


given the maturation of the -- of the problem 


in terms of data completeness, just the way 


you've described, the -- and I'm thinking the 

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mechanism now. What happened was, once it was 


-- a judgment was made that in order to achieve 


closure as best we can on this matter, it's 


time to look at some cases to see how complete 


they are. And then it was a matter of picking 


cases from the database that made sense for our 


intended purpose. And in order to do that, and 


I was talking to Ron, he had indicated that 


well, we're looking for particular cases that 


fell in a particular category, especially with 


regard to probability of causation, for 


example. There was a certain range. So it 


wasn't a matter where we could have said we 


want to see this case, this case and this case 


and then go through the process that we just 


described. It was more a matter of let's take 


a look at what's out there and say okay, now we 


know which cases we'd like to look at. So we 


sort of had to look at the cases to determine 


what cases we want to look at. 


So if somehow we could get a way of us being 


able to identify what we need -- see, because 


the outcome of this not the product -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: And certainly that --


DR. MAURO: -- it's the dialogue that we engage 

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in now where we're at the point where we're 


looking at those 12 cases, and their 


completeness is very productive. 


 MR. GRIFFON: See, certainly that's doable 


because in -- the way we select cases -- and 


Larry's right, for the -- for the dose 


reconstruction review is we -- we ask for -- 


and Stu Hinnefeld has usually been providing 


it. We ask for different parameters on cases, 


and then we go through it with the full Board 


and -- and select based on various parameters, 


so I think they -- you'd be more than willing 


to produce that kind of thing and -- so I -- 


you know, we can move forward that way, I 


suppose. I just think that, in my opinion, 


it's a little bit of an overreach to close this 


door off. If it was a violation or a report 


that went out that violated the Privacy Act, 


then I -- you know, that needs to be taken care 


of. But is it -- is it just to -- the way to 


take care of it, is it just to close off 


access; I think that's an overreach. 


DR. MAURO: I'd like to make one more 


statement. I used the example of the parameter 


that sort of drove the selection was one of the 

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parameters, but I wouldn't want to say at the 


same time that there may not be other 


parameters that be-- that become apparent that 


in order to address a particular problem, so -- 


like I say, in terms of the research we do, 


being able to go into the stacks, so to speak ­

- I use that term all the time -- does make -- 


and allow us to zero in on where we want to go 


by having access the way it is. But at the 


same time we respect and understand the other 


aspect of it so, you know, we look to guidance 


from the Board. 


 MS. MUNN: But Mark, don't we as a working 


group have the responsibility to establish what 


the parameters are for Dr. Elliott and for the 


people who have responsibility for the files? 


Is there our -- isn't -- isn't our purpose in 


being here to have both the agencies and SCA at 


the same table so that we as a working group 


can help facilitate their decision about what 


the parameters are of the cases they wish to -- 


to see? Isn't that ri-- isn't that within our 


 MR. GRIFFON: To some extent, we -- we have -- 


yeah, I mean I think we're --

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 MS. MUNN: That's what we're doing. Right? 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we're all guiding each other 


in what parameters we need to look at, what are 


most important, I agree. 


 MS. MUNN: So can't we sit here right here 


today and say Larry, the parameters of the 


cases we want to look at are -- whatever we 


decide? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's all -- that's all I'm 


asking for. This goes to language you would 


find in the Privacy Act that talk about the 


need to access the information to perform your 


government duties, and -- and open access to 


this kind of database for -- for one's 


individual experience in walking through claims 


is not covered. You have to have a stated 


purpose to go into this kind of a data system, 


and that's all we're after here. We want to 


understand what we're trying to facilitate your 


access for. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, what -- what -- what this ­

- what this limits is -- and -- I mean I would 


agree, sometimes this has been a exasperating 


process, but what this -- I think what this 


squelches is to -- to coin one of Jim's phrases 

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from a while ago, real-time science. I mean I 


-- I think it makes it very difficult to 


respond -- we're always -- it seems like we're 


always up against another meeting, and it makes 


it very difficult to make these requests for 


files -- I mean it -- it comes from bo-- yeah, 


both sides that have referenced different files 


when they do random sampling or whatever. It 


makes it very difficult to -- or if I'm -- if 


I'm -- all these log books are now posted and I 


have -- I mean I'll admit it, I -- I'm on the O 


drive, you know, and I've looked at this -- I 


mean that's -- I'm trying to go where the data 


takes me, and I have looked at log books and 


I've just taken handfuls of -- usually looking 


at the highest values, primarily because 


they're the easiest ones to track against a 


database. You know, it's -- it's a lot easier 


than tracking background against a datapoint in 


a database, but I -- I've gone through and just 


randomly selected some of those points and 


cross-checked. And I've taken those points and 


gone to the -- I've actually -- you know, I had 


-- I had some big problems that I stated on the 


follow-up of the -- of the high values in a log 

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book versus HIS-20 and prior to this meeting, 


prior to being blocked out, I went through 


about 30 of those names, was able to match up 


about four of them as being claimants -- four 


or five -- and the high values that I couldn't 


find in HIS-20 were actually in their 


individual radiation file. So -- so it -- it 


helped me to get to the end, you know, to get 


to the point where I -- I want to be on that 


issue. 


Now -- I guess now I'd have to say -- I'd have 


to e-mail and request certain claimant files be 


-- be accessible for my ongoing review of Rocky 


-- you know --


 DR. WADE: Well, now let's talk about -- 


 MS. MUNN: Now -- now -- wait, wait -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I suppose it can operate that 

way. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: (Unintelligible) offer a solution 

--

 MS. MUNN: -- wait, wait, let me -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm just saying I think it's -- 


it's a --


 MS. MUNN: -- let me ask something. Let me --


let me reiterate. Did I or did I not hear Dr. 

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Elliott say --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Mr., please. 


 MS. MUNN: -- if we choose to -- thank you, Mr. 


Elliott -- if -- if we choose to request 


availability to all adjudicated cases, which is 


what we're interested in as a working group -- 


right? That's our charter. If -- if we choose 


to ask him for access to those adjudicated 


cases, he can and will provide those. Did I 


not hear that? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. If -- if --


 MS. MUNN: Then -- then --


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- let me -- let me --


 MR. GRIFFON: Now see -- see --


 MS. MUNN: -- I fail to see the issue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- even in -- even in that 


statement I think that that limits us in this 


review. And I'm not -- I mean I'm not try-- 


I'm not trying to beat -- I'm not trying to 


beat this thing to death. I think we can work 


-- I think we can get past this. But if you 


talk about adjudicated cases for this SEC 


petition review, you know, I could argue -- 


I've heard a lot of hypothetical arguments in 


the past several months here. I could 

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hypothetically argue that a lot of the cases 


that have been done have been minimaxim-- 


minimizing and maximizing, and that some of the 


cases where they had problems with the records 


are pro-- you know, are probably set aside 


until the -- you know, because they -- because 


they're not ready to handle them so we don't -- 


you know, if we just get adjudicated ones, 


we're not seeing the full -- that -- that part 


of the population. I think that for this 


review -- I mean -- and I would agree that we 


have to be very strict that it's not about 


reviewing the DR -- the dose reconstruction 


results. You know, we're looking at these for 


completeness of the data, but in -- 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. I'd like to make a 


statement if I could. Also when we're 


considering these SEC petitions, we're not 


necessarily looking at adjudicated cases. We 


need to see if the data's -- is sufficient to 


reconstruct the dose so we can determine if we 


should put forth the request for -- you know, 


we -- that we agree that the SEC petition 


should move forward. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Can I offer a solution here -- a 

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proposal for you all? What I need from you all 


is a clear understanding of what your purpose 


is to look into these claimant files. That's 


what we need. That's all we need. You can 


divide that up in different ways. You could 


say that the Advisory Board members should have 


access to conduct your reviews to the level and 


degree that you want to review on -- on the 


full claimant population of files, with the 


understanding that you can't speak about 


claimant files --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, that's the key, I think. 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay? -- until we tell you it's 


an adjudicated final. I think that's been -- 


we've -- we've walked that ground before. 


Right? If you -- you know, if you want your 


contractor to do the same, I don't care. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: All I want to know is the purpose 


of going into these files has to be 


established. Okay? And -- and if you want --


if the Advisory Board's consensus or the 


working group's consensus is that -- that you 


want a randomly-selected sample or you want the 

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whole Rocky Flats population and you want them 


non-adjudicated and adjudicated -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- be that as it may, you are all 


required, as Mark started off with this 


conversation, we're all required to abide under 


the Privacy Act. What I read to you a moment 


ago is a message that will go out to all hands 


from -- under my name. I am the responsible 


party in this program to make sure that we 


abide by the Privacy Act, and so that's all I'm 


after. I'm not after trying to preclude or 


prevent or put obstacles in your way. I 


understand, Mark, that you like to get into the 


files and dig --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- through them as you wish 


looking for what you need. Others don't. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't care. All I'm saying, 


what I care about is the Privacy Act and my 


responsibilities thereunder. And so I'd ask 


you --


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I appreciate that. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- to work with me --

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 MR. GRIFFON: I do. I do. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- in that. Okay? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the --

 DR. WADE: Now let's take two steps back -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- if you'd let me, just from a 


procedural point of view -- because we want to 


-- we want to resolve this and move forward. 


Certainly the Board can speak through -- 


through a majority statement. Certainly the 


working group can speak through a majority 


statement. It is my understanding that the 


Board has empowered working group chairs with 


the ability to be heard in this issue. So 


right now the working group chair -- or the 


working group, depending upon how you want to 


do it -- can state what needs to be stated and 


then Larry will act accordingly. So whatever ­

- we can do it either during lunch, you can do 


it on a break --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me add one -- one qualifier. 


This -- the information that's been placed on 


the O drive that you speak about, those 


folders, those files, those have all been 


placed there for your access with the 

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understanding that you have a purpose there. 


It was unbeknownst to me and I'll -- this is my 


responsibility, Mark. I didn't make the 


connection when you were making comments about 


well, I checked these claims against this 


database, you know; I didn't make the 


connection. My fault. I'm dealing with too 


much maybe. But at that point in time I should 


have investigated -- did what I did Friday -- 


and said ORAU, shut down your portal until we 


get this sorted out. And that's all I did was 


shut down the portal on those outside accesses. 


The O drive should not be a portal to the -- 


the NOCTS system. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- I mean I think -- your 


statements were very insightful to me 'cause I 


think it was really about thi-- this stated 


purpose more than anything. That -- that gets 


us here. And my -- my understanding of the 


purpose of this review -- and I think, you 


know, maybe -- and I'll be the first to admit, 


this has been real time. We've been, you know, 


workgroup meetings and calls between workgroup 


meetings with NIOSH. You know, it's happening 


-- everybody's trying to -- to get these 

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responses out quickly. My understanding --


again I'll say that -- was -- was to review the 


completeness of the DOE radiation records in 


the claims files. Nothing about the methods of 


how NIOSH used those records to reconstruct 


that individual claimant's dose. So is that --


that's pretty clear scope, I think, to review 


the completeness of the radiation files and the 


records. And now I -- but I will admit that -- 


that in reviewing SC&A's report, I think 


there's some -- a couple of findings in there 


that went beyond that -- that stated scope, so 


I can see where -- where this issue might have 


come up, in addition to privacy, the concern 


that they were --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, again, I'm not -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- getting into Task IV type -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- I'm not speaking about scope. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm not -- I'm only using Task IV 


as an established procedure on how we would -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- facilitate your access to 


those claims. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But I want to be clear with SC&A, 

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too, that I don't think that was the intent of 


what I -- what we were looking for. We weren't 


trying to look at --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Mark, your purpose --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- DR stuff. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Your purpose in doing the level 


of review that you do -- this is perhaps a 


legal issue --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- but interpretation of Privacy 


Act against your need as a Special -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- Government Employee, working 


group chair, you know, to me, that establishes 


your purpose and thereby you're required to 


maintain the confidentiality in this 


information under the Privacy Act. That's your 


-- that could be your purpose. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. WADE: There are many issues running 


through here and I think that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- first of all, let me -- let me 


start by saying that everyone involved in this 


is trying to do the right thing by claimants 

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and petitioners. There is no doubt in my mind 


that everyone is motivated to do the right 


thing. Mark, you need to decide again as 


working group chair what you request of Larry 


to make available, and then Larry will act on 


that. I would hope he would act positively to 


that, but if he has concerns -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. WADE: -- then he can raise them with you. 


We're all required, once we have access, to 


deal with that access in an appropriate way. 


And in this case there are a couple of things 


that have happened that I'll need to sit down 


with John and talk about. And you know, you're 


welcome to join us and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I agree with that, yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- we'll work through this and 


there'll be no issue. 


The other thing, while we get all of the issues 


on the table, is that the purpose of the given 


investigation is established by the working 


group and the Board, and then SC&A acts upon 


that established purpose by the working group 


and the Board. So everything is in order to 


make this happen according to -- to 

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appropriated procedures. 


And to those out there listening, I mean this 


is something that happened on Thursday and 


Friday. We will resolve it today. I don't 


want to leave anybody with the impression that 


-- that this is a mindful waste of time -- a 


mindless waste of time. I mean there are 


things that needed to be looked at and they'll 


be looked at in a very timely way and everyone 


will be back on task and we'll move forward. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Okay. And I think we can 


-- maybe during the break I'll offer to caucus 


with Wanda and Bob -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and see if we can submit a 


request to Larry on how we want to define that 


 MS. MUNN: I really think that would be nice, 


Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that request, yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: And it was -- after all, SCA is 


working for us --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- and we need to be very clear in 


our -- our descriptions of what we feel their 

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actions should be, and that of course needs to 


be translated to the agencies. 


 DR. WADE: And I would also add, when you 


caucus, make your request as broad as you think 


it will need to be for you to succeed. No one 


is interested in stifling good scientific 


debate here --


 MS. MUNN: No. 


 DR. WADE: -- so it's not that you have to take 


very cautious steps. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, that -- that's -- that's my 


 DR. WADE: Define what you think you might 


need, then we'll make it available, but with 


that will come a responsibility for how that 


information is dealt, that's all. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that's -- that's my -- 


well, that -- that was my sort of impression, 


but I'd like to discuss with Wanda and Bob 


before -- and Mike, if we can get him on the 


line. 


 Anyway, okay, let's -- I think -- 


 DR. WADE: One last thing for the record. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: I've never seen a working group, or 

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a group of Special Government Employees come to 


a task in more -- in greater -- with greater 


energy and trying to do the right thing, and -- 


and certainly we applaud that and we want to 


see that move forward and I think now we've had 


a good discussion and we'll give you the 


ability to move forward. We are -- we encour-- 


we're encouraged by what you -- you've done and 


we want you to continue your work. Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and -- and along -- along 


that lines of -- of injecting a little good 


spirit in here in the room -- I mean I -- I 


think also that -- that, you know, we have so 


much documentation to review sometimes that 


when I -- when I've gone back over things I've 


realized that, you know, we may have -- have 


asked a similar question in a couple of 


different ways, you know. It happens. I mean 


it happens. 


On the other hand, I think we've -- we've got ­

- you know, we've -- responses have evolved, so 


-- so it's not that we're just, you know, 


chasing indefinitely here. I think we've -- 


we've -- I -- at least my goal in this -- and 


with Y-12 and -- you know, every workgroup I've 

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been on has been to follow the data, and -- and 


you know, probing it to the extent we have to 


to make a good decision, you know, and I feel 


like I have to not only be able to face all of 


you, but also all of you on the phone, the 


public, and we've got to face the public with 


this decision, so... 


COMPLETENESS OF DOSIMETRY RECORDS
 

Anyway, getting back to the item -- the 


deliverable, I -- I think that -- how I led 


into all this was that the -- the reply from -- 


from NIOSH I think addressed a lot of the -- 


let me step back. 


SC&A produced a memo and attached matrix, I 


believe, for this review of these 12 cases. 


And I think the reply by NIOSH for the most 


part responded to the matrix items, I believe. 


And just talking with Joe and Arjun this 


morning, I -- you know, they're feeling like 


they're not in the position, because of this, 


to discuss those particulars. However, I think 


we -- they would like to at least review the 


memo -- and they made copies here I'll hand out 


-- go over the memo and then maybe have a 


discussion about that, the gener-- the broader 

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-- you know, this is their sample and this is 


their sort of compilation of results rather 


than the specific, case by case blow, so -- 


 DR. WADE: That'll be wise. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and I'll turn it over to Joe. 


I'll hand these out. 


(Pause) 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. This is Joe Fitzgerald. 


We wanted to provide, as early as possible, 


some of the results we've -- had pulled 


together on this, but really the memo kind of 


puts it in perspective and that's one reason we 


want to spend some time -- I mean obviously the 


response from NIOSH was very detailed and would 


take some effort to, you know, match it 


certainly from that standpoint. But the issues 


that we're most concerned about I think are 


identified in this cover piece and summarized 


in a way which I think accents what we're 


doing. And I'm going to add to what Mark had 


said earlier. And you know certainly we had 


this chronology of realizing, you know, perhaps 


that HIS-20 was not as complete as we had 


thought it was. And you know, Joyce Lipsztein, 


who's not on this call, was looking at the 

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model cases on the '65 fire as part of the 


high-fired issue and had gone along and tried 


to compare some of those model cases against 


the internal results that were in HIS-20, found 


that those weren't as complete as she'd thought 


they were based on what we had heard before, 


and then went on to look at CEDR; found that to 


be somewhat more complete and but yet still 


having some gaps that were -- were troublesome. 


And we're now at the point in that review, 


looking at the model cases, of realizing that 


we would need to go back to the raw data. So 


empirically, we almost traveled the same route 


on the in vitro -- in vivo results for the 1965 


fire as -- I think as -- as Mark was talking 


about in general. So we arrived at this point 


of wanting to look at the claimant file raw 


data primarily because everything pointed to 


that as sort of being the ultimate basis for 


dose reconstruction and the -- the underpinning 


on the issue of completeness that we need to 


look at in terms of the SEC review. 


So we've arrived here from a number of 


different angles, but feel this is really the 


cornerstone of this question that we're after, 

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which is how complete is the data as a basis 


for dose reconstruction. And that's the reason 


that we felt we needed to invest some time in 


this. And this -- even though this sounds like 


a new issue, an emerging issue, it's one that 


we kind of evolved through and I think Mark 


walked us through, but we also arrived at it by 


virtue of some of the tests that we were 


running on some of the issues such as high-


fired where it became apparent to us that HIS20 did have a number of gaps and that actually 


it was the claimant data that we had to go back 


to. 


Then the question became how complete and 


adequate is that if that is ultimately the 


backstop we're talking about. So certainly 


Arjun and Ron Buchanan, who's on the phone, 


spent I think a good deal of time trying to do 


a sampling. Now understandably at this point, 


we wanted to get some initial results to decide 


whether we needed to go any further. And this 


wasn't designed to be a statistical sample, per 


se, but one where we felt we could, you know, 


take a representative sample across some years 


and across some occupational codes and see what 

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we would come up with. And if in fact the 


results were negative, I think that would have 


been the end of it. But we just wanted to do 


that initial sampling, so this was really that 


exercise and perhaps you want to summarize a 


bit more. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. Another point which we 


got to looking at the DOE files was the whole 


discussion of the neutron/photon ratio when 


Roger Falk explained that he wasn't using the 


HIS-20 database or the CER database and he had 


original DOE paper data. And so the 


completeness of the photon doses became a 


question in determining the neutron/photon 


ratios. 


We -- what we did is -- we didn't have a 


procedure for selecting randomly and we -- we 


selected 12 -- I first selected four cases I 


think -- I just got the numbers from Hans and 


Kathy as to which cases were already looked at 


in terms of -- there were five -- five cases we 


-- we'd looked at, but I think I just got a few 


at first. I looked at four, and I found 


significant gaps in the data. The first one 


I'd looked at had 11 years of -- the first 11 

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years were missing external dose data out of 27 


years of employment. And since almost all -- 


ten out of 11 years -- were supposed to be when 


everybody was badged, from '64 on were -- I 


thought I should look maybe at a few more. 


And then we decid-- we looked at 12 in all. 


Ron examined them in much more detail than I 


had, so I passed on the job to Ron, who created 


the matrix that was sent out. Eventually we 


tried to develop criteria -- a lot of the 


observations I realize are kind of -- and I 


apologize, it really did clutter up the main 


thing. The main observation is on Table 1 on 


page 2 of the memo. We tried to set up 


criteria for completeness, whether there were 


complete original data, and we defined original 


from whatever records there were at the time, 


even if they were computerized records. And we 


defined summary data as what the DOE provided 


NIOSH when NIOSH requested the data for dose 


reconstruction. And then we had two bins, 


missing summary data for more than one year and 


missing summary data for more than five years. 


By missing data, that means blanks. It doesn't 


mean zero. But we could find no information. 

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Now we may have overlooked -- there's a lot of 


paper there, so we may have overlooked some 


things and, you know, there are some mistakes 


in here and we'll -- we'll clear them up when 


we review the details of NIOSH's response. 


But we decided eventually that five years 


seemed like a significant marker. If you had 


data missing for more than five years, we 


should catalog that, and we found that there's 


more than five years of missing data in 50 


percent of the cases and 42 percent of the 


cases. 


Now in -- in thinking back on it -- 42 percent 


for internal and 50 percent for external. 


In thinking back on it, probably a better 


statistical approach would have been to divide 


this into three periods, '52 -- or '52 to '63 


when there was no integral security dose badge, 


and '64 to early '90s when there was an 


integral security dose badge, and then the D&D 


period when the whole badging protocol changed. 


So this -- this doesn't -- this -- because the 


protocols changed, there -- this doesn't 


reflect a real statistically thorough picture 


of data completeness for Rocky Flats, and I 

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think since it was a preliminary screening, it 


indicated to us that there are significant 


gaps, both in external and internal dose. 


About a third of these -- there's some overlap 


between the external and internal missing data. 


About a third of the total cases had more than 


five years of missing data for internal and 


external. We also found some discrepancies of 


-- of varying magnitudes. 


And -- yeah. So basically the -- the summary 


that there were -- there are also implications 


for the neutron/photon dose of -- if there are 


a lot of photon doses missing, say in the late 


'50s from when we're projecting backwards into 


the '51 to '57 period, it's unclear whether 


there would be low doses missing or high doses 


missing, and so the integrity and claimantfavorability of the neutron to photon ratio 


would be affected by how those gaps were 


filled. We didn't know how -- we have some 


idea of how those gaps were filled as it is 


described in section four. 


So that -- that gives you some kind of summary 


of what we found, and -- and just as a caution 


-- Joe already said this -- we don't -- we're 

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not representing this as a statistical sampling 


of the thing. Twelve is a -- is a pretty 


sizeable sample from a -- from a large 


population. You can say some things about it. 


But because the dose protocols changed, I think 


sampling should have be-- should be done 


differently. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Brant, want to reply? 


 DR. ULSH: Again, I understand that SC&A -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- hasn't had a chance to really 


digest our -- our response. I do have a copy 


of that if anyone needs it, but 


(unintelligible) hand them around unless you 


want (unintelligible), but our primary problem 


 MR. GRIFFON: This is the ma-- the matrix -- 


I'm sorry, Brant, that --


 DR. WADE: No, this is his letter. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, it's a letter? Is there a 


mem--


 DR. ULSH: This is our response to the items in 


the spreadsheet that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

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 DR. ULSH: -- came along with SC&A's report. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. But there wasn't a -- 


a memo in front of that -- no, it was just the 


 DR. ULSH: That's correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the matrix. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: That's correct. Because -- I mean 


we just -- I mean the memo was built from the 


spreadsheet -- data in the spreadsheet. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: So we just addressed the data in the 


spreadsheet. And the primary problem that we 


found -- well, a number of them, but the 


primary one I think is that -- is the categor-- 


categorization of periods where there was no 


monitoring, and I think SC&A has interpreted 


that as periods when data was missing, and we 


don't concur with that. You have to look at 


where the people worked and whether or not they 


should have in fact been monitored. If you had 


people working in low exposure potential jobs ­

- for instance, in administrative -- it's 


entirely feasi-- it's entirely plausible that 


they would not have been monitored. So we 


agree -- I mean with a couple of exceptions 

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that we pointed out here in our response -- 


there are periods where there was no 


monitoring. We don't agree that that 


represents periods of missing data. In other 


words, they were monitored but for some reason 


we don't have the data. 


I think that really is the nut of the whole 


thing. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Could I ask a question? Part ­

- part of -- part -- well, we've defined how we 


said, missing data. Missing data is when there 


was no do-- when there was evidence of 


employment, but blanks in the dose information. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So maybe -- maybe we should 


have invented a different term -- 


 DR. ULSH: Gap. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- that --


 DR. ULSH: I think we'd agree on a gap. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, a -- data gaps. I think 


that may be a better term, because missing data 


is used in dose reconstruction in a different 


way. So I think we can agree that it should be 


called data gaps. 


But since there -- the security badge and the 

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film badge were integral from '64, there should 


be no data gaps for entire years from the '64 


to early '90s, unle-- unless lots of badges 


were lost, records were lost, or something 


happened. 


 DR. ULSH: Jim Langsted, can you speak to that? 


MR. LANGSTED: Yeah, this is Jim Langsted. The 


situation was that there were subcontractors on 


site -- construction subcontractors -- for 


doing work outside of the -- can you hear me? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, we can hear you, Jim. 


MR. LANGSTED: I'm sorry, I wasn't sure if it 


was on mute or not. But there were some 


contractors on site that were different than 


the plant population because they were working 


outside of any of the radiation zones. And it 


turns out these people were not badged. We 


have seen several of these in the random 


sampling that was taken for this study, and 


that's in fact what we're seeing here. It was 


probably a misstatement to say that everybody 


on site was badged from 1964 on. The 


subcontracting -- subcontracted construction 


people fell into a different category, and we 


need to straighten that out in the Technical 

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Basis Document. But that's what -- what I 


believe we're seeing here. 


 DR. ULSH: Now Jim, did you say that those were 


people who did not go into the radiation areas? 


MR. LANGSTED: Correct. 


 DR. ULSH: If they did go into the radiation 


areas --


MR. LANGSTED: Then they were badged. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So that accounts for -- for -- 


well, I don't think we can do case by case -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, not right now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- 'cause we're not ready today, 


but that -- that -- that's different than what 


the TBD led us to believe, that everyone was 


monitored, so that -- that's okay. If it's a 


TBD fix, it's a lot easier than -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- than the other. Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And Jim, just for 


clarification's sake, you're saying one for one 


you could rationalize the gaps -- 'cause we -- 


we -- we were looking at seven or eight-year 


gaps in the particular worker and -- but yet 


there was also some badged periods. That's a 


little confusing if they're a construction 

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worker. It would either be one or the other, 


you would think. 


MR. LANGSTED: Well, unless that construction 


worker was assigned to a job that was in the 


radiation zones, then they would have been 


badged for that period. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Jim, we -- I -- maybe I should 


open my spreadsheet, but this person I think 


who had 11 years of missing data was a 


secretary. So she should -- she would have 


been on site. I don't think she would have 


been like a construction subcontractor. And I 


will open up my spreadsheet and -- and confirm 


this to you, but so --


MR. LANGSTED: You're exac-- you're exactly 


right, Arjun. That was a case of an individual 


that did work for the prime contractor there at 


Rocky Flats that was not badged for a large 


period. Her work history was that she was a 


secretary for the security organization and 


there are some -- some records or some letters 


in her file that say that because she never 


entered the production areas, she didn't 


believe she needed to participate in the 


bioassay program. And I don't recall if one of 

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those letters also said the external dosimetry 


program, but that appears to be the case there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But wasn't the -- I mean we just 


went over that statement of "integral to the 


security badge was the dosimetry," so wouldn't 


she have had external monitoring? 


MR. LANGSTED: Apparently not, in this case. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, that's -- that's the 


question, I guess. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, it sounds like a -- 


certainly a question of -- of what happened 


post-'64 because if you were on-site in defense 


line, you certainly would have a security 


badge, and that would be something that would 


have a integral chip in it. That -- that 


certainly bears a little bit more work-through. 


 MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. The lady in 


question worked in a off-site security office. 


If the security group -- their head office was 


off-site, I can see where she would not have 


had to even have a security badge to work in 


some of those -- the -- as a -- as a 


receptionist or something like that. 


MR. LANGSTED: I believe she was on-site, Bob. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. 

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MR. LANGSTED: Building 21 was one of the 


buildings that was on-site, but was outside of 


-- of the radiation areas. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah. I don't -- I don't have a 


problem with that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, it -- it's just a question 


of the way the policy's stated in the TBD leads 


you to believe that everyone should have 


records. I mean it's not even a question of 


the magnitude of this individual's dose, 


necessarily. I mean obviously she -- she -- it 


seems like she was unlikely to have much 


exposure, but it's -- it's -- you know, this is 


a random sampling --


MR. LANGSTED: And I did some looking back -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- or -- or fairly random 


sampling, I think, so it raised those questions 


-- yeah. 


MR. LANGSTED: -- at the actual TLD laboratory 


worksheets for that group, and I could not find 


her even listed on those worksheets, so that 


indicates that she was not -- did -- was not 


issued a dosimetry badge. 


 DR. ULSH: It sounds like we might have a 


problem with language in the TBD, Jim, that -- 

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that indicates that for that time period -- 


what was it, '64 to the maybe -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: Early '90s. 


 DR. ULSH: -- early '90s -- where we talked 


about the integral badge, where the security 


badge and the dosimetry badge were integrated. 


We might need to revise that language to more 


accurately reflect the badging policies of the 


site at the time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The -- the other thing I -- I -- 


the other question I have is related to the 


TBD, but it's these -- these -- these dose 


reconstruction guidelines that exist for 


different sites. And I guess -- I guess the 


one tied in with the TBD, one thing that, you 


know, sort of raised the question in my mind on 


this very issue was in this dose reconstruction 


guidelines dated 9/1/05 -- now these may have 


been superseded since this time frame -- but 


there was a statement -- for unmonitored 


individuals it says from '64 through the early 


'90s all staff personnel were issued 


dosimeters. If there is no data for an 


individual, then you must assume their 


dosimeters were lost. And that kind of 

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surprised me that this statement -- you know, 


this statement tied in with the guidelines. 


I'm not sure -- you know, it seems like there 


was sort of some expectation that there might 


be some -- some problems or potential gaps in 


that time frame and if -- if -- I don't even 


know what it means to assume that their 


dosimeters were lost. 


 DR. ULSH: I guess we would treat them as 


unmonitored -- probably apply coworker data, 


but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and then I guess the -- 


 DR. ULSH: I mean I'm just guessing there, 


Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, the biggest question 


-- you know, if it's a -- is just, you know, 


how do you -- if you have gaps in data -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- there's different ways to 


treat that, certainly, but -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well, the way that we looked at it 


was -- I mean we agree that there's a question 


on the table here about the TBD language and 


reflecting the badge exchange -- I'm sorry, the 


badging policy at the -- at the site. But the 

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way that we looked at this, whenever -- in 


these 12 cases that SC&A looked at, whenever we 


identified a gap the first thing that we did is 


we looked at the -- the work history and where 


that person worked, and whether or not that 


gave us some indication of their exposure 


potential. And in -- I want to say every case, 


we found that the periods where there were gaps 


corresponded to periods where their employment 


was in a low exposure potential situation. So 


we didn't -- we didn't find that -- we didn't 


categorize that as missing, but I agree that 


there is a -- an issue here on the table about 


the language in the TBD on the badge policy. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, let me ask another 


question about the earlier case -- I -- I've 


found my spreadsheet here. This -- this person 


had missing data from '63 to '73 inclusive, but 


the first years for which there are data, '74 


and '75, are non-zero shallow and deep dose 


entries. 


 DR. ULSH: Which one is this, Arjun? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is the same secretary that 


we're talking about. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, but what -- what's the case 

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number? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no. 


 DR. ULSH: Your case -- your case number, not 


the NIOSH case number. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Number three. 


 DR. ULSH: Number three, I was getting a little 


nervous. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let's not go there. 


 DR. WADE: Don't want to get too 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, I -- I have opened the 


sanitized version here. I don't even know the 


number. 


 MS. MUNN: That's good. That's a good 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, that's why we created 


these, Ms. Munn, so we won't -- we wouldn't -- 


 MS. MUNN: I know. 


 DR. ULSH: All right, this --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- read them by mistake. 


 DR. ULSH: This is -- okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So the first -- the -- the 


first two years for which there are data are 


non-zero, both deep and shallow are not zero, 


if I'm reading it right. Yeah, penetrating -- 

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yeah. And then -- then there was one other 


year where there's a non-zero entry, then there 


were zeroes for most of the years after that. 


But it's not -- it's not as if there was no 


exposure potential. There was occasional 


exposure potential through at least 1987. 


 DR. ULSH: Emily, can I speak about -- as long 


as I don't talk about the person -- you know, 


what their name is or anything like that -- can 


I talk about the job duties here? I don't want 


to give away anything that would -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Don't give away their identity. 


Right? 


 MS. HOWELL: Right. Just be -- if you could 


speak about their job duties -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MS. HOWELL: -- but without too much other 


information. 


 DR. ULSH: This person that you're referring 


to, Arjun, worked as a clerk and a secretary 


for the plant protection organization during 


the period that you're talking about. And Jim 


I think -- Langsted -- did a spot check of some 


of -- some of these people, some of the records 


for this particular person. And this is the 

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one that Jim said the dosimetry reports and the 


TLD laboratory worksheets indicate that they 


were not monitored. So it's not that they were 


monitored and we don't have the records. These 


indicated they weren't monitored. 


Now there is a positive dose in a particular 


year -- and I should point out that this is one 


-- this is a case that SC&A reviewed under Task 


IV, this is an individual DR -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is just about 


completeness, not --


 DR. ULSH: I know, but --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But this was a compensated case 


so there was no need to review the external 


data because there was no calculation ever 


done. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, that's an important point, 


too, is that this is a compensated case. And I 


don't know, maybe I shouldn't have said that, 


either -- we shouldn't have talked about that, 


either, but -- so this is -- you know, as Bob 


mentioned, this is a person, clerk or 


secretary, that had low exposure potential, so 


we -- we didn't conclude that that was a case 


of missing data at all. 

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DR. MAURO: Could -- I'd like to say some-- I'm 


listening and I feel as if right now we're 


sitting -- arguing the facts of the matter. 


It's almost like we're at the stage where what 


-- what's the facts, and -- and -- and -- and 


you know, the reality is the facts are in the 


records. We could find out -- and I agree with 


you. I think if we do our homework, we go in, 


find out what the facts are. 


Now the reason I bring this up is that the 


facts really are going to drive this for the 


following reason. If it turns (unintelligible) 


that, for all intents and purposes, everyone 


has a complete record that you can go back and 


use to reconstruct their doses, all of a sudden 


that SEC issue just goes away. I'm going to be 


-- I'm going to speak in gross generalities. 


And the reason we're having this conversation 


right now is we're disagreeing on the facts, 


the disagreement being that we think there 


might be some serious holes. You think there 


aren't -- may not be some serious holes. 


Let's, for the sake -- sake of discussion, do a 


thought problem. Let's agree that maybe there 


are some holes. We don't know how big they 

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are, but they may be some -- to be found out, 


and we'll find this out and hopefully we'll 


find this out quickly. And that -- if we get 


to the point where we say okay, we've got these 


holes, aren't we really talking about now can 


you fill the holes and -- or are the holes of 


such a nature by way of the nature of the work 


or the time period when the holes occurred and 


unknowns -- and unknowns regarding process 


knowledge that are going to prevent us from 


reconstructing the doses of some workers. 


Now I -- I -- I don't -- I don't want to lose 


sight of the ball. That's where we are. We're 


trying -- so we have to get by the facts first. 


