Oak Ridge Reservation: Public Health Assessment Work Group

Public Health Assessment Work Group

November 5, 2001 - Meeting Minutes

Agenda

1. Review of minutes of October 15, 2001, meeting - Pardue (10 min.)
   
2. Screening for past exposures - Hanley (20 min.)
   Discussion of screening - PHAWG (40 min.)
   
3. Matrix on Mangano report (attached) - Lewis (15 min.)
   Letter to Mangano (attached) - Pardue (15 min.)
   
4. Letter regarding EPA sampling (attached) - Davidson (15 min.)
   
5. Other items

Attendees:

Kowetha Davidson
Bob Eklund
Karen Galloway
George Gartseff
Linda Gass
Jack Hanley, ATSDR
David Johnson
Susan Kaplan
Mike Knapp
Pete Malmquist
L.C. Manley
Bill Murray, ATSDR
Bill Pardue
Barbara Sonnenburg

The meeting was called to order by Bill Pardue, PHAWG Chair, at ~5:30 p.m., and introductions were made around the room.

1. Approval of October 15, 2001, PHAWG Meeting Minutes

Bill Pardue: We have minutes on the table. Do I have a motion for approval?

David Johnson: So moved.

L.C. Manley: Second.

Bill Pardue: Do we have any discussion or corrections?

Linda Gass: Yes, we have discussion and corrections - several. On page 19, about the middle of the page, there was a motion 50 minutes ago, then it says, “Karen, please read it back,” and then the next time, Bill Pardue (who is the Chair) says “If the motion passes (and I think I’m going to speak and vote in favor of it, quite frankly), then we’ve got to decide the mechanism of who is going to write that.”

Karen Galloway: After what does that go?

Linda Gass: It’s on the one line when Bill Pardue says, “But ATSDR’s going to do one anyway.” I don’t have the entire quotation.

Karen: It goes after that?

Linda Gass: I believe it goes before that. There was more, I don’t have every single word verbatim, but what I did read is verbatim.

Bill Pardue: Did you say that was exact, or is that what you recall? I have no problem with it. That’s what the tape said?

Linda Gass: I listened to it. The tape said it. It may say a couple more sentences, but that one part is verbatim.

Bill Pardue: OK.

Linda Gass: And then, there’s a break in the tape in trying to reword the motion. The record should reflect a break in the tape, going off record trying to re-word the motion. That is between Kowetha speaking and when I’m speaking.

Bill Pardue: So are you suggesting to say “break in the tape?”

Linda Gass: Yes, “Break in tape, attempt to re-word and write the motion.” There’s a few minutes of trying to re-word it and write it. Then there’s some more things that happen.

Karen Galloway: What page?

Linda Gass: Page 19, bottom of the page, after the point when Bill Pardue says he’s going to speak and vote in favor of the motion, and he said then we’ll have to decide the mechanism of who’s going to write that. Then there’s a break in the tape and attempt to re-word and write the motion. But when the tape starts up again, instead of wording and writing the motion, the rest of this goes on. Then Bob Craig brings some more discussion, and Kowetha has “in lieu of” and it goes on. In other words, there’s a point in between wording the motion and being ready to vote, we interrupt with more discussion.

Linda Gass: One more. This is a little significant to me because I try to use good grammar as often as I can. On page 13, it should say “. . . you have spoken . . .” instead of “you have spoke . . .” when I say “Mr. Grayson, thank you. You have spoken most eloquently . . .” And the other important thing to the meaning of it is this: on the third line of that same paragraph, it should say “The fact is that you’re . . .” (add the word “is”). That changes the meaning of what’s written. My last correction is this: at the very end, it says “Meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m.” But there was an official continuation on the speaker phone - Craig handling arrangements for the ATSDR and the Chamber of Commerce discussions. The meeting adjourned, and immediately in the same breath, it continued on the speaker phone.

Bill Pardue: Was the full Work Group involved? I don’t remember . . .

Jack Hanley: It was me asking Bob clarifications about the East Tennessee Economic . . .

Linda Gass: Actually, he asked to speak to you.

Jack Hanley: No, I asked to speak to him because I needed clarification on where the meeting was, how many people would attend, what facilities were available . . .

Linda Gass: It was a continuation on the speaker phone while we were all around the table, and I think it should be (documented) as an unofficial continuation on the speaker phone.

Susan Kaplan: But was it ORRHES business?

