October 17, 2011 

SEC Petition 

Division of Compensation Analysis and Support 

NIOSH 

4676 Columbia Parkway 

MS-C-47 

Cincinatti, OH 45226 

Attention: 

Dear 

 would like to take this means of submitting a petition for 

Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) status for the Nuclear Metals, Inc. (NMI) facility in West 

Concord, MA, for the time period between 1970 and 1983. 

We have enclosed the required completed forms along with extensive attachments to 

support this petition. We have also included many of the supporting documents as pdf 

format files on CDRoM. We have selected the class of employees as ALL to be covered 

by this petition. The basis for this class is that there were no restrictions on employee 

access to all or most areas of processing activity in this time period. It would be therefore 

difficult to exclude certain employees from the potential exposure to endangerments 

described in this petition. 

The basic justifications for this petition is the lack of airborne exposure data collection 

and monitoring, the failure to recognize the hazards of Radon gas exposure or to monitor 

employee work environments to Radon gas exposures, DoE disclosure in 1999 that they 

recycled spent enriched fuel rods in the depleted uranium process stream and unknown at 

the time NMI processed DU, the loss of internal exposure data for most employees 

during this period, repeated AEC or NRC violations of monitoring and safety standards, a 

NMI production bonus incentive system that encouraged H&S practice shortcuts, and 

evidence of reported ongoing employee over exposures that demonstrate continuous 

failures of the Health & Safety program at NMI. All of these factors contribute to the 

likelihood that NIOSH would be unable to accurately assess employee exposures and 

accurately perform dose reconstructions. 

Supporting documentation for this petition includes the following. 

1.	 Affidavits supporting the lack of monitoring for numerous discrete 

occurrences that created chronic high levels of airborne radioactive 

contamination. 

2.	 Affidavit disclosure that Health Physics and safety personnel oversight of 

work areas was poor and that inadequate monitoring was standard procedure 

during the period between 1970 - 1983. 

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3.	 Affidavits that support the position that contamination control was very 

limited in this time period and resulted in the off site spread of this 

contamination, including to employee homes. 

4.	 Supporting AEC reports detailing the release of radiation from the plant that 

resulted in contamination of employee’s homes. 

5.	 Affidavits supporting the position that Radon gas exposures were not 

monitored and exposure mitigation procedures were not considered during 

this petition period. 

6.	 Reports that demonstrate DoE disclosure that recycled spent fuel rods entered 

the DoE's process stream for DU between 1956 and 1976 and that this 

elevated the nuclide content of DU that can decay into radon. The true 

content of radionuclides in the DU was unknown to workers and management 

during the time period of this petition. 

7.	 Supporting NRC and AEC documents that show that NMI corrective action to 

inadequate health & safety practices yielded ongoing employee overexposures 

well into the 1990s. This demonstrates a persistent inability to prevent such 

exposures of monitored employees and implies such over exposures were 

most likely more frequent than reported for the numerous unmonitored 

discrete occurrences we document for earlier years. Subsequent internal 

exposure data in later years would fail to indicate internal exposures of rapidly 

excreted high solubility compounds of uranium. The petitioners are unaware 

of the specific consequences for the lack of Radon monitoring during the 

petition period. 

8.	 Affidavits that include photographs, CD movie clip, government contract 

numbers and published final report reference numbers that support the 

conduct of specific developmental and standard production processes that 

were not monitored for airborne exposures and very likely produced high 

exposures to airborne uranium compounds. 

9.	 Several ex NMI employee affidavits demonstrating that eating, smoking and 

drinking was permitted in most high risk processing areas, including the 

foundry and chemistry labs, during the period covered by this petition. 

10. Supporting AEC, NRC and NMI correspondence that reviews various site 

inspection violations and the failure to take timely corrective actions. 

11. South Carolina Administrative Law Proceedings in 2002 against Starment (the 

company that NMI was renamed in the 1990s) that demonstrates NMI 

management ran a "sham recycling company" between NMI and its' 

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subsidiary, Carolina Metals, Inc., in order to avoid waste disposal costs. This 

resulted in the unlawful shipment of wastes at the time of their bankruptcy. 

This merely demonstrates the character of the management of NMI that 

contributed to the unmonitored exposures described in this petition. 

12. A report that details the burial of 3,800 drums of radioactive waste at NMI, 

West Concord. This waste was transported from the Cambridge, MA Hood 

Building in their move to West Concord in 1958. The NMI management team 

in the 1970s were prior employees at the Cambridge Hood Building. 

13. An independent review and report of the isotopic content of the Holding Basin 

at NMI that reveals that 800 pounds of U235 were contained in this basin. This 

report further discloses contaminated drinking well exposures to workers 

along with contaminated grounds that included the employee parking lot and 

outside eating areas. 

14. An NRC web site document search indicating other archival documents that 

may be available on microfiche and may support this petition. 

15. Independently derived claim statistics that show that only one NMI West 

Concord claimant has received an award under the EEOICPA program and 

implying that available data for dose reconstructions are incapable of yielding 

causality results that merit award. As such, it makes the unlikely statement 

that there were very few circumstances at NMI where an employee received a 

sufficient radiation dose to cause their cancer. 

16. A list of prior NMI employees and their contact information that have 

consented to add their names in support of this petition and who may be 

available for future outreach interviews. 

17. A review of a limited sample of dose reconstruction reports of prior claims 

that indicate a lack of dose exposure data, particularly internal dosimetry but 

not excluding a lack of external dosimetry, and demonstrates that this 

exposure data was unavailable for statistically accurate dose reconstruction. 

18. A limited list of contracts awarded to NMI by DoE agencies for ongoing 

contracted work at the West Concord plant. Additional AEC contracts, not 

specifically identified, were active for enriched CP-5 fuel element and 

Beryllium braze ring production in the early 1970s. 

19. Concord Fire department calls for emergency service during the petition 

period in response to uranium fires and explosions that were quite likely never 

reported to the NRC. Availability of this report has been delayed due to 

ongoing renovation at the Concord Fire Department. It will be provided as 

soon as it becomes available. 

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We believe that the scope of this documentation sufficiently supports this petition for 

SEC status consideration. Additional data that supports this petition should be available 

from sources not available to us at this time, but may be available to NIOSH. These 

documents are described in the affidavit submitted by and specific appendices 

that are attached. 

We firmly believe that there is a preponderance of evidence of unmonitored and lost dose 

data for very hazardous airborne radionuclide exposures to make it unlikely for NIOSH 

to produce accurate dose estimates for claimants during this period of time. 

It has been our intent to provide as much supporting documentation with this petition as 

possible in order to establish the credibility and plausibility for our claims. I appreciate 

the past guidance you have provided and we look forward to working with you to 

expedite consideration of our petition. 

Sincerely, 

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