And if we find -- if -- we've got to get to a 


place first where we acknowledge that yes, 


there are or there are not significant holes, 


whether it's 1969 or it's this particular 


person or whatever. We've got to get -- we've 


got to get off that as -- and get to the point 


where we all agree what the nature and extent 


of the holes are. Because if we can't get to 


that point that we generally see the facts of 


the matter the same way, we're going to have a 


very hard time talking to each other. 

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 And then, once we say okay, we generally agree 


-- there may be a little bit of roughness on 


the edges, but basically we see this time 


period, this job category or whatever, or this 


category of exposure -- neutron/photon ratio -- 


but we generally see it, then -- see, I want to 


be able to get to a point where okay, is there 


anything we can do about those holes, whatever 


their magnitude are. Now I know that there's 


been quite a bit of discussion on coworker 


models and lots of disagreement on what that -- 


how to do that. That -- in fact that was a 


while ago, it's funny -- but it's back again. 


It's back again because all of a sudden we're 


starting to think maybe there are some holes, 


'cause we almost -- we almost let go of that 


for a while because we thought we had a very 


complete dataset. So I -- I'm trying to get a 


model of how do we get closure. And to me, it 


is let's get the facts of the matter behind us 


about this -- the nature and extent and the 


magnitude of those holes, if they even exist. 


If they do exist, we get a general sense of a 


concurrence on what they are and where they are 


and why they're there. Then we move on to say 

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-- and I'm going to presume for right now that 


there are at least some, okay? 'Cause I know 


I've heard lots of agreement that at least 1969 


was a problem, apparently. I think --


 DR. ULSH: We'll cover that. 


DR. MAURO: We want to talk about that separate 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: I'm staying on -- I'm -- I'm -- I'm 


operating over here right now. Okay? Now 


we're going to get off there and we're going to 


say okay, what are we going to do about it, and 


then we're going to get around the table as a 


bunch of health physicists and say okay, 


listen, what is a reasonable thing we can do. 


And now there's -- now here's where things get 


difficult. Now it becomes a matter of judgment 


on I think we can fill these holes this way by 


using this model or extrapolating from here. 


We've done a lot of that on Y-12 and it worked. 


Okay? And there were places where it was 


agreed well, this -- you know, this particular 


case, I guess it was (unintelligible) and I 


don't know if we really can do that. So I 


think that that's -- so I'm concerned right now 

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that we're spend-- we -- we've got to find a 


system that we all agree to to get the facts 


tight, whether it's sampling 12 cases or 


sampling 30 cases from different pla-- whatever 


-- whatever it is, I'm not saying -- but we've 


got to get to the point where once we go 


through this process, we all see the facts the 


same way and we all agree on the extent and 


nature of the holes, and then we can move on to 


where the action really is -- if there are 


holes, how are we going to fill them, and can 


we fill them. And I -- I -- you know what I'm 


concerned about? I'm concerned that we're too 


early in the process. We -- we sh-- in other 


words, I was hoping we -- we -- you know, we 


went through a real long, circuitous process -- 


I mean we've been at this a while. But we're 


actually in a place now that's different than 


when we started, but it's not a bad place. 


It's a good place. I'm starting to see that 


there is a place -- now -- now we -- you and I, 


we --


 MR. GRIFFON: It's a good place. It's a good 


place. I'll concur. 


 DR. WADE: It's where we are, so it'd better be 

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a good place. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I love Cincinnati. We've been 


here a lot. It's a good place. 


DR. MAURO: I think I see a tractable problem 


here. I mean I think we can all engage this 


thing, and we should not be arguing over the 


facts. And there's got to -- and that's why 


it's so important that we get access to these 


records so we can convince ourself that you are 


right -- or wrong, you know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's -- and that's what -- I've 


been -- the bottom line is, let's let the data 


drive this process and -- but we have to have ­

- I mean I appreciate Jim's comments on -- on 


the phone here 'cause that's information we 


didn't have, you know, and the T-- we can only 


go by what you outlined in the TBD. Now, you 


know, secretary or not, this person was a prime 


contractor, so I -- I think we've -- we've laid 


out as much as we can do here now, but I think 


we do have to, you know, still explore that -- 


I don't know if it's just a matter of rewriting 


the TBD or if there's -- you know. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I would -- I would ask -- when 


you get a chance, when you get access to the 

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data and you can --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- digest our responses, go back and 


look at the gaps you identified and consider 


the work history of the individual involved. 


And if we find a process operator with a gap in 


his monitoring record, that's one thing. But 


if we find a secretary or a clerk with a gap in 


their monitoring record, that's another thing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But the -- but --


 DR. ULSH: I'm just -- I know, I know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- if it -- if it's a -- I mean 


that's the -- the thing is, if -- if you 


randomly sample and you've got some secretaries 


and clerks in your pool of sampling and they 


have no records and the policy said that 


everybody was -- was monitored during that time 


period, you know, I -- I'd -- I would agree 


that the chances of them getting much dose is 


probably nil. But the point is -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well, that was the second part of 


the --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- according to the policy, they 


should have had some records and they're not 


there. That's the conclusion. It's not the 

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magnitude of the dose. 


 DR. ULSH: The second part of what I wanted to 


say is --


 MR. GRIFFON: Sorry. 


 DR. ULSH: No, that's all right. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) got to get 


beyond that. 


 DR. ULSH: I think -- John, I think we can 


agree that in a dataset of 20,000 people, 


you're going to find a gap. There's going to 


be. There's probably some record that slipped 


behind -- behind a file cabinet, something like 


that. I'm not aware of any, but come on, it's 


a human institution. 


DR. MAURO: I -- I'm -- I -- I agree with you 


100 percent. 


 DR. ULSH: So if the questi-- there are two 


questions then. Number one, is this just an 


occasional thing that happened because it's the 


nature of large database problems, or is it a 


systematic problem that compromises our ability 


to do dose reconstructions. Now I don't know 


where you'll -- where SC&A is on this -- 


DR. MAURO: One more layer. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 

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DR. MAURO: Even if it's not systematic, if the 


nature of the problems is such that they create 


gaps in time periods and -- and job functions 


such that it's going to make it really tough to 


fill in those gaps, that's also important to 


know also. 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. And we're -- we haven't 


seen evidence that there's a systematic or 


intractable problem. Of course there's going 


to be the occasional gap. There has to be. 


can't point to one right now, but we can agree 


that they're going to be there. Then the 


question becomes what do you do then, and we've 


got coworker models. Now we need to have some 


more discussions about OTIB-38. I mean we all 


agree on that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: I haven't heard a lot of question 


about OTIB-58, with the exception of maybe the 


neutron issue. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Neutron/photon. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, so I mean those are issues 


that we do need to talk about. But at the end 


of the day if we've got a gap for a particular 


person -- I mean Rocky Flats is no different 


I 
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than any other site. We're going to fill it 


with coworker data if we can agree -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- we need to have that discussion. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And put things in context, 


you're saying where's -- does SC&A stand at 


this point, you know, we did a reconnaissance-


type sampling, meaning okay -- with the 


realization more and more that the claimant 


file was in fact going to be the true basis 


with the understanding of HIS-20 having some 


shortcomings, we did this reconnaissance 


survey. This is as far as we are. And I think 


all we want to do at this stage is say, you 


know, we did this sampling, we weren't sure 


what we were going to find, but we kind of 


surprised ourselves by finding, in a -- in a 


random look, gaps that we frankly didn't expect 


to see because we had understood the database 


to be a pretty complete database. Unlike the 


other sites, Rocky, we understood, had a 


complete database and what we were finding were 


holes that we couldn't rationalize, and we 


wanted to surface that for this very purpose, 


to kind of reach an understanding of what does 

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this mean, what -- what is the significance of 


this and is this something that needs to be 


explored further. That's it. There isn't any 


more intention than to say that, you know, this 


is something that we need to put to bed in 


order to get to this next step that -- that 


John's referring to. 


 DR. WADE: And the working group really needs 


to decide upon a path forward based upon -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. WADE: -- what's in front of it, and that's 


perfectly reasonable. I mean it's really the 


working group's task now to say this is the 


path forward we want to pursue and instruct 


you, and NIOSH will then join and we'll get 


this resolved. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: One more specific of another 


type, leaving a secretary alone, example number 


two is an electrician, 11 years of work and no 


data for six years -- no external dose data for 


six years. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Was that other than prime 


contractor? They might have that information. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Do you -- Jim, do you know 


whether they were a prime contractor, 

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electrician, the number two case? 


MR. LANGSTED: I'm looking at my notes -- yes, 


the individual was a non-prime contractor 


individual. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So this is the first we've heard 


-- you know, that isn't -- I mean if you looked 


at this report --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: They have -- but they have 


doses listed for some years. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, where he may have gone into 


the area. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's very confusing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's a -- it's a very --


because it -- it -- the -- the -- what I'm 


hearing now is that there is another -- other 


than the periods, which is '51, '52 to '63, '64 


to the early '90s, now we've got two more 


layers. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Prime versus -- right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: One is prime contractor people 


who may not have been monitored and been issued 


a different badge than the integral badge, and 


then the second layer is a subcontractor who 


may have sometimes been exposed and sometimes 

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not exposed, because that's what this is -- 


shows that this person was sometimes exposed 


and not exposed. So we've got a -- I just want 


to observe that we have a -- now a -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right, right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- truly complex situation. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And there's the implication, I 


think, that it sounds like the subcontractor, 


and even perhaps the prime, was badged for jobs 


that might carry more exposure potential -- 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- but not be badged -- and 


that makes sense. I mean you see it at other 


sites, but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- this is a dynamic I think 


we weren't aware of. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think as a task to get -- to 


get a -- to go beyond this here, I think SC&A 


needs to come back with us with a sampling 


strategy for maybe a slightly larger sample, 


but I'm not talking, you know, that much larger 


'cause I think the sample size was not that -- 


that small in the first place, but maybe 


incorporating those factors you just mentioned, 

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Arjun, that -- and then on the flip side, I 


think it would be good -- somehow we need to 


know -- maybe aft-- there's got to be an 


interactive process I guess between NIOSH where 


we can find files that are for people that are 


non-subs versus su-- I guess that's the other 


layer -- that wouldn't be intuitively obvious 


in the record, would it? I -- I -- it's not to 


me, anyway. I mean is there a way to identify 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Maybe -- there may be 


information, but I think one would have -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- to read all the fine print, 


which would be -- have to be pretty time-


consuming. 


 DR. ULSH: Which is what we did. 


 MS. MUNN: It's terribly time-consuming. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Very. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So the personnel system could 


be searched to find that -- you could certainly 


see a Rocky employee versus a contractor 


employee. 


 DR. ULSH: Does anyone on -- on the ORAU team 


out there on the phone know if there's a way to 

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pull out employer status, like whether they 


were prime or contractor, in an easy way? 


 MR. SHARFI: Not without looking at the DOL 


(unintelligible). 


MR. ROBINSON: This is Al. I -- I don't know 


of a -- really an easy way to do it, but I know 


that, you know, it is often buried in the DOL 


documents, and then we recently have had access 


to these worker history cards and the cards 


sometimes give you good information. But 


that's like a -- you know, getting down into 


the details. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. I can 


answer your question. In our claims tracking 


system, you would have to go into the DOL 


correspondence file and read what they 


determined his eligibility on. That's where we 


pick up a job title or a job category and place 


it in that -- that front piece that you see on 


the claim file that says what -- what the 


worker did, so that's where we would pull that 


out of. We don't -- we don't have that as a -- 


there's no IT linkage. You know, it's not a 


hot button where we can sort on that thing 


alone. This is why we had so much trouble 

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trying to come up with a number of construction 


trades workers for TIB-52 and trying to figure 


out who was prime, non-prime. That's all hand-


sorted. That's all time-consuming, each 


individual claim opened up. I wish we had a 


better mechanism, but we haven't had time to 


devote to that yet. 


 MR. GRIFFON: If we can -- if we --


 MS. MUNN: The key word was just said, buried. 


You know, if it's in there, it's way, way deep 


in there. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Or you'd --

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, if we can --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- have to go to the CATI and 

then see --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- unless -- unless --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- the interview, the interview 

might be --

 MS. MUNN: Yeah, right, right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- another source. 


 MS. MUNN: And if you can rely on the -- the -- 


if the information's on the CATI even. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right, many reasons raised 


not to do this. I think -- Arjun, how long did 


it take for the 12 cases to be reviewed from 

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your side? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, Ron will have to chip in 


on his side. We -- just FYI, what's in process 


inside SC&A is -- because this question of, you 


know, statistical sampling came up, we did ask 


our statistician, Harry Chlemynski, to think 


about this problem, and he has given us some 


preliminary guidance -- not ready for primetime 


yet, but it won't be -- you know, you won't 


need to sample hundreds, in other words. You ­

- you can do it in dozens. If --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, we're talking dozens of 


cases, and --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I -- I think -- and I spent a ­

- probably a couple of days on this, but Ron 


may have spent more 'cause he -- he looked at 


the data in more detail and developed the 


matrix. Ron? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah, this is Ron. I probably 


spent a -- a good week on that -- off and on 


for several weeks, but probably a total full 


time of a week on it. I -- I did have another 


question I'd like to ask on the number of 


layers. In the '64 to early '90s where they 


badged everyone with a security badge, did they 

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-- was there another layer that said okay, we 


badged everybody, but we didn't read the people 


that were secretaries or low exposed areas; was 


there any period during that everybody was 


badged that they didn't necessarily process -- 


or does anyone know if that's true or not? 


 DR. ULSH: Ron, I'm going to chip in with what 


I know, and maybe let Jim Langsted go a little 


further. We do know that in 1969 -- we -- 


we've seen an explanation in -- it was a 


monthly progress report, I believe from the 


dosimetry section. They decided that people 


who were not stationed in plutonium areas -- in 


other words, these are the administrative areas 


outside of the radiation areas, or in the 


formerly uranium areas. And these people who 


were on quarterly badge exchange cycles and so 


by definition these are the people judged to be 


at low risk. They made a decision in I believe 


it was April of '69 that those people would be 


-- continue to be badged, but they would not 


read those badges unless circumstances 


warranted. In other words, they were involved 


in a -- an incident or something like that. 


Now we do know that in terms of the uranium 

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areas at that time, by then, by '69 -- I think 


it was in actually '65 that all of the uranium 


operations were transferred to Y-12, so there 


wasn't much uranium left at Rocky Flats during 


that time period. So these are people who 


would be essentially outside of the radiation 


areas; i.e., at that time the plutonium areas 


at Rocky Flats. 


MR. LANGSTED: That was enriched uranium that 


was moved. 


 DR. ULSH: Ah, okay, thank you. 


MR. LANGSTED: (Unintelligible) uranium 


operations continued. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Thank you for the 


clarification, Jim. Can you add to what I've 


said, Jim, or... 


MR. LANGSTED: No, you're right. We've seen a 


situation in the -- in the 1969 period where 


badges were not read. We also saw some 


indication of a period around 1980 -- late 


'80s, '86 or '89, I can't recall -- where some 


of the quarterly badges were not processed 


because of some manpower issues. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just to cla-- just to clarify 


that, Brant, 'cause -- I -- I got a different 

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thing from what Jim just said than what you 


said. '69 -- I thought -- previously we'd 


discussed this and I thought it was due to 


other priorities or manpower issues resulting 


from a fire that they -- they put these ones on 


the sideline for the meantime and didn't read 


them? 


 DR. ULSH: It was prior to the fire, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It was prior to the fire? 


 DR. ULSH: They made this decision prior to the 


fire --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. But -- but -- 


 DR. ULSH: -- so it's not related to the fire. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but it did -- it doesn't sound 


like Jim's saying that the -- the policy 


started in '69 and continued throughout. 


 DR. ULSH: I -- Jim, do we have some idea how 


long that might have continued? I know it --


the decision was made in '69. I don't know... 


MR. LANGSTED: No, we don't have anything that 


indicates a formal policy, when it was 


implemented and when it was rescinded. It's 


just these cases that we have discovered or 


mentioned in the -- the -- what the highlights 


-- the weekly highlights of -- of this 

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situation, but we don't have that pinned down 


exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, that -- that's a real X 


factor, you know. I mean that's a --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: What weekly highlights? 


MR. LANGSTED: Let me point out, though, that 


if there was a case where there was a gap like 


this, the dose reconstruction process would use 


the -- their methods of -- of either before or 


after, or the coworker data to fill in those 


gaps. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Sure, sure, we understand that, 


but when you have five to ten-year gaps, you 


know, it's -- it's a -- interesting how -- I 


mean it's a question about the extrapolation 


methods, too, but I'm -- I'm just trying to 


understand who was monitored. It's getting 


harder and harder. 


 MR. CHEW: Right, this is Mel. I'd like to 


make a comment. When SC&A -- if you folks go 


back and redo -- and review some additional 


cases here, bear in mind I'm just going to give 


you a scenario. When we were developing OTIB52 to look at construction workers, who they 


worked for, we came across several of these 

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kinds of situation. I'm going to give you an 


electrician who came into the plant who worked 


for an outside contractor and -- and he may be 


doing some things on the site that did not 


require him to be badged. But he can also be 


asked to go into radiological area. For that 


particular time he would be badged. But at the 


same time, the M&O contractor had to have their 


captive construction workers that they had to 


use for maintenance as part of their M&O 


responsibilities. That person could be -- also 


be hired to work for that M&O for a short 


period of time. Any reduction in force, he 


might have been laid off and then he can come 


back through as a construction -- con-- 


electrician or construction worker with the 


subcontractor. So it is a fairly complex 


scenario. Okay? So I just make sure you -- 


caution you you don't fall into that trap. 


Just because he may be working for the M&O and 


that he was not necessarily in the radiological 


area, there -- he would not have been 


monitored. Okay? So that does not necessarily 


mean the data was missing and -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, there --

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 MR. CHEW: -- so there's a complex 


(unintelligible). 


DR. MAURO: I noticed that in terms of coming 


to conciliance (sic) amongst us, agreement, 


it's almost like a threshold of when are we 


convinced. And I can see we're -- we're not in 


the same place. It's important to recognize 


the reason why we -- sometimes we don't come to 


the same place. I'll give you an example. 


You may -- you may look at the facts of the 


matter and say okay, we see a -- a number of 


holes, and we'll call them a hole. But you 


will say knowing the -- how they're go-- sets 


for what the practices were at that time, what 


kinds of things they did, how they thought 


about things -- perfect example is this -- the 


classic one where the -- you folks operate from 


the premise that the people were monitored 


because they were the ones that have the 


highest exposures. And of course on our side 


of the house, we say well, hold the presses, 


(unintelligible) cohort sampling. I think one 


-- and I think it's important to recognize the 


barriers for us to get ov-- to get by. We 


have, I think -- though a good health physicist 

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could probably find a lot of good reasons why a 


certain thing did not happen, or why this 


particular strategy is probably reasonable, I 


would have to say from our side we -- we hold 


ourselves a little tighter. In other words -- 


okay, if you're going to say that the people 


that were monitored were all the upper end, 


that's got to be almost bulletproof, in other 


words, because it's so important. In other 


words, if you're building a coworker model and 


you're saying okay, we have a coworker model 


and we're going to say -- we're going to say 


this group of people can be applied to that 


group of people and we'll use the full 


distribution. And the reason you feel the full 


distribution is reasonable is because, in your 


judgment, the people that weren't monitored 


weren't monitored probably because they weren't 


exposed. And of course -- I'm just using this 


as an example because we keep running into 


this. So where -- so the one place -- another 


thing is -- and I guess important -- I call 


these meta-issues -- that when we engage this, 


whether it's the facts of the matter or what is 


the best way to build the coworker model and 

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can you build a coworker model, our inclination 


is going to be to -- to raise the bar a little 


bit in terms of really putting the test hard. 


Even though there are really good, plausible 


reasons that you might be able to raise that 


says well, I think at that time they used to do 


this, we're going to come in here and say wait 


a -- we need a little bit more than that, and 


then -- whether we are the ones to investigate 


it further, but it's important to recognize 


where we're going to get to the point where 


we're going to miss each other. So rec-- so I 


guess in the pro-- we're about to enter a 


process, and it has to do with a set of data. 


Let's say the first step is going to be coming 


up with some design criteria for sampling an 


appropriate number and then interpreting what 


that means. I think that as we move through 


that process and get the facts down, your 


interpretation of what a hole means and our 


interpretation of what the hole means might be 


different, and I think we have to be prepared 


to -- to -- to realize that's going to -- 


that's going to happen and we're going to have 


to work through that. And then once we get by 

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that and we get to the coworker model, your 


interpretation of what is a robust coworker 


model and what we might interpret as being a 


robust coworker model might bear -- might be -- 


have a degree of difference. So I'm -- I'm 


just sort of preparing ourselves for the -- for 


the -- for the arena, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: Before Jim jumps in I want to 


comment on a couple of things here that are 


making me uneasy about what you said. You're 


saying that -- okay. You represented our 


position as being we can build a coworker model 


because we think that the highest people were 


sampled. Not exactly. The only way that 


cohort sampling or sampling less than 100 


percent of the people does not work -- it 


doesn't have to be the highest people. It can 


be a representative sample. It can be, you 


know, cohort sampling. The only way it doesn't 


work is if you purposefully, or through 


negligence or whatever, sampled the lowest 


people. 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ULSH: And we see no evidence of that. 


That's just counter-intuitive. And so I -- and 

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we've also talked to site experts employed at 


the time, and of course their sampling 


procedure was to sample -- was to monitor the 


people who they thought had an exposure 


potential. 


Now it doesn't mean that they were successful 


100 percent of the time, there was probably 


someone -- and that's why we picked the 95th 


percentile, to ensure that we capture those 


people. 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ULSH: So I don't want to buy into -- 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: -- that argument of the coworker 


model. Now --


DR. MAURO: Okay, so -- I mean then there is a 


gen-- I mean there -- we did notice on a number 


of occasions -- and again we're sort of moving 


off the specifics, but -- that was not -- we'd 


-- we'd always see it implemented in the same 


way. I guess -- and what I'm hearing is 


there's agreement, though, that the idea of the 


95th percentile is -- is -- is a strategy that 


would be employed under certain circumstances. 


DR. NETON: It certainly would be negotiable 

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under the SEC process. I mean that's what 


we're doing. The fall-back position using the 


95th percentile is the -- is doable. I mean if 


you can buy into the fact that a coworker model 


can be constructed. That's what I guess -- 


I've been out of the loop here for a while so I 


just want to ask a general question. Maybe you 


guys have gone beyond this, but it sounds to me 


like right now there is a search going through 


the case by case files to demonstrate that 


there is a complete dataset -- 


 DR. ULSH: That's --


DR. NETON: -- and anything less than 


completeness raises big issues in your guy's 


minds. I mean that's what I'm seeing, that 


there's 40 percent missing here and so that 


casts doubt on our ability to reconstruct 


solely based on the DOE submissions. That's 


what you're saying. Right? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, no. 


DR. NETON: That seems to be where you're 


heading. Maybe I missed it here. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The -- the -- I think -- I 


think Mark kind of laid -- laid this out is 


that initially we went through some steps where 

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we believed certain databases were complete, 


and then we thought that the -- at Rocky Flats 


that the original DOE data would be complete. 


Now the purpose of -- now, you know, in our 


work procedures the word "completeness" occurs 


a number of times. The Board said when you're 


looking at SEC petitions, you should examine 


completeness of external data. So it's just -- 


first of all, it's a question of following our 


own procedures that the Board had mandated us 


to follow and that we're charged with examining 


the completeness of data. 


Now when you find 40 percent data gaps or, you 


know, 11 years out of 23 or six years out of 11 


or whatever, it raises a question in our minds. 


I mean where -- where I am is I haven't -- the 


data don't appear to be complete in many cases, 


for one reason or another. At that point I 


think John -- John stated our position in a 


way. Then the question is can you build a 


coworker model, and I don't think we -- we've 


come to any judgment about that. 


 DR. ULSH: You know, we're going to have to 


(unintelligible) --


DR. NETON: Well, that's -- that's where I'm 

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heading, though. I mean rather than going down 


this path of -- of looking at the exact nature 


of the completeness of the data, you've already 


demonstrated I think that there are gaps here. 


Now whether you call it missing data or gaps -- 


see what I'm saying? We -- we'll accept the 


fact that there are data that need to be 


reconstructed in some way, shape or form here. 


It seems to be obvious to me that there are 


going to be cases where data need to be filled 


in. And our approach heretofore has always 


been a coworker model. Now if there's issues 


with the coworker model, it seems to me that's 


where the effort needs to be -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: This is why I was drawing the 


circle before to you, Jim. But there were -- 


DR. NETON: Well, right, but --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I think -- I think we're going 


full circle because --


DR. MAURO: But it's okay, we (unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- our answers to -- to the 


coworker model was, you know, we've got some 


concerns here. Well, don't worry, we don't use 


it. 


DR. NETON: Well --

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 MR. GRIFFON: But then we've got concerns with 


the database. Well, yeah, we agree with it, 


but we don't use it --


DR. NETON: Okay, and that's where I think the 


issue lies --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so now we're looking at the 


individual rad files and -- and we're saying 


there's gaps here, but we're going to use the 


coworker model. I feel like I'm going full 


circle, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: We said this in the evaluation 

report. 

 MS. MUNN: No. 

 DR. ULSH: This is noth-- we have not changed 

our story. This is all in our evaluation 

report, and we have to keep repeating it and 


repeating it. And so -- I mean we -- we 


acknowledged, we discussed the limitations of 


the HIS-20 database in -- all the way back in 


our evaluation report in April. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: And so this is not new. It's not 


like you've -- we've -- we're peeling the onion 


and discovering formerly undiscovered problems. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, this -- this Donna Kragle 

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memo's new I mean, though. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, yeah, it's --


 MR. GRIFFON: It's more detailed on the 


differences --


 DR. ULSH: Sure, as you've --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- between the databases -- 


 DR. ULSH: That particular question is being 


investigated. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah. I mean I'm not trying 


to -- I'm not saying we're all not working in 


good faith here, but I'm just saying -- 


DR. NETON: But it seems to me that the 


coworker model's where -- I don't -- I mean you 


guys can certainly do whatever you feel fit, 


but the coworker model is where the emphasis 


needs to be at this point because you've 


already demonstrated -- we acknowledge that 


there are issues with -- no database is 


perfect, and in a case of can you, given the 


data you have, is that coworker model 


sufficiently robust to fill in gaps. I mean we 


had sites at Y-12, for example, where we have 


no monitoring data on workers, and we've 


developed a coworker model that was workable. 


And so until you get to the point where you can 

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say that you have no workable coworker model, 


then I don't -- the data gaps are almost a 


secondary issue. 


DR. MAURO: We were very fortunate. We 


understood what the gaps were on Y-12. We knew 


where they were. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: They were cleanly defined, there 


was no disagreement. I think we're still in 


the stage where we're not in full agreement on 


what the extent of the -- of the gaps are. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The -- the other -- the other 


factor here, Jim, is that, you know, one of the 


strong allegations in the petition was this 


question of -- of data credibility and no data 


available, several --


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- statements to that effect. 


That's the other reason we went down that 


avenue more strongly than at Y-12 where it 


wasn't in --


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think as a clarification 


because I think --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- as you opened your 

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conversation a little earlier, if these people 


were not monitored then they wouldn't fall into 


this, and I think we're -- we're picking up 


everything and we're not being able to discern 


which ones are just simply not monitored -- 


DR. NETON: Exactly, I --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- versus those who --


DR. NETON: -- think for issues of clarity, one 


needs to go back and, like Brant did, and say 


we acknowledge there's these gaps. We don't 


feel them to be --


 DR. ULSH: Right, yeah, you already took the -- 


DR. NETON: -- super critical issues because -- 


 DR. ULSH: Right, you all took the first step. 


You identified the periods of no monitoring. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: We then took the next step and went 


back and said why is there no monitoring here. 


We found that these were people in low exposure 


potential jobs and --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- of course the next step is for 


you to look at what we've written. 


DR. NETON: But there are gaps there that have 


to be reconstructed (unintelligible) -- 

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DR. MAURO: But see, once we know the gaps -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


DR. MAURO: -- and we agree on the gaps, then 


we're where you are. We're not -- we're not 


quite there yet, though. And that's where we 


want to get, by the way. That's what our 


target should be, to get to the point --


DR. NETON: Okay, that's fair. 


DR. MAURO: -- where we're talking about the 


coworker model. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'd like to follow up on what 


Mark just said, maybe seek some guidance from 


the working group, is in -- it -- you know, the 


-- the -- we -- we -- part of -- one of our 


starting points with -- with this whole data 


reliability thing was the affidavits, and Mr. 


Gibson's often raised the question of -- you 


know, the question of affidavits and when do 


you say they're good and not good and when do 


you believe someone and not believe someone. 


The -- the -- the affidavits do talk about data 


gaps and data not being entered in the records. 


And what's just been said is that it was a 


decision at some point not to read some badges, 


but it's not well-documented. It does -- it 

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does raise the question of whether these data 


gaps corroborate the affidavits or not. I mean 


I haven't at this time a judgment about whether 


they actually corroborate or not, but certainly 


they do -- they do lend some evidence to those 


affidavits that they are -- from what I've 


heard just now is that there are -- the gaps 


were partly because it was -- now maybe it was 


a technically-justified position, somebody had 


a low exposure potential so their badge wasn't 


read, but it may not look that way from the 


point of view of the employee or the 


petitioner. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I think that's what we 


concluded when we did our -- I don't know, 70 


or whatever page review of all of the public 


comments and all of the affidavits in the SEC 


petition. There were several specific issues 


raised, the "no data available," the blackened 


film badges -- I'm just trying to remind you of 


where -- the ground that we've already trod 


here. And we ran every one of those down to 


ground. 


Now I'm not particularly interested in whatever 


the motivations were in making those affidavits 

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-- could have been a misunderstanding, could 


have been who knows what. But we ran them to 


ground and we simply didn't find a smoking gun 


here of the things that we were being -- the 


things that we heard in terms of well, when my 


badge was high they just threw it out, or there 


was some kind of monkey business going on with 


the records. We just didn't see that. So --


and you know, there were several specifics that 


were brought up that we did run to ground, 


so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: We did a lot of work in -- on the 


ground, yeah. I mean what -- what we haven't 


answered is the systemic question still, and I 


think we -- I mean I think we're close. I --


I'm not -- I think we need maybe a larger 


sample on this issue from SC&A, and then an 


iterative process between SC&A and NIOSH to 


make sure we know are these people -- before we 


come back with a report saying we have all 


these data gaps. I don't want a response back 


to say well, of course they weren't monitored, 


they weren't required to be monitored, they 


were a sub, you know. So we -- we maybe need 


to, you know, randomly select some more, and I 

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would -- and I -- like Arjun said, dozens -- 


you know, a couple dozen, hopefully -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Well, then I --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- not more than that. And then 


-- and then have you give us -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Unintelligible) dozen in each 


category. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think -- I think when you -- 


when you start layering it, it's complicated 


because --


 DR. ULSH: Now in the past -- Mark, I think you 


mentioned at the beginning that, you know, 


we've talked about doing something at the 


outset and thinking it would be fairly simple 


to do, and it's turned into a monster. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ULSH: I want to put on the table to you, I 


just want you to be clear about what this is 


going to take, what you're talking about. I 


don't know how much time was spent on the SC&A 


side reviewing these dozen cases. On our side, 


I had about five people working on this from 


the time we got the case list until I put it 


out on Wednesday, so we're talking about -- to 

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go into the level of detail that you have to go 


into to get a reliable answer, you're not 


talking about a trivial commitment of 


resources. I'm not saying that you should or 


shouldn't do it. That's for the working group 


to decide. But understand that you're talking 


about a significant effort here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. CHEW: And you said for each category? 


Would you define (unintelligible) saying that? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: You know, I'd have to talk to 


Harry about it. I haven't had even a chance to 


study his, you know, draft. But he did tell me 


-- I did ask him explicitly is -- you know, we 


treated the whole database as one homogenous 


thing and just went in and -- as Joe said, we 


did a kind of a reconnaissance. We said let's 


see what we -- you know, whether there's 


anything to worry about. And he -- he -- he 


did say that if you have changes in protocols, 


then you need to -- then you need to examine 


each set. Now it could be that one worker -- 


you'd -- you wouldn't have to examine that many 


files 'cause how many people would have worked 


from the '50s to the '90s, you could just split 

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up their individual -- individual record into 


those periods and see how the monitoring went. 


But you'd still have to go through that 


exercise. 


 MR. CHEW: Do you think your conclusions after 


reviewing some additional ones will be much 


different than what you have and where we 


should spend the energy on what Jim was saying, 


we need to fill in -- we know there's going to 


be gaps. I've already -- gave you some -- 


several scenarios that we know they're going to 


be there, and so the real key issue is is the 


coworker data -- information and the study 


sufficient to fill those gaps. 


DR. MAURO: You've got to understand the gaps, 


though, --


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe I'm -- maybe I'm -- maybe 


I'm at a loss here, but I -- and maybe it's 


more in the evaluation report, you know, I 


should have paid more attention to the detail 


in there, but I don't remember our -- our 


discussions talking about a lot of data gaps in 


the individual rad files. I remember those as 


being presented as --


DR. MAURO: I know. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- this -- this -- this was the 


safety net. Every time we raised issues on 


coworker models and databases, that was the 


safety net dropped to me. Well, Mark, don't 


worry about it. Two out of 1,100 are going to 


rely on coworker models. 


UNIDENTIFIED: That's true. 


 MR. GRIFFON: These are a non-issue. Why are 


you going down this path? 


DR. MAURO: This is a big -- this is a big step 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: So -- so I'm not -- I don't think 


this is a waste of effort. I mean I -- I -- 


 DR. ULSH: I'm not saying it's a wasted effort, 


Mark. I'm just saying that you're just seeing 


this as --


 MR. GRIFFON: I certainly want to make it as 


expediti-- you know, as expedient as possible. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Maybe the -- maybe the 


sampling plan itself should be somewhat, you 


know, iterative in the -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- sense that -- that you see 


it before it's accepted and, you know, 


proposed. I mean it's sort of a -- you know, 

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here's what we think would be reasonable; what 


do you think, and is this going to be a 


resource pro-- I mean just go back and forth 


until there's some agreement. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, again, I want to go back to -- 


if you look through our responses, we didn't 


find a single instance where we concluded that 


someone should have been monitored and was not 


monitored. And I don't -- SC&A has said that 


these are randomly sampled. Maybe they are. 


don't know how you made a sampling. But --


 MR. GRIFFON: So this -- this --


 DR. ULSH: -- five of the cases were in the -- 


on the Task IV list. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean we can't -- we really 


can't get into the specifics, but this primary 


-- this --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Not -- that was not --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- primary -- excuse me, Arjun -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm sorry. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- this primary contractor's 


secretary, according to everything I've heard 


from Jim, should have been in the monitoring 


program. I don't know what your conclusion 


your -- I mean I -- I've tried to stay away 


I 
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from each case by case 'cause we haven't had a 


chance to review them, but is that -- I mean is 


that still -- your position now is that well, 


they should have been monitored but they might 


not have read that badge because she was in a 


low risk -- I mean that's different than saying 


monitored versus not monitored, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: In every case that we -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: There's always a hypothetical 


explanation to these. I mean that --that -- 


DR. NETON: Yeah, but you've got to look at how 


we handle the dose reconstruction. You've got 


to think of it from the SEC perspective. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I am. 