Bill Pardue: I think that was just a discussion between Jack and Bob. The meeting was adjourned and it was only Jack and whoever he was talking to.

Jack Hanley: Bob and I, about an East Tennessee Economic Council meeting.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Private phone call, huh? between you two.

Jack Hanley: I knew it would be hard to get in touch with him, so I just wanted to talk to him.

Bill Pardue: It had nothing to do with the Work Group. Do you want that on the Minutes?

Linda Gass: Yes, I think it should be in the Minutes. It was a Chamber of Commerce . . .

Jack Hanley: East Tennessee Economic Council meeting.

Bill Pardue: He was representing ATSDR; he was not representing this Work Group.

Bob Eklund: Well if we put that on the Minutes, we’d have to put anything anyone said after (the meeting) until they were out of the building on the Minutes. So if we’re going to do it, we need to vote on it.

Bill Pardue: Let’s do this: let’s vote on that last amendment that Linda has . . .

Linda Gass: OK, I’ll withdraw it then if it was after the meeting. But I do feel it was inappropriate to continue on with that private call which flowed directly from the meeting. That’s just my comment, but I withdraw my correction to the Minutes.

Bill Pardue: OK, if Linda withdraws that, are there any other changes to the Minutes?

Susan Kaplan: I just have a couple of quick ones. On page 11, under Michael Grayson right in the middle of the page there, he refers to a diagram. It might be helpful to put in parentheses which diagram he was pointing to. Just give the title of the diagram in there. I got a little confused. (The title is: Process Flow Sheet for the Oak Ridge Reservation Public Health Assessment, Draft, 8/24/01.) Then on page 13, Michael Grayson also, it says 6.8 H (instead of x)10^-4. Should (the H) be a times (sign)?? (That printed out correctly on almost everyone else’s copies, so it turned out to be just a glitch in the way Susan’s copy printed out.) Also, Linda Gass’s name was misspelled throughout.

Bill Pardue: Has someone just joined us on the phone?

Mike Knapp: Yeah, guys, this is Mike Knapp.

Bill Pardue: Okay Mike, we’re glad you’re here. We have a crew of about 10 folks around here and I think you’re the only one on the speaker phone. Would you like us to identify ourselves for you?

Mike Knapp: Yeah Bill, if you don’t mind. I’d appreciate it. (Everyone around the room identified themselves to Mike.)

Bill Pardue: That’s everybody, Mike - glad you’re here! We’re just in the process of reviewing the Minutes, which we’re all convinced there’s some awfully good effort on the part of Karen, but we have a few changes we’re discussing right now.

Jack Hanley: Mike (Knapp), do you have a fax where I can fax some stuff to you?

Mike Knapp: Not right now.

Jack Hanley: That’s okay.

Bill Pardue: Mike, do you want to hear what the changes and additions are? There are 3 or 4 of them.

Mike Knapp: I don’t want to take your time because I’m late. I’ll find out and I’ll get those later. I appreciate it. There was nothing that I saw that was substantial . . .

Bill Pardue: Okay, thank you.

Linda Gass: I have one more comment on page 12, it says “We need an acceptable summary of these 12 issues we have here.” I believe that’s referring to a handout, isn’t it? - something that was written that we were reading in the meeting?

Bill Pardue: Those were the 12 issues that we as a Group identified in the meeting about a month or 6 weeks ago. Someone (Bill Murray) had passed out a copy. Karen, will you attach those to the Meeting Minutes, please?

Linda Gass: I would suggest that in parentheses here, we put “handout attached to the Minutes.” And also, the correct wording says, “We need an acceptable summary of these 12 issues we have here.” That’s on the tape. Because I struggled with trying to figure out . . . When you read the minutes, you cannot figure out what you’re talking about. I played it several times on the tape.

Bill Pardue: Okay, any other changes or additions? Bill called for a vote on the October 15, 2001 PHAWG Meeting Minutes as amended. All in favor, none opposed.

2. Screening Processes Used to Determine Contaminants of Concern (Presentation by Jack Hanley)

Jack Hanley: I’m here to talk about basically the State of Tennessee screening process for past exposures (handout of viewgraphs attached). I’ve presented some of this material in the past, but we summarized it here in this diagram (draft flow diagram for the State of Tennessee Screening Process for Past Exposure, attached). I have some extra copies; if anybody needs another copy, it may be helpful. All of you received these in the past, so if you have them at home and you didn’t bring it, just leave this one here.

My first slide is going to talk about the overall screening process that ATSDR plans to use. But the primary purpose for tonight is to discuss the State screening and to help you understand it, and get your comments, concerns, or any outstanding issues you may have with the screening process the State of Tennessee used. Regarding this first slide, there are a couple of things I want to get across to you. ATSDR is going to be screening Past Exposures and Current Exposures (or what we call more recent exposures). For the Past Exposures, we’re going to use the data from 1944 to 1990; there’s the two studies by the State of Tennessee; the reviewers’ comments; and any contaminants that are identified by the State as needing further evaluation will undergo the ATSDR screening process. My colleague, Karl Markiewicz, will come and talk about the ATSDR screening process in the future. He had planned to be there (ORRHES meeting) on September 11. He was hoping to be there in December (the upcoming ORRHES meeting), but he can’t be there in December, so we may have to push that off. He’s going to come to the Work Group first; he’s going to demonstrate the screening process and go over some examples with you to help you understand how we do it. For Current Exposures, we’re going to use 1990 to 2001 data, and that’s primarily going to be using the Oak Ridge Environmental Information System Database (electronic data) so we’ll be able to screen these electronically, and he (Karl) is going to demonstrate all that for you.

Susan Kaplan: Is that a new database?

Jack Hanley: It’s been around - I don’t know the number of years, but they have data going back to the early 1990s.

We’re here primarily to discuss the past, and if you remember, back at the March and the June meeting, we kind of went through these two studies. We provided these little 4- to 5-page Briefs that summarize all the information . . .

Barbara Sonnenburg: If you have an extra one, I’d like the Summary, please.

Jack Hanley: Yes, I can get you a copy.

Tonight, we’ll focus on Past Exposures through 1990. First, there was the Dose Reconstruction Feasibility Study, and if you remember, there were 4 primary tasks in there (there were a number of others, but these 4 were the ones focusing on the screening). The first (Task 1) is the extensive review of the history, operations, and past releases. The second (Task 2) is an inventory of the vast amount of information that was used and collected over the years for the Feasibility Study. If you remember, I presented time lines for each of the different facilities. This is a summary of what’s in Tasks 1 and 2. And it just shows you time lines, the process, the environmental data for each type of media, and then the public health activities (studies) that looked at those types of things. I gave you these copies; if you need additional ones, we can get you some more. So for each facility, you can see there’s an extensive amount of data going way back (from 1944 to today). Task 3 was looking at the exposure pathways and trying to identify the most important exposure pathways. And Task 4 is where they evaluated all this data to try to identify the priority contaminants (which are the most important contaminants). So we take the Dose Reconstruction Tasks 3 and 4, it was a qualitative evaluation. If you look on your diagram there, your basic question is “Are sufficient quantities of contaminants associated with significant offsite releases?” So based on the information available, was there sufficient information? They looked at a number of contaminants and they identified the operations and contaminants WITHOUT (that’s key) the potential for releasing substantial quantities of contaminants to the offsite environment. If you look at the contaminants that were screened out, a number of them were in real small quantities where they would not have gotten offsite. That includes a number of the radionuclides (lithium, benzene, chloroform); these kinds of compounds were in very small quantities and would not have made it offsite in any significant amounts. If you look at one of them (freon), there were large quantities of it, but there was really no toxicity related to it. Large amounts of freon were released, but you can be exposed to large amounts of freon without any toxic effect. Then you have your acids and bases which would disassociate in the environment very rapidly and they would break down, so they wouldn’t be a hazard offsite. So if you look at the list of the ones that “fell out,” those are the ones and that’s some of the rationale and logic behind it.

Tasks 3 and 4 is where they looked at pathways, and they did a relative ranking where they compared them against each other (which ones would come out on top; which were the priority contaminants). The basic question here is, “Is a contaminant a high priority for further study based on the relative magnitude of the potential hazard?” As I said, the objective is to identify the contaminant with the highest priority. If you go across, you see the contaminants that were screened out. All these contaminants had less than 1% of the potential hazard as compared to the one that caused the greatest potential offsite impact. I know that’s a little confusing, so I broke it down here (page 4 of viewgraph handout). To give you an example of a relative ranking for the radionuclides, iodine was (caused) the greatest hazard. Iodine-133 had 60% of the potential health hazard of iodine-131, and cesium had 6% of the hazard caused by iodine-131. Iodine-131 and Iodine-133 were both evaluated in the Dose Reconstruction. Cesium-137 and strontium-90 were looked at in the task that looked at White Oak Creek releases, so the State went ahead and did a Dose Reconstruction on those. And in uranium, they did a Dose Reconstruction on that one. So all of these were looked at in further detail. Protactinium had 0.9% the hazard of iodine-131. So if iodine-131 was the most hazardous, this one was way lower. This one was not further evaluated.