DR. NETON: If you've got a -- if you've got a 


coworker model, and I keep going back to the 


coworker model, this particular person would 


probably end up receiving the 50 percentile 


distribution of the coworker model for all 11 


years or whatever it was. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: So I think -- I think most of us 


would agree that that's probably a very 


reasonable approximation for an upper estimate 


-- a bounding estimate of her dose. And if not 

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-- and if you find a chemical operator who 


wasn't monitored for 11 years, they'd receive 


the 95th percentile of the dose. So can we 


really do these dose reconstructions is the 


question and that all, to me, comes back to do 


you have a valid coworker model to fill in -- 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- gaps for a --


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean how --


DR. NETON: -- secretary who --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- how do you --


DR. NETON: -- has no monitoring data. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- get to this -- this answer is 


-- if you have workers that are in higher risk 


areas that have gaps like this, then I -- 


DR. NETON: They would receive 95th percentile 


doses of the coworker model. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Then you give 95th percentiles of 


-- of a -- and then you -- and th-- 


DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so then you're back to this 


coworker model, which we have -- 


DR. NETON: That's what I'm saying. All the 


meat and potatoes here in the SEC world, in my 


mind, is in a valid coworker model. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: But if -- if -- yeah. 


DR. NETON: And that fleshes out were the right 


people monitored, were they preferentially -- 


the low ones monitored, were they cohort 


monitored, were they -- only the highest 


persons monitored, you know, that needs to be 


fleshed out and discussed, but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I doubt we find this, but 


if you do find the case of -- you know, it's 


not only a matter of -- if you do a small 


sample and find that you have several operators 


in -- with large data gaps, it -- it -- it 


lends credence to these claims by the 


petitioners that, you know, wait a second, I 


was in high areas and I had no data available, 


this kind of notion --


DR. NETON: Well, as Brant said, that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- aside from the specific claims 


that you've tracked down, which you have 


tracked dow-- I agree, but -- 


DR. NETON: I don't how many -- if you find a 


couple, you know --


 DR. ULSH: If you decide --


DR. NETON: Databases are going to have gaps. 


 MR. GRIFFON: If it's truly random -- I mean 

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this has got to be random sampling, you know. 


That's why I'm saying -- 


 DR. ULSH: If you dec--


 MR. GRIFFON: -- present a sampling plan. 


DR. NETON: Well, that's a different issue if 


you're trying to track down the allegations 


made by the petitioners, that's a different -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that's part of -- that's 


part of this process. 


DR. NETON: I understand, but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- but not in the context of what 


we've been discussing here, I don't think. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Now if you decide --


 MR. GRIFFON: It -- it kind of -- in my mind 


it's kind of overlapping a little, but -- 


DR. NETON: I think you've got to segregate 


them a little bit, otherwise you're going in 


these circles. 


 DR. ULSH: I'm putting this out on the table, 


if you decide to --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we've be-- we're in a 


circle. 


 DR. ULSH: If you decide to go down this path 

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where we look at even more of these cases like 


the -- beyond a dozen, I mean I -- and I 


caution you that that's not a trivial thing to 


do, but if we do, maybe we should focus on 


people who we know should be monitored -- 


process operators. I think we would all agree 


that process operators should be monitored, or 


-- you know, maybe there's other particular 


criteria. 


DR. MAURO: You're building design objectives 


now --


DR. NETON: Construction trades or --


DR. MAURO: -- in the sampling. I mean that's 


what you're talking about. Let's -- let's 


agree on design objectives for what is it we're 


going to do. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, first of all let's agree that 


you want to pursue beyond the dozen. 


DR. MAURO: I'm always afraid to bring this up. 


 DR. ULSH: That didn't stop you before, though, 


did it? It has never stopped you before, John. 


DR. MAURO: Well, what I'm hearing -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I was -- I was going to offer 


what if -- what if -- and I've offered this 


before, quite frankly. It's in a prior action. 

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But what if SC&A drafted a sample plan and -- 


and we had a dis-- you know, and it doesn't 


have to be in a workgroup meeting, but it can 


be done through e-mail, I would hope. It's not 


going to be a privacy issue or anything like 


that. Draft a sample plan and -- and say 


here's what we want, here's the types of -- you 


know, this is our approach and this is how many 


cases, this is the type, that sort of thing so 


there's no -- you know, there's no mystery, 


there's no question of SC&A cherry-picking 


cases. You know, it's out -- it's out -- it's 


out there before we start the process. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Just off what Brant was 


saying, I -- I see it as almost confirmatory of 


these categories that I think we want to be 


sure about, meaning that the process operators, 


there'd be a sampling that says okay, we would 


expect to have a pretty complete file on them; 


and hopefully those results would come back 


accordingly. I'd like to pin down a little 


better if in fact we have allowed this large 


group that we weren't aware of which are 


contractors who were only intermittently 


monitored. Maybe we could confirm that. And 

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then this -- this question of people who you 


would think, with the integral badging that was 


alluded to, would have been monitored because 


they were inside the fence line. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It turns out that's a category 


where they may or may not have been and, you 


know, (unintelligible) anomaly, it would help. 


But I -- you know, it -- just confirmatory from 


the standpoint of not exhaustively but just 


confirmatory so we can go to this next step 


'cause I think that's where we need to be and 


we shouldn't expend an inordinate amount of 


resources just to -- but just beyond this sort 


of reconnaissance, which I like to use that 


word 'cause that's what it was, a 


reconnaissance sampling that we did, so we have 


a little bit more surety when we go to this 


next step. And that -- that's sort of a 


halfway house to get to this next step and not 


some exhaustive, endless, trying to pin this 


thing down through many, many cases. But now 


that we're aware of these categories I think it 


would be helpful to confirm that yeah, okay, if 


we look at production workers, we don't see any 

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gaps. We look at these construction workers, 


yeah -- actually you do see a lot of gaps, so 


you're -- you're going to expect to see gaps 


there and how do you treat those. They were 


unmonitored. You wouldn't even go to a 


coworker model. They were only monitored for 


short times. So I -- I think that would put 


that behind us. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Lar-- Larry's going to... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I would like to make a proposal 


that I hope will save everybody a lot of work 


and get the answers that you're all seeking as 


quickly as we can. I -- I think it makes sense 


for you all to have the access you want to the 


Rocky Flats claims. If you're familiar enough 


with the NOCTS database system, you know that 


you can go to the top menu bar and pull up a 


DOE site. And when you do that, it gives you 


all the claims for -- that have come in for 


that site. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay? We can accommodate whoever 


wants to go in and look at NOCTS by opening up 


on your own -- whatever your e-mail -- however 


they -- the IT folks do this, but it would be 

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limited to those folks who want to go do this. 


Okay? And we know that in advance. We'd open 


the portal back up for you to get into it, and 


then you can go in and look at any one of those 


cases that you wanted to pick, any one of the 


cases Brant wants to pick. Then I suggest you 


compare or you share the numbers that you 


looked at and what your findings are so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that you could each work off 


of that. Forget the sampling strategy. Go 


after the ones you want. Go after the layers 


that you want. Okay? And look at every case 


that you want, that you have -- that you 


allocate your time -- time for, and do it 


thataway. I can facilitate that. Is that --


does that seem like a reasonable -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- approach? 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, except for -- I mean -- 

I appreciate the forgetting the sampling stra-- 


I was just trying to -- the only reason for 


sampling strategy was to try to minimize the 


numbers, but --


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's fine. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- also reach our goals as far as 


the coverage, so I was trying to keep the 


number of cases down, I -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, in 1977 NIOSH published a 


sampling strategies manual that I'd recommend 


you all check -- take a look at. The 


industrial hygienists of the world -- we use 


that when we go out and we do --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- cohort sampling to try to 


identify that we've sampled the worst exposed 


individual, and it takes 19 or less, no matter 


what your N is. So --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, that's what I mean, it 


doesn't need to be a large population. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm more concerned about -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) have different 


categor-- but anyway, go ahead. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Right now I'm more concerned 


about what happens next, and that's when you 


report out what you've found. Okay? And to 


report out what you've found is going to 


require a Privacy Act review and reduction, and 


we can't do tha-- I can't do that myself. You 


and SC&A can't do it --

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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- yourself, the Board can't do 


it. We have to run that through OGC to the 


Privacy Act officer and get that reviewed. 


That's going to take more time than you can 


imagine. Okay? But it's for a good purpose. 


 MR. GRIFFON: How -- how long gen--

 MR. ELLIOTT: Depends on the volume. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Can you guesstimate? Is it --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Emily? 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, depends on the volume, 

right? 

 MS. HOWELL: It just depends. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: We can have -- we can have the 


interchange --


 MR. GRIFFON: But a report -- a matrix, say 


this size, but --


 MR. ELLIOTT: You can have the interchange, but 


when you come to the point of -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- saying here's our document -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- for public view --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- it has to be --

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 MR. GRIFFON: It's got to be reviewed, sure. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We can still move to the next 


step. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Larry --


 MR. GRIFFON: We're -- we're all in agreement 


there. We don't want to -- 


 MR. PRESLEY: -- what you're saying then is 


that the working group and whoever it would be 


from your organization would pick the two, the 


three, the four, the five, so everybody gets 


the same cases to work on and comes up with the 


same --


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm saying that we would give you 


-- whoever you identify as needing access for 


this purpose, we would put their -- we would 


enable their access back -- 


 MR. PRESLEY: I understand that. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- through the same portal. Now 


-- now if -- let's say John said Joe, I want 


you to do it, I want Arjun to do it, but we're 


going to leave Ron out of it this time, for 


example, just -- I don't -- I'm not advocating 


that, but --


 MR. GRIFFON: You don't want to just give open 


access --

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 MR. ELLIOTT: -- but Ron wouldn't be able to 


get in. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: On my side, you know, Brant's 


going to go in, but if -- if the Board -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's fine. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- member is Mark and it's -- and 


it's Wanda but not Bob, Bob can't get in. 


Okay? 


 MR. PRESLEY: That's fine, but what -- what I'm 


saying, though, they're going to work on the 


same cases. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm saying you're --


 MR. PRESLEY: Mark's not going to pick his ten 


and Brant's not going to pick a different ten 


and --


 MR. ELLIOTT: I think you can work that out 


among yourselves. I'm saying that once you get 


into the NOCTS, you can pull up the DOE site 


off the menu bar, hit Rocky Flats, and it'll 


list all the cases. And from there, you're -- 


you're focused in on Rocky cases and you can -- 


you can look at whatever you want. Now if you 


guys say pick 19 each and then we'll match up, 


I don't care how you do that, but -- 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: I like the notion of 


iterative, 'cause I think what we would say is, 


you know, here are cases that we think 


illustrates maybe some of the issues we're 


talking about. Brant, do you see the same 


thing we're seeing; and either he agrees or he 


may -- may say no, actually we think this can 


be explained. Then you'd have that 


conversation. I mean I think -- you want to 


have the conversation going back and forth to 


get on the same page rather than have this 


serial because it would take forever. I -- I ­

- I think -- you know, once you would say well, 


the reason this person was not monitored is 


this reason, I think Arjun or Ron would -- 


would say oh, okay, fine, that gap's explained. 


It's not really a gap, it's unmonitored. I 


think that would cut through a lot of this 


time, and that's what we're trying to get past 


is the time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I would say the action for 


the first crack at it is -- is SC&A's -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, it'd be ours. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and then you --


DR. NETON: Sampling (unintelligible) -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, you throw your strategy and 


the case numbers you selected based on that 


strategy over to Brant, and he can say agree or 


disag-- or you know, here's why it's in -- in 


error. You know, you're not going to get what 


you want because these cases don't fall into 


those categories, or whatever, I guess. Right? 


 MS. MUNN: Mark, I'd like to suggest that the 


working group make a decision with respect to 


parameters here before we turn SC&A loose to do 


that, because I don't want to see SC&A come up 


with a plan that gives us 19 more cases -- 


DR. NETON: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- for everybody to look at. That 


does not move us where we need to be, and 


unless --


 MR. GRIFFON: Why not -- wh-- why not? 


 MS. MUNN: Well, because it takes too much time 


and, regardless of whether it's an iterative 


process or not, it drives us down the same road 


that we've been many times if we aren't very 


precise about what we want and -- exactly what 


we want from this as the end result here. And 


if -- if the -- if the sets of individuals who 


are looking at these data are not looking at 

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the same data with the same goal in mind, then 


we are reinventing the wheel. And -- we're not 


reinventing the wheel, we're making the wheel 


bigger. And it's not incumbent upon us to do 


that. It's -- it's -- it's holding up the 


process. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don-- I don't -- I don't -- I 


guess I don't understand what you're -- would 


see as the goals. I thought I -- I stated my 


goals pretty clearly, that it's -- it's to look 


only at this data completeness question in the 


records --


 MS. MUNN: But -- but the --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and that's it. Not -- not 


methods used for the individual DR, none of 


that. 


 MS. MUNN: No, no, the -- the --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right? So --


 MS. MUNN: The completeness issue is one of -- 


we've kno-- we all know it's not going to be 


100 percent complete. Everybody agrees to 


that. And how complete is complete enough is 


something that has never been identified here ­

- ever. We've never said how complete is 


complete enough. And we've indeed left our 

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contractor with the unpleasant task of trying 


to --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well --


 MS. MUNN: -- identify for themselves how 


complete --


 MR. GRIFFON: But I guess we --


 MS. MUNN: -- is complete enough. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess -- you know, we're 


working from the premise -- or at least I am -- 


that, you know, the -- the -- two cases 


required coworker models, so apparently these ­

- the other cases are complete enough not to 


require coworker patches, if -- if -- if I can 


use tha-- it's sort of Jim's suggestion that if 


you've got gaps you can patch them with 


coworker models. My impression was, at least 


so far, that there were two -- maybe -- I may 


be mistaken with the numbers, but -- 


 DR. ULSH: Now let me -- let me caution you -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, all along we've been 


led to believe that the coworker model was -- 


was not going to be largely required for this 


population. So then the radiation files 


themselves have to be at least complete enough 


that you can rely on them, along, you know, 

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with job information and -- and their previous 


and later dose, maybe you can extrapolate in 


between, but that -- that's the construct we're 


looking at this within, I think. You know, 


that -- that -- I don't see that they've used 


coworker models in -- at least in the cases 


you've done so far, I don't think coworker 


models have been used to patch gaps in 


individual --


 DR. ULSH: That's why --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- DRs. 


 DR. ULSH: -- I wanted to put out a word of 


caution, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: In the past when we talked -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe I'm wrong. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, no, no --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- but before we had those coworker 


models, OTIB-38 and OTIB-58, I told you that 


there were maybe two that had been set aside 


because they needed coworker models. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Now that OTIB-58 and OTIB-38 have 


come out, they are being used a bit more, 

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simply because they've become not the method of 


first resort, but perhaps in a particular case 


the most efficient way to process a case. In 


other words, if we've got a -- a case that is 


probably going to be a -- you know, a non-comp, 


just apply the coworker methods and we're done. 


So I -- but that's not the same thing as saying 


we couldn't have done this case without the 


coworker models. So I think since those 


coworker models have been issued, we've been 


making more use of them. So I just want to 


caution you there so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Well, that's a little 


clarification for me. I didn't know that, so ­

-


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but you know, I guess that 


would be my mind set is to look at these for 


completeness, and I guess the goal would be to 


-- you know, if we had a large fraction of 


large da-- I guess, you know, if -- if we 


looked at SC&A's report, without knowing some 


of the details that we found out today that we 


didn't previously know, you know, it was kind 


of striking to me the number with the -- with 

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those large numbers of yours missing for 


external dosimetry. You know, for bioassay you 


can always -- you know, if you've got some 


sampling there you can always do -- or for the 


most part you can pretty much do something with 


it. But you know, when you're missing large 


chunks of external dosimetry and the -- the -- 


the written TBD states that, you know, everyone 


should have been badged, so you -- you know, 


based on the facts that we had them -- at that 


time, anyway, you know, it -- it struck me as 


this could be a fairly significant problem, you 


know, so we need to -- you know, we need to at 


least chase this down. Now you know, maybe -- 


so I would say we need to do the same thing, 


but we don't want to run into the trap again -- 


that's all I'm saying for the iterative -- you 


know, we need that sort of iterative process is 


to avoid us -- or SC&A reporting back something 


that -- that really can be explained simply by 


the fact that, you know, these people were not 


prime contractor employees or whatever, you 


know. We -- we don't want to give conclusions 


-- don't want to put drafts out there with 


conclusions on them that suggest something that 

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really isn't consistent with the facts and -- 


you know. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, what do you think about the 


idea as -- you know, of -- okay. The first 


step in the iteration here is for SC&A to 


propose some cases for review. Can we agree 


that we should perhaps look at cases where we 


know they should have been monitored? I'm just 


thinking back to what you said, John, about how 


we should come to an agreement about what the 


facts are. And I don't want to get into a 


situation where you say -- you say gee, this 


person wasn't monitored, and then we say well, 


yeah, they shouldn't have been monitored. 


Let's pick some cases that we all agree should 


have been monitored so that if we find a gap we 


know what it means. Does that sound like a 


reasonable idea? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, I -- I have to say that ­

- I tried to make a little list of the things 


that are being said in terms of monitor-- 


external monitoring. And I have to say at this 


stage I -- I'm confused, because I -- I do not 


know how one can come up -- how I would work 


with Harry to come up with a sampling plan 

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based on what has been put on the table and so 


I'll just read my little list. I thought we 


could do this because I thought -- it was '51 


to '63 and '64 to 1990s. That's been the basis 


-- you know, when we first did it and I 


realized maybe we shouldn't be treating this as 


one pool. But now we have '51 to '63, and -- 


and we don't know whether there are any 


subcategories in that. But we have '64 to 


early 1990s, which was supposed to be universal 


badging, but maybe not -- universal badging now 


only for contractor -- main -- prime 


contractor, but maybe among those some were not 


monitored. Those were -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, in that -- in that last 


class --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm not clear. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That last class is the hardest 


one on me because --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So there's a subcategory among 


those --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- of low exposure potential 


who may not have been monitored. Then there 


are subcontractors who were sometimes in rad 

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areas and sometimes not, and so were sometimes 


monitored and sometimes not, but we don't have 


easy -- a sorting process to determine who they 


were 'cause that's in the -- in -- in the 


Department of Labor it's all written out. 


Okay. So that's a different category. And 


then there are people who were badged but whose 


badges were not read, but we don't have a clear 


idea of how long -- when this policy really 


started and how long -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or if it was intermittent or what 


it was, right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Or if it was intermittent. So 


now I think we have -- I -- I see this as a 


very difficult problem even to explain to a 


statistician because it's not amenable to a 


statistician's answer because we've got a 


technically very messy description of what -- 


what we're trying to sample. And I'm -- I'm 


not clear on what we're trying to sample. 


 MS. MUNN: Now let me ask a question. If we 


have a hypothetical claim of an individual who 


has some dose recorded, but one of these 


notorious gaps that we've been discussing -- 


one or more of these notorious gaps. This 

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individual files a claim. What is done insofar 


as the gap period in assigning any dose to that 


person? What happens? 


DR. NETON: Well, most often he'll receive 


coworker --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we know they assume that 


the dosimeters were lost -- 


DR. NETON: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- according to this procedure, 


but then -- then I think there's a -- different 


methods, depending on -- 


DR. NETON: Well, it would almost always be the 


coworker model. I mean contrary -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I thought I saw some -- 


DR. NETON: -- to what you say about the nearby 


approach, unless it's a very -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, really? 


DR. NETON: -- narrow focus -- two-year period 


or something like that -- we would almost never 


use --


 MR. GRIFFON: I thought I saw some reference to 


the nearby model. 


DR. NETON: Well -- well, that's an option -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Sometimes? 


DR. NETON: -- but in almost all cases the 

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claimant-favorable -- or the coworker model is 


much more claimant-favorable, and if we can't 


tell, we're going to use it. 


 MS. MUNN: And so even though this -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess what was throwing me -- 


I'm sorry, Wanda. I guess what was throwing me 


was the fact that -- or -- or earlier 


statements that the coworker model wasn't used, 


and then we find these gaps -- 


DR. NETON: Well, that's my point, though, I -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but -- but now Brant's 


clarifying that with me, too, that that -- that 


that's changed --


 MS. MUNN: But --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- or that's -- as the TIBs came 


out, that changed. 


DR. MAURO: There -- there are too many degrees 


of freedom. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Well --


DR. MAURO: We can't do a statistical method. 

DR. NETON: I think we're trying to slice this 

in pieces. 

DR. MAURO: I mean -- I mean as simple as that. 

It was well-intended, but there are too many 

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degrees of freedom, but we're never going to 


agree on that, I -- which leaves you in a place 


where you have to just go randomly -- sample 


from the population, and -- I mean if you have 


-- if you have --


DR. NETON: I agree with you. 


DR. MAURO: -- (unintelligible) degree of -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah --


DR. NETON: Let's go back --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and just understand you're 


going to get some process workers, you're going 


to get some --


DR. NETON: Let's go back to previous analyses. 


It's been sufficient for us to go through the 


database and then say this percentage of the 


work force was monitored -- statement of fact, 


40 percent, 50 percent, whatever it is. We 


accept that at face value. That's what we have 


in -- available to us to ascertain, 50 percent. 


Then we say okay, we've got some gaps; how are 


we going to fill in those gaps. We have a 


coworker model. You know, it -- it's one thing 


to say you have one percent of the work force 


monitored and you're going to use that coworker 


model to reconstruct 99 percent. It's another 

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thing to say I've got 50 percent, and is that 


coworker model sufficiently robust. I think 


with (unintelligible) we're trying to slice the 


salami way too thin and (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This has now -- this has now 


become too complicated -- 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, you can't do it. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- for us now and so I think 


that --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think you -- I think you're 


back to almost random selection pre- and post­

'64, but that's my opinion, but -- 


DR. NETON: So I think -- and let the chips 


fall where they may, but then it's always going 


to come back --


DR. MAURO: So --

DR. NETON: -- to the coworker model. 

DR. MAURO: So -- and you know where we are, we 

have --

 MR. GRIFFON: It may come back to the coworker 


model. I --


DR. MAURO: -- we have 12. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I just hope you appreciate the 


history, though, Jim. 


DR. MAURO: We agreed that it would have been 

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random sampling and you guys grabbed it -- so 


we grabbed 12, sounds like the -- you know, the 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Twelve. 


DR. MAURO: What's that? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I said (unintelligible) 


twelve. 


 MS. JESSEN: No, you only need seven. 


DR. MAURO: (Unintelligible) seven? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I do -- you know, I just 


don't want to appear as unreasonable, although 


probably some people do view it that way. I 


mean the -- this -- the coworker stuff, believe 


me, I went in, you know, full bore on that 


stuff and I was ridiculed because it was two 


out of 1,100 that needed the coworker model to 


be used --


DR. NETON: Well, and that --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so -- so I'm just telling you, 


Jim, that -- that's how this whole -- I mean -- 


DR. NETON: I understand how you feel, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean --


DR. NETON: But I think we're at the point now 


where --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- it may seem odd that we're 

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here, you know, but here we are. 


DR. NETON: I think we're at the point now, 


though, where we have to not forget that, but 


recognize that -- that there are more coworkers 


being done -- in light of the fact that we have 


the models, they're using them -- so now we 


have -- now it seems to me the decision has to 


be made is the coworker model that we're using 


or proposing reasonable. And -- and -- 


 MR. CHEW: Maybe the sampling should try to 


answer that question. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and you know, we've got 


new -- we've -- we -- you know, we'll get into 


that more later, but we've got some new 


information to consider with -- with that 


regard. I mean this question of CEDR and HIS20 ending up with the same result but looking 


very different all along. I mean that's -- you 


know, that's --


DR. NETON: Well, that's what I'm saying. I 


think that's where the -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- very interesting. 


DR. NETON: -- the issues are. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Mark, let's --

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 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I think -- again, I think 


we're still back to SC&A proposing a plan. I ­

- I don't -- I hesitate with the -- I want to 


get some process operators in that pool, I 


agree, Brant, but I hesitate to -- to pick 


people that we think were monitored only 


because I -- you know, I think we should just ­

- I'm leaning toward a more random selection. 


I'll leave it up to you guys to consider, but ­

- but I think you need to propose that along 


with the cases, run it by NIOSH, and then maybe 


NIOSH can help fill in parameters that we need 


to know about these people so that -- you know, 


such as were they a subcontractor, were they -- 


you know, I think tho-- that's the main 


parameter. We want to at least, before you 


produce a product -- I hate to make -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: You need the parameters to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- summary conclusions about a 


lot of people that -- that they can demonstrate 


should not have been on -- you know, were not 


monitored at all. 


 DR. ULSH: How many are we talking about, Mark? 


Do we have a feel for (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Could I propose a sort of a -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: I don't want to pin them down to 


a number 'cause --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- two-set pro-- two-step 


process for this that may make it 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: Less than -- less than 19, yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- simpler, because I'm -- I'm 


-- because of these confusions, what -- what 


perhaps one -- we could do is SC&A could draft 


a proposed plan, given these complexities, and 


send -- and have -- send it to the working 


group and NIOSH, and then we could have one of 


these technical phone calls that -- that -- 


that (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, not a workgroup call, just 


a --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- not a work-- not a full -- 


and document it and do the summary, and those 


have worked pretty well to sort -- sort these 


questions of detail out in the past, and 


decide, you know, how many -- and I could 


consult with Harry in the meantime and decide 


how many -- and -- and I do agree with Brant to 


some extent that we do need some workers -- 


process workers who we think should have been 

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completely monitored because it would be bad to 


not have a sampling of that group 'cause we 


didn't -- we certainly did not sample it that 


way. And -- and how many -- maybe less than 


19? 


 MS. MUNN: Way -- way less than 19. Arjun and 


Joe, John, how many categories of individuals 


in your list that you're making there -- you 


know, in your minds, how many categories of 


individuals do you feel we should do this 


excess sampling for? Because I see it as 


excessive; nevertheless, if that's our chair's 


determination that that's what we're going to 


do, then tell me how many different types of 


categories are you looking at here? If you're 


going to look at eight categories, then you 


ought to have how many people out of which 


category? You know, I -- it seems to me you 


don't need three weeks to put a proposal 


together. You only need a day to put a 


proposal together. You know in your heads what 


you think he's talking about now. Tell us. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But the --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Especially with the confusion, 


you know, it would be very difficult for me, 

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Ms. Munn, but I have just made it, so I -- I 


actually don't -- these are -- these are not 


very clean categories and so I actually don't ­

- I -- I agree with Mark is that I think given 


the complexity of how many ways you can slice 


this thing and how fuzzy these boundaries are, 


that it may be good to do a set of -- that are 


random, but with a focus -- to some extent to 


make sure we have enough process operators to 


make sure that the process operators were all 


sampled and their records are reasonably 


complete or -- or if they're not complete, to 


make some judgment about that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: And cover those time periods, 


those --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- and to cover --


 MS. MUNN: Tell me how --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- and to slice it -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- according to 


(unintelligible). 


 MS. MUNN: Tell me how you randomize, because 


you know, I'm -- I can't see you doing a Monte 


Carlo here, but if -- what are you doing? 


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an -- a description of that from Harry, 


actually, I can -- I can certainly share with 


you or forward his memo to you. He's -- he's ­

- he's told us how -- how we could do that. If 


you have access to all the numbers, there's a 


way to randomize that, pick a random number 


generator and go through it. 


 MS. MUNN: And so --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: You can do that. 


 MS. MUNN: So you -- you still, since we're 


clearly not going to give them any direction -- 


right, Mark, we're not going to give them 


direction? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we've given them as much 


direction as we can. They draft from here, 


Wanda. That's -- that's it. They draft from 


here. 


 MS. MUNN: So we're not --


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean we've got the dir-- 


 MS. MUNN: -- we're not giving you any 


direction, just out of the clear blue sky 


you're going to go off here and you're going to 


send me Harry's memo; we're all going to know 


how Harry's going to randomize this -- and I 


don't know Harry, I don't think, but -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Well, Wanda --


 MS. MUNN: -- and I don't need to, but -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: You've seen his work. 


 MS. MUNN: -- but -- yeah, I'm sure I have. 


But no -- no, I just want to try to clear -- I 


want to go to lunch with two things in mind. 


One, that somebody is going to do some 


randomization here that may or may not be 


biased in any direction that we can't control, 


and that -- that there's going to be an 


iterative process and we have some idea of how 


many cases we're going to be looking at. 


Because I see this as not only thousands of 


hours, but I see this as hundreds of thousands 


of dollars that we're doing here in -- in an 


effort to try to get to the point that John is 


absolutely correct we have to reach, or else 


we're not going to go anywhere. So I -- I just 


want to -- if -- if we can go to lunch with 


those two things, then I'm hungry and I'm ready 


to eat, and I'm a lot nicer after I've eaten. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let's -- let's hope so. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Ms. Munn, first -- first so 


there's no misunderstanding about what we did ­

- 'cause Brant brought this up a little earlier 

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and made me sit up in my chair. The first four 


cases that we looked at out of these 12 were 


random in -- to the extent that NIOSH provided 


random samples to SC&A for review. So that was 


something that was done by the Board, and so 


when --


DR. NETON: It was five. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- we started -- with five. So 


when we started with the five Rocky Flats 


cases, this was a randomization that was done 


by NIOSH, not by us, and -- and by the Board. 


And so we started there. The other seven --


Ron, correct me if I'm wrong -- were -- we did 


not cherry-pick these in any way. They were 


the first seven -- there were seven numbers 


that came up. We didn't open a file and say 


oh, that one's complete and so we're going to 


put that -- and we're going to find some where 


there are gaps -- this -- this is -- this -- 


this was simply 12 cases that we looked at, 


because otherwise we would be presenting you 


with a biased --


 MR. GRIFFON: Was this --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- result, and that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- sort of a random number -- 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- that would be wrong. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- generator approach, or -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, we did not use a random 


number generator --


 MR. GRIFFON: But so-- okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- but there were seven more 


cases that were picked, in a similar way to 


what NIOSH would have given these five cases. 


Ron? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah -- yeah, this is Ron. 


Yeah, those other cases I -- I went into the 


files and I found ones that -- that fit the 


period that we were concerned with and I would 


go to like (unintelligible). I'd search for -- 


for ones -- I didn't want to find ones that 


just worked there a year or two. I mean that 


wouldn't tell us anything. But I want 


something that was a reasonable amount of years 


they worked there. I didn't look for how many 


periods that they were missing or anything, 


because I didn't know that information to begin 


with, that looked like one that provided a 


number of years of employment, then I would 


select that, regardless of what period that 


was, early '50s or '70s or whatever. And then 

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I would go to the next number -- say that was 


1,000, I'd go to 2,000 and search for that, 


then 3,000 case number and search for that and 


find ones that, like I say, had a reasonable 


number of years, but I did no searching as far 


as their occupation, how many dose records they 


had or anything 'cause I didn't know that until 


-- I set that aside, said I (unintelligible) 


investigate that one. Then I went back and 


investigated it to see how many -- what the 


gaps were and stuff. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. The -- the second part 


of the answer to your question is, you know, I 


don't -- if the Board's direction or working 


group's direction is don't do anything, it's a 


zero, we're on as tight a leash as you want to 


keep us. There's no -- there's no intent to go 


out on fishing expeditions. And if there's a 


direction to do zero or one or ten more -- or 


do something else altogether to settle this 


question, or stop here -- this is of course 


entirely your prerogative. This -- if you -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I -- I think based --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- (unintelligible) consult 


with a statistician and give you a number and 

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then you can decide on a greater or lesser 


number, this is -- this is also your 


prerogative. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean we've got new information 


on the Board about -- about the monitoring 


procedures over time. I think the sample's 


definitely less than 20. I think it's probably 


closer -- you know, between ten and 15 is 


probably going to do it, and -- and you do it 


on these parameters that now we've -- you know, 


we -- we've -- there -- there's one part that's 


-- makes me uneasy, which is that -- this 


question of apparently -- and it's not clear to 


me if it was ever a policy or if it was a -- 


you know, but this notion that people were 


badged but sometimes we, due to manpower, 


didn't read some of them or things like that, 


that's -- that's going to be a very fuzzy sort 


of line there. That -- that worries me because 


if you come back with a conclusion and then -- 


are we going to be in a position of trying to 


find some more quarterly memos that defend that 


during that time period, you know, they 


actually didn't read everybody or something, 


you know. That's -- that's the one I'm real 

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uneasy about. But other than that, I think a 


fairly random sample with those main time 


periods of concern, and -- and it has to be -- 


and -- and I think we should make sure -- we 


might want to look at -- and you need job tit-- 


you need some process operators in there, so I 


guess it's not truly random, but you need to 


have something -- some -- some people that were 


definitely -- that, as Brant said, definitely 


should have been monitored, you know, those 


folks. 


MR. MEYER: Is it possible when we get done 


with this, almost a matter of how many cases we 


sample and what the results are, we're still 


going to come back to the coworker model 


evaluation? Is this -- is this necessary, in 


that -- in that sense? 


DR. MAURO: In other words, are we going to -- 


then okay, we've got our cases. We understand 


there are holes, and are we basically doing a 


Task IV analysis? I mean stay with me for a 


minute. Is that what we're really asking? All 


right, here's our -- here's our sample, whether 


it's 15 or ten or five. And we're going to go 


is okay, we see the holes -- all right? And 

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then there's -- you know, it's a case that was 


done. Right? And we're going to look at it, 


did they fill the holes in right, and how did 


they do it, and it was a coworker model -- and 


in a funny sort of way, aren't we back in Task 


IV? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I don't think so, I -- I 


don't -- I don't view it that way 'cause first 


of all I don't even think we need to have 


adjudicated cases for this review. It doesn't 


have to be completed cases, so we wouldn't want 


to look at methods. But I would -- I would 


look at the data only, data gaps only. Now --


now there is --


DR. MAURO: So we stop there now. Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: There is a good point, but I -- 


you know, the point raised that if -- if it's 


going to be a coworker model filling that gap 


anyway, but I think we still have to answer 


this question of -- you know, if -- if we find 


-- if we do this sample and find that several 


process operators have large gaps in the 


external monitoring, that may raise a question 


about the validity of the -- of that external 


data for even a coworker mod-- you know, so I 

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think that's the only reason -- otherwise, I 


agree with Bob's point that, you know, do we -- 


are we going to just end up in the same place 


and the coworker's going to fill it in anyway, 


then we're back to reviewing the coworker. But 


I think we have to take this to an end, but I 


want this to be the final sample. I really 


think this has to be the final sample. 


 MS. MUNN: Thank you. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, then why not take Brant's 


suggestion and stick to process operators? 


 MR. CHEW: I got a question here. While we 


have an advantage of having Roger and Jim and 


Gene on the phone here, I'm going to ask a 


question -- I'm basically following up what 


John Mauro was saying -- if -- I feel that his 


expectations for process workers you're going 


to see a fairly complete, you know, information 


on dosimetry. That may -- I want to make sure 


that they take a look at that. That scenario 


may not necessarily always be true because 


you're looking at a person who was categorized 


a process worker, and he or she may be taken 


out of the area to go do something else that 


may not necess-- necessitate them being 

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monitored. You --


 MR. GRIFFON: But see, that's -- that's -- 


 MR. CHEW: -- don't have to answer that 


question, but that's a -- that's just a thought 


here and I'm (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: See, if that -- that's the case, 


that would really surprise me 'cause if -- if ­

- well, if they -- I -- I understand what 


you're saying 'cause the job categories 


sometimes don't track the details of what 


people were doing. 


 MR. CHEW: Right, that was -- that was my 


point. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I agr-- I agree with that. 


Maybe I should just leave it at that. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm just trying to tie those kind 


of details with the policies. I mean, you 


know, it seems to me that sometimes in the 


workgroup process we get the policy as the 


answer. Well, Mark, here, you know, this is 


the stated policy; this is what they did. 


We've got this for -- you know, this -- for 


'72, we've got it for '81, we've got it for 


'90, you know, what more do you want? This is 

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what happened, you know. And now it -- it's -- 


it's flipping a little. You know, well, this 


is the policy, but you found this because oh, 


here, we found this memo that said in 1969 they 


-- they didn't read everybody's. Now did that 


everybody include this person we're looking at? 