Bill Pardue: Tell me how you got that relative ranking of hazards if you would, please. Did I miss something?

James Lewis: Define ‘hazard.’

Jack Hanley: They crunched the risk number, and based on the risk number, they identified for each one which one had highest risk.

Bill Pardue: Is that based on quantities available, pathways?

Jack Hanley: Pathways, yes. They looked at pathways, exposures, and this is all estimate and it’s very rough. It’s a rough screening. But based on those risks that they came up with, then they compared them to each other. Within the radionuclides, they compared those. Within the carcinogenic materials, they compared those amongst each other. Within the non-cancer, they compared those against each other. So there are three different comparisons. For carcinogens, PCBs came out on top. And all the other carcinogens were much lower. And then for non-cancer effects, mercury came out on top; and all those other (in that category) came out much lower. So they were looking for the ones that would float to the top - which ones were at the top. And that same thing for the others, those at the top were the highest hazard, and that’s how they did the risk.

L.C. Manley: Jack, did they consider Nuclear Testing Site (NTS) data along with this, or just from the local plants?

Jack Hanley: No, Just from the plants.

Jack Hanley: Here you go, Bill (Pardue), you have your screening hazard values (a risk number) and iodine, then this iodine-133 - it’s a ratio here that just shows 60% low. That’s how you get it all the way down (to explain his earlier question).

Bill Pardue: I guess what I was really asking is how you got the Screening Hazard Value.

Jack Hanley: For the Screening Hazard Value, they took the estimated model and came out with some ballpark numbers.

Bill Pardue: They’re comparatively SMALL numbers there (e.g., 6 x 10^-9, etc.).

Jack Hanley: One thing they did identify and they knew going into the ORHASP Panel was that this could be off by an order of magnitude - that was recognized. So, protactinium-233 is the contaminant with the highest potential risk that was NOT evaluated. And even if the number (0.9%) was off by an order of magnitude, even if it was 9%, it still would be a lot lower than that iodine-131 risk. That’s a point I want to get across. Some people say, “Yeah, but it could have been off by an order of magnitude.” Yes, and everybody that worked on this project knew that and understood that. And even if you took the one that wasn’t studies with the highest risk and moved it over by an order of magnitude, it still wouldn’t be nearly as much as the iodine.

Bill Pardue: Except for the iodine-133.

Jack Hanley: The iodine-133. But they went ahead a did a full Dose Reconstruction on cesium and strontium and uranium. So they ended up . . . this was in the Braden . . . this is a summary of what they found. For iodine and cesium, they went forward with a Dose Reconstruction - also for mercury and PCBs. Originally (this was the findings of the report), they were not going to do anything on uranium; however, because the researchers came forward and the people in the community came forward and said “uranium was such a prevalent product, and we think they might have underestimated some of the releases, we think you should do a Dose Reconstruction,” so the State went ahead and they went ahead and moved forward on a Dose Reconstruction for uranium even though its potential risk was low.

L.C. Manley: Jack, I haven’t heard any talk about depleted uranium. What health effect does depleted uranium have on the general public?

Jack Hanley: When they looked at uranium in this screening, they looked at uranium-234, -235, and -238. With regards to depleted uranium, I think they discussed some of that in the Dose Reconstruction and we can get into that, because they actually moved forward on the Dose Reconstruction for that contaminant and we will cover that. That’s my next slide.

Barbara Sonnenburg: I’m looking at this little orange box in the middle (of the draft flow diagram for the State of Tennessee Screening Process for Past Exposures). Is that the same as your second slide (page 4 of viewgraph handout??).

Jack Hanley: Yes.

Barbara Sonnenburg: I just don’t see some of the things up there, but maybe it’s lower on the picture.

Jack Hanley: Iodine?

Barbara Sonnenburg: Radionuclide releases.

Jack Hanley: That’s cesium in various separation . . .

Barbara Sonnenburg: That’s cesium?

Jack Hanley: That’s cesium. There’s a whole list of rad products. Cesium was the one with the highest concern. This comes right off of their reports, so that’s why I put it like this. Radionuclides - it’s really a whole series of them that were released (mercury, PCBs, then uranium was added later).