We're not sure, but that's an answer anyway, at 


least that we can say there -- there's good 


reason to believe that they could have been one 


of the people 'cause they had a low -- and I 


don't disagree with that part of it 'cause, you 


know, they were in an administrative position 


or whatever. You know, intuitively you say 


yeah, there's a good reason for them not to be 


monitored, but when the -- when the policy on 


the book says all these people should be 


monitored, I guess that's why that would cause 


me -- that would cause me concern if I saw 


several of the process operators coming up that 


way. 


To go back to Arjun's question, I think it's 


got to be -- I guess I don't mind focusing on 


pro-- on -- on -- I guess on operational 


workers --


 DR. ULSH: It doesn't have to be process 

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operators, just people that we know -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- should have been monitored. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, 'cause I think you 


need maintenance, you need out-- it's got to be 


broader than just process operators, certainly. 


I mean lab people most likely should have been 


on monitoring programs all the time, you would 


think. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And I think it's going to get 


a little fuzzy in the D and D era, we can take 


this up when we get to D and D, but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, let's --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- you know --


 MR. GRIFFON: Whole 'nother topic. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- those -- those job 


categories get fuzzy and the whole notion of 


validating, you know, what -- how complete the 


record is, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So -- so --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, do you -- do you want to 


include D and D in this -- because we know that 


there are people who were not monitored in D 


and D, so I -- I'm wondering whether -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That's why I'm raising it, 

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right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- D and D should be a separate 


exercise because this -- this is going to 


multiply the number. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's a separate action item. I 


think we should keep it separate. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, so we only go up to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- the early '90s. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let me ask. I mean I don't think 


-- I'm learning new things about coworker 


models as we speak. I mean are coworker models 


applied all the way through the years at Rocky? 


Would they be applied into the D and D phase -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I know that --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- if someone --


 DR. ULSH: -- OTIB-38 currently only goes up to 


-- what is it, Buddy, late '80s, maybe early 


'90s? 


 MR. GRIFFON: So the da-- the database runs 


that far. Right? Yeah, yeah. 

 DR. ULSH: Now that was the CEDR database. 

Right? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: CEDR database. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But would the model -- right, 

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right --


DR. NETON: We don't -- I don't think we 


currently have a coworker model for D and D 


workers right now --


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I don't think you do, either. 


DR. NETON: -- but we would. I mean I --


 DR. ULSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait -- 


that's not true. 


DR. NETON: I'm sorry. 


 DR. ULSH: We have an external coworker model. 


DR. NETON: Sorry, we have an external coworker 


model. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: This is a issue that we've 


already --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- taken to ground on the D 


and D, so maybe we should wait till D and D -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we should take that up 


separately, though, outside of this effort. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So we leave out the D and D. 


We may have a worker who went into that period, 


but we would leave out data from -- I just want 


to make more precise notes about what we're 


doing just --

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 DR. ULSH: Yeah, actually I'd like to get a 


little more clarification, too. You know, the 


first step is SC&A proposes -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- a certain number of cases and 


gives them to the working -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's why I did want this 


iteration so there's no confu-- I mean, you 


know, it's --


 DR. ULSH: Right. And I guess NIOSH will 


supply some information on those cases. I'm 


not sure what -- exactly what parameters you're 


interested in us supplying, but -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So the key -- the key issue is 


 MR. GRIFFON: Mainly the contractors, prime and 


-- and sub. Right? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, some agreement on who 


these people are, but then some agreement on 


whether we're looking at -- at missing or 


unmonitored, I think, making sure there's 


agreement that, you know, that's clear -- which 


I think is part of the -- 

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 DR. ULSH: That's kind of where I was going. 


Once we agree okay, these are the cases we're 


going to look at --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- what happens? Does SC&A do an -- 


a review similar to this 12 and -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- we reply? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And -- and --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think maybe -- maybe Joe 


-- I don't know if you're offering this, but 


maybe there can be a in-between step because 


any final report SC&A produce, we heard from 


Larry, has to go through --


 MR. FITZGERALD: We have to go through... 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so maybe we can get on the -- 


you know --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, what Larry was saying 


before, we can have this interactive process -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- before we get to a report ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Before, right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- and if you're going to tell 


us well, this isn't really missing, this is -- 

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frankly, these people are unmonitored. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, that's -- that's 


important. I think --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- that becomes a --


 MR. GRIFFON: And they should have been 


unmonitored or whatever, yeah, yeah, so before 


we write that all out -- right. 


 DR. ULSH: So the process is fairly similar to 


what we've done here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Except maybe --


 MR. FITZGERALD: But more --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- maybe a --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- more iterative. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- step in between before our 


prod-- prod-- product's produced, right. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean if you say it's -- if 


they're unmonitored, then I don't think you 


need to have the ORAU team spend a lot of time 


trying to document -- I mean okay, fine, you 


know --


 DR. ULSH: Probably going to have to do that to 


determine whether or not -- 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, fair enough --


 DR. ULSH: -- they were unmonitored. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- fair enough. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's -- does that make a little 


more sense, Brant? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: 'Cause I think what we're -- 


this is a confirmatory exercise, so we're 


trying to --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- confirm that the -- those 


who were monitored, the production workers or 


whatever, were in fact -- the data's complete, 


and those who were not production workers, 


there are categories of workers where we would 


expect to see unmonitored periods. So the 


gaps, whether they're ten years, eight years, 


six years, five years, that's fine. I mean 


that -- that makes sense. 


 DR. WADE: And of the population that you look 


at and move forward together, 80 percent of 


it's going to fall off the table. Twenty 


percent will be left --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

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 DR. WADE: -- and these will be --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right --


 DR. WADE: -- the gaps. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- and that's what --


 DR. WADE: And then the workgroup will have to 


start to say okay, now these are potential 


gaps. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. WADE: Are the coworker models adequate -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. WADE: -- to deal with them, leading up to 


their vote on an SEC petition. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I agree with that part of the 


path forward, yeah. 


 DR. WADE: So that's -- that's what you need to 


do. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: But what you --


 MR. GRIFFON: But now --


 DR. WADE: -- really need to do is go to lunch. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and now I think I need to 


buy -- buy Wanda some chocolate. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Did I read out what I had as 


notes so -- so I'm clear on -- you know, you 

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need to define the length of the leash here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Sure, I think we were --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The -- the -- okay. You would 


like to get process operators and other 


operational workers who should have been mon-- 


monitored, including maintenance, but also a 


random sample component. You want to split 


this into the two time periods of concern, '51 


to '63 and '64 to '92. I'd like some clarity 


on what early '90s means, but I'm assuming for 


now it's '92, but if you could -- Brant, if you 


could clarify that, that would help. 


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: A brief -- okay, then we would 


leave out the D and D period -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- out of this, and we would 


confine it of course only to the data 


completeness problem and -- and we would -- 


SC&A would propose some cases and then have an 


interaction with the working group and NIOSH -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: The only other step I would -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no -- on a technical call 


to sort out what the workers were doing, 


whether they were subcontractors, missing, 

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unmonitored and so on before proceeding to an 


analysis of those cases. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. And the only other step 


prior to that might have been to -- in your 


selection of cases I think, as Ron stated, look 


for people with a lar-- fair number of years of 


employment, you know -- yeah, not just one year 


or six months or whatever. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: You want to define the 


criterion? Ten or more? 


 MR. GRIFFON: That seems reasonable, I guess. 


I don't know. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Or five or more? 


DR. NETON: I'd say five or more. 


 MS. MUNN: Five or more. 


DR. NETON: That'll make the pool bigger for 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: You've got five years and you're 


missing five years worth of data, that's 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. PRESLEY: That's (unintelligible) right 

there. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 
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DR. NETON: Well, could be substantial. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. All right. So I think 


it's time to break for lunch, huh? 


 DR. WADE: Just pick the time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Come -- come back in an hour. 


 DR. WADE: An hour from now. We're going to --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right -- close to 2:00. 


 DR. WADE: -- break the phone line and we'll be 


back in an hour. We'll reconnect in 45 


minutes. Thank you. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 12:55 p.m. 


to 2:00 p.m.) 


 DR. WADE: I would ask any Board members to 


identify themselves. 


 (No responses) 


Mike, are you back on? 


 (No response) 


Any Board member on the call, working group 


member or not? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, this is Mike, Lew. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, Mike. Thank you. We are much 


as we were before only fuller, so we'll begin. 


OTHER RADIONUCLIDES


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. My goal is to go through 


the next seven or so items on the agenda a 

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little more quickly, applying our new Board 


efficiency process. And let's see, the next 


topic is other radionuclides, and I think -- 


much like the last item -- we had a response 


from SC&A and then you -- you returned in the 


last week or so, I don't know exact-- 


 DR. ULSH: Actually worse than that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Worse than that. 


 DR. ULSH: -- worse than that, 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: So that was real -- yeah, that 


was real recent, right. But at least we should 


get an update of where we are, maybe from SC&A 


and NIOSH, and see what remains in that topic. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think -- just think 


that -- had this discussion along, it was a 


issue we raised in the site profile review, but 


what's -- I think has developed is NIOSH has 


developed two documents that we were given back 


in the August/September time frame, I think, on 


thorium in terms of maximum credible intake, 


maximum organ dose and some of the assessments 


that went into that as a basis, and as well as 


some workup on some of the other radionuclides 


that we can discuss. And this is also on the 

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heels of a classified meeting we had in Las 


Vegas that resulted in the Freiburg interview 


notes being given, too, so a lot of things have 


been moving in the last I'd say couple of weeks 


in -- in earnest, and so we gave NIOSH in a 


sense some reaction to the two documents that 


we received earlier, some comments. And they, 


on -- let's see, it'll be Friday -- gave us 


their response in turn to -- to our comments, 


so there's been a lot of interchange. I would 


guess we haven't really had a chance to sort of 


weigh what we have given each other very much, 


so that's where we are right now. And as you 


know, Arjun has been on point on this issue, 


and before that Y-12 as well, so he's become 


sort of like with Mel -- sort of Mel's 


counterpart now, sort of the -- the other 


nuclides team here. 


 MR. CHEW: (Unintelligible) 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So --


 MR. GRIFFON: Sort of like (unintelligible). 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So to the extent that we can 


actually maybe share what we can share, given 


all the lateness of the exchanges, I would 


leave it to the two of them actually to see if 

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there's anything they can illuminate the 


working group with. I don't know if you wanted 


to --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, sure --


 MR. FITZGERALD: This is one of these issues 


where there's so much you could spend a day 


talking about other nuclides, but I guess the 


alternative would be to spend a few minutes -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Ten minutes. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- ten minutes. 


 MR. CHEW: Arjun, I would acknowledge that 


Bryce did quite a bit of the work, that he 


brought us some of the issues with thorium and 


things like this, so please address it if you 


want to. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I -- I took a quick look 


at -- at what you sent us, and basically we -- 


we do have somewhat of an issue with the 


compilation that Mel's group did on the data. 


There's a question of whether the documents 


that were reviewed were complete, whether all 


the production was captured, and there's an 


issue for the working group as to whether that 


-- the completeness of the source term 


description is a second question or not. I --

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I was a little -- I just finished doing some 


work on Fernald and was surprised that a lot of 


thorium-related production documents had been 


destroyed, according to the TBD, and obviously 


the production-related information was 


incomplete. And so just -- the thorium 


question just kind of raised a question in my 


mind as to how complete it is. I don't know if 


the working group wants to do -- and I think we 


agree that this is something for the working 


group to decide as to whether they want for 


their investigation or whether we live -- 


whether we settle with the source term that -- 


that we have. We -- we didn't find any gaps or 


problems in terms of internal consistency or 


anything like that in what -- what you put 


forward in that as the source term in that 


memo, so we don't have an issue with that table 


that we identified. 


As regards new Reg. 1400, we have more issues 


with that, and I -- as I said, I took a quick 


look at -- at the response and I tried to just 


be brief in characterizing them. One is I 


still feel that NI-- NIOSH has said that the 


working conditions over there were well­
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ventilated, that they were -- there were hoods 


in the -- essentially the equivalent of what -- 


modern industrial hygiene condition. And I 


think, other than -- there's a -- there's a 


personal communication from June 26th. I don't 


believe I have seen that, and -- and so I'd 


like to -- we'd like to see that -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: Is that the interview from 


REDACTED? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- if we have copies of that 


which says that --


 MR. CHEW: That's the interview with REDACTED 


he's (unintelligible)? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right, how do you pronounce the 


name? 


 MR. CHEW: REDACTED (ph.). 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: REDACTED, I'm sorry, REDACTED ­

- I -- that's why I didn't say the name because 


I didn't know how to pronounce it. The -- so 


that's -- that's kind of -- that -- there's 


supposed to be a report in the -- in the 


REDACTED-- REDACTED memora-- interview it says 


that there was a report that REDACTED -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- that there was a report on 

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working conditions at the time. That would be 


very helpful. 


 DR. ULSH: I think -- Arjun, I'm trying to 


reach back in my head what that was. Didn't 


REDACTED talk about some kind of history of the 


uranium operations at -- 


 MR. RICH: No, he -- he referred to a couple of 


documents. One of the was -- the document 


referred to the curium operation, but -- and 


there -- there was another one that -- I think 


he referred to one -- an historical document by 


REDACTED again on waste (unintelligible). 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, so --


 DR. ULSH: All right. Well, we'll --


 MR. GRIFFON: And --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- because REDACTED mentions 


that -- that the machines were not completely 


enclosed. They were plastic, good ventilation 


-- I'm not sure, this isn't like a complete 


sentence. It's a little bit hard to decode. 


But that there are pictures of it -- of the 


working conditions, maybe just relating to the 


thorium strikes. It's not clear what all it -- 


what all of the processes were covered that you 


talked about in your -- in your report. And 

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basically in regard to working conditions that 


there was some documentation of the working 


conditions as to how the production was carried 


out, and we have a difference about whether 


there was production or not. And in my 


opinion, if you are doing some machining, then 


in the engineering sense it's production. Now 


you've said that it was light machining, and 


again there's no documentation of what that 


might mean. And one large and -- sort of 


difference is even if you're doing light 


machining, the transient air concentrations 


could be significant if the industrial hygiene 


conditions are not good. And so borrowing from 


other thorium data which we did showed that if 


your industrial hygiene is not good, you could 


have large intakes in a short period of time. 


I don't think we'd disagree with that. The 


question is, what were the industrial hygiene 


conditions; and in my mind, that's not -- 


there's some more evidence in terms of the 


interview that came in your -- in your report 


or your reply, but -- but no documentary 


evidence about working conditions. 


Then there-- there's a question of -- we all 

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understand we're dealing with 50-year -- 50­

year committed doses, not as how IREP 


calculations are done, but just for the -- 


studying importance of the radionuclides, and 


that's how we have been doing it and that's 


fair for quite some time, so that's how our 


calculations were done. I rechecked our 


calculations and we used Federal Guidance 


Report 13 for the thorium calculation. I came 


up with the same numbers. I think there's 


nothing wrong with our calculation. The -- I 


talked about -- I exchanged e-mails about this 


with Joyce, because you said that our 


calculation was incorrect or some words to that 


effect, and I arithmetically verified it and 


then I exchanged notes with Joyce as to whether 


it was appropriate to use FGR 13, which has a 


one-micron assumption, and she said that under 


the circumstances, it was -- it seemed okay. 


mean there may be one -- more than one approach 


that's okay, and so I think that our calcu-- we 


just want to reaffirm, at least tentatively, 


that our calculations -- somebody will have to 


check my -- all my computer musings here before 


-- so this is an informal account of -- of just 


I 
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my own personal in-- personal kind of reading 


of this. 


A large part of the difficulty with -- with the 


new Reg. 1400 approach is -- is whether such a 


thing -- which is based on a 1980 exploratory 


health physics paper that was applied by the 


Nuclear Regulatory Commission to determine 


whether air mon-- whether and how air 


monitoring should be carried out -- can be 


applied to dose reconstruction. And I'm a 


little bit confused as to what NIOSH said it 


did, because as I read the paper NIOSH applied 


a factor of ten to the minus ten to the 


estimated annual production of 60 kilograms. 


But in the response NIOSH said that it applied 


a factor of ten to the minus six, so now I'm a 


little confused as to what was actually done. 


I know what was done in the paper, or at least 


I think I know what was done in the paper, but 


I'm confused about the difference between the 


reply that we got from NIOSH and my reading of 


the original paper. And I think -- I -- I do 


not feel that new Reg. 1400 was -- is 


appropriate to apply in this kind of context 


where the rule for dose reconstruction says 

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you're going to give the benefit of the doubt, 


no -- that in no case uncertainties would harm 


-- I -- I have -- I have the text of the 


regulation somewhere in my notes, but in no 


case uncertainties will harm the claimant. I 


think the kind of factors that go into the new 


Reg. are rules of thumb and back-of-theenvelope, not meant for this kind of 


application. And if it is applied in this 


case, and this -- I didn't find any response 


from NIOSH, maybe I didn't fin-- read it and it 


is there -- correct me, Brant, if I'm wrong -- 


is that if new Reg. 1400 is applied in this 


context, it definitely will raise a very large 


consistency question for the Board as to why it 


was not applied in Y-12. Because new Reg. 1400 


has no limitations on the production level. 


The production level should be small and then 


you apply new Reg. 1400 -- 'cause not a dose 


reconstruction guidance, in any case. So that 


will raise a very, very large question. We're 


not saying that intakes were high or low, but a 


lot of questions in there. 


That's the summary of an initial response. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can -- just -- just to follow up 

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on Arjun's before you respond, are the -- in 


terms of -- we know we -- we had the meeting in 


-- in Las Vegas -- Las Vegas where we went over 


the classified data and stuff and the materials 


balance logs, we understand that. As far as 


the operations, especially for thorium I guess, 


but -- but for -- for all these things, is it 


mostly based on inter-- 'cause I've seen like 


REDACTED I guess and this other person, who I ­

-


 MR. CHEW: It's REDACTED as we --


 MR. GRIFFON: REDACTED, okay, I'm sorry -- and 


-- and another individual that you mentioned, 


was it -- was it a set of interviews that you 


did with several past production supervisors or 


whoever and -- and were there any other 


documenta-- you know, of these early documents, 


have you found any of those to support sort of 


their statements? 


 MR. RICH: Yeah, there -- there are some 


documents related to several of them. For 


example uranium-233, thorium strike has a -- 


has a paper that describes that operation and 


then --


 MR. CHEW: I have that here, by the way. 

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 MR. RICH: Yeah. And -- and there are some 


other documents, but fundamentally in 


relationship to the monitoring, it -- it has 


come somewhat from interviews with --


 MR. GRIFFON: Based on their --


 MR. RICH: -- responsible -- professionals 


responsible for the monitoring program. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right, just wanted to be 


clear on that. 


DR. MAURO: I -- I've got a query for you. I 


was reading the correspondence and turns out -- 


I've been doing Chapman Valve while I was 


reading your correspondence and that -- and 


looking at some of the -- the ten to the minus 


six rule of thumb, and I just may have been 


(unintelligible), but I come up with that if a 


person were machining the material and you're 


doing about 60 kilograms a year, so six 


kilograms a month, anyway I came up with -- the 


person doing the machining of this would be 


exposed to micrograms per cubic meter -- micro, 


as opposed to milligrams. I'm used to -- when 


I'm -- when I'm looking at that kind of 


operation and I'm talking about whether we're 


talking uranium, steel, machining anything -- 

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especially if you're generating sparks, even 


though you may even be soaking the material to 


keep it cool -- we're talking about dust 


loadings that are not in the microgram range. 


I mean the microgram range is what we have in 


this room. This may be around a microgram or 


two per cubic meter. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Tens of -- ten -- tens of 


micrograms. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, so I'm used to milligrams. 


And the number I came up -- unless I skipped a 


couple of decimal points -- was micrograms, so 


that just got -- the antennae went up, so 


there's something about that ten to the minus 


six number that doesn't look right. I guess 


that's my contribution to this. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, Brant, go ahead I guess. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, first -- before we get into 


the nitty-gritty and talk about whether we can 


or cannot apply new Reg. 1400 or what factor we 


should apply, I think it's worthwhile to step 


back and get a little perspective on what they 


did with thorium at Rocky Flats. 


 Now one operation was the thorium strikes, and 


that was the removal of thorium-228 from 

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uranium-233 metals. And I'll let Mel may-- or 


sorry, let Bryce maybe tell you little bit more 


about that in a minute. I'm primarily going to 


talk about the handling that they did of 


thorium metal. 


And one of the big problems that we saw, or 


areas that we might disagree with -- with SC&A 


on this issue is that you cannot take the 


experience at Y-12 where they produced metric 


tons of -- of thorium, or at Fernald where they 


also produced tons of thorium metal, did things 


like arc welding, you know, producing thorium 


metal, warehousing -- serving as a warehouse 


for the thorium for the entire DOE complex and 


compare it to Rocky Flats. And the reason is 


that because at Rocky Flats primarily what they 


did is they received metal parts from Y-12, 


parts were pre-formed at Y-12 and they were 


used at Rocky Flats as a substitute for 


plutonium in their weapons mockups. 'Cause 


they would take the part they received from Y12, take it out of the box or whatever it was 


it was shipped in, put it into the model. 


That's pretty much it. 


Now if there was a high spot or a burr or 

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something, you know, that made it not quite fit 


right, they would take it out into the hood -- 


which was shrouded and ventilated, the hoods 


that they used for processing EU -- they would 


take off that high spot. They would maybe take 


off that burr, take it back in, put it in a 


model. That is in no way comparable to the 


operations that occurred at Y-12 and Fernald. 


It's just not. 


So that was one fundamental difference that we 


had between the fin-- you know, whatever 


conclusions you might make at Fernald or Y-12 


to Rocky Flats. 


The other thing is I think it's worthwhile to 


get some perspective here. When we heard, you 


know, from our interviews -- REDACTED and 


REDACTED and others -- about how many people 


were involved in these processes at Rocky, they 


said oh, maybe a dozen at most. So I -- this 


occurred to me to do this on Friday, to try to 


find out just how many workers were ever 


employed at Rocky Flats. The best I could come 


up with was from an epi study that had data up 


through 1989, and they had about 16,000 workers 


through '89. Now we know that that's a low 

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estimate. There were more than that. But 


let's just go with 16,000. 


So if you talk about 16,000 workers, a dozen of 


whom might have been exposed -- might have been 


involved with handling thorium at -- at Rocky 


Flats, that's one parameter you have to keep in 


mind. The other is, what kind of cases would 


this make a difference, would it have the 


potential to make a difference? Primarily it's 


going to be lung cases. 


Now I know, Arjun, you know, you're concerned 


about bone doses, and there's a particular 


vagary of IMBA where it overestimates the 


amount of dose that goes to the bone surf-- 


because it puts it all at the bone surface 


instead of distributing it throughout the bone. 


Primarily we're talking about lung doses here. 


So if you talk about 12 out of 16,000 workers 


might have been exposed to thorium, and I ask 


myself well, okay, how many non-comp lung cases 


from Rocky Flats are there, and there are 34. 


And if you even narrow it down more -- and you 


know, I'll back off if you guys don't like this 


narrowing down. I contend that it would only 


really have a potential to make a difference in 

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the best estimate lung cases, the ones that are 


fairly close to 50 that, you know, a little 


extra thorium dose might push it over. Well, I 


looked at how many best estimate non-comp lung 


cases there are at Rocky; there are zero. So I 


said well, that's going to give me a zero 


probability so I'll just say there's one, one 


out of 16,303 approximately, multiplied by a 


dozen workers who might have handled thorium at 


Rocky Flats out of 16,000. That leaves you 


with a probability of having one of these 


people in a situation that might have handled 


thorium and it might make a difference in their 


dose reconstruction -- about 4.5 out of a 


billion. And so my question is why are we 


spending all this time on this? It's not going 


to make a difference -- 4.5 out of a billion. 


Now if you want me to back off and say okay, 


it's all the non-comp lung cases, you can't 


really buy that it's the best estimate, now 


you're talking 34 -- 1.5 out of a million, one 


in a million, essentially. We're spending a 


lot of time and effort on this issue when it 


just doesn't make a difference for maybe one 


person out of a million. And I know that this 

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is a low-ball estimate because I know that 


there's more than 16,000 people that worked 


there, so I mean that's something that I think 


we need to talk about and perhaps consider. As 


Arjun mentioned, you know, if there's 


conclusions between Y-12 and Fernald and Rocky 


Flats, we have a problem with that. 


The other is new Reg. 1400 and that -- Arjun, I 


think you're accurate in the areas that we 


still have issues, you know, that we're not -- 


haven't achieved closure. One is the 


applicability of new Reg. 1400. I find nothing 


in new Reg. 1400 that says it can only be used 


in particular situations that would lead me to 


believe it is not applicable to Rocky Flats. 


The purpose of new Reg. 1400 is to be extremely 


conservative to determine whether or not air 


monitoring -- an air monitoring program was 


called for. It was not limited to only 


facilities that had monitored industrial 


hygiene, although I would contend that the 


measures that were taken at Rocky Flats doing 


what minimal handling of thorium metal they did 


inside shrouded hoods with heavy health physics 


monitoring, although we don't have air 

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monitoring that's explicitly identified as 


thorium, it's most likely gross alpha. But 


those would constitute normal precautions, or 


even greater than normal precautions. But at 


any rate, I don't find anything in new Reg. 


1400 that would preclude us using that at Rocky 


Flats. 


And one other thing I want to clear up is we're 


not proposing to use new Reg. 1400 to do dose 


reconstructions. We're not. What we're doing 


is we're using new Reg. 1400 to show that there 


is no credible intake scenario that would 


result in an appreciable organ dose from 


thorium at Rocky Flats. That's fundamentally 


different. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It -- I -- you know, it's very 


different. I didn't understand that point, and 


you're right, I thought -- I thought you were 


proposing to use that. 


 DR. ULSH: No, that's why I thought -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- that's why I thought I'd better 


point (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Can I ask a question about 

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that, which is -- suppose this argument is 


accepted and the SEC is denied, and you have a 


worker who worked with thorium. What dose -- 


as I understand it, you're proposing under 42 


CFR 83 an upper bound intake estimate. This 


estimate, if an SEC is denied, would be applied 


in dose reconstruction, unless you can find a 


more accurate way to reconstruct, which doesn't 


seem to be on the table. So I think actually, 


in my mind, what you are proposing is an intake 


estimate that would -- not the actual intake. 


Of course none -- none of the work being done 


is actual intake estimates, or not much of it, 


anyway. Mostly it's maximum and minimum and 


upper bound and worst case, things like that. 


And so what you would wind up applying, it 


seems to me, is exactly new Reg. 1400 for a 


thorium worker. So you are proposing an upper 


bound estimate of intake. 


 DR. ULSH: Keeping in mind what I -- what I 


started out with, that we're talking about four 


-- a chance -- 4.5 out of a billion chance -- I 


know, Mark, you're going to take issue with 


that. Right? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean it's just -- it's 

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just numbers, you know, it's -- I mean we also 


-- let's just reflect on where we've been. You 


know, I'm sorry, I can't -- I mean I remember 


some Cyclotron workers that I was told this was 


a very restricted process, only limited numbers 


of people worked in there, da, da, da. Now if 


-- if you can give us a listing, then I think 


we're done, you know. I mean I -- I -- but 


when -- when we start to say small ma-- you 


know, we've got a lot of qualitative 


information out here and if we can figure out 


who these people are, if it was a very limited 


operation, limited set of people and somehow we 


can figure out who they were and who they 


weren't, then -- then all that is very goo-- 


very useful, you know, but -- 


 DR. ULSH: I think we can tell you probably who 


was involved in the other radionuclides. 


Thorium's going to be more problematic because 


they simply didn't do thorium bioassay at 


Rocky. I think similar to at Y-12, if we 


discover more information down the line that 


leads us to conclude that we've been in error 


and in fact this was a big operation, well, 


then we'll change. But we haven't seen any 

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information like that. 


DR. MAURO: Are you saying then that 60 


kilograms a year, let's say we -- that -- 


that's your number, and then you assume ten to 


the minus six of that is inhaled per year as an 


upper bound --


 MR. RICH: No, no, (unintelligible) -- 


DR. MAURO: What am I -- what am I hearing 


then? 


 MR. RICH: No, new Reg. 1400 is a -- is a 


process using -- using a number of different 


assumptions for release fractions and -- and 


overall intake, given a -- a pile of material 


in any form and you -- the assumptions are 


given for material in various forms, whether 


it's used in a hood or in a glovebox or -- and 


it comes out with a probability of intake given 


various things, and it's a -- it's an accepted 


-- scientifically accepted approach to defining 


the upper limit of intake, given a certain 


amount of material in a given location with 


additional -- given facilities, and -- and then 


that drives whether use of an air sampling 


program or not --


DR. MAURO: Okay, then there's some missing -- 

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'cause I have this model. There's some 


through-put of thorium that's going -- that's 


being processed. 


 MR. RICH: Now there's a Q value that defines 


the amount of material involved. 


DR. MAURO: That -- yeah, that's -- and it 


moves through the system -- right? -- whether 


it's a -- you know, it's incrementally brought 


-- it's brought in, put in a hood, it's worked 


on, moved out. Now -- but it was my 


understanding that that -- the fundamental 


approach was to take that through-put -- mass 


through-put, which I believe was 60 kilogram a 


year, and apply some factor which says -- the 


magic number --


UNIDENTIFIED: Bronski's* number. 


DR. MAURO: -- Bronski's number that says 


there's a certain -- there's -- there's good 


reason to believe that if you're -- for -- you 


know, that the amount that might be inhaled is 


ten to the minus six of the mass of material 


that's been pushed through. Now, that might be 


under conditions where there are no controls 


whatsoever, I'm not sure; I haven't looked at 


it. 

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 MR. RICH: That's true. What Arjun was talking 


about, ten to the minus ten, would apply some 


other factors like whether it was in a 


glovebox, in a -- in a hood or some other 


factors where the assumptions for it being a 


release fraction would be additive as opposed 


to just a single release fraction. 


DR. MAURO: But where I'm going with this is 


the common sense approach. Say okay, let's say 


that's all true. If you go to -- you do the 


calculation, you say well, what is the 


concentration of the thorium that would be in 


the air that this person is breathing, and it 


turns out to be -- if you go -- you start to 


put in some of these reduction factors -- a 


fraction of a microgram per cubic meter. 


Intuitively that does-- unless you've got 


yourself a very tightly-controlled glovebox, 


negative flow, all the good things going for 


you -- which basically says nothing's coming 


out of that glovebox --


DR. NETON: Well, wait a second, though, that ­

- that fraction -- is that a -- an annual 


intake per cubic meter? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Annual average, yes. 

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DR. NETON: Okay, so -- so -- so it's -- I 


agree with you, but if you're -- if you -- if ­

- that's assuming it's an annual average over a 


whole year --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no --


DR. MAURO: That's --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- no, no, this is assuming the 


work is done over a week. 


DR. MAURO: All over a week. 


DR. NETON: Okay, over a week, but what I'm 


saying is --


DR. MAURO: (Unintelligible) 


DR. NETON: I agree with you, but if you're 


grinding, you can certainly get much higher 


concentrations. We know that. We've seen that 


in --

DR. MAURO: And I'm -- and I'm --

DR. NETON: -- many other sites. 

DR. MAURO: -- okay with that, too, if there's 

-- if you know you've got it in a box, so if 


there's no way it's coming out of that box. 


DR. NETON: But as an average of a microgram 


per cubic meter --


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


DR. NETON: -- there could certainly be spikes, 

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if you're grinding, that go much higher. 
I 


guess that's what I'm trying to say. 


DR. MAURO: Well, all I'm saying is that what I 


-- what I'm hearing is, though, the -- the 


model you have is effectively saying that the ­

- the amount of thorium that's airborne and 


that's being taken in -- if you calculate -- 


you go through the calculation, I come up with 


on the order of perhaps a fraction -- 


 MR. RICH: That's a disconnect, as Jim pointed 


out. 


DR. MAURO: Well, but wouldn't that -- but -- 


well, even if you collapse it down to a week, 


let's say all the thorium was processed in -- 


'cause you know -- all the thorium was 


processed in a short period of time, we're 


still talking in the microgram per cubic meter 


range, which might be right -- don't get me 


wrong. It might be right, but -- but my 


experience is if -- unless you have wicked 


controls at work that are containing that 


material, your -- your dust-loading associated 


with mechanically handling any kind of metal is 


going to be a lot higher than the microgram per 


cubic meter range. 

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DR. NETON: Inside of a hood. 

DR. MAURO: Yeah -- well, that's what I'm 

saying --

DR. NETON: That's what I'm saying, you've got 

-- you've got to take -- they took into account 


I think a shrouded hood. 


 MR. RICH: Of course, you bet. 


DR. NETON: Now one could argue whether that 


was appropriate or not, but -- 


DR. MAURO: That's all I'm coming from. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, and that's -- I think that's 


probably on the table for discussion, but I 


think your calculation -- they got the ten to 


the minus tenth by using all these other 


modifying factors that account for decreasing 


the dispersibility of the material. 


DR. MAURO: But even at ten to the minus six 


you're in the microgram range, so you're 


bringing it down to the --


DR. NETON: Right. 


DR. MAURO: -- ten to the minus three microgram 


range, and that's kind of the -- that's the 


kind of number -- and I -- you know, when I 


look at a number I just say just sort of step 


back and say does this sort of ring true. 
I 

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say -- in my mind I say well, it's -- it's 


possible, but you've got to have a really well-


designed hood that's going to seal this thing 


off and there's nothing coming out. 


DR. NETON: I agree, and I think that's worth 


exploring. On the table, though, is -- is 


fundamentally is new Reg. 1400 even appropriate 


to use, and I think Arjun is basically saying 


he's not sure, he doesn't think so. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm uncomfortable with it. I 


mean this is of course a decision that the -- 


that the -- to the Board. I think there are 


two questions. I -- I -- I think that new Reg. 


1400 is not designed for this kind of 


application. It may be conservative in terms 


of where you -- where you put your air monitors 


-- I mean it has great detail about all of 


that. But as a method of dose reconstruction, 


it does raise a lot of questions. And then I 


think it would at least merit some more stern 


tests as to what you'd come up with if you 


applied it in other circumstances. 


And the second question it does raise is -- is 


consistency. 


DR. NETON: Well, I want to -- I want to 

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address that briefly is we did apply new Reg. 


1400 at Y-12, if you remember. At the end of 


the day, when we got down to those couple of 


laboratories where there were small kilogram 


quantities of thorium, we proposed new Reg. 


1400 and we got agreement that that was a 


reasonable thing to do for those small 


laboratory operations that probably handled 


them in a hood and did very minimal processing 


and that sort of thing. So there is a --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Your memory is better than mine 


DR. NETON: Well, I remember this very 


distinctly because I was very happy that we got 


an agreement, yeah. And we can pull a 


transcript and pull out the record if we want 


to, but it's there. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no --


 DR. ULSH: It's there, it's there. 


DR. NETON: It's there, and so my point is the 


inconsistency argument is really not there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But what about the larger -- you 


didn't see it appropriate for -- yeah. 


DR. NETON: Now the larger issues -- now I'll 


grant you that we didn't apply or propose new 

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Reg. 1400 for the larger processes at Y-12, for 


the very reason that we didn't know what they 


did. And we -- we ran across those articles, 


like you did, that said they dropped 600 


kilograms out of the machine somehow. Well, 


how are we going to model that? We have no 


idea -- you have to have some idea of what they 


were doing. We didn't. And they were starting 


with essentially powders and materials that 


were very easily dispersed. In this particular 


operation it seems to me you've got a hunk of 


metal, and there was some grinding to do some 


burrs, and I think that there -- it's a -- it's 


a limited operation and limited scope, that one 


-- (unintelligible) that one could come up with 


a bounding scenario, and whether this exact 


analysis is appropriate or not I think is up 


for debate, but I think there is a way to move 


that forward somehow, and so that's -- 


 MR. RICH: And by the way, I want to say, too, 


that based on our interviews, you know, six 


kilograms per operation was (unintelligible) 


and that's -- that's -- that's modeled on the ­

- on the high side. A lot of the operations 


were in 500 grams or -- or so, so they -- there 

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were a lot of small parts as opposed to your 


large parts. And then when you're handling a 


chunk of -- of course, you know, doesn't take a 


very big chunk of thorium to weigh a lot, but ­

- but the fact that it wasn't put into a 


process, it wasn't tumbled and stirred up, per 


se, it was handled as a chunk that was -- that 


was trimmed. And when it was when it was 


chunked up in the machines a little bit -- and 


by the way, the other things, too. We used a ­

- a -- an outside limit of ten percent waste, 


which was -- according to the interviews again 


-- was on the high side, precious little waste. 


And then that was boxed up and -- and shipped 


back to Y-12. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So I -- I guess really the -- the 


things that we have to have concurrence with is 


the -- the -- the how much, the -- what process 


and controls, to the best we can substantiate 


them, what was going on. And then, dependent 


on those two factors, the who may or may not 


matter, as Brant just described. The -- the 


numbers -- I mean it -- it may be important if 


we had some question about -- you know, if the 


processes -- if we see any information that 

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says the processes were more extensive or 


weren't controlled as well as described here -- 


DR. NETON: I agree. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but otherwise, you might -- 


you -- we might be right. We might say we 


don't need to really know the who is it. And ­

- and would there be a position -- I mean it 


seems like the doses are -- are fairly trivial 


if you use your current equation, so you 


wouldn't apply this across -- 


 MR. RICH: No, we really wouldn't. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you wouldn't apply it at all 


to anyone, no --


 MR. RICH: Wouldn't apply it --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- thorium dose at all. 


 MR. RICH: -- you wouldn't apply it to the 


thousands of metric tons at Fernald. You know 


that's not inappropriate. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Oh, no, no, no, no, I 


meant would you apply -- it seems like they're 


trivial doses so you probably wouldn't add in a 


thorium --


DR. NETON: We've adopted --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- dose --


DR. NETON: -- a policy where any dose of -- I 

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think it's less than one millirem, is that 


right? 


 MR. RICH: Well, three is what Liz takes care 


of, if it's less than three -- 


DR. NETON: Is it three committed or is it 


three --


 MR. RICH: It's (unintelligible) dose, I think. 


DR. NETON: -- annual? 


 MR. RICH: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: In general if it's less than one 


millirem per year, we -- we call -- we consider 


that a de minimis dose calculation and don't 


add that into (unintelligible) -- 


DR. MAURO: And -- and --


 MR. GRIFFON: So then we -- you know, we might 


just consider, you know, that question of is -- 


is the 14-- is the new Reg. 1400 approach 


appropriate; do we agree with the sort of 


control factors that were put into the 


equation. 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. See, then --


 MR. GRIFFON: And if we do, then -- then the 


question becomes is it even over the three 


millirem. If it is, maybe you apply it to 


everybody if -- you know. 

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DR. NETON: Well, right, yeah. I mean --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- if -- if one would not buy into 


the argument that there was a shrouded hood but 


no protection -- I don't know, what is there, a 


factor of ten difference there or something 


probably? 


 MR. RICH: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: So then you're up to 30 millirem 


and then you back off somewhere else, you get 


to 300. It seems from -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- I haven't looked at this in 


detail, but it seems to me there's some 


bounding analysis (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, that's what I'm saying. If 


it gets -- if it gets to those higher 


increments, then I think you need to start 


considering the who --


 MR. RICH: And let me -- let me just add -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and can you identify them, 


that's my -- you know, we've been down that 


before, yeah. 


 MR. RICH: Let me -- let me add just one more 


caveat if I -- if I could. The reason for 

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using 1400 is because it -- because of the 


design. It was designed to be grossly 


conservative, grossly conservative. And so we 


-- we felt like using this would at least bound 


a -- a -- an operation that was clearly minimal 


in -- in nature, both from a quantity 


standpoint and in what they physically did to 


the material itself. There was no processing 


of powders. There was no chemical extraction, 


fluorination or -- or metal forming and things 


like that. We see a note in a couple of the 


reports that they may have done a -- a little 


forming on very small chunks and shearing of 


them. You know, the quantity of material 


becomes so low that it's like dealing with a 


Coleman lantern mantle and -- and so we felt 


like it was bounding on the high side. And 


functionally, just to see if -- if the logic of 


the minima exposure potential was real and -- 


and we're satisfied that indeed the reason why 


there is no data in the claimant file rela-- or 


incidents and the like is because there was no 


exposures. 


The -- the other thing of course is that these 


were special order or special projects. They 

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attracted a lot of attention. Now if --


realizing that we don't take a lot of credit 


for our functioning comprehensive program, but 


nonetheless, there was -- we are assured that 


there was air monitoring, contamination control 


and everything that would go along with that, 


and there's nothing to indicate anything more 


than what our logic would present to us. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So there's -- was air monitoring, 


you just haven't uncovered those results. 


 MR. RICH: It's not identified as a thorium air 


monitoring. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, it's gross alpha air 


monitoring. 


 MR. RICH: It's gross alpha. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. RICH: And so --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. RICH: -- with that, we just -- we -- we 


have been reassured that there was -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Controls, right. 


 MR. RICH: -- an excess of controls because it 


was a special project. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Now -- now you have gross alpha 


monitoring from the time that you did -- 

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because that would solve -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: For that area or that -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- a lot of problems. We could 


cut this short very easily. 


 MR. RICH: The problem, Arjun, is that to -- we 


-- we have air monitoring data, but to go 


through 17 years of operation and pick out air 


monitoring data -- you can pick out air 


monitoring data in '80/'81, for example, and 


that would -- you know, that will give you 


uranium, primarily, 'cause they came in for an 


hour and a half Tuesday afternoon and did this 


piece and then -- and then went away, and so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: So you can't --


 MR. RICH: -- that's the kind of special 


project --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- pinpoint when it would have 


been the thorium process going on -- 


 MR. RICH: -- and that's the reason why they 


weren't identified as thorium samples, I 


suspect. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But wouldn't it be indicative 


of the industrial hygiene conditions in that 


area anyway if you -- if you got your -- you 


know, if you got -- thorium is not that 

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different, in terms of specific activity, from 


uranium. You know, I guess highly enriched 


uranium is much more -- 


 MR. RICH: A factor of --


DR. NETON: Dose per unit intake is much 


higher. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry? 


DR. NETON: The dose per unit intake is much, 


much higher. 


 MR. RICH: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, but -- but if you have -- 


if you have gross alpha air monitoring data it 


at least will give you some idea of industrial 


hygiene (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. RICH: Again -- again, the other problem is 


when you're -- when you're processing even 


enriched uranium, you're dealing with 


quantities that are way over what they handled 


with the thorium, so you know, the -- the ratio 


of material and the -- and then the 


proportionate release, if any, would be -- be 


(unintelligible) --


 MS. MUNN: It would be small, wouldn't it? 


 MR. RICH: Yes, it would be. 


DR. NETON: (Unintelligible) on this, was there 

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some -- I'm sorry --


 MS. MUNN: (Unintelligible) 


DR. NETON: -- some way to sort of semi-


empirically validate this model. That is, we 


know -- like John said, we've got a pretty good 


history of what grinding operations generate. 


And if you adjust for the specific activity of 


the materials, you could take a lot of uranium 


grinding -- we know (unintelligible) grinders, 


we know about hand grinding and we know the -- 


the MAC air concentrations. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right, yes. 


DR. NETON: And my thought was if we would take 


some of those comparable values and apply some 


usage factors, you know, whatever -- they 


inserted ten minutes at a time, this or that, 


apply some control factors and see if this is 


in the right ball park to sort of validate 


that. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think that this would be -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That'd be useful, yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- this -- this would -- I --


I'm not saying that this is right or wrong. 


I'm just saying when I look at this, this 


number is so small --

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DR. NETON: It seems pretty small. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- that any --


 DR. ULSH: 'Cause it is. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think we'd agree 


(unintelligible) .02 becquerel per year is a 


very minuscule number. 


 MR. CHEW: Well, that's because of low 


activity, you know that. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: We settled that, I know. 


DR. NETON: But -- but again, I think as some 


sort of semi-empirical -- I don't know what 


word to use -- validation, using first, you 


know, real data from similar operations, one 


could say this is in the right ball park -- or 


if it's not, maybe rethink and -- and back up 


and, again, move it up. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Only as a means to validate. 


We're not using other site data to reconstruct 


dose. 


DR. NETON: Oh, no. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: No. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But some validation exercise, 


for this number that doesn't look credible, is 


necessary. 

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DR. MAURO: Do you have information on the 


types of controls that were in place when they 


were doing these minor machining operations 


that is (unintelligible) inside? 


 MR. RICH: What -- what they described, yeah. 


I mean --


DR. MAURO: Because we know the pro-- you know, 


the effectiveness of a hood in terms of -- 


 MR. RICH: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: -- back-flow out of a hood. 


 MR. RICH: And that's -- that's the factor we 


used. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I was thinking a -- of --


 MR. CHEW: (Unintelligible) a hood like you 


think, like in a bench hood, John. 


 MR. RICH: It's a shrouded --


 MR. CHEW: These are -- remember, this is -- 


think -- picture a lathe, put a coffin over it. 


DR. MAURO: You put something over it. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: But there's data on how effective 


that is --


 MR. CHEW: Oh, yeah, yeah, and -- or -- or a 


nozzle right up because (unintelligible) -- 

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 MR. RICH: The -- the face -- the loss of 


(unintelligible) --


 (Whereupon, Dr. Mauro, Mr. Chew and Mr. Rich 


spoke simultaneously.) 


DR. MAURO: There's a -- there's a ton of 


literature just on that subject that supports 


the Chapman Valve work. There's an incredible 


amount on machining operations, but of course 


these were larger scale operations. This 


wasn't just chipping off a little 


(unintelligible). These things were -- but the 


data's out there on the effect 'cause what they 


did was -- Harrison Kingsley and others, they ­

- they said okay, this is -- this is 1940s -- 


this uranium milling operation is a disaster in 


terms of the dust it generated, and then they 


started to experiment with different types of 


controls in terms of -- especially different 


types of ventilation systems, kinds of hoods 


you're talking about, and you could see the 


nosedives -- the dust loading just nosedived 


and you could start to get protection factors 


out of that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can I propose a few action items 


for this item? At this point I think if NIOSH 

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-- if you're in agreement, Brant, maybe NIOSH 


can come up with a --


 DR. ULSH: I think I am because 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: Jim just nominated you to -- 


DR. NETON: It's the appropriate thing for us 


to do. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, look at the semi-


empirical approach to validating -- 


 MS. MUNN: Suggested. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- validating these numbers, 


right, that -- that's item one. The other 


things I was going to ask for is -- to the 


extent you already have them available, I'm not 


looking for necessarily new research or work, 


but you have some of these references, if they 


could be posted. Or Brant, you said these two 


individuals and others have been interviewed. 


If you have any of those interview notes -- 


 DR. ULSH: REDACTED and REDACTED we 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- they might be useful, and it 


might be good for us as a workgroup to go back 


and say --


UNIDENTIFIED: I thought we'd (unintelligible) 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- several indi-- individuals 


involved were interviewed and -- and to -- you 


know, to a person they all agreed that this was 


the production, this was the -- yeah. 


 MR. CHEW: I have a question for Bob. Bob --


MR. MEYER: Yes, sir. 


 MR. CHEW: -- when -- when you -- when you were 


-- folks there at Y-12, when you put a thorium 


part that you were getting ready for a finished 


part for a weapon or a device, when you -- you 


-- didn't you chuck it and actually put it on a 


lathe? I mean you didn't actually put a 


grinder inside of it to trim things like that. 


I'm just asking the question because, to me, I 


think that in order to get a finished part you 


don't actually use a grinder as we think that ­

- you know, (unintelligible) stuff -- yeah, 


it's much more of a chuck, isn't it, and then 


you trim it. 


 MR. RICH: It all depends on how close it fits. 


You may -- you may just trim it just a little 


bit with (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. CHEW: And cut it. Matter of fact, one of 


the operations they describe was kind of a 

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shearing operation by just putting the shear 


and just trim it off. 


DR. NETON: We know what shearing generates, 


too. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, and so I want to make sure 


that we apply the right factor here of release 


factor, and that's my point. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, and I think the -- 


 MR. CHEW: The model. 


DR. MAURO: -- (unintelligible) is out there, 


the information is out there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Are there other actions on -- on 


the -- this is mainly related to thorium, I 


take it. Are there other actions related to 


the other radionuclides, other? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, there are two action 


items for us, I think, something that I -- a 


little bit of a disconnect in that. I did not 


know that the neptunium and curium information 


is in a special order log book. I have to go 


back and check on that. I think on americium 


we're in basic agreement that there's a lot of 


data. We're also in agreement that the number 


of samples went up from '63 to '67. I have 


only one question about that, is did the number 

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of samples go up because some workers were 


monitored or because the operations were being 


-- more and more workers, and that's not clear. 


 MR. RICH: Yeah, yeah, the -- in -- in -- in 


the '63 to '65 time frame, that's when the 


weapons from the -- the stockpile started to 


come back, americium-2-- plutonium-241 and 


americium build-up started to create some 


problems so they reprocessed that material. 


That's the same time when they decided to make 


americium-241 processing as a product a part of 


a Rocky Flats operation, and that's the time 


when they -- prior to that time the americium 


was low enough that they couldn't -- as 


REDACTED said, either -- they couldn't even 


find enough americium to prove out the 


analytical process. It was very, very low and 


not separated per se because it was special 


material for the weapons program itself. After 


they started getting it back and then they got 


some reactor grade plutonium where the 


americium was higher to feed the americium 


production program, and as a consequence then 


that's when the americium analytical process, 


the bioassay process and the (unintelligible) 

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americium bioassay (unintelligible). 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So there's some kind of 


documentation about the phases and the number ­

- number of bioassays that were being done, 


because that was not in the (unintelligible). 


 MR. RICH: Well, I think we -- we indicated 


that the bioassay -- I think we have a chart of 


the number of bioassays by year. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I've seen that. 


 MR. CHEW: What are you looking for, Arjun? 


I'm not sure -- sure. You aren't asking me -- 


'cause --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm just wondering whether -- 


 MR. CHEW: -- Bryce is saying it's a direct 


function of the number of weapons returns and 


also the amount of people that would be working 


on that return. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, that's the only question. 


If that is the case, then americium would be a 


settled question. And obviously you -- I'm 


just asking whether you have verified that that 


is the explanation rather than some workers not 


being monitored for americium. 


 MR. CHEW: Okay. 


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some kind of a coworker model for that. 


 MR. RICH: To begin with, the americium process 


was tended and fed by a relatively few number 


of people, but then the program grew and it was 


-- it became -- more people involved, so -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Well, that -- if that is 


documented in your classified review, then 


there's no americium issue, I think. 


 MR. CHEW: We haven't -- I haven't documented 


the number of weapons that came back in 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, workers. 


 MR. CHEW: -- function of time, but -- the 


amount of workers that might have been 


involved? Let's see, I'm trying to remember. 


I don't think we put that in (unintelligible) 


classified --


 MR. RICH: No, we did not. 


 MR. CHEW: No. Let's -- (unintelligible) let's 


try to answer your question. What would you be 


looking for, Arjun? I want to be responsive 


here 'cause we think we have this issue 


(unintelligible) resolved here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You're looking to see if all the 


-- all the individuals working in those areas 

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from then on were monitored or -- or that you 


need a coworker model, is that -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, was the process same 


through -- in the '60 -- post-'67 and pre-'67 


period, then the process changed at some time, 


the americium process? 


 MR. RICH: It -- it started around '65 or a 


little bit before. 


 MR. CHEW: You're right, though, there was -- 


there was --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the separation process 


changed -- yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: In the chemistry of americium, 


now I've forgotten the date. 


 MR. RICH: It changed to -- to a molten salt -- 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Wasn't it in '67 or something? 


 MR. CHEW: Well, the quantity of americium 


start to accumulate at Rocky Flats 


significantly -- okay? -- because of the return 


-- taking the weapons, returning and removing 


it, and so there was a campaign also because 


americium became quite a sellable commodity and 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 

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 MR. CHEW: -- because people were buying it, 


you know. 


 MR. RICH: I think what Arjun was talking about 


is the chemical process or metallurgical 


process of separation, so -- 


 MR. CHEW: I see that. We used ion exchange 


columns originally to separate and we put the 


plutonium in, and they later on they used a 


molten salt extraction to get the americium 


back in the metal form so you can sell it as a 


metal form, so yeah, there are some processes, 


mainly because there was a quite a bit of 


americium was accumulating at Rocky Flats. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: My sort of residual concern 


here is (a) that if -- I don't know whether a 


coworker model is needed or not, maybe not, and 


they if it is needed, whether the process is 


the same from the time you have the data to -- 


I guess you have data from '63 to '67, so you'd 


probably be able to construct it anyway. 


 MR. RICH: There's a high degree of sensitivity 


and awareness -- exactly what they were doing, 


and as the process was -- was in-- installed, 


the biological and health -- radiological 


safety programs kept pace. 

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 MR. CHEW: I just want to clarify, Arjun. Pro­

- we said the process changed. There were 


several things they did with americium, of 


which required different processes. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 MR. CHEW: That's different than -- than that 


we changed the process to -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I was --


 MR. CHEW: -- handling the weapons returns. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I was referring to the 


extraction process for americium. There was a 


wet process earlier, and then there was the 


molten salt process. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The two different processes you 


described, yeah, yeah. For the same operation. 


That was for the same end, yeah, yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That's as I understood it. 


Maybe I'm wrong. 


 DR. ULSH: No, I think you're right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's correct, yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And I don't think that whatever 


residue issue there is is a -- is an SEC type 


of issue. I think this is -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: It may be a matter of whether you 


need a coworker model or not, I think is what 

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Arjun's saying. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think that is the only issue, 


is whether you need a coworker model or not, 


and I'm not in a position to say. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So there's no follow-up action on 


this, I don't think. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Not -- yeah, not in this -- not 


in this process, so far as I can see. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So there's neptunium and curium 


follow-up for us, and then I think on -- on 


highly enriched uranium we are agreed that the 


-- the monitoring was there and so there's no 


issue. And the -- there's some question about 


the storage time of U-233 and a factor of two 


difference, and how you arrived at the ten 


curie estimate. 


 MR. RICH: I'm just -- I'm just checking to see 


whether you're reading your mail, Arjun. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Are you convinced? 


 MR. RICH: Yeah, you -- you always win. I --


 MS. MUNN: Two points. 


 MR. RICH: I didn't indicate that I did not 


assume full equilibrium with the thorium, as I 


indicated in the response. 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Yes, you did. 


 MR. RICH: Primarily because it grows in with a 


1.9 year half-life. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 MR. RICH: And -- and the material that came 


from Oak Ridge had to have been separated 


before that. But after a couple of years, why 


then you've got as much as -- what I said was 


ten curies, which is a problem. That's why 


they had -- and that calculation was done only 


to illustrate the reason why they had to do the 


thorium strike. You simply can't handle the 


stuff with 2.6 MeV gammas from -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 MR. RICH: -- the thorium-228 daughters, so -- 


and -- and with as little as 20 kilograms, 


you're going to wind up fairly quickly, after a 


year or so, with something in the range of 


eight to ten curies -- and -- and 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. CHEW: Also Bryce did a gross calculation 


on that, but that was only like a one-time 


incident that they actually processed that 20 


kilograms, though. 


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 MR. CHEW: And later on they -- when the 


material came in, it was downed and Bryce 


assumed 50 parts per million of U-232. Later 


on there's documented evidence is is that it 


was down to like seven to eight parts per 


million, which greatly reduced the curie 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. RICH: (Unintelligible) seven to eight 


parts per million. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So -- so ten curies is a kind 


of an average number --


 MR. CHEW: Oh, no --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- which is claimant favorable. 


 MR. CHEW: -- way high. 

 MR. RICH: That's way high. 

 DR. ULSH: Way high. 

 MR. RICH: I just didn't give you the -- the 

20, and -- and you caught that right away, 


so... 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: All right, all right. 


 MR. CHEW: (Unintelligible) multiply 2.2, I saw 


that. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I did the calculation. Let's 


see, I -- I think -- I think that -- oh, 


there's the tritium, and you said that you have 

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the tritium data in the -- in the DOE records. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But there's no tritium data in 


the HIS-20 database. 


 DR. ULSH: That's correct. HIS-20 contains 


americium -- well, or -- let's start in order ­

- plutonium, uranium, americium and gross 


alpha. It doesn't contain tritium. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, so I guess --


 MR. RICH: But it is in the claimant files. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So long as the tritium data -- 


you know, there's a question whether the 


tritium people were monitored, and if they 


were, then there's no issue in regard to 


tritium. But do we have a record of the 


arrival of tritium or metal tritides at Rocky 


Flats and the start of tritium monitoring? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, what I can tell you, Arjun, is 

that --

 MR. RICH: We have incident reports. 

 DR. ULSH: Yeah. And I've seen -- when I've 

looked through claimant files, I've seen the 


occasional tritium bioassay in -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 

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 DR. ULSH: -- in the hard copy from the files. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Yeah. All right. 


 MR. RICH: But that parti-- that -- that 


particular -- the arrival and release and 


discovery was the subject of several incident 


reports. That was well-documented. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I guess that -- did I cover all 


the radionuclides? I think I did. 


 MR. CHEW: I hope so. There's only 1,800 in 


the isotopic chart; you're at 1,799. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I think -- I think I'm 


done. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The only other thing I was going 


to say -- I think we captured all the actions ­

- the references for the thorium, there were a 


couple mentioned today and I don't even know if 


they're available. They were mentioned in the 


interview as --


 MR. RICH: They're on the O drive. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, they are on the O drive. 


 MR. RICH: And I think --


 DR. ULSH: They're on the site research 


database for sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe you can help us and put 


them in the AB folder, you know -- yeah, just 

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make it easier. Okay. 


 MR. RICH: And -- and -- and the interviews, I 


think they're available, too. At least we've 


submitted them. 


 DR. ULSH: They're on SECAS, but I don't know 


if you guys --


 MR. GRIFFON: No. 


 DR. ULSH: You don't have access to that? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I haven't had access to that, no. 


 DR. ULSH: We'll get it for you. We'll get the 


REDACTED -- you've already got the REDACTED 


interview. We'll get the REDACTED for you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you said other peop-- other 


individuals or --


 DR. ULSH: Those are the two most helpful. 


Right? 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, they were very instrumental. 


They were key people that handled clearly some 


exotics. They were the key people. 


 MR. RICH: We have interviews with Ed Butcher* 


and Bobby Oder* and a couple of others, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: To the extent they were relied 


upon. I'll leave it up to you guys to decide, 


yeah, yeah. All right. And --


 MR. CHEW: So we have no -- any issues still 

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left open? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, the -- maybe you could 


summarize what you --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think -- I mean I just 


gave the actions. I think I'm -- as of -- as 


the thorium, it's the follow-up on the thorium, 


that NIOSH will work on this semi-empirical 


validation of the sort of upper bounding 


approach laid out by the new Reg. 1400 approach 


and provide references and interview notes as 


applicable to support those models. The only 


other action I have is SC&A's going to review 


further this neptunium and curium in the 


special dosimetry logs. Right? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That special order log books, I 


think. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I think that we -- 


 DR. ULSH: Special analysis. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Special analysis log books. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Special analysis log books. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Which we have -- or which is on 


the O drive. 


 DR. ULSH: I think it's on the O drive. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I think we've closed 


the door on the americium, I believe, and the 

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tritium, so I think we're -- we're satisfied 


with those, yeah, and the enriched uranium, 


right. And I think that's -- that covers all 


our other radionuclides. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I believe so. 


 DR. WADE: We're chugging along. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yep. Down to -- down to an hour. 


Down to an hour now. Going to try to go -- 


exponential function somewhere here. 


All right, third item. This is the log book 


review. 


THE COURT REPORTER: What about D and D? 


D AND D


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, I'm sorry, D and D. I 


skipped over number three, D and D review. And 


I guess where we're at with this is sort of to 


refresh on the matrix a little, maybe. The 


question was that there's -- seems to be a gap 


in the site profile, and also possibly in the 


evaluation report that doesn't really cover the 


D and D workers, so we were looking at whether 


there was data available, external and bioassay 


data available --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: -- the point here is -- is a 


little bit counter-intuitive, and I think this 


was even mentioned in the NIOSH response, that 


you're talking about the '90s and 2000s, you 


know, what are we talking about. And I think ­

- here's a case where, unlike the earlier 


years, you're not talking about perhaps 


dosimeter -- dosimetry technology limitations 


but more program management limitations and how 


to live -- live the era. This is one part of 


the history I actually can speak to more firsthand. The concerns over how D and D was 


managed on-site with the plethora of lower-tier 


subcontractors was a constant worry from a 


departmental standpoint because even though the 


dosimetry was there and certainly the RadCon 


manual and all the goodies, the concern was 


that -- making sure that these were in force 


down through the various tier of subcontractors 


and that people were monitored when they should 


have been monitored and -- and these records 


were in fact centralized so they weren't 


scattered in the -- because the subcontractors 


weren't being required to submit I think was a 


concern. So in this -- this issue, and this 

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frankly is the first site, particularly in the 


SEC context, for you to come up against D and D 


in a big way. We frankly were looking at the 


issue not so much of the dosimetry technology, 


although I think that's important because it 


wasn't covered per se in the site profile, but 


more looking at who was actually monitored, how 


were they monitored, and whether in fact one 


can validate that, you know, this was complied 


with and they were in fact monitored. And the 


process we've been going through is to figure 


out and -- you know, I don't think we have any 


preconceived notion how you can do this, but 


maybe we did go into it thinking well, this was 


the '90s, this should be pretty straightforward 


-- trying to figure out okay, how can we 


actually sort out who was monitored, how they 


were identified to be monitored and how were 


they identified, and I think we've established 


-- I think NIOSH has confirmed it -- that it 


seems that at Rocky Flats certainly rad worker2 training was the ticket to in fact be able to 


do D and D in RCA, rad control areas. But then 


you have a number of other workers who perhaps 


were working in other areas of the plant that 

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weren't so designated, and -- and you always 


had -- this -- this is of course the case 


across the complex. You always had the case 


where you -- you would bump up against legacy 


material where, you know, you'd open a -- a 


vent, you'd open up piping and you'd find 


material unexpectedly, surprise, and then you'd 


have to deal with some exposure and hopefully 


you had some air sampling or lapel sampling or 


whatever. But what we're after is some kind of 


assurance, some kind of confidence that there's 


a way that one could estimate dose in an 


environment where you did have a lot of 


workers, particularly lower tier 


subcontractors, coming and going and how were 


one -- how is one going to get a peg on what 


that dose distribution happens to be. And to 


borrow from Jim's comment a little earlier 


today, for those cases where we found instances 


such as lack of terminal bioassays and a couple 


of other things where you didn't have 


necessarily a backstop to your dose estimation, 


is there a way -- a method, a coworker model 


that would allow you to come up with a 


reasonable dose estimation. And that's pretty 

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much in a nutshell. I think -- I think what 


makes this a little more complex is that it's ­

- it's less a technology issue, more a program 


management issue, and I think there's a sense 


that because it's only ten years ago it should 


be kind of straightforward. It's not as 


straightforward, and I think that's something 


we got from the NIOSH response. But it becomes 


particularly important and critical because I 


think you're talking about a situation where 


there were likely a number of workers, whether 


they were on the rad worker-2 side or non-rad 


worker-2 side, that didn't get caught 


necessarily. Either they weren't -- they were 


-- should have been rad worker-2 because they 


were dealing with maybe contaminated areas, or 


they weren't rad worker-2, weren't working in 


contaminated areas, but may have been exposed 


in the course of the work they did at the site 


and, because they weren't terminally bioassayed 


or something, may have gotten out of the system 


without a record. And so that's kind of what 


we're trying to pin down. It's really a 


calibration, just trying to calibrate this 


thing. Maybe it's more of a typical site 

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profile exercise that had not necessarily been 


done, but that's the first step -- and this 


sounds familiar I suppose at this point, the 


first step to getting to the issue of is there 


perhaps a dose distribution, a certain sense of 


a categories of these kinds of workers, and a 


confidence that we understand what kind of 


dosimetry was in fact used such that we can 


come up with a distribution that would be the 


basis for a coworker approach. And I think 


that would then be the answer to the question, 


could you in fact, if you had a worker -- 


whether it's the rad worker-2 side or the nonrad worker-2 side, D and D or non-D and D -- 


come out and that you would be able to come up 


with an estimation or not. Right now we're 


sort of operating in the dark because it really 


hasn't been treated -- Rocky being the first 


site that we're getting into it, and it's 


understandable, we really haven't waded into 


these waters. And yet I think because it's 


within the scope of the SEC, it's almost 


something we have to answer somehow, and that's 


kind of where we -- we teed it up. And I 


actually found the documentation that -- that 

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NIOSH provided in terms of the audits and the 


procedures helpful because it's kind of useful 


to know that this thing actually evolved from 


the early '90s into the 2000s. It wasn't a 


static situation. Definitions changed 


somewhat. The understanding and awareness 


haven't changed somewhat. In '93 the defense 


board came into Rocky and actually made a 


finding that there was a concern over the fact 


that subcontractors in terms of the bioassay 


program weren't being managed very thoroughly, 


and that was a sort of a shot across the bow 


that, you know, you needed to tighten up on the 


management themselves because it was pretty 


clear at that point that this is the beginning 


of the D and D era in a sense, that there was a 


potential problem that might arise because you 


would not in fact include them in. And there 


was subsequent findings by self audits that 


there was a real compliance issue with the 


subs, and yes, this was common across other D 


and D sites, but I think at Rocky in particular 


we were -- I was surprised that it was high as 


almost 40 percent of the -- of the subs, you 


know, terminated without a -- a termination 

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bioassay. That kind of raised some questions 


about okay, now what do you do and are you able 


to make an assignment without having perhaps 


either a routine bioassay or a termination 


bioassay, so what's -- what's the answer to 


that? So that's kind of where we kind of came 


out. Again, I think we teed up more issues 


than we answered, but I think there's a -- a 


need for some discussion about what the path 


forward would be to sort of get to the point 


where a coworker approach or something is 


possible. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I was just going to say that 


at this point, during our review, so far as I 


know, a coworker model hasn't been on the table 


for the -- for this era, so that's the way 


we're kind of looking at it right now, that -- 


you know, that --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I wouldn't even prejudge 


it, but I think that's sort of where it would 


sort of --


 MR. GRIFFON: May-- right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- imply that --


 MR. GRIFFON: It may evolve there, yeah. Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- that would be the direction 

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that you would go if in fact there were some 


legitimate gaps that would have to be 


addressed. So far I think -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- there's some indications, 


but we don't have actual hard -- hard data, 


actual records. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, without taking up the issue of 


whether or not there are gaps -- without taking 


up the issue of whether or not there are people 


who should have been monitored but weren't, 


let's set that aside just for a minute or two, 


OTIB-58, which is the external coworker model, 


currently goes through 2005. OTIB-38, however, 


does not. It goes to 1990, I believe. So if 


we were to agree, Joe, that, you know, we need 


to expand OTIB-38 to cover up through 2005 -- 


just in case there is someone -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- who should have been monitored 


but wasn't, would that settle the issue -- I 


mean is that --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think --


 DR. ULSH: -- where we could get to? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- I think the only question 

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in my mind, though, is if -- it sort of gets 


back to the question we're trying to resolve 


with the general population, which was what -- 


what was the circumstance in terms of workers 


who were receiving exposures but may not have 


been monitored. And I think there's at least 


two circumstances that we identified in our -- 


in our review, one of which was of course these 


-- these workers that were deemed as working in 


areas that would have radiation exposure, at 


least 100 CED*, and they were in fact the 


trained rad worker-2 and the rest of it and 


would be receiving at least annual bioassays. 


That's sort of a category and the question is ­

- and this was the question I think was raised 


back in August, if I'm not wrong, Mark, which 


was were they in fact bioassayed as advertised, 


that kind of thing. And that's more of a 


management question, a validation issue, and 


there's where I think the notion in the 


workgroup was to somehow cross-walk between the 


people that were designated rad worker-2 and 


see if in fact they did come away with -- with 


-- with the routine bioassays as they were 


supposed to. And this is the group that would 

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have been exposed so you certainly would expect 


to have them bioassayed on a routine basis. 


 The other category, though, is also a concern, 


which is what about everybody else that were at 


the site who may not have been working in 


designated RCA areas, but you know, admittedly 


were likely to have some potential for 


exposure, how were they handled? And I think 


the one thing that gave me some pause was the 


response that the exposure would be likely 


very, very small and would be encompassed by 


the maximizing assumptions used. I don't know. 


I mean I think that's part -- part of what we 


need to establish is what were the doses. What 


-- you know, there's no data in the site 


profile, so it's kind of hard to even know how 


that comes out. 


So the answer to your question, I think we need 


some characterization issue. I don't think it 


is something that is obvious. We've been doing 


it sort of second-hand through audit reports 


and through secondary documents, but you know, 


the question of what were these doses, were 


they substantial, were they minimal, and in 


fact are the maximizing assumptions such that 

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hardly anybody would be expected to exceed 


those. If that were the case, then I guess 


wouldn't be a topic we'd even want to talk 


about 'cause it'd be relatively small. 


And -- and then getting to the coworker 


modeling issue, I guess I would need to know 


better -- as I recall, there are ratios for 


each site that were based on different eras, 


and I guess for Rocky -- I mean in terms of the 


-- was it --


 DR. ULSH: 1952? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- '52, wasn't there some site 


specifics as well as the aggregate, and the 


site specific would reflect the experience at 


Rocky with --


DR. NETON: That was through '52, the 


construction worker. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm just trying to figure out, 


you know, the -- you've got the external that 


we've -- the -- tailored to site specific 


experience, that you're using experience at the 


site with construction workers per se, 


construction workers that worked in the D and D 


era, so that would probably be a pretty good 


fit. 

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 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I think so. Uh-huh. 


DR. NETON: My recollection of the coworker 


issue at Rocky, though, was that they had eased 


off on the bioassay as a -- as a tool and 


supplemented that with breathing zone air 


samples. Is that not right? 


 DR. ULSH: They eased off the bioassay, but the 


breathing zone sampling, the -- the DAC hour 


tracking using sampling was layered on top of 


the routine bioassay program. 


DR. NETON: So yeah, you've got a much more 


sensitive monitoring program with the breathing 


zone air samples than you would have say a -- 


certainly an annual bioassay. I mean --


 MR. CHEW: That's true, uh-huh. 


DR. NETON: -- you could get down to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That was the notion, yeah. 


DR. NETON: And so this would be the first 


coworker model that we would reconstruct that 


would rely on breathing zone air samples, if we 


did --


 DR. ULSH: Now wait a minute --


 MR. GRIFFON: We haven't seen --


 DR. ULSH: -- hold on. 


DR. NETON: If we did, I'm just saying if we 

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were to use -- see, otherwise then you'd take 


an annual bioassay sample and you'd come up 


with a very large missed dose, but if you have 


BZ pumps on people, you can get down to 40 DAC 


hours a week. 


 MR. POTTER: This is -- this is Gene Potter. 


have a comment. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. POTTER: Yeah, the -- during most of the D 


and D era -- era, we actually relied on early 


fecal sampling --


DR. NETON: Oh, okay, that's even -- 


 MR. POTTER: -- and investigated hundreds of 


cases per year. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 


 MR. POTTER: And those dose -- those -- the 


distribution of those doses certainly would be 


available. 