Susan Kaplan: Could you talk about the fluorine a little bit - we hear a lot . . .

Jack Hanley: That’s my next slide. If you remember, our initial list of COCs for further evaluation, we said there were still outstanding issues we were going to cover on iodine, mercury, cesium, PCBs, and uranium. Now ATSDR has added fluorine and various fluoride products. The reason we have is because (1) our experience at Paducah. We just did some work with Paducah. There’s a lot of fluorine/fluoride products at K-25; same thing at Paducah. We thought we should look at it. Also, there were individuals in the community that brought it to our attention: Owen Hoffman was one, his staff that worked on some of these projects and they brought it to our attention and gave us some information and some leads. We talked to the State, and based on that, we decided to go ahead and move forward and evaluate fluorine and fluoride. And there’s a few individuals in town here that are really concerned about it, so we figured we’d go ahead and look at this issue.

James Lewis: Could you (in the future) flag the things where you’re going up and above what the State may have suggested so people will be aware of that, because I guess I hear so many issues that things are “going under the rug.” We know that you’ve looked at what the State can do and their areas of concern; if you’ve got any other reasons that you use to move things on the list, I think it ought to be highlighted so people will know.

Jack Hanley: Like this one?

James Lewis: Yes.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Jack, I had a very similar question, almost the same thing. Do you have any problem (personally) with the State’s procedure? Did they do something that you thought was slightly wrong or different?

Jack Hanley: Well, that’s why we . . .

Barbara Sonnenburg: Other than that (fluoride/fluorine).

Jack Hanley: Other than that one, no.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Other than that, you’re concurring with what they did?

Jack Hanley: Yes. Yes.

Linda Gass: You mentioned that there were some folk in town that had questions about fluoride and fluoride products, what about in the 8 counties surrounding Oak Ridge? What about in Roane County and some of those other counties that are in the study that are not in the City of Oak Ridge?

Jack Hanley: Actually, I might have said City of Oak Ridge.

Linda Gass: You said in town.

Jack Hanley: I’m sorry. I mis-spoke . . . the general area. Actually, one of them was from Clinton, I believe.

Linda Gass: I think there were quite a few from the Roane County area. And, of course, Clinton is (in) Anderson County.

Jack Hanley: Yes. A number of individuals in the area have mentioned this as an issue in addition to our experience at Paducah.

Barbara Sonnenburg: I heard some folks from Kingston who were concerned about nickel as something that was in their bodies, and they thought it might have come from Oak Ridge. Is that something that . . .

Jack Hanley: I’ll show you in just a minute.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Am I jumping ahead?

Jack Hanley: You’re jumping ahead!

Barbara Sonnenburg: Thank you!

Bill Pardue: Remind me, did the State specifically look at fluorine and fluoride, and EF-6 (??) and all that? Why did they dismiss it?

Jack Hanley: Fluoride, when you look at the reference doses that EPA has, it has more of a cosmetic affect on teeth and things of that sort. But really, it’s the hydrogen fluoride, and it would be an acute exposure issue, and it would be very short-lived (e.g., if a cloud came over and moved over, it would be an acute problem). The State was looking primarily at chronic issues.

Susan Kaplan: Do we have all your hand-outs? Should that one be in here?

Jack Hanley: It should be in there. It’s not? I might have snuck this one in. I’ve shown this to the Subcommittee before. It’s in previous Minutes.

Jack Hanley: So then, the State decided that they would do the Dose Reconstruction studies here. This is the first study, the Feasibility Study by the State, and they ended up with these contaminants, and they go do Dose Reconstruction. But for some of these contaminants, they didn’t feel they screened well enough. (There’s your nickel and others, Barbara.) So they felt that they needed to do more in-depth work while they had more time, so they spent a little of their effort to look into some of these other contaminants. Those contaminants are the screening-level evaluation of additional potential materials. They conducted 3 screening processes here. Original ones they wanted to look at were arsenic, beryllium, and copper. I have a slide here of those contaminants. It’s a little confusing, but . . . Their initial list was here (asbestos, arsenic, etc.). They wanted to take a look at these. In fact, for asbestos, they just wanted to check out a few things; and for plutonium, it was a technicality issue - it wasn’t if it should be a health problem or not; there was a technical issue they needed clarification on. If you want more about that, I can give it to you. So they needed to look at some of these issues. Then you had beryllium, copper, lithium compounds, nickel, and then there’s a whole list of classified materials. One of the things with the State’s Panel was that they had full access to classified materials. But they were not going to put together reports and do work if they couldn’t release the information. They were not going to do the work in secret in a room, then come out and say “believe me, it’s fine.” So they pushed DOE during the 1990s because things changed in the 1990s; they (the State) encouraged and pushed DOE, and DOE put it on a priority and they declassified a number of these. The State had an impact on that. So all these other contaminants I’ve got squeezed in this slide were declassified. What was classified for some of them was the quantity, or where it was located (can’t put the material and the building together), and there’s other classification (criteria). But by the fact that they can now be laid out (by us) means that they are not classified anymore. So the State wanted to re-evaluate those (they had done it before and did not find a problem), and make it public.