DR. NETON: Okay, that's even better -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Those -- those fecal samples were 


triggered by BZAs. Right? Is that... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That's what my understanding ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: They weren't routine fecal, they 


were special --


I 
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 MR. POTTER: Right, they -- actually they were 


triggered by a number of different workplace 


indicators, nasal swabs, personnel 


contamination, contamination inside a 


respirator, a host of things that we developed 


criteria for. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 

 MR. RICH: Detectable levels are very low 

there. 

 DR. ULSH: Good, Gene. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I don't think we have an 


argument that there -- there's enough data 


there to build a coworker model. I'm -- I mean 


I think there probably are pieces of it around. 


We haven't seen it, really -- 


 DR. ULSH: 'Cause we haven't done it yet. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, you haven't done it. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, and that -- that's part 


of the problem I think that we -- we were 


having is that, you know, we haven't seen the 


data. We've only seen some evidence that -- 


that there are some gaps because of the way the 


program -- because of the nature of the program 


and the experience, and so the question is how 

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does one handle those gaps using the data that 


we've never seen, which is sort of saying okay, 


I guess we'll have to see how the data comes 


out in terms of the basis for the model, and 


it's a little bit tenuous at this stage, but -- 


 DR. ULSH: I guess -- I'm taking a larger look 


at this and whether it's an SEC issue or a TBD 


issue, and if we could come to an agreement 


that -- you know, questions aside about who 


should have been monitored and (unintelligible) 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- and whatever, those questions 


aside --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- if we could come up with a 


coworker model that we could agree on -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ULSH: -- I think then we could agree 


perhaps that this is a TBD issue? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: If -- again -- again, assuming 


the data is there, which I think our assumption 


is the data is there, but since we've never 


seen it, it's kind of -- it's kind of a 


circuitous (unintelligible) if we can't say -- 

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well, we understand the data's there, we 


haven't seen it, haven't touched it, but you 


know, we're assuming that it's com-- it's 


fairly complete, but we don't want to make that 


assumption necessarily because certainly this 


is the first time we're wading into BZ 


sampling, lapel sampling. We got testimony in 


Denver where somebody felt that the DAC hour 


tracking and the lapel sampling wasn't 


necessarily adequate and that the routine 


bioassay was -- was -- was secondary, some sort 


of -- some -- some questions were raised and 


this is one reason we wanted to get a little 


bit clearer on what data exists. What data 


exists and can one actually get to it, and is 


it in fact complete enough to be a basis for 


the model. And if so, I think those two 


aspects of it --


 MR. GRIFFON: Complete enough and 


representative enough -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Complete and representative 


enough --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I guess, 'cause you get the 


subcontractor issue -- yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: 'Cause that -- the -- 

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 MR. GIBSON: Joe, this is Mike Gibson. I was 


the one that raised that issue out in Denver 


based on my experience at Mound. And secondly, 


just to throw another issue in, when we talked 


about who should be monitored and who shouldn't 


in these expedited cleanup sites, virtually 


everyone, irregardless of their trade or their 


background, turned into a D and D worker. So 


you would think that the amount of data would 


go up, not -- or the amount of people monitored 


would go up, not down. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or the percentage of people -- I 


don't know... 


 DR. ULSH: Well, Mike, there's a couple of 


other considerations there, and that's the 


total number of workers at the site, which I 


believe went down. 


 MS. MUNN: Went down. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The percentage maybe he's -- 


 MR. GIBSON: It went down gradually. 


 DR. ULSH: And there's also the DOE order -- 


what was it --


UNIDENTIFIED: 5480.11. 


 DR. ULSH: -- 5480.11, which only required 


monitoring for people who were expected to get 

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100 millirem or greater, so that might also go 


against the trend that you're talking about 


there of more people being monitored. 


 MR. GIBSON: Well, that all depends on the way 


the contractor interpreted that order and the 


conditions of the work site, the way they 


characterized the site. 


 DR. ULSH: So I guess I would ask everyone, 


what do we see as the action items here? 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's the question. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, what do we need to do? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean it -- to me it's still 


this question of -- of representativeness is -- 


assuming you -- you could gather this data and 


-- and develop a coworker model out of it, this 


question looming in my mind of this -- that 


report that indicated that 40 percent of the 


subs were not even doing termination bioassays 


and we -- we always sort of had in mind well, 


at least as a backdrop, even if they didn't do 


annuals, they -- they left a term-- they were 


required to do a termination -- now -- and it 


was language that they were supposed to do 


that, but in fact the audit finds that a lot of 


them didn't do it. If we gather the -- this 

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other data from -- you know, assuming that a 


higher percentage of the prime contractor 


people did do their -- their termination 


bioassays, and maybe annuals, is that set of 


data going to bias your intake estimates in any 


way. Maybe not, but I -- so I guess that -- 


you know, I don't know. Again, we haven't seen 


the data, but my only caveat in -- in 


development of that coworker model would be 


representativeness. You know, if the subs were 


getting all the nasty work and not being 


monitored when they left, it may have happened 


-- I'm not saying it did, but you know, then 


this -- this distribution you look at may not 


be representative of that. 


 MS. MUNN: But isn't the real question whether 


the 60 percent of the subcontractors who were 


doing --


 MR. GRIFFON: Could be representative, right. 


Right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- exit bioassays --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Were representative. 


 MS. MUNN: -- were they representative. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Isn't that the only real question? 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: If they were, then you have -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: So you might want to --


 MS. MUNN: -- data that you can work with. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- cut -- you might want to cut 


the --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you might want to split it 


that way and look at it anyway, is all I'm 


saying. You might -- but that gets back to 


that question of identifying from -- that was 


one of the first actions in this thing was, you 


know, show us who -- go through the rad worker2 logs and identify who were D and D workers. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, there's just -- there's 


just two classes of workers, I think you're 


quite right, Wanda. The second class -- and 


one of the responses I think to one of the 


issues we raised which were these people didn't 


get termination bioassays was well, you know, 


the doses would have been so small, it wouldn't 


matter, it'd be encompassed by the maximizing 


assumptions. Well, I think that -- actually 

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you can settle that by I think looking at the 


60 percent --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that's what --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- that did have --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, I agree. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- and if the answer is on the 


distribution such that yeah, geez, you know, 


the maximized assumption takes care of that, 


then I think for those workers who were not rad 


worker-2, I think we wouldn't have to be 


concerned about all these people that got out 


without termination bioassay. And I think 


maybe supplementary to that would be some 


notion on the -- there's the fecals, whatever, 


which were the -- I would call the event-driven 


bioassays where you had an air sample that was 


high or a lapel sample that was positive, you 


did a fecal sample -- or I guess you would do a 


-- even a urine sample, I suppose, but you 


know, some notion about how much data exists 


that demonstrates an event-driven bioassay as 


well. I think that answers the question. 
I 


think that part is clear. 


Rad worker-2, with the response that we got 

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from NIOSH about maybe an -- not an inability, 


but a very -- impracticality of being able to 


cross-walk, which was the workers' original 


intention, cross-walk from a roster of rad 


worker-2 workers to a corresponding compilation 


of their bioassays. That's more troublesome 


because I guess I -- I don't know how one would 


then go about figuring out if we had routine 


bioassays done routinely for a population that 


would have been expected to be exposed because 


they were in rad areas. I don't know how one 


can get around that. I guess I -- I wrote that 


as needs further discussion of feasibility, 


because I don't think there's any other way 


around doing something like that to validate 


that the routine bioassay program was in fact ­

- quite apart from anything else -- was going 


to capture the -- the dose for that group of 


workers that were in fact in the rad areas. 


 DR. ULSH: Gene, do you want to jump in? 


You're being very quiet. 


 MR. POTTER: Was that question for Gene? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, it was. 


 MR. POTTER: Again, I'm -- I'm sorry, Brant, 


I'm having trouble hearing people. I think 

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you're getting weaker as the day goes on. 


 DR. ULSH: Maybe I am 


 MS. MUNN: We all are. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I was just -- this is 


Joe Fitzgerald again. I was just indicating 


that, you know, in terms of the rad worker-2 


workers, we did look at -- and of course we 


weren't aware of this, that there's a real 


perhaps practicality issue of being able to 


cross-walk between a so-called roster of rad 


worker-2 D and D workers and corresponding 


bioas-- routine bioassays for that group. And 


I -- I don't know of any other way to validate 


in fact that the routine bioassay program was 


sufficiently complete that you can go to the 


bank with that in terms of the -- the 


measurements. 


 MR. POTTER: Let me just say one more time that 


-- that, you know, primary means of detecting 


new intake was by more sensitive methods than 


the routine urine. I understand why routine 


urine is -- is used in the NIOSH program 


because it certainly would bring up intakes 


that would be of a health consequence, and all 


workers are subject to these workplace 

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indicators and not -- you know, whether they 


were in the program or not. And there were a 


few isolated incidents where a person was -- 


say wound-counted because he was -- received a 


wound in an area that was not considered a rad 


area, but we counted him anyway and in that 


case he was entered into the program. And so 


that shows that a -- you know, intakes were 


looked at across the site regardless of whether 


they were in -- you know, actually in the 


program or not. 


And then the other issue you have to realize is 


that the program changed, you know, over time 


from being strictly rad worker-2 trained to rad 


worker-2 trained with respirator fit, then rad 


worker-2 with respirator fit for people making 


entries on the plutonium side. A different 


criteria was applied to the uranium side, and 


the systems that were used to make these 


determinations were automated and they are no 


longer connected. So we would have to rely on 


legacy management even say for HIS-20, which we 


just currently have a -- a period from upon the 


O drive, as you're all aware, but that -- that 


is just the bioassay data and not the -- a log 

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of all of the entries that were made. In some 


cases hard copy files would have to be 


recalled, and you know, we would end up with a 


-- a very high percentage of compliance, I'm 


sure, because I was there and it's just a whole 


lot of work getting to that point. Initially 


those percentages that you quoted were not 


represen-- which were not representative, were 


due to some problems with identifying workers 


who had even left the site. And so, you know, 


the quotient on our -- on our rate was not very 


good. 


Another thing -- I'd just like to make a 


comment that's a little off -- off the track 


here, but to think that there were a lot of 


people that should have been in the program and 


were not being monitored is, I think, a 


speculation that is not -- not warranted. 


Remember, we had 300 DOE employees in shut-down 


and probably only 50 in production, so the site 


was being monitored rather closely by the 


government. And these all weren't decisions 


made in a vacuum by the contractor. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess -- I guess the 


concern, though, would be the lower tier subs 

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that came and went over the course of those ten 


years as to whether or not the management 


flowed down as strongly to them as it did for 


the prime contractor from DOE. Certainly 


there's a number of audits that suggest 


otherwise. 


 MR. POTTER: Well, again, we have, you know, 


records -- people being sampled with a very 


sensitive method and people who were in 


production areas doing the actual hands-on D 


and D who became very contaminated, and they 


were sampled and those doses were relatively 


low. We did have a couple of significant ones 


that resulted in some very large doses, but by 


and large the ones during the D and D era from 


inhalation you would find are -- are small. 


The most signif-- the most likely outcome was a 


determination of no intake and the next most 


likely would be a dose of less than 100 


millirem. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Now I guess just to move this 


forward, two questions. How can we get at the 


completeness of the data, and then some sense 


of the distribution of doses? I mean you're 


certainly ascribing, based on first-hand 

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experience, that the doses were not high. But 


you know, the -- those two questions I think 


we're trying to grapple with. Is there any way 


at all, short of doing a very impractical -- at 


least certainly from your standpoint -- data 


search to at least get a handle on that? 


Otherwise we're sort of left with anecdotal, 


you know, sort of testimony which is difficult 


to deal with in the context of the SEC. 


 MR. POTTER: Well, we -- I think one of the -- 


the ideas mentioned was looking at the number 


of -- you know, the magnitude of the 


terminations, samples that we -- you know, that 


did collect which, you know, ran closer to, you 


know, 80 percent and upwards at the end after 


we had composed finds and done some -- done 


some things to bring the compliance closer to 


what we would like to see. You know, looking 


at maybe the magnitudes of those termination 


bioassays might be possible rather quickly, and 


then -- you know, rather than trying to figure 


out if every single person was bioassayed on a 


case-by-case basis when they should have been. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Now those termination 


bioassays obviously would include both the DD 

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rad worker-2 workers as well as the others. 


Would there be a way to distinguish between the 


two? 


 MR. POTTER: I think you could do it by company 


name. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. I would suggest that 


might be a path forward then, rather than 


trying to do a sort by rad worker-2. If we 


could somehow get a -- a surrogate in terms of 


the subs or the contractor involved, we might 


be able to sort it that way and -- and -- and 


using the termination bioassays, we could get 


some -- some feel for it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So the -- the notion here would 


be that if -- if we can get -- look at this 


termination surv-- or termination bioassay data 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and -- and -- and have those 


parameters defined, whether they were subs or 


not, then we can at least see if we can get a 


plausible upper bound for people -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Get a plausible upper bound -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- for this D and D period -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- to the distribution of -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- so we don't have to 


necessarily --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- of the groups. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and then you might -- NIOSH 


may go beyond that, Jim, and eventually build a 


coworker model by year, but at least -- 


DR. NETON: (Unintelligible) will answer that 


question. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- if we look at the termination 


bioassay for now, we can say yes -- 


 MR. POTTER: One -- one thing I --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, yes or no, we --


 MR. POTTER: -- should mention, too, is that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- can -- we can bound it. 


 MR. POTTER: -- we did a lot of terminations by 


lung counting because we got the results right 


away and -- as to -- if we had a positive we 


could recount the worker before he got out of 


our hands. 


 DR. ULSH: What's the implication of that, 


Gene? 


 MR. POTTER: Was that a question to me? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, it was. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Say it again, Brant, what was -- 


 DR. ULSH: Gene, what was the -- what's the 

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implication of that, the fact that there were 


lung counts? 


 MR. POTTER: The sensitivity for -- well, we're 


ICRP -- we were ICRP-30 type people. For class 


Y plutonium you have about the same sensitivity 


as for urine sampling and it was just a 


preferred method for us because, like I say, if 


you have a positive on the urine, you're at 


least 30 days down the road; you may have 


trouble reining that worker back in. 


DR. NETON: So there's really no net 


implication, since the missed dose is about the 


same. Is that right? 


 MR. POTTER: Right, from -- from my standpoint, 


too. I can't speak for dose reconstruction 


implications. 


DR. NETON: But it would seem like if the 


sensitivity was the same, you -- you're okay. 


Nonetheless, it would still be a plausible 


upper bound, so --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So I think that would be 


an action. If we can get that data, 


termination bioassay data, in vivo, in vitro, 


whichever -- whichev-- you know -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: (Unintelligible) both, if we 

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can get it, but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, or both, yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- you know, whatever -- 


whatever exists on the -- on the tail end would 


be most manageable --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- to compare it with 


everything else upstream. 


 DR. ULSH: Does that sound feasible, Gene? 


That was another question for you, Gene. 


 MR. POTTER: Could you -- could you repeat 


that? 


 DR. ULSH: Does that sound feasible? 


 MR. POTTER: It sound-- which -- which sounds 


feasible? 


 DR. ULSH: Mark is asking --


 MR. GRIFFON: Can -- can we -- yeah, go ahead. 


You're closer to the mike, so... 


 DR. ULSH: Mark is asking if we can get 


distributions, I guess, on the in vivo or in 


vitro termination bioassay data. 


 MR. POTTER: In -- in -- in vitro I think would 


be relatively easy. We might need the 


assistance of our -- our friend, Ken Savitz, to 


do that. In vivo, not so easy, although the 

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fact that the person had the lung count was 


transferred between the Canberra systems. 


Unless you had a -- a above-decision-level 


result, the data was not stored, and when you 


did it was stored in microcuries and you don't 


have enough digits to get down to the nanocurie 


range stored. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- I guess -- I would 


leave that up to -- to you to either -- either 


or both, I guess I would say, whichever -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, we'll get what we can. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, get what you can on 


that, but also make sure you distinguish 


between the subs and the -- 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- prime. 


 DR. ULSH: Did you get that, Gene? 


 MR. GRIFFON: By company name or however you 


can in-- you know, if you can include company 


name or whatever, to help us understand, we -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: As a sur-- as a surrogate --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- for the split between what 


would be rad worker-2, perhaps, and -- and 


others. 

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 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Any problem there, Gene, 


distinguishing between primes and subs? 


 MR. POTTER: As I said, I think we can do that 


on company name and their -- that would 


probably be the best way. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that --


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Does that get at it, Joe? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And then if -- if -- you know, if 


-- when we get that, we'll dis-- discuss it and 


it may be a matter of at least this gives us a 


way that we're happy if we can get a bounding 


estimate on --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yeah, I think it -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- internal dose, right, and -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Just a --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- right, right, right, and 


whether NIOSH builds a coworker model, that's 


another issue --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- but at least we can look at 


the last --


 MR. FITZGERALD: There's a basis for a coworker 


model. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: This is a good discussion and I'd 

ask us to --

 MS. MUNN: Someone just dialed someone. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- remember it when we get to 


looking at Fernald. Fernald is the next SEC 


petition that you all will probably take up 


where we have a D and D era. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Good point. 


 DR. WADE: We have a high frequency beeping on 


the line. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anything else on D and D follow 


up, Joe? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Let me just double-check. I 


think that's the core that... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, can we take a ten-minute 


comfort break? I know it's getting a little 


late, but --


 DR. WADE: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I've been ordered to do so -- 


 MS. MUNN: That would be a good idea. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- by our silver medalist. 


 DR. WADE: We're going to take ten minutes. 


We're going to stay connected. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:35 p.m. 


to 3:45 p.m.) 


 DR. WADE: Okay, we're back on line. Anybody ­

- Mike, are you still out there with us? 


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


 DR. WADE: You're complimented on your 


persistence. 


Okay, we're -- we're coming back. By my 


calculation we're halfway down the list. We're 


coming to halfway down. We're getting -- we're 


getting better. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But as I said, we front-loaded 


this thing, so hopefully the topics are getting 


easier. Maybe not this particular one, but I'm 


still hopeful we can -- we can finish 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. WADE: Logbooks and NIOSH analysis. 


LOG BOOKS


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the logbooks, the topic 


here was that -- many logbooks now are posted 


on the O drive. NIOSH did an analysis by 


selecting -- selecting points out of many of 

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the logbooks and cross-walking them with the 


individual radiation files to see if -- I guess 


to see if you had a definitive match or if -- 


if there wasn't -- the logbook didn't designate 


a value, just to see if there was a urinalysis 


value there or -- or a sample was taken on the 


same date for this -- for that person, et 


cetera. So I'll let Brant present this, and I 


should say also we -- we -- I don't think SC&A, 


for reasons stated earlier, have really had a 


chance to -- to go much into this report, but 


we'll -- we'll let you present and then, to the 


extent you can reply, that's fine. 


 DR. ULSH: If you recall, a few working group 


meetings ago NIOSH committed, at the suggestion 


of the working group and SC&A, to locate as 


many logbooks as we could covering both uranium 


and plutonium areas in a variety of time 


periods. And we have done that and posted them 


on the O drive for the working group and SC&A's 


access. We located a number of logbooks and, 


as Mark mentioned, we went through the logbooks 


and pulled out a handful of data from each and 


then we cross-walked back to the individual's 


hard copy rad file to see to what extent the 

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logbooks agreed or did not agree with the -- 


the data in the rad file. And this was kind of 


a follow-on action to the -- we started out 


with the Kittinger log and I did a detailed 


analysis of that, pulled out all the data 


points I could from there and tracked those 


back, and we also found a high degree of 


agreement there. 


A follow-on item was to look at the wider 


population of logbooks, so that's what this 


action item refers to. And we were actually 


pleasantly surprised at how good the agreement 


was between the two sources of data, the 


logbooks on the one hand and the hard copy rad 


files on the other. Depending on how you slice 


it and whether you consider a particular item 


confirmed, mismatch or just a possible 


mismatch, we got about -- somewhere in the 


upper 90s, I think it was 93 percent agreement 


between the two sources of data -- 94 percent, 


sorry. And those were 296 names pulled from 33 


logbooks, and we did go through the cases -- 


the situa-- particular situations where we had 


a less-than-perfect match. But again, that was 


only six percent, so we considered that pretty 

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good agreement. 


Teresa Lopez of Bob's team was instrumental in 


this logbook analysis. Teresa, is there 


anything you want to add that I've left out? 


MS. LOPEZ: No, just that this involved more 


than just looking at the urinalysis logs. It 


was foremen's logs, managers' logs, HP logs and 


obviously the urinalysis logs contained a lot 


of information. The other logs contained 


information as whoever was making the entry 


found it suitable to put in a name, a man 


number and a result, or sometimes just the name 


and the result, and we -- we tracked it from 


there. So I think it's pretty good agreement 


given that the information in the logbooks was 


not -- not always presented with a man number. 


MR. MEYER: And then, Teresa, the -- the five 


or six names that didn't quite match up, you 


want to talk about those? There were a few of 


those that were a little confusing. 


MS. LOPEZ: Sure. The 18 entries that -- that 


did not match -- and we considered a match to 


be either the exact result or greater than the 


reported result, because we were looking at 


handwritten data and there's some possibility 

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of misinterpretation of something that's 


handwritten and unclear, so if the -- the ma-- 


a match was something that was exactly the same 


or greater than what we saw in these 


handwritten logbooks. In one case the claimant 


file was not available; the rad log has been 


ordered. Four cases did not have urinalysis 


results for the same date listed in the 


logbook. In one of those it -- it seemed very 


likely that it was unclear handwriting because 


it -- the logbook said 6/2 and in the file it 


read 5/2/1957. In one case the sample was lost 


and not recorded, but it is marked as lost in 


the logbook. In another case there were 


samples for one month previous and one month 


after, but not for the date that appeared in 


the logbook. That sample may also have been 


lost. And the (unintelligible) case simply 


that there's no explanation for it, it just 


does not appear. There were two cases where 


urinalysis data was found matching the logbook, 


but both results were listed as background in 


the logbook, so the fact that there were no -- 


there was no matching data in the file is maybe 


insignificant. There was another case where 

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there was -- appear on the handwritten 


urinalysis card but not in the health sciences 


database printout. And then the other cases -- 


let's see, there was one where his film badge ­

- and this was just a notation in a -- in a 


foreman's log. It was a film badge reading in 


excess of 500 counts per minute, but there was 


no exact match in the radiological file. There 


are external exposure results above background 


for that same time period, but not one that 


specifically said 500 counts per minute. 


I think that the biggest -- the logbook where 


we found the fewest matches were -- was the 


special analysis logbook. So excluding those 


results, the percentage of matching would have 


been much higher. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Could you explain why -- in 


your estimation, why that was the case? Was it 


just lack of claimant file data? 


MS. LOPEZ: For the special analysis logbook -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


MS. LOPEZ: -- or in general? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Special analysis. 


MS. LOPEZ: No, I couldn't. Mel reviewed the 


special analysis logbook because of the data 

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that it contained. It could be that if he had 


had more rad files to compare it to that the 


numbers could have been higher. 


 DR. ULSH: Actually I think, to add to what 


Teresa said, Joe, it's our opinion that -- and 


Bryce, you might want to jump in if there's any 


more that should be said about this -- but the 


-- the samples that oc-- that appear in the 


special analysis logbook were taken primarily 


not from a individual monitoring standpoint. 


They were taken more as related to a particular 


job, just to confirm or --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Job specific. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, exactly, and it was more to 


con-- just to confirm that no release had 


occurred, so those may not have always made it 


into the individual workers' rad files. 


However, we do have them in the special 


analysis logbook. And as a note of 


corroboration, we also looked at the monthly 


progress reports that I mentioned before from 


the IH and -- the name changed over the years, 


I think it was Industrial Hygiene and Chem Lab 


or something like that, their monthly progress 


reports. And periodically they told in this 

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month we took a neptunium sample, or in that 


month we took a curium sample. And lo and 


behold, we do find it in the special analysis 


logbook. There's very good agreement in terms 


of number of assay -- number of bioassays for a 


particular one that's mentioned in the progress 


reports, and then you find them in the logbook. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: What's the number of the 


special analysis logbook, do you remember? 


 DR. ULSH: The number? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, 'cause these are all by 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think it just said special -- 


yeah --


 DR. ULSH: (Unintelligible) just called special 


 MR. FITZGERALD: (Unintelligible) she says it. 


MS. LOPEZ: Did you need the bar code on that? 


 DR. ULSH: No, I don't think so, Teresa. 


MS. LOPEZ: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It's identified in there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can you -- Teresa or Brant --

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describe how -- how you selected -- I mean it 


was just -- just going through logs, flipping 


to a page and grabbing the -- sort of fairly 


random but not -- is that how you selected the 


sample? 


 DR. ULSH: Teresa, how -- can you talk about 


the selection criteria? I think it was pretty 


much random. Right? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


MS. LOPEZ: Sure, it was -- it was random, too, 


that the urinalysis and -- and bioassay 


logbooks contained hundreds of pages of names, 


so went through and simply randomly pulled out 


names and found a match with a rad file or a 


claim file. For all the other logs we took any 


name that came out, any result that we thought 


had enough identifying information, and that 


would be either a man number or a date or the 


type of analysis that was performed, and cross-


walked that data whenever we found it with -- 


with the rad file. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and just looking on your 


first couple of pages, a lot of background 


values, were they -- how were they -- I mean 


they were recorded based on the practice of the 

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time period, I would imagine. Right? They 


were either zeroes or -- or detection limits or 


how were -- I mean how -- 


MS. LOPEZ: They were usually identified as -- 


as background with either the entire word or b-


c-k, b-c -- b-c-g, just depending on who was -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


MS. LOPEZ: -- writing it in. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Any -- any other thought? I mean 


I'm looking to you guys. Any follow-up or... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, again, we're -- we're 


going through this, but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- I don't think we would take 


exception with the overall approach. I think 


we do have more or less specific questions 


within the individual entries and comparisons, 


that if there's a chance to, you know, take 


those individual cases and just be able to do a 


cross-walk or comparison with the claimant 


file, that would probably settle some of the 


questions within the -- within the analysis. 


So I would leave it at that, that there may be 


some specific questions with-- 'cause it's a 


very lengthy analysis and there's some issues 

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that we're not sure about. One question was 


the special analysis. We noticed that there 


were not many matches. I think this helps 


explain that. There's some others that are 


more specific, not generic, that we probably 


want to look at in the -- in the -- by 


comparison with the claimant file cross-


walking, but we don't certainly take any 


exception with the overall... 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess an -- an initial reaction 


I had was the -- rolling this all together 


seemed a little odd to me. I don't think it 


takes away from the -- the overall product, 


though, that you -- you have external data in 


here, you have what I would call other logbook 


data, and then urinalysis logs, I -- you know, 


I might've separated them, but -- but 


nonetheless, the data's there and it speaks for 


itself so that's good. 


MR. MEYER: If you have any difficulties -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


MR. MEYER: -- finding information in the logs, 


give us a call because we could, you know -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


MR. MEYER: -- transcribe something 

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(unintelligible) --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is Kathy Demers. 


I've got a couple of questions about kind of 


the general process and how you came to choose 


the 60 to 70 logbooks that were on the O drive. 


My original list I had sent to you probably had 


in excess of 200 logbooks on it, and that 


leaves the question of what happened to the 


other 133 logbooks. Did you decide that they 


were not worthwhile? 


 DR. ULSH: Which origini-- Kathy, this is 


Brant. Which original list are you talking 


about? At this point -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: When we first turned 


over the logbook task to NIOSH in April -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- I provided a list to 


NIOSH of logbooks that should be requested. 


This also I believe was provided to Rocky Flats 


at the same time. 


 DR. ULSH: If you recall, Kathy, we pretty 


quickly decided I think in discussions in the 


working group that certain categories of 


logbooks were not going to be particularly 


helpful. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Like the foremen's logs I think, 


yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, the foremen's logs, the 


contamination control logs. That could have 


trimmed the list significantly, although I -- I 


just speculate 'cause I don't have your list in 


front of me. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: If -- if I were to 


provide you with that list again, can you tell 


me what the status of those logbooks were? 


 DR. ULSH: Why don't you send it over and we'll 


take a look at it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Have we -- has the workgroup got 


that listing, Kathy? I don't know if we have 

it. It may... 

 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It may have been in one 

of the --

 MR. GRIFFON: I don't recall. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- a data integrity 


report. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, she -- she talked about it -- 


we talked about the number that was there, but 


I don't believe we ever had it because we did 


decide early on that we would -- we would 


narrow our investigation to specific types of 

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logbooks that would likely contain the highest, 


most useful information. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think I would request that -- 


that maybe SC&A internally with -- you know, 


talk with Kathy and see if -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think just -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- what's here meets the require­

- yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- just -- yeah. The original 


handoff I think there was a listing that was 


provided as a starting point, but I don't 


disagree with Brant. I think there was a lot 


of discussion about how to cull that down to -- 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- the logbooks that one would 


then think of the -- the follow-up, but I think 


to be more definitive we can go through that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think we even had the 


petitioners say that some of them weren't -- 


weren't while, really -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- weren't worthwhile -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Tony was in and --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- really going into, yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- also indicate that as well. 

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 MS. MUNN: I think some of that discussion was 


-- was captured in earlier transcripts, I 


believe. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we --


 MR. RICH: I think -- I think when we got the 


CD of it there were ten folders that came out, 


but that may not be the same one she... 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, I can provide you 


with both the list and any documents that I may 


have provided this list in. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know at this point if -- 


if there's any action other than that SC&A is 


look-- is reviewing this, and I think -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we're going --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- more or less... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- to have specific cross-walk 


issues where --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- we might want to validate, 


but I think from what has been reviewed I don't 


think we would take exception from that 


standpoint, but more or less there are some 


specific items in there that we think are -- 

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are, in our minds, something that we still want 


to validate, and I think the process of doing 


that is just simply to be able to access the 


claimant file and just do a little -- few 


cross-walks rather than make it kind of a full-


blown thing and I think if we have any 


questions we can come back to you or Bob and 


just say, you know, how did you -- you know, 


what did you do here. I'd rather just leave it 


at that at this point, given the amount of 


effort that's gone into it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The only other action I did and I 


briefly spoke with Brant in the hallway before 


we came back in, if -- if NIOSH can -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Urinalysis? 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- post the radiation files for 


the non-claimants, and I think -- and I'm not 


asking for a lot of work here 'cause I think 


you have it all in electronic form, so I hope 


it's not -- not a major deal to post that for 


us in that AB drive somewhere. 


 DR. ULSH: Shouldn't be. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And Lar-- I -- I did mention it 


to Larry and it's -- it's not an issue from 


privacy standpoint or anything, so -- 

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 DR. ULSH: Yeah, we can do that. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I did have one other 


general question. In your selection I was a 


little surprised that you didn't choose one of 


the cases where it noted in the logbooks that 


the badge was destroyed and follow-up on that 


as far as dosimetry investigations. Was there 


a reason for that? 


 DR. ULSH: You were looking specifically, 


Kathy, for information that could be cross-


walked into the rad files. We were looking for 


either urinalysis results or lung count 


performed on a particular day or what-not, 


things like that. We do know that in the 


earlier years that there were some badges -- 


you know, on occasion, just like you would 


expect in any large facility like this, there 


were occasions when the badges became 


contaminated and had to be disposed of of hot 


waste. We did track that down. We saw that in 


your notes when you looked at some of the 


logbooks. That was an issue that we were very 


interested in so we conducted interviews with 


several people to find out what would have been 


done in a case like that. Several of the 

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people that we talked to turned out not to be 


directly involved that closely with the 


external dosimetry program so they couldn't 


really speak directly to it. But a few of the 


people -- I'm thinking -- trying to think of 


the people that we interviewed. Is Steve Baker 


on the line? 


 (No response) 


That's too bad, Steve took the lead on that. A 


few of the people that we interviewed, 


including -- let's see, Bob Bistline, who else 


did we talk to, do you remember? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ULSH: REDACTED, REDACTED talked about it. 


What they would -- they would not simply assign 


zero when a badge became contaminated and had 


to be disposed of. They made an effort to 


determine what the appropriate value to put in 


was. Now there was no agreement that you would 


actually see an investigation file in -- 


investigation report in the rad file during -- 


particularly during the early years. That's 


not the same thing as saying that they were not 


investigated, and that's -- if we walk through 

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the matrix, Mark, I think there's one place we 


might have said that. What we said was that 


you wouldn't expect to see a particular 


investigation report like you would see in the 


later years, but the consensus of the people 


who actually had an opinion on what was done in 


situations like that was that they made an 


effort to determine the most appropriate value 


to assign and that -- there was a dose assigned 


for that particular badge wear cycle. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess that would have been the 


fall-- I -- I think what I would have done in 


that case is if I -- but you randomly sampled, 


too, so I don't know if this would have come up 


in your sample, but if you did look at one of 


those lost or destroyed badge -- I guess what I 


would have walked it through for was to say 


okay, is there any recorded, you know, record 


in there for that quarter or whatever for their 


external monitoring records. And if so, even 


if it's a zero, you know, if they measured 


something or estimated a dose, there's some 


record in there instead of a blank, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: I'm trying to think -- there were -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I know it's not as definitive as 

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if you have a value to compare, but -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think, 


Mark, there's been so many documents going back 


and forth lately, but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- I know there was a situation like 


that where I think the badge was lost or 


destroyed or something and we identified that 


there was in fact a positive value in that 


badge exchange cycle. I won't represent -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah -- no, okay. 


 DR. ULSH: -- that as a comprehensive 


investigation 'cause it's certainly not, but 


it's just anecdotal evidence and it does 


correspond with what we heard from the rad 


protection people that we interviewed. 


In terms of the names of people that we 


interviewed on this, Bob Bistline, REDACTED, 


REDACTED*, REDACTED*, all people who -- we have 


Roger Falk and REDACTED -- all people who were 


involved in the dosimetry program. Not all of 


those people turned out to be directly involved 


and could speak to the issue, but of the ones 


that were able to, that was the consensus that 


-- that they came to. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And -- and -- I mean I 


think we've -- you're going to follow up -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- Brant's going to post the logs 


and --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think Kathy spent a 


great deal of time looking at the individual 


issues, and a number of these get down to 


simply cross-matching, which is something 


you've done, and some questions about the 


cross-matching. But again, I think if we have 


access we can look at those cross-matches, get 


back to you and talk about them and maybe 


resolve them as we go rather than -- you know, 


I think there's a number that we have questions 


about, but they're really specific. I don't 


think they necessarily change the overall 


conclusion, but still we want to make sure we 


understand how they were arrived at. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Kathy, do you have anything to 


add to that? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, it's -- it's about ­

- it's going to come down to questions -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

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 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- around particular 


cases. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The on-- the only -- not to 


resurrect the -- that, but you mentioned the 


Kittinger review that preceded this analysis. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Did you -- 'cause I remember in 


our -- in one of our workgroup meetings, it 


might not have been the last one, you said you 


-- you had presented a -- a large degree of 


corroboration with that data, but then there 


were a -- many that were pending and I don't 


know if you've comple-- sort of wrapped that up 


or is that incorporated within this or -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well, let me go back and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: I actually do have a pretty good 


recollection of that --


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: -- because it was -- occasionally 


John Mauro makes some comments or statements 


that just stick with me, and -- and the one 


that stuck with me was there's nothing rotten 


in Denmark here, there's nothing that stinks. 

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And --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think he borrowed that from 


somewhere. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, he made some --


 DR. ULSH: I think I've heard that before. 


 MR. GRIFFON: He's -- he's --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, that wasn't original. 


 MR. GRIFFON: He's made some comments that 


stick with me, too. Anyway --


 DR. ULSH: At that stage --


 MR. GRIFFON: He's not here. That's not fair. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, we can all jump on John. 


 DR. ULSH: At that stage, Mark, we decided to 


go on, expand the logbooks and you had decided 


that we would not review any particular logbook 


to that level of detail. Rather we would pick 


the handful, so I pretty much stopped at that 


point. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. I thought those were 


in process, but that's fine. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I haven't done any -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't disagree with that. 


 DR. ULSH: -- more on that Kittinger logbook. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's fine. Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: I want to personally thank Kathy for 

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the work she's done on those logbooks and for 


the information that was sent out. It was very 


helpful and very interesting, Kathy. Thank you 


very much. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: You're welcome. I 


actually have a follow-up question to Mark's 


question. I noticed that in the new analysis 


there was some overlap with the Kittinger log 


in that some of those individuals in the 


Kittinger review were pending. Were you able 


to retrieve their radiation exposure files? 


 DR. ULSH: Could be, Kathy. I'm going to talk 


for just a minute and then I'll let Teresa 


perhaps jump in. The results that you see in 


this analysis that we sent over -- I don't 


know, a couple of weeks ago, a week ago, I 


don't know when -- they do not include 


explicitly the previous work that I did on the 


Kittinger log. However, that was one of the 


logbooks that we had in our population of 


logbooks, and so I think that Teresa probably 


went in and sampled from that logbook just like 


she did from any of the others. Is that 


correct, Teresa? 


MS. LOPEZ: That would be correct. I -- I 

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sampled every logbook that was provided to me. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Are we -- that was -- 


that was --


 DR. WADE: Good. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We're getting efficient here as 


the day is -- as people's flights approach. 


We're on to the next topic, if I can find my 


agenda. 


’69 DATA GAP


 DR. WADE: '69 data gap. 


 MR. GRIFFON: There we go. Thank you, Lew. 


'69 data gap. Question here -- I think in pre­

- previous workgroup meetings there's -- 


there's -- I think there's agreement here 


actually that there are a fair amount of cases 


that -- that are -- that have this gap, for 


lack of a better word, in -- in data, 


especially in '69. I have some question if it 


extended into '70 'cause I looked at earlier 


notes, but I'm not sure about that. But -- but 


that was brought up initially by SC&A and I 


think NIOSH sort of looked at some files and -- 


and said yes, in fact we -- we see the same 


thing you do, and since then I think we've -- 


we've got another report recently with -- or I 

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don't know how recently you sent -- 


 DR. ULSH: A week or two ago. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, a week or two ago. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- it was a while ago? Okay. At 


least -- between the last two meetings. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. That explains -- and I'll 


let Brant describe it. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, this -- to refresh everyone's 


memory, this was an issue that I think Kathy 


originally discovered was that there appeared 


to be a number of individuals for whom there 


was no dosimetry in all or part of 1969. And 


so we quickly considered the possibility that 


it might be somehow related to the Mother's Day 


fire in 1969. That -- that was certainly a 


large and significant event in the history of 


Rocky Flats, and so we wondered right away 


whether that had anything to do with it. We 


considered and discarded a number of 


hypotheses, and the real breakthrough came 


again when we were looking at these prog-- 


monthly progress reports and we came across the 


comment that was noted earlier about the 


administrative decision, the management 

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decision I guess, to -- for the low risk 


people, people judged at low risk for exposure. 


In other words, they were stationed outside of 


the plutonium areas which at that time period 


in Rocky Flats, 1969, meant that they were 


outside of the radiation areas, essentially, 


since most of the ATU* was sent to Y-12 at that 


point, and they were on quarterly badge 


exchange cycles, which meant that they were, by 


definition, a low risk -- a population of 


workers judged to be at low risk of exposure. 


They decided that those people would continue 


to be badged, however unless circumstances 


warranted, their badges would not be read. 


So, once we found that, we went back and 


checked the files, checked the dosimetry that 


we saw in 1969 to see whether it was consistent 


with that, and in fact it was. For the people 


that we could -- that had gaps that were 


stationed outside and fit that category or fit 


that profile, they were indeed the people that 


we saw the gaps for. Now -- and so that -- and 


that decision was made even before the fire 


happened, so it does indeed appear that the 


fire occurring in that year at the same time we 

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see these -- this pattern was coincidental. 


Now on top of that we also saw a brief mention 


that they had a computer problem in that year 


and --


 MR. GRIFFON: Can -- can I just interject just 


for a second 'cause I'm trying to sort this out 


in my own head. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Earlier in our first -- well, the 


-- item one, all morning, we -- we -- we -- you 


referenced -- I believe this is the same 


report, this same quarterly report -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yes --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- or whatever --


 DR. ULSH: -- it is. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that you're talking about, and 


basically I -- I was under the impression that 


-- that -- now it seems to me if you have -- 


part of the reason this -- this was identified 


was a blip in the amount of zeroes in -- when 


they reviewed the -- the annual data. There 


was a blip in '69 and possibly '70 -- I'll hold 


out on that one, but if there was in fact a 


blip, this doesn't look like a changed policy 


in '69 going forward but rather it was a 

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decision just maybe for manpower reasons or 


whatever, but only during that one cycle. Is 


that --


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Craig, are you out there? 


 (No response) 


 MR. GRIFFON: Jim was speaking to this earlier, 


wasn't he? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I tell you what we found, 


Mark, was that there would be a zero at the top 


-- okay, when you're looking at the film badge 


results, there are several people listed on a 


page and what you would see is a zero at the 


top and a --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- line down through them all. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: And we had -- we identified that 


those were the people who in fact were -- fit 


this profile, and so it is consistent with what 


we saw there. So those people would not -- 


that zero should not be taken as a badge that 


was read and came out zero. In fact, if you 


think about it, what these people would be is 


essentially unmonitored individuals and so you 


would have to use the techniques that we use 

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for unmonitored people. Does that answer your 


question? 


 MR. GRIFFON: But all I'm saying is is this 


morning when we talked you -- you -- I mean we 


were having this discussion about how to 


interpret --


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- this cohort or whether it was 


a change in policy from '69 forward. It 


doesn't seem -- if there's a blip in the number 


of zeroes, then you sort of go back -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, we don't --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- it seems like it -- it's not 


supported there and --


 DR. ULSH: Well, we don't have a corresponding 


notation as to whether or not that 


administrative procedure was rescinded -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Short term or was it --


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: We don't have a corresponding 


notation to that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, that's what I was asking. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


MR. MEYER: Craig, I know you're actually -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Sorry to interrupt your --


MR. MEYER: Craig, I know you're actually 


there, though. I guess the speakers have 


gotten kind of silent here. Can you hear us 


now? 


 MR. LITTLE: I can hear you. 


MR. MEYER: Yeah. Sorry. Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, do you -- do you have anything 


to add to that, Craig? 


 MR. LITTLE: I didn't hear all of it, but what 


I heard at the end there was that yeah, we 


don't have a corresponding -- as Jim said this 


morning, we don't have a corresponding 


documentation that says they -- they started 


running all the badges again, so I don't have ­

- I don't have an answer to that concern. 


 DR. ULSH: It looks like, Mark, when -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: And nobody you interviewed could 


shed any light on whether that -- 


 DR. ULSH: No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't want to break your flow 


of your presentation. That was just a -- 


 DR. ULSH: No, no, I know. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: I already did. 


 DR. ULSH: Remind me to talk to you afterwards, 


Mark --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- there are some things I -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. All right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- I'll talk to you about it. But 


no, we don't have any indication that that was 


eventually rescinded -- I mean in terms of 


notation in any document. However, like you 


said, that blip that we saw didn't continue, so 


that might indicate that it -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's what I'm trying to 


understand. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, exactly. But that's 


circumstantial. I mean I can't point to any 


particular document that says that. 


Oh, yeah, so at the same time we also 


investigated -- since you know, we originally 


wondered whether or not the fire was involved 


with this pattern, we also talked to 


individuals extensively about the badging 


practices in the aftermath of 1969 fire. And 


we had a number of people, at least two that I 


can think of, that confirmed for us that anyone 

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who made entries into 776 after the fire -- 


immediately after the fire -- was indeed badged 


and in fact was double badged. So that again 


made us more comfortable saying that this blip 


was not related to the fire. 


So anyone else have anything to add or -- if 


not, I'll turn it over for questions. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I would -- Ron, are you 


on the phone still? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yes, uh-huh. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think you had -- certainly 


you had worked with Kathy and had some thoughts 


on this. I'd like to give you a chance to -- I 


think you responded to at least some of the 


issues that were raised in the NIOSH response. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yes, there -- there -- two 


issues here in that '69/'70 time frame. One is 


the -- the gap in the data in '69 which Brant's 


recent e-mail talked about the computer problem 


and the going to not reading all the badges and 


several things like that. And these perhaps, 


or perhaps not, set aside the missing in the 


140 cases they examined. 


The other issue was that it kind of -- a more 


general issue was 1969 and '70 both had the 36 

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percent zeroes, where the previous five years 


had ten percent and then the next five years -- 


the following five years had ten percent 


zeroes, and so the -- the items in the recent 


memo on the '69 period, the computer changeover 


would not -- shouldn't have carried over into 


'70 I wouldn't have -- think, and the second 


issue was that they did not read all the 


badges. And if they didn't read all the badges 


as far as zeroes go, my thinking would be if 


these people were low exposed and so they quit 


reading their badges and assigned them zeroes, 


then that shouldn't have made much difference 


in the number of zeroes recorded because they 


was already receiving zero to minimum 


detectable levels in the past since this group 


that was set aside to read -- not to always 


read would have been receiving a very low dose 


anyway, so I can't see really that '69 and '70 


should have showed a large blip in their zeroes 


because of that reason. And then -- and you 


know, in '71, '72, '73 the zeroes came back 


down to ten percent and so that was where I was 


at on this last week, from the recent e-mail 


from NIOSH. 

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 DR. ULSH: Ron, perhaps I can help a little bit 


with that. In terms of the num-- the 


percentage of zeroes, the higher number of 


zeroes in '69 and maybe spreading into '70, 


that's entirely consistent with what we know 


occurred, and that was related to the fire. In 


other words, the people who were getting -- 


prior to the fire, the people who were getting 


positive exposures in Building 776 were no 


longer involved in production activities. 


Production of plutonium was shut down in the 


aftermath of the fire. That extended all the 


way through -- well, Mel, correct me if I'm 


wrong -- through at least most of '69, maybe 


even into '70. 


 MR. CHEW: That's exactly right. 


 DR. ULSH: And they did not resume full-scale 


plutonium operations for some time after that, 


and that's the highest exposure potential jobs 


at the site, so we would expect that the number 


of zeroes -- the percentage of zeroes would be 


higher there. 


 MR. CHEW: Correct. Agree. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And those same people we -- I 


think we had this discussion. It sounds like 

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old ground, but those same people would not 


have been involved in the cleanup necessarily? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, they might have been in -- 


some of them might have been involved in the 


cleanup, Mark. However, even there the dose 


rates that they would experience would be far 


lower than at --


 MR. GRIFFON: But not --


 DR. ULSH: -- full-scale production. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) to zeroes, 


though. 


 MR. CHEW: Well, they would not ex-- receive 


external exposures, it was more cleaning up -- 


you know, deep rems of alpha sitting on the 


ground here, Mark, so there wouldn't be any -- 


much external exposure at all. 


MR. MEYER: Essentially plutonium was removed 


fairly quickly after the fire. 


 MR. CHEW: Sure -- including the water 


spillages that came out of the building, so 


you're looking at deep rem, right, certainly 


not external exposure. 


 DR. ULSH: So you're right, Ron, I don't think 


that the decision not to read the badges 


explains the zeroes. I think the explanation 

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for that is the cessation of plutonium 


production operations. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Well, do you know more 


precisely when the plutonium production was 


back into full scale? Was that a gradual 


thing, was that a -- a couple months thing, and 


did that occur at the end of 1970, the 


beginning of '71, '72, does anybody know when 


you would consider full-scale plutonium 


production back to normal? 


 MR. RICH: They started back in fairly soon in 


'77, but it was on a very small scale. 


MR. BUCHANAN: What year -- what? I didn't get 


that? 


 MR. CHEW: That cafeteria line, remember that 


came up -- remember? Yeah. 


 MR. RICH: (Unintelligible) 


UNIDENTIFIED: He said '77, didn't he? 


 MR. RICH: '67. 

 MR. CHEW: '69, yeah. 

 DR. ULSH: Now wait, the fire was in '69. 

 MR. RICH: '70. 

 DR. ULSH: Okay. Bryce says it started ramping 

up in '70. 

 MR. CHEW: I guess orig--
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 MR. RICH: In Building -- in Building 77, so -- 


not -- I'm all right, '70. 


 MS. MUNN: (Unintelligible) 


 MR. CHEW: We're not saying our ages now, we're 


talking about the building numbers. To answer 


your question specifically, you know, Rocky 


Flats actually started a very small line to 


process a small amount of quantity. We called 


that the cafeteria line. We discussed that at 


length at the last two meetings here, to answer 


your question. That occurred -- the place came 


to a halt from about May until about the July ­

- June, July, August time frame and then the 


cafeteria line was started up, just basically 


just one small line to do a small amount of 


machining. That was just -- 

 MR. RICH: Even --

 MR. CHEW: -- a couple of chunks. 

 MR. RICH: -- even that would have been minimal 

external exposure because it was low throughput and the -- the full cleanup and return to 


full operation, I don't have a date for that. 


 MR. CHEW: 776 almost took a couple of years -- 


 MR. RICH: Yeah. 


 MR. CHEW: -- to get that line back in because 

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of the extensive fire and repairing all the 


damage there so 776 never got back in. Some of 


the work went over to 707, so the answer to 


your question, full production really -- after 


the way they left it in '69 prior to '69 fire 


really didn't get going until mid-'70s and late 


'70s. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So -- so --


 MR. CHEW: Does that answer your question? 


 MR. GRIFFON: You -- you've got this -- I've ­

- trying to go back to that sheet you said that 


you had, the zeroes on the top with a line -- a 


dash through the whole group of workers. Those 


individuals were quarterly monitored and those 


-- those were the ones that were kind of shel-- 


they -- they badged them but didn't read. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right? 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that -- so you have -- so you 


have two -- two groups of people in these 


zeroes, theoretically. It could al-- the 


zeroes could also include people that were 


dislocated from production operations and were 


at a lower external exposure potential for that 

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time period. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: I think --


 MR. GRIFFON: So --


 DR. ULSH: -- that's accurate. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so if we look through at -- I 


mean how -- so if we look through all these 


zeroes, we wouldn't necessarily see that they 


were all on quarterly monitoring programs 


'cause they're also going to include other -- 


other -- some of these production workers that 


were just dislocated or... 


 DR. ULSH: I think that's true, Mark. I think 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- I'm not -- I can't really speak 


about if a person was on a more frequent badge 


exchange cycle -- let's say weekly or biweekly 


or monthly -- before the fire, if they 


maintained that badge exchange frequency after. 


I can't really answer that off the top of my 


head. But in general at Rocky Flats, if you 


were at -- judged to be a lower exposure 


potential during that time period, you were on 


the less frequent badge exchange cycle. So 


yeah, if you looked at the population of 

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workers who were on quarterly badge exchange 


cycles, I think it's accurate to say that those 


would be the lower -- people at lower exposure 


potentials. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I -- you have any follow-up, 


Joe? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Not -- not --


 MR. GRIFFON: I gue--


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I was going to say I 


think -- I think we're clear on this particular 


issue, although we still have to look at this 


review. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I guess what I'm still 


grop-- and I -- I got to look through the 


details, I will give the caveat of that, but I 


-- I'm groping for something to hang my hat on. 


I -- I feel like this issue of -- we've had 


different hypotheses offered and that makes me 


a little uneasy when the -- maybe they're 


merging together now; I hope so. It seems like 


 DR. ULSH: Well, let me -- let me characterize 


this -- how -- the ground that we've covered in 


the working group. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

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 DR. ULSH: I mean at first, when Kathy first 


noticed this issue, we didn't have any idea why 


the -- why there would be this particular gap, 


and so we threw a lot of hypotheses on the 


table and we systematically started testing 


those hypotheses. The first and most obvious 


one was the fire, and so we tested that. It 


didn't work out; we discarded it; we looked for 


another one. So I mean to say that we've 


tested a number of hypotheses I think is a good 


thing. I mean we considered all the -- all the 


plausible alternatives that we could think of. 


Finally when we hit on this -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I didn't really say you 


tested a hypothesis. I said you offered 


hypotheses. I meant -- you know -- 


 DR. ULSH: We did, but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- then we followed --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- on and tested them. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- but I -- I guess that's 


the details I haven't seen or -- you know, so ­

- I mean there -- there -- you know, all these 


-- a lot of this seems to be, again, you know, 

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so-and-so's recollection about computers 


switching over and --


 DR. ULSH: No, that's actually --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- now these zero sheets I 


haven't seen, so I --


 DR. ULSH: -- that's documented. I mean that's 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well --


 DR. ULSH: -- in the monthly progress reports, 


so --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that -- that was another 


action item I just wanted to add onto your 


action that was previously there. We had --


previously you had agreed to post the monthly 


progress reports. Maybe that would be helpful 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- to -- yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: But I think that's a sign of the 


strength of the approach that we took, that we 


considered all of the plausible hypotheses and 


we were left with one that fit. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess the one related issue 


-- and this is -- this is something that came 


up in our review of the accident investigation 

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that Mel briefed us on, and then we went 


through a series of discussions in terms of 


cross-walking the -- it was -- 110 is the 


number I remember that were identified in the 


AI report as having been monitored, either 24 


hours --


 DR. ULSH: Lung counting. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- or afterwards, and I think 


we came up with a list of 77 names or it was 


something in the -- 70-something to -- that 


were identified. And Brant, the last time we 


hit this ping-pong ball back it was -- okay, 


what about the balance of the individuals; is 


there any way to figure out -- you know, if 110 


were monitored, one should be able to at least 


find the 110 --


 MR. GRIFFON: That was -- that was in vivo 


counts, right, or --


 DR. ULSH: Lung counts. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Lung counts. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, these were -- this was 


mentioned in the -- the 19-- the fire report -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- and it was mentioned that there 


were I think 40-some people counted within the 

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first 24 hours --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Twenty-four hours, right, for 


the (unintelligible) --


 DR. ULSH: -- and then some 110 within the 


first month, I think. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: So but the names of those people 


weren't -- wasn't given -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- in the fire report, so -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: In the report itself. 


 DR. ULSH: -- we've -- we went to some length ­

- I mean we took all the steps that we could 


think of easily to identify the people who 


might have been lung-counted. Gene Potter put 


some work into this. Gene, are you still out 


there? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Thank you. Can you walk us 


through your report in terms of the sources of 


data that we looked at and what we found? 


 MR. POTTER: On lung counting? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, lung counting in the aftermath 


of the '69 fire. 


 MR. POTTER: Okay. I'll try and rely on my 

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memory here, which is not always the best, but 


-- and I think this is incorporated into 


Craig's report. 


 DR. ULSH: No --


 MR. LITTLE: Yeah, some of it -- some of it is 


in there. I didn't put all the detail in, 


but... 


 MR. POTTER: Yeah, basically we had a list of 


interviewees that were available from the 


declassified Rocky Flats investigation report ­

- or the fire investigation report, and we went 


after the people in that group who were either 


claimants or that we had -- that -- or had had 


their records scanned for other purposes and 


tried to do matches on that. And I'm afraid 


I'll have to -- if you give me a minute I can 


look up what those statistics were. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, not -- not necessarily 


important if you -- I -- I think there was 


another source of data that we looked at when 


we had the interview list, as Gene said, but we 


didn't know whether those people corresponded 


to the people who should have been -- who, you 


know, were in the 110. Separately from that we 


also had a document -- I think it's Plot, is 

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the reference -- another document that listed 


people who were sent to medical/decon, and we 


took a look at that, too. And as Gene said, we 


looked at the files that we had in hand, either 


because they were claimants or because we had 


pulled them as part of the logbook review, so 


we had them on hand. And of the people that we 


know were sent to medical and decon and we had 


the files available, we checked and yes indeed, 


the lung counts are in there. Now that's a 


fairly small number. That doesn't account for 


the 110, or even the 40. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: You were going to look at the 


classified version of the report to see if 


there might be some names in there, too. 


 DR. ULSH: We did, and we didn't find -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: There were none --


 DR. ULSH: -- any names there. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- there were none, okay. 


 DR. ULSH: So that kind of led us to the point 


where the next step would be pretty resource-


intensive, and that would be pulling all of the 


rad files, and we wanted to discuss that with 


SC&A and the working group before we took that 


step. I mean we kind of went as far as we 

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could easily, and stopped. So... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Now I think our interest in 


the beginning was just simply to use this as an 


opportunity, in the face of the AI report, just 


to validate that in fact if these were 


identified explicitly in the AI report as the 


number of individuals being monitored, could 


you in fact find these individuals in terms of 


the dose file. Again another test of 


validation, particularly given the fact it 


falls within the '69/'70 period where there's 


some questions about, you know, were people in 


fact monitored. So that was the reasoning. 


 DR. ULSH: But that was external monitoring. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I am sorry, internal. That's 


where we are now --


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- so -- and there's been no ­

- I don't think there's been any actual cross-


validation with the data file, just simply 


trying to identify who the people are. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, just those ones that we knew 


were sent to medical and decon and we have the 


files on hand, we checked. And indeed, in 


every one of those there were lung counts in 

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there. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: That's as far as we can -- that's 


about as much as we can say at -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: And those indivi-- those files, 


are -- are they --


 DR. ULSH: Well, actually --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- accessible to us? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, they will be, since -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- you've asked that we post those ­

- I think it's part of the logbook -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah --


 DR. ULSH: -- those individuals 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I mean I would say why don't 


we start there and --


 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I don't think we need to 


request broader --


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, no, this is an adjunct 


that --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, more rad files at 


this point. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- came up with the AI -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- discussion, so I wasn't 


proposing a new avenue, but more or less make 


it part of what we're doing already. 


 DR. ULSH: And those are identified by name in 


-- in the --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, you gave us the 


spreadsheet. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, and the files will come over 


as part of the (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That was a spreadsheet -- CEDR 


60 or 70, I can't remember... 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we're talking about 


the same thing. 


 DR. ULSH: I'll show you what I'm talking about 


and you can tell me if that's what you're 


talking about. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Sixty-nine -- 69 -- 69 people 


were interviewed. These are people interviewed 


for the unclassified report, yeah. This is the 


one you gave me in Las Vegas. 


 MR. GRIFFON: How many of those, Brant -- you 


talking a handful or... 


 DR. ULSH: What's that? 

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 MR. GRIFFON: How many of those people did you 


find in your records, do you know off-hand? Is 


it four or five or -- 


 DR. ULSH: Gene, do you recall how many we 


found? It was a pretty small number, I think ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but that's --


 DR. ULSH: -- maybe six. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's fine. I think that's -- 


 MR. POTTER: Yeah, of the ones that were sent 


to medical that we have records for? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. POTTER: I think that was six out of six we 


found lung counts in records. 


 DR. ULSH: So we still don't have a really good 


handle on who the 41 might have been or who the 


100 might have been. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: I can only --


 MR. CHEW: The -- I'll just make the point that 


the number of people interviewed -- quite a few 


of them were management because they were 


talking about the management issues. They 


would not have been involved with any cleanup 


of fire so they would not have been monitored. 

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So don't correlate the 77 interviewed with 


(unintelligible) data. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, good point. 


 DR. ULSH: I would caution, the stuff going 


around the table right now contains Privacy Act 


information, so please be appropriately careful 


with it. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I agree with the idea of 


trying to go ahead and cojoin (sic) this with 


some of the other reviews and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- validate it, so --


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't think we need to dig for 


further files related to that fire, rea-- at 


this point, anyway. And -- and I was just 


going to ask Mel a follow-up on the -- you said 


that individuals that were double-badged, those 


were probably the first responders kind of 


thing, is that... 


 MR. CHEW: No, no, they weren't. They were the 


-- after the fire was put out -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


 MR. CHEW: -- then the next level was to go 


back to recover the plutonium -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

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 MR. CHEW: -- yeah, and then also the people 


who were part of the investigating team, those 


are the ones who were -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And then there was this 


sort of lower tier de-- after the material was 


recovered, then there was a lower tier -- 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- cleanup work, which then they 


would have been at lower -- 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- exposure risk, certainly. 


Right? Right. From an external standpoint. 


 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right? Okay. And -- do -- do 


you -- do we have any sense of -- of the -- 


that group that went in initially? I mean I 


imagine it's a small group, select group. 


 DR. ULSH: We do have individuals, but I don't 


know that we could --


 MR. CHEW: Oh, yeah, I don't know -- I don't 


know --


 MR. FITZGERALD: (Unintelligible) that 41 that 


were monitored the first 24 hours -- 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, we're talking about the 


follow-up group that went in after we put out 

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the fire to now make the investigation on the 


fire --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Ah. 


 MR. CHEW: -- (unintelligible) couple of months 


and also to recover the material. Recovery of 


the material is the key one here, 'cause now 


that there was -- remember, we had the 


discussion they were professional people who 


went in, remember, and volunteers, but everyone 


volunteered, as I understand, and -- and they 


very carefully went back and spoon-by-spoon 


recovered because criticality was an issue 


here, remember, potential, so that's why they 


were double-monitored -- double-badged. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- but we don't necessarily ­

- wouldn't be a way to easily find -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We can't pinpoint who they 


are. 


 DR. ULSH: We would know a few --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- individual names, but certainly 


not in a comprehensive way we wouldn't be able 


to say (unintelligible). 


 MR. CHEW: We certainly know some of the key 

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people who were involved -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. CHEW: -- example like REDACTED, REDACTED* 


were there, but you know, they would know -- 


remember names of people, that's about all I 


(unintelligible). 


 MS. MUNN: Ken said that the number of people 


who actually went into the building was never 


more than a dozen --


 MR. CHEW: Oh, yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: -- or 15 at a time, very small 


numbers --


 MR. CHEW: Very small num-- very controlled. 


 MS. MUNN: -- all double-badged --


 MR. FITZGERALD: That makes sense. 


 MS. MUNN: -- all professionals, yeah. 

 MR. CHEW: Double-suited, too. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah -- oh -- oh, you can bet your 

bottom dollar. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I was just thinking if we, 


you know, can track them and they'd be likely 


higher exposed, at least those initial people ­

-


 MR. CHEW: Well, not necessarily. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that -- that would be a -- 

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 MR. CHEW: You know, we're talking about really 


a oxide sitting on a -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. CHEW: -- a --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. CHEW: -- not a chunk of plutonium anymore, 


you know, so --


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm just thinking of non-- nonzero, you know --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, that was the whole 


exercise I think --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- ways of cor--


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- focused around the AI --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, exactly. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- report was to see if we 


could find those people that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- might have had the higher 


potential. But like everything else, it's 


turning out --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- not to be straightforward. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right, right. Okay. 
I 


don't know that -- other than -- I would like 


to see those monthly progress reports. I did 

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catch that when I re-- this weekend when I was 


reviewing transcripts, I said oh, there's 


another action item for the matrix, but that 


might be helpful for me just to put -- put your 


-- you know. 


 DR. ULSH: SC&A actually already has those. 


You may not know it. I think you do. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh. 


 DR. ULSH: There was a large volume of material 


that Kathy requested. I actually --


 MR. FITZGERALD: (Unintelligible) discs, maybe. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I actually found them in a 


miscellaneous document. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Brant may be correct. We may 


have this on a disc that --


 DR. ULSH: But --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- you know, is four months 


old. 


 DR. ULSH: -- that's probably not going to be 


as easily retrievable. I mean I pulled out 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Kathy, do you remember that? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Say that again? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: The quarterly progress 

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reports, you remember getting that by disc or ­

- I -- I seem to remember something way back -- 


prehistoric times, April, May maybe. 


Well, we can --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think that was in hard 


copy actually. 


 MR. GRIFFON: At -- at any rate --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- we can figure it out. All 


right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, or Brant --


 DR. ULSH: It'll be easier if I just 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, just post them and it'll be 


easy. 


 DR. ULSH: Let me -- let me warn you, Mark. 


It's not a complete set. I mean I don't start 


in January of '52 and go all the way up to 


December of --


 MR. GRIFFON: Understood, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- '71. There are some holes in 


there --


 MR. GRIFFON: Understood. 


 DR. ULSH: -- that I wasn't able to find, but 


there's a lot of them. 

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NEUTRON DOSIMETRY


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Are we on the next 


topic? 


 DR. WADE: Yes, we are. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Neutron -- this is a -- I think 


there's a list of five or seven -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, this is the external 


dosimetry, more specifically neutron, 


discussion that -- we had a conference call 


between NIOSH, I think Ron was the star for our 


team, and basically I think that was a very 


good call. We came up with five agreed-to 


actions which there was one or two that were 


added at a subsequent workgroup meeting, and I 


think they're pretty -- pretty clear and crisp 


and there's ongoing actions. It's just -- I 


think they stand as open only because, you 


know, the OTIBs are being revised in some cases 


 MR. GRIFFON: What's the -- Brant, you've got 


the matrix item open, I don't know -- 


 DR. ULSH: It's item number 23, if that helps. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Item number 23. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: It's on page 11 of 16 of the -- 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: And Brant -- Brant and I have 


been exchanging status reports, mostly just to 


make sure that we're clear on where things 


stand, but I would defer to you as far as -- 


since these are kind of actions on NIOSH. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. Joe suggested that we have a 


number of issue-specific conference calls and I 


kind of kicked the can down the road until 


after this working group meeting. I just -- we 


just couldn't swing it, but this is one where I 


think that that would be good to have another 


conference call on the neutron action items. 


And like Joe said, there were -- I see seven 


items here listed on the matrix. Two of those 


I think that we can agree have been completed, 


and that is NIOSH to provide identifiers for 


the HIS-20 database; we've done that one. And 


then the other one was Roger was going to 


provide background for NDRP report 


(unintelligible) 1.1; we've done that one. 


We are in progress with revising OTIB-58 right 


now, which is the external coworker data. We 


are also in process of testing the N/P ratios 


in the '50s. That's in process. And let me 


see, calculated versus measured, that's going 

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to be part of that -- well, wait a minute. No, 


expand the explanation of the technical basis 


for N/P ratios in the '50s. I actually 


provided the language that we were going to put 


into the OTIB, provided that to Ron, and I 


think Ron took a look at that, and I think the 


piece that you were waiting on there was just 


to see that yes, in fact that had been 


incorporated into the OTIB. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, so that's the status on that 


one. And then we come to the spot-check the 


coworker methods by comparing calculated versus 


measured neutron doses. A draft of that hit my 


desk late last week and I just couldn't turn it 


around, so that's one that we should be ready 


to talk about fairly soon I think. 


NIOSH to provide benchmark N/P ratios in the 


'50s and '70s, and I think what we were talking 


about here was measured -- I think maybe John 


Mauro requested if there were any measured N/P 


ratios during those time periods, early in the 


'50s, early in the '70s. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Coup de gras, remember that 


whole --

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 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: His -- his thing was that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, that would bound it, yeah, 


yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, that would bound it and 


 DR. ULSH: Actually I think he talked about 


that with the measured versus -- at any rate, 


he said it at some point. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: At any rate, right. Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Several coup de gras. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Coup de gras. 


 DR. ULSH: The -- I think we actually looked 


for some of that, some measure neutron to 


photon ratios in the '70s, and we didn't have 


much luck finding that. I don't want to say 


that's our final answer yet, but we hadn't had 


a lot of initial success. Roger, is that 


correct? 


 MR. FALK: Brant, when the NDRP project 


started, we looked very extensively for 


measured values in the '50s and we found 


nothing, so I'm not sure that we're going to 


have any more success looking for the values in 

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the '50s. Now we did not look for the field 


measurements in the -- we did not look for the 


field measurements in the 1970s, but I've not 


seen any in a data capture so far. 


 DR. ULSH: So I just want to prepare you that 


we may not have any luck in the '50s, probably 


won't. I don't know about how the '70s is 


going to turn out. We'll just have to look and 


see. 


 And then number seven I think was a fall-back 


position that if nothing else worked we might 


want to consider an alternative coworker model. 


I think that's -- these are issues that I think 


we agreed that we need to have a conference 


call with SC&A. We're not quite ready, but -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- sometime soon. 


MR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron. I would like to 


iterate one point was that I sent an e-mail re-


requesting the individual neutron and photon 


doses for '52 through '61, and I'd like to -- 


to state that that is not the individual 


identifiers that you talked about in action 


item number one. Anyway, it didn't fulfill 


that request and -- so Brant, are you still 

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working on getting that data? 


 DR. ULSH: Ron, I think I'd like to defer that 


to the conference call. I'm looking at -- Joe 


just handed me your e-mail and I've of course 


seen it before. I'm not sure -- I'm looking at 


the column headers on what you're requesting -- 


year, quarter, employee number of building, 


neutron (unintelligible) and total. I know 


that we didn't -- when we were constructing 


OTIB-58 we didn't poll the data in that level 


of detail. Now that's not to say that it is 


inaccessible. Certainly on an individual by 


individual basis that's available in NDRP -- in 


the NDRP files. But in terms of a collected, 


like into one spreadsheet, I don't know that we 


would have the level of detail that you're 


asking about here, but -- we might need to have 


some more correspondence about that. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. I just wanted to go on 


record that that wasn't fulfilled in item 


number one and, you know, we can discuss that 


further. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Joe, can you forward this e-mail 


to the other workgroup -- 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I will. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- nobody has this, right? So --


I don't want to --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, this -- this is a couple 


weeks ago. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, maybe forward it to 


everybody, you know, so we can all... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Now just to reiterate -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anything else --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- we've had a ongoing 


discussion and exchange on this issue all 


along, so this has been sort of a -- evolving, 


you know, as we closed things out or have tried 


to close things out, we've been moving this 


thing forward, so I think it would benefit from 


a call or two. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And I don't think it's -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think those --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- I don't think we've 


identified necessarily, although I don't want 


to close the door on SEC issue, but certainly 


it would be useful to, on the benchmarks 


question, just be sure that the back 


extrapolation approach is going to be, you 

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know, sound and there's been questions raised 


on that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that's probably a good 


place to handle this more technical discussion 


of these -- you know, this -- these issues is a 


call in between the next workgroup -- now and 


the next workgroup or now and the next Board 


meeting, whatever, can (unintelligible) that so 


 DR. ULSH: We're getting some kind of a weird 


echo in here. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, we're getting feedback. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we --


 DR. WADE: I'm sure -- I don't know, someone 


has done something in the last five minutes 


that's resulted in our getting feedback. It 


could involve a speaker phone or a speaker 


phone near a -- I don't know, so I would just 


ask each of you to think about if you've done 


anything in the last five minutes, don't do 


that anymore -- stop doing that. Anybody going 


to -- ah, that fixed it. Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Anything else on that 


topic that --


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I think we can -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Arjun --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- go ahead and schedule some 


technical specific issues phone calls. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, there is -- there is one 


neutron-to-photon ratio question that came up ­

- I mentioned it -- from the data completeness 


review, is -- we haven't kind of focused in on 


the '58 to '59 -- now Roger Falk, did -- when 


you -- when you looked at the -- this question 


relates to the completeness of the photon data 


in the late '50s for the 700 building. 


 DR. ULSH: Photon data? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Photon data. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So that if the photon data are 


not complete, then the neutron-to-photon ratios 


calculated from the monitored workers at that 


time would be uncertain in some way. Did you 


come ac-- when you -- when you did the 


compilation of the -- now this is from my 


memory -- when we talked about the 700 building 


or the 70-series buildings, that you had no 


neutron monitoring up to '57. And as I recall, 


you said that you would calculate the N/P 


ratios for '58, '59 and extrapolate -- use 

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those, because it was the same process. I'm 


wondering, when you compiled the data in the 


NDRP, did you come across gaps in the -- in the 


photon -- in the -- in the gamma records that 


were a year, two years in the kind -- the kind 


of gaps that we were talking about and how did 


you fill the gaps? 


 MR. FALK: We did not find any significant gaps 


for the building 71 people except for the 


foundry workers from '53 through January of -- 


through January of 1957, and we addressed that 


in the NDRP protocol by basically using their 


wrist dosimetry to then calculate what their -- 


what the body gamma dose would be, and that is 


all documented in the NDR-- that's all 


documented in the NDRP protocol and is also 


part of the -- part of the reports for the 


claimants who are -- were affected by that. 


That is the only significant problem that we 


found with the gamma results for '71 workers. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So -- so you didn't find any 


sort of '58 -- problems in that time frame 


after 1957? 


 MR. FALK: No, we didn't find any -- we did not 


-- we did not find any really significant 

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problems after that, no. 


Now also keep in mind that in September of 1957 


they had that fire in the plenum* of the 


building 71 that basically shut down most of 


the building for several months, but that is a 


real discontinuity and not a gap in the 


monitoring records. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. That -- that was the one 


question I had, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. So we'll -- we'll set 


up a conf-- you know, some sort of conference 


call between SC&A and NIOSH on that -- okay, so 


-- anything else on your side, Brant, to add? 


 DR. ULSH: No. 


SUPER S


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I think the next topic is 


super S -- did I skip... 


 DR. WADE: No, super S. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Super S, okay. And Joe, I think 


this is kind of a quick update item, if -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, it's --


 MR. GRIFFON: Joyce sort of gave you a -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Joyce is not on the -- on -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- the call, but she's been 

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very busy just finishing up her validation, 


frankly, of the model cases and has gone 


through what I -- I think you described earlier 


as going from HIS-20 to CEDR now looking at 


some way to compare some of these model cases 


to the raw data. She's finding some 


disparities with -- you know, understandably 


with some of the data in HIS-20 and CEDR. And 


at this stage as I think the status is -- is 


her, in order to tie this up and finish it, 


being able to compare the -- I think she's 


doing five or six model case comparisons with 


the actual claimant file in terms of the 


bioassay data. And I think that was the only 


thing I would report from her end, that -- and 


this is part and parcel the same thing we've 


been talking about all day. I think the 


realization independently on her part, 


empirically going through this, that yeah, 


there was -- you know, she found that CEDR was 


actually more complete than HIS-20 in some case 


and there were holes in HIS-20, and now she's 


recognizing that in order to do a uniform and 


consistent comparison she needs to have access 


to the raw --

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 DR. ULSH: Rad files? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- (unintelligible) rad files, 


right. So that's -- I think she's -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: With -- again, with -- the goal 


of this was to look at the others involved in 


the fire and see if the design cases were 


bounding. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That was the -- the original 


action. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And the question of -- of -- 


yeah, bounding and -- that's the issue she's 


really trying to resolve and finish up on at 


this stage. No issues to report, but just 


simply trying to finish that up and demonstrate 


that that is in fact the case in terms of the 


model cases, the 28 (unintelligible). So 


that's the status of that. I think, assuming 


we can work out the arrangement to -- and we 


have these cases identified, so it should be 


pretty straightforward, you know, getting to 


the actual -- the raw bioassay data that -- 


whatever. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So -- so we're close to clo-- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We're close to closure on the 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- to closure on that, yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- right, close to closure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It would -- probably would have 


been closed by now except for the fact that we 


-- we were --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- really looking at HIS-20, then 


 MR. FITZGERALD: She went to different -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we needed the -- needed the 


rad files, right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- databases and realized, as 


we have (unintelligible) to say that really 


she's going to need to compare it with the raw 


data in order to be confident, and that -- 


that's where we are. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So we'll need to come --


somehow I guess identify those five or six 


cases and then get those numbers or those 


identi-- identifications to you somehow and 


then get the actual file, and that should take 


care of the high-fired super S issue from that 


standpoint. 

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SAFETY CONCERNS


 MR. GRIFFON: And I guess we're all winding 


down here a little bit, but the -- I mean I -- 


I don't want to forget these items which are 


sort of the safety concerns, and then I don't 


even think I put it on my list of -- of -- on 


the agenda, but I -- I think the safety 


concerns and the individual petitioners' -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Affidavits and allegations. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- affidavits, yeah, that follow-


up that you did. I think -- I think there were 


two separate --


 DR. ULSH: They were separate. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- actions, right, so -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you've provided responses on 


both of them at this point. 


 DR. ULSH: I'll let --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- Karin perhaps summarize the 


safety concern issue in terms of the concerns 


expressed by the workers. We made an effort to 


capture all of the concerns that were expressed 


either in the petition or in public comment 


sessions at the Advisory Board meeting or 

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during working group meetings, captured all of 


those. Karin actually pulled that document 


together and we responded. And we sent that 


out some time ago, so I -- but it was pretty 


massive, so I can understand if it takes some 


time to review. 


In terms of the safety concerns -- well, unless 


you want to talk about -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I --


 MR. GRIFFON: No, huh-uh. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I -- I would certainly say, 


you know, we've had both documents, and Kathy 


Robertson-DeMers, are you still on? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yeah, I am. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. And certainly Kathy has 


done her usual yeoman's job of going through, 


and it was a lengthy review, and I think that 


review is complete, although we're still 


finishing the write-up. And this will be 


treated in the evaluation that we're going to 


provide the Board. 


Is there anything you want to speak to in 


general terms on either the safety concerns 


piece or the -- I guess it's called Rocky Flats 


data integrity examples, something -- that's 

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close. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: (Unintelligible) spoke 


to the safety concerns, there's just a few 


items that we probably should discuss at some 


point when -- after the report is delivered to 


NIOSH, or at least that portion. There are 


some issues that we don't agree on. 


 MS. JESSEN: Can I --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Not very many, but a 


few. 


 MS. JESSEN: Can I ask, is this the first set 


of safety concerns or the second set of safety 


concerns? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I have rolled them all 


together. 


 MS. JESSEN: Oh. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, if you -- if you recall -- I 


can't even remember how we became aware of 


these safety concerns. Kathy may have -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah, that's --


 DR. ULSH: -- (unintelligible), I don't -- but 


there's a database of about 5,000 safety 


concerns. And for those listening in who may 


not know, this was a formal reporting mechanism 


where workers could raise particular issues 

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that they were concerned about and, if necess-- 


if it couldn't be resolved with the line 


management, then they went to a joint 


company/union safety committee -- JCUSC -- and 


so there were about 5,000 of those throughout ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Started in the '70s. Right? 


Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- '70s I think and went up to the 


2000s, I think. And I first took a pass 


through those and identified -- I don't even 


know how many, a number, a set -- 


 MS. JESSEN: I think there were 33 or something 


the first --


 MR. GRIFFON: Thirty-five, 33, yeah, something 


like that. 


 DR. ULSH: -- 30-something safety concerns 


that, just from the title and the brief 


description, looked to be of interest, perhaps, 


from a data integrity standpoint. SC&A then 


proposed a second set of about 17 or so, and so 


that brings our total to about 50 I guess that 


we've looked at. We provided the -- our 


evaluation of the first set, and we discussed 


that at the last working group meeting, and I 

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think there were one or two perhaps that we 


weren't in complete agreement on from the first 


set. 


The second set of 17 we provided -- I don't 


know, a couple of weeks ago maybe, and so that 


brings our total to about 50, but SC&A is still 


reviewing that second set I think. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, I think Kathy's gone 


through them. You want to add anything to 


that, Kathy? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, I -- that pretty 


much -- we're going to have to go through some 


of these because we disagree with the NIOSH 


evaluation and we'll have to work together 


through them. There's not too many out of the 


50. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And we still owe you a 


report on all 50. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, I was saying earlier I 


think we've gone through them, but we haven't 


actually written up a response that would be 


the response on this. 


 DR. ULSH: Will that be separate from the 

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larger report, or will that be -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, this -- this is a 


question I think we're not quite settled on the 


timing because if the timing for submitting the 


evaluation is fairly tight, then I guess it 


would be part of that report. And with Y-12, 


which is the only precedent we can look to, it 


was an internal report so we're not quite sure 


how that's going to play out, and that's really 


up to the workgroup and the Board as to some of 


this timing 'cause certainly that's -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think our target realistically 


is the February Denver meeting, you know, but 


it -- but we want to walk --


 MR. FITZGERALD: If that's the case, then -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- back from that. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, and if that's the case, 


then --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- I think we would have a 


report on safety concerns and the data 


integrity examples ahead of time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So that was the only thing we 


weren't sure about, but we certainly have 

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completed the review, we're just writing it all 


down. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Now with respect to the 


73 pages of examples, you can kind of break 


them into categories. Obviously we have many 


that we concur with. We have some that I 


didn't feel like the -- the concern that was 


being conveyed was answered, and so when we 


give you the evaluation report I'll put some 


questions in there. Then we have others that I 


felt needed clarification from the person 


originating the affidavit. In other words, I 


wasn't clear what they were getting at. 


 MS. JESSEN: Are you referring to, Kathy, just 


the affidavits, or are you also referring to -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That 73-page document -- 

 MS. JESSEN: Okay --

 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- (unintelligible). 

 MS. JESSEN: -- because in there there were 


concerns mentioned at the meeting in April. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right. 


 MS. JESSEN: Okay, so you're --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Those are included. 


 MS. JESSEN: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But you know --

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354

 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: So that's --


 MR. GRIFFON: Sim-- similar stuff. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- kind of where we 


stand on that. There are some concerns that 


were brought up that are just not relevant at 


all to this process, like the exposure to 


chemicals. And the individual making that 


comment needs to be redirected in another 


direction if they're truly concerned about 


that. In general I believe we concur on the 


lead apron issue, and there are a couple of 


other general issues that are mentioned 


repeatedly throughout that we have concurrence 


on. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So given the time frame, I 


think we can certainly disposition this in 


advance of any Board action, but certainly be 


able to lay it out, and I think we do owe the 


Board sort of a bottom line. I mean I think 


there's specific issues, but in terms of a -- a 


overall conclusion (unintelligible). 


 MS. MUNN: I would hope we would have that 


early enough so that if there were any last­
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minute threads that needed to be tucked in we'd 


certainly be able to do that well in advance of 


the February meeting -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: -- (unintelligible). I really don't 


want to --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think you're -- you're -- 


 MS. MUNN: -- find us --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: -- in a last-minute situation in 


February, for crying out loud. I --


 MR. GRIFFON: With big disagreements, right, 


right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- (unintelligible). 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I think you're -- you're 


hearing full agreement. In fact, given the 


(unintelligible) of NIOSH's review and the fact 


that we've gotten it now for a few weeks, I 


think we're in a good position, having looked 


at that, reviewed it and now simply writing it 


up, I think it's, you know, going to be doable 


probably in the next several weeks to actually 


give a, you know, a product back and be able to 


disposition it well before the meeting. 


 MS. MUNN: If we're -- if we're not going 

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(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: Hopefully the next couple of 


weeks, yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I would hope, yeah, yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: If we're not going away from here 


with another heavy list of additional to-dos. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I don't -- I don't think so. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I think this is on SC&A's 


side at this point, no further action on 


NIOSH's side. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I -- I think it's really an 


issue, you know, for a number of specific items 


-- sort of glass half-full/glass half-empty. 


It's subjective judgment. There's not any 


corroborating evidence, per se, but what we're 


saying is that you can view it two different 


ways. Now I don't know if that changes -- I 


don't think it changes the bottom line 


conclusion, but I think it's something we want 


to offer back, you know, for the record. So I 


think that -- that process can happen in the 


next few weeks and -- and the Board will still 


be in a good position by the end of this 


calendar year, let alone in February, to -- to 

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have that settled and be able to move forward 


on it. 


 MS. MUNN: So we'll -- we'll be in good shape 


as far as our contractor's concerned. Are we 


going to be in good shape as far as the 


agency's concerned? 


 DR. ULSH: We'll just have to wait and see. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That -- that's why I say, you 


know, you get a draft report now, hopefully 


within the next two weeks, I think we can -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, My -- my judgment cert-- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- try to commit to getting them 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But my judgment at this point 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- something so there's time, 


yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- if we had something that 


was that significant, we would be raising it at 


the table today. Okay? I think there -- like 


some of these other issues -- with the logbooks 


there are specific issues within the report 


that we have questions on or concerns about the 


interpretation, but I don't think we're -- 


we're raising any showstoppers today, based on 

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what we've seen so far. So -- and we've seen I 


think everything that you've provided, so... 


 DR. WADE: Good. 


MATRIX


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Then -- then I'm just 


coming to the matrix. The other thing that it 


strikes me that -- it's like groundhog day. 


The other thing that I'm afraid is going to 


come up is the coworker -- the coworker -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: OTIB-38? 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, OTIB-38 and 58 to maybe 


a lesser extent. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. That's the question I was 


going to --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I know, and we -- we talked 


about this this morning, if we're going to -- 


 MS. MUNN: And what about TIB-38? 


 DR. ULSH: Just to perhaps bring you up to 


speed with where we are with that, Joyce sent 


over -- well, SC&A sent over everything Joyce 


authored, some concerns about OTIB-38. Dave 


Allen responded to some of those concerns, but 


some of them Dave felt like were -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Application (unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: -- application issues -- 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Downstream issues, right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- and I don't know, before this 


meeting I was thinking that that might be an 


appropriate topic for one of these issue-


specific conference calls, but it -- it's taken 


on more significance during the day and I don't 


know if that's appropriate or not. I leave 


that to the working group to decide. I -- it 


seems like it's a pretty important issue. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, yeah, I mean it's -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I mean I also -- I also 


would think that -- that there could be some 


discussions and the people on -- on a technical 


call, if we can call those technical calls -- 


in between the meetings. Anyone at any time 


can say, you know, listen, we're getting into 


some territory where I think the full workgroup 


should be involved and play it out like that. 


I would think --


 MR. FITZGERALD: And there's some overlap -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- because one of the three 


issues that actually she and Dave have come to 


agreement --


 MR. GRIFFON: Because that's what I mean, I 

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don't want to slow progress if we can get Dave 


and Joyce on the phone and -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- maybe Jim and Brant, yourself, 


and work out some of the technical details, 


that might save going through all that at the 


workgroup level. On the other hand -- on the 


other hand, we want a -- you know, fairly -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, it's -- it's -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- full -- full report back to 


the workgroup. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- unclear to us because 


before when it was looking like it was specific 


to OTIB-38 --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- then between Joyce and 


Dave, but I think both agree that it's really 


downstream now and it gets into the application 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- it sounds like a larger 


group of people and some questions that we've 


already touched on today. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So it is kind of intertwined 

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in the overall larger issue now. So I don't --


I don't know how to proceed and who should be 


involved, but that's something I think we need 


to --


 DR. ULSH: Well, if the working group's 


comfortable with -- Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: Well, and -- and have we -- did I 


miss the answer to the question, are we going 


to extend OTIB-38 --


 DR. ULSH: I don't know if we necessarily -- 

 MS. MUNN: -- into the --

 DR. ULSH: -- answered it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: No. 


 MS. MUNN: Did we ever answer that or was the 


question --


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't think we did. 


 MS. MUNN: -- just posed and left hanging in 


the air? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That's not --


 MS. MUNN: I didn't hear the answer. It's in 


the air. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It didn't get answered. I mean 


it -- the way we handled D and D at the mean-- 


I guess I was looking for sort of an interim 


measure that would give us confidence that you 

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could at least bound the D and D workers, and 


that was by asking for the termination bioassay 


information. So -- 'cause I think, you know, 


again, trying to -- to save some time -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well, how does --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, instead of asking 


for ever-- for -- for -- okay, you've got the D 


and D period, I think your bio-- OTIB-38 ends 


in '88 or '89, whatever -- 


 DR. ULSH: Right around there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so you know, I don't think we 


-- we want to say, you know, well, give us '90 


through 2005 or '06 or whatever and show us how 


this coworker model's going to be used for -- 


or -- or if it's going to be used. I don't ev­

- I haven't even heard a definitive -- that the 


D and D workers are going to require the use of 


coworker models. 


 MS. MUNN: I haven't either. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I have a proposal. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So I was -- I was saying -- go 


ahead. 


 DR. ULSH: How about if we -- if we take the 


interim measure that you've -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

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 DR. ULSH: -- that we've agreed to here, look 


at the -- the fecal -- early fecal data, we put 


that out in an e-mail to the working group and 


to SC&A, and at that time I think NIOSH at 


least will be in a better position to offer an 


opinion on whether or not we think OTIB-38 


should be --


 MR. GRIFFON: That was my feeling. That was --


 DR. ULSH: -- extended, and put that out there 


for comment by the working group and by SC&A -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But the early fecal -- I guess 


lung count was the termination -- 


DR. NETON: See, these termination bioassays 


are important, though, because -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- the issue was raised about 


people leaving site without leaving a bioassay, 


so --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- if we had a fair population of 


termination samples that we could rely on to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: And it's representative, then -- 


then we --

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DR. NETON: -- as representative, then we can 


say that we -- we've got some sense for what -- 


what the end game's going to be on that, so... 


 DR. ULSH: Does that sound --


 MR. GRIFFON: And we've got at least that 


safety net that we were saying -- we have a way 


to -- and it -- and --


 MR. RICH: But you're going to have to extend 


38 anyway, aren't you? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, yeah, but -- but Mark's 


saying that they're not necessarily requiring 


us to extend 38 to a definitive model if we can 


show that we have the data to do that. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: The data's sufficient. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, yeah. 


DR. NETON: I mean that's the point. 


 MR. RICH: You got a little time on 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ULSH: Okay, so we'll check back in with 


SC&A and the working group once we have that 


piece. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But then -- I mean I -- I don't 


want to throw --


 MS. MUNN: (Unintelligible) that kind of bottom 


line is what you have represented here, or do 

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we have to go chasing that (unintelligible) -- 


DR. NETON: Yeah, we need to figure out -- 


 MS. MUNN: -- missing 40? 


DR. NETON: -- what we have --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- with the terminations. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and -- and not -- not to 


throw a fly in the ointment, but just some -- 


some thought on -- 'cause we are cycling back 


to the coworker model. I mean if in fact 


there's -- there's a broader use of these 


coworker models, which apparently it's not too 


-- I'm not saying it ever was, but you know, as 


you've found cases where you need it, you've -- 


you've finalized your -- your coworker models 


and you're starting to use them now, and that's 


fine. But our answer's along the lines of sort 


of validating those models all along. We've 


gone down this path of well, yeah, we found -- 


we found problems with HIS-20, we admit these. 


We found problems with CEDR -- or -- or we 


found differences between CEDR and HIS-20, we 


admit these. What -- you know, I'm not sure -- 


and maybe people disagree with me, but I'm not 


sure that I'm -- that gives me a lot of 

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confidence that CEDR and HIS-20 give me the 


same intake result when both have been shown to 


be kind of -- you know, like -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- what's going on with these 


databases, you know, so -- 


 DR. ULSH: -- I do need to clarif--


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so the -- you know, that goes 


back to the question of is it a valid cowor-- 


you know, is the data you're using for the 


coworker model valid. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I do need to clarify a little 


bit there, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: We said in the evaluation report 


that if you're looking for lung count model -- 


I mean if you're looking for lung data, I think 


-- I think we said this in the evaluation 


report -- to look at the rad file. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: We also said that there was an issue 


about some people who were not included in HIS20. We then found, through later -- you know, 


comparisons with CEDR and what-not and you were 


concerned about the greater number of records 

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in CEDR, so we did find a difference in terms 


of the number of records in HIS-20 compared to 


CEDR, but that's entirely consistent with what 


we know about the limitations of HIS-20. 


Now if you look at the intake values that you 


would calculate from either one, we presented 


an analysis that shows that the two are in 


agreement, essentially, HIS-20 and CEDR. 


DR. NETON: Well, really what it comes down to 


is the 95th percentile and the 50th percentile. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It drives it, yeah. 


DR. NETON: That drives it. I mean there's no 


-- the distribution is irrele-- I mean not 


irrelevant, but what meth-- 


 DR. ULSH: So --


DR. NETON: -- you're going to use one of two 


points out of that distribution. If those two 


points are within, you know, of saying very 


close --


 DR. ULSH: And I think our analysis showed that 


it was. 


DR. NETON: -- so then you're not going to get 


a different number, then bottom line then is -- 


it appears that maybe HIS-20 was not 


preferentially censored one direction or the 

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other -- you know what I'm saying? So we have 


to show that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I know. 


 DR. ULSH: We presented an analysis that showed 


that. Now I don't know, maybe you want to come 


back and say that's not sufficient, but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we -- we've always -- I 


don't disagree with what you're saying, Brant. 


It's just that each time these conclusions have 


been couched with the -- but we don't even use 


these models. So you know, let's not get 


overly concerned or dig into this too much 


because it's not even being used, it's two out 


of 1,100. So -- so we -- you know, I don't 


know -- I'm not saying there's any there there, 


but I'm saying when I see, you know, two vast-- 


you know, we're not -- we're not talking slight 


differences in CEDR. We're talking -- when you 


-- CEDR versus HIS-20, when the number of 


individuals included are all over the place, 


you know, and -- and -- and I think in '72 it 


switches, but there's a vast more number in one 


than the other all of a sudden, and I don't 


have that chart yet. You have that chart -- so 


-- in my -- I'm not -- I don't think I'm 

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exaggerating when I say that there's big 


differences in numbers in these databases, and 


maybe the driver is -- you know, I think the 


higher numbers obviously drive this thing, but 


I think we might want to do -- I'm just saying 


that we might need to revisit that a little bit 


because now it seems like -- 


DR. NETON: I don't disagree --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we're back to coworker models. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, it didn't -- it didn't get a 


thorough vetting, it sounds like, at least in 


your mind, and so -- you know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and I'm not even saying 


that's not -- maybe the reports are there by 


NIOSH already, you know, that we have to maybe 


look back at that analysis that they've done 


already and just -- but I -- I think it's on 


the table, maybe in a different light now 


because clearly it seems like it may be -- it 


already or may be used to a larger extent for 


more of the workers than I was ever -- ever 


under the impression, you know, that it's -- so 


-- Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: But they're close -- the agreement 


is close. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: But it -- look at the data, 


Wanda, they -- they --


 MS. MUNN: The agreement is close. It's 


claimant-friendly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The agreement is close. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you've looked at the data. 


 MS. MUNN: No, I have not --


 MR. GRIFFON: That's all I'm asking. Maybe the 


agreement's close. 


 MS. MUNN: I haven't looked -- I haven't looked 


at the data. I'm relying on the reports, that 


I haven't heard anybody challenge, that -- that 


they are; that -- that you come out with the 


same -- if you use their data, you come out 


with the same -- very close to the same 


answers. And if that's true and if it is -- if 


-- if all of our processes are claimant-


friendly, which they are, then even if we come 


around to the fact that we are going to use 


them, then why is it not okay? I guess I'm -- 


I don't understand why it's not okay. I'm --


am I missing something? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I have a little bit of problem 


responding to reports that I -- you know, you ­
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- you remember the history. You've been here 


with me. 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, yeah. I think I was here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I -- I think we -- we've 


always -- you know, we get these reports -- I 


mean let's look at the -- the analysis of the 


individual radiation files versus the database. 


I mean there was a large -- the Craig Little 


report -- high degree of confidence expressed 


that reviewing individual radiation files we 


got a great match with HIS-20, so his -- you 


know, HIS-20 looks good. I think we've come a 


distance from there 'cause now I'm seeing a -- 


a large step back from HIS-20 as far as any 


confidence in that data -- I mean large holes 


in it. I'm wrong? 


 DR. ULSH: It might be a matter of semantics. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Let me --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- state what -- what we know about 


HIS-20, and we've talked about this today. We 


know that there are some people who are not in 


HIS-20, and we've talked about who those people 


are, if they terminated prior to '72. Some of 

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them were later added back in. That is true, 


and that was in our ER. 


 We've also talked about the in vivo results, 


the lung counts. You need to go to the rad 


file for that. We know that. If that, to you, 


constitutes large holes and problems, that's 


what we have, but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Can you -- I don't -- I -- I 


can't find my electronic version, the report 


you just had out with the table of CEDR/HIS-20? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: In the last paragraph or the next 


to last paragraph it says something to the 


effect that if we were relying on coworker 


models, this could be a problem. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. You want me to just read it 


to you? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. (Reading) This known and 


acknowledged limitation of the HIS-20 database 


is consistent with the great-- now we're 


talking about the people who are not in HIS-20 


-- is consistent with the greater number of 


records and monitored individuals observed in 


the CEDR database throughout the '50s, '60s and 

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into the '70s. As our previous analysis 


demonstrated, this issue did not substantively 


affect the values of coworker distribution 


parameters. The generation of coworker 


distributions is the primary use made of the 


HIS-20 and CEDR databases. This absence of 


workers who terminated prior to '77 -- not '72 


-- from HIS-20 would not be expected to bias 


the parameter values, and indeed the comparison 


of HIS-20 to CEDR showed no evidence of a bias. 


The absence of these workers' data could 


present a problem for dose reconstruction of 


the affected individuals if dose reconstruction 


relied on the data in HIS-20 -- if the dose 


reconstruction relied on the data in HIS-20. 


However, this is not the case. The primary 


source of an individual's dosimetry data is the 


individual -- individual's radiation records 


file. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So -- but the data -- but 


the dose reconstruction now does rely in the 


data in HIS-20 if you're using coworker models. 


 DR. ULSH: If we're using coworker models, 


yeah, that's --


 MR. GRIFFON: That's all -- that's all I'm 

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saying is that that -- that seems like -- and 


maybe it's not stronger to you, but it seemed a 


little stronger to me that, you know -- again, 


we're -- the point there was -- to me, anyway, 


the way I interpreted that was, you know, it 


may be a problem if we're relying on HIS-20, 


but again -- Mark, you know, knock you over the 


head -- we're -- we're -- got the individual 


rad files we're going to use and we're relying 


on those, so --


 DR. ULSH: It certainly wasn't my intent to say 


Mark, knock you over the head. I apologize if 


you (unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: That was subliminal, I was 


putting the subliminal reaction in there. 


 DR. ULSH: I would never say that, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's getting late. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, it's getting late. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But anyway, that -- that -- I 


mean I -- the bottom line I think is that we 


might want to revisit those analyses of the 


coworker models, especially if this is going to 


re--


DR. NETON: Well, I think you have to look at 


it --

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- return to that end, yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- in light of what the analysis 


that SC&A's going to do with the missing -- 


missing or gaps in the data and what that 


really means. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: I mean we're going to try to look 


at cases where there would have been high 


exposures, significant exposures among 


production workers and -- and if it shows that 


there are gaps in those areas, then I would 


totally agree with this. But if it comes out 


to be --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- administrative workers in 


general and we can deal with those, then I 


don't think it becomes a challenge. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, okay. I agree -- I agree 


with that yeah. 


 DR. WADE: We have a path for that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So I've just closed the 


matrix so I'm not going to walk through -- but 


what I will do is update -- based on today's 


discussion I'll turn this matrix around a 


little quicker 'cause I don't want -- I think 

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we did have -- I -- I should have been a little 


more judicious about updating the matrix so we 


didn't have any confusion on what actions were 


going on in between meetings. 


 MR. CHEW: Mark, I -- I would like to have a 


clarifying point with Joe. Joe, I'm thinking 


about -- just one thing I want to make sure 


we're -- we're -- discussion. Let's go back to 


those 110 people we mentioned in the AI report 


-- okay? -- for -- that was lung counted. Or 


you -- are you -- is your expectation that we 


will have -- able to find results of those lung 


counts for those 110? Is that what I'm 


hearing? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I think your answer is 


already evident that no, you haven't been able 


to find those 110. 


 MR. CHEW: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: What we're saying is that 


well, given the original -- the origin of that 


particular issue, we will simply be able to use 


the access to the claimant files and cross-walk 


 MR. CHEW: Okay. 


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identified people. That's going to be -- 


that's going to be part and parcel to the 


overall thing we're doing with the validation. 


We're not going to make it a separate -- keep 


it as a separate stream of inquiry. 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, I think the report that you're 


going to -- you just received said Dr. Baseline 


-- Bistline was involved with that -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. CHEW: -- and he recalled that there were 


15-minute screening counts at that particular 


time. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think the difficulty 


is that, because it's based on interviews and 


everything, as you're finding out, it's just -- 


to come up with those 110, as we thought we 


might be able to do, it just isn't going to be 


feasible, so --


 MR. CHEW: Okay, that's good. I was going to 


make sure that was --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. CHEW: Very good. We're not going to chase 


something again. 


 DR. WADE: No, claim--


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thing, Lew. I just want to go over -- I told 


Larry that I would do this with regard to the 


first item, as far as actions on that. I think 


we agree that SC&A is going to draft a -- a 


sampling plan or strategy, and then work 


iteratively with NIOSH on -- on the path 


forward there. He's -- he asked that I stress 


this point, that any product -- we said it 


earlier, but any -- any product that SC&A has, 


before it's released publicly, will go through 


Emily for a review on Privacy Act concerns 


before --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Is that presumably before it 


goes to the workgroup? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Before it's released publicly. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I was wondering what that 


threshold is. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I wish Larry were still 


here for a --


DR. NETON: I think it's before the workgroup. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Before the workgroup would 


actually get a product. 


 DR. WADE: Because our workgroup products we've 


made public, so --


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so... 


MS. MINKS: This is -- this is -- this is Erin 


Minks again from Senator Salazar's office, just 


in line with what Mark's reiterating from this 


morning, we just want to be sure that -- that ­

- obviously there's this additional layer added 


with the Privacy Act concerns, which I'm -- 


we're surprised it's coming up now and not 


months ago when there was efforts previously, 


but regardless of that, we just want to -- the 


Senator's concerned that -- that there -- that 


this is -- not be a perception of obstruction 


of access to this information again, and so 


we're just reiterating that again. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the other thing I -- I just 


-- along those lines -- thanks for those 


comments. Along those lines, I did talk to 


Larry during the break and he -- he told me 


that we can, for this process, open up access 


to the -- all Rocky Flats claims, not just 


adjudicated claims, with the clear 


understanding from this workgroup that the task 


at hand is completeness of the DOE records, not 


to go beyond that. And -- and all -- all he 

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would ask is that if -- and I talked to John 


about this before he left. If John can just 


let -- let us know, let NIOSH know who needs 


access from the SC&A team, he'll make that 


happen. 


He also said that as far as the Advisory Board 


goes, they're going to reinstate access across 


the board so we don't have to request 


individuals, so to that extent I think we -- 


we've moved forward on that and -- 


 DR. WADE: And the only issue --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- that Mark is talking about now is 


the -- we're now into an area outside of -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- outside of the Task IV reviews, 


that we are starting to produce reports that 


contain information that's private -- Privacy 


Act sensitive, and we just need to be sure 


that's looked at by counsel before it's 


released. That's all we're doing here, nothing 


more. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I -- I think we're in 


agreement with that, so -- okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, can I raise a question 

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about that? One -- one idea that might kind of 


simplify the process might be for us to produce 


reports -- I mean obviously it would still have 


to be reviewed in some way that -- that really 


have almost no identifying information, but can 


-- but the underlying -- underlying report -- I 


guess everything -- since everything at the 


workgroup has to be public -- 


 DR. WADE: But I --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'll withdraw (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: I would have had discussions with 


John today, with counsel, sort of describing 


the ground rules for him. I'll do that by 


phone tomorrow. This is not a -- this will not 


be a major issue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that's it if -- anything 


else -- Joe, anything else from your side or -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, no. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- pressing? I mean it is 5:30, 


so --


 DR. WADE: Give me five minutes. I mean we are 


-- we are looking at --


 MR. GRIFFON: Hold on a second. 


 DR. WADE: -- a February Board vote on the 


Rocky Flats SEC petition. At least that's the 

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stated goal, so we need to keep in mind that 


the space between that date and now is 


narrowing. We have a Board meeting in 


February. We have a Board call in January. 


You need to think about these work products and 


getting them to the workgroup so there's time 


to process. If there -- if there's 


intermediate Board action required, we still 


have opportunities, but we need -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Clearly the --


 DR. WADE: -- to start using those 


opportunities. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Clearly the biggest time-


consuming work item is the completeness issue, 


so the sooner we can start that -- plan it all 


and process and get that -- that move-- 


movement on that front, I think the better. 


 DR. WADE: And if we need guidance from the 


Board, we've got them in February and we've got 


them the middle of January. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And we'll -- I -- I might even 


try to -- to step back and through e-mail maybe 


we can work on this is to set some time goals 


for products so that we -- I mean certainly 


NIOSH needs time to respond and the-- you know, 

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and then I think SC&A wants to give us a final 


review of the evaluation report, which is still 


out there, obviously. And I think you --


you've been drafting as -- as we've gone alone, 


Joe, I think --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, so it's not -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It's pretty far along, but 


I've --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but again, we don't want to 


receive that --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, days before the -- 


you know. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I think we agree. I think 


we want to --


 MR. GRIFFON: So we want to try to step back 


and set some time lines -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We need to back-engineer the 


schedule so there's plenty of time for 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: Would it not be wise --


 MR. GRIFFON: And we really want to vote in 


February, you know, on this -- yeah. 

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 MS. MUNN: Now -- yeah. Would it not be wise 


for this working group to meet in January to 


make sure that we are in fact ready to do that 


in February? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah --


 DR. WADE: I can't imagine --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I just don't know --


 MS. MUNN: Right? I think that would be very 


wise. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I didn't know if we were ready to 


-- to -- I agree, Wanda. I just don't know if 


we're ready to set a date or wait to see how 


work products are evolving. What's the 


pleasure of folks -- you want to set a 


tentative date so we have a calendar date? 


 MS. MUNN: I would certainly like to do that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- it would help me a great deal. 


And since Joe has told me that -- that one of 


our biggies is going to be wrapped up before 


the end of the year, then we have -- I -- I 


hope that we're not pushing ourselves too much 


to say that if -- if we're going to meet in 


Denver in the first week of February, then 


wouldn't it be wise for us to plan something 

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like the second week in January for this group 


to meet to make sure that we had at least two 


weeks? 


 MR. GRIFFON: We have a Board call scheduled on 


the 11th. Right? 


 DR. WADE: The 11th is a Board call. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So we could do it shortly before 


that. I think it would make sense. 


 DR. WADE: Just in case you had something you 


needed --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- the Board's guidance on. 


 MS. MUNN: I would think that would be wise. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The 8th or 9th? The 8th or 9th ­

- 9th would be better for me, Tuesday the 9th. 


 MS. MUNN: Tuesday the 9th would work for me. 


Tuesday the 9th at (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. WADE: Mike, are you still on the line? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is that a hol-- there's no 


holidays there in January -- 


 MS. MUNN: No, no, New Year's Day and Martin 


Luther King is the next -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, Martin Luther King, I knew 


it was around there. 


 DR. WADE: It's the 15th. Okay, so the 9th of 

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January --


 MR. GRIFFON: Back here in Cincinnati, I would 


assume. 


 DR. WADE: -- Cincinnati, this very table or 


one like it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I -- I think -- I think 10:00 


a.m. still works. I know that John and 


sometimes I travel in the morning, so hopefully 


item one won't take as long at the next 


meeting. 


 MS. MUNN: Maybe not. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, right, right. But 


-- okay, 9th it is. 


 DR. WADE: 10:00 a.m. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Any other closing items, Lew? 


 DR. WADE: No, just to thank everyone for their 


efforts certainly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. I think we're 


adjourned. Thanks. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting concluded at 5:30 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

387 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of November 6, 


2006; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


2nd day of January, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102