James Lewis: But that’s only associated with the releases with the ORR?

Jack Hanley: Yes, all this is just strictly from the Oak Ridge Reservation.

Bill Pardue: Jack, I’ve heard rumors that materials that have not been identified. Is that true?

Jack Hanley: No, my understanding is that the State, ChemRisk and that whole group, had full access to materials and all the materials are (to my understanding) declassified. It’s classified in that you can’t say what building that these materials are in, or you can’t talk about the quantities that were there.

James Lewis: Did the State do any sampling or verification like soil samples that may have detected some of the contaminants. If so, did those contaminants that may have been released from other sources - did they add those together or did they try to separate those?

Jack Hanley: No, they did not try to separate those.

James Lewis: So, in some cases, they just took quantitative data . . .

Jack Hanley: If there was a sample offsite, and it showed that it had copper (for example), they evaluated it as being from Oak Ridge.
James Lewis: So, in some cases, we do have evidence that they may have used a combination of things from the Oak Ridge Site and other places, but when it wasn’t there, I guess what I’m hearing is, when they had to estimate it, they estimate . . .

Jack Hanley: But, common sense tells you that if you’re looking in a creek where everything runs out of Y-12 down through the town, there could be other sources from the town, but primarily you know the facility released them. There could be other sources. PCBs is a classic example. PCBs from the transformers in town and the whole facility, the whole town draining into the East Fork Poplar Creek and they’re picking it up in fish . . . They know PCBs are released from Y-12, but also PCBs are released from the community - they all come together.

Kowetha Davidson: But you can’t partition out (which part comes from which source) - when you find it, it’s just there. You can’t say, “this molecule came from this place, and that molecule came from another place.”

Jack Hanley: No, and while James started this, get me those pictures up there. James started something here . . . This is an issue that has come up a number of times. I put together a little diagram (I like diagrams). (Copy attached.)

Kowetha Davidson: I think we should because we’ve got lead on this list, and one of the biggest sources of lead is leaded gasoline. Once it’s deposited in the soil, lead is lead.

James Lewis: Also, paint inside the home (another large source of lead).

Jack Hanley: This issue has come up about other sources.

James Lewis: I think you’re getting down to my level with these pictures!

Jack Hanley: Thank you! This (diagram) outlines the scope of ATSDR’s Health Assessment Process. This is what we traditionally do, and this is how we typically do it. And basically, there are many sources of PCBs out in the world; all of us have PCBs in our bodies right now. But as we’re looking at an area of study, if we identify other sources, we notify the appropriate agency of that source of material. We don’t go and study it; we don’t do a Dose Reconstruction on that material. We point it to the proper regulatory agency, and it’s their responsibility to . . . The government compartmentalizes everything, as you all know, so we put that into their court. But, if there’s a sample, we evaluate the public health implications of exposures to contaminants in the environment - environmental samples collected in the study area, regardless of the source. The classic example, and I’ve given this before, is PCBs in Watts Bar Reservoir. When ATSDR went down to look, and the State and the DOE and the EPA - they all went down to Watts Bar and evaluated Watts Bar - they all came out with PCBs as the primary contaminant of concern, in fact the only one that was of concern. And it was in the fish. Now we all recognize that those PCBs came from all over and many of them came up from the Tennessee River, not just from the Clinch and not just from Oak Ridge. Some studies have said 25% (others have said 40%) came from DOE. When we look at the data, we don’t say 40% of this hazard came from Oak Ridge and the other . . . We looked at the data, we made a decision on the data as it is, and we made a health call because that’s our job. We’re not regulators; it’s not my job to try to pinpoint who’s responsible; my job is to determine ‘is it a health problem or not?’ So, if there are other sources that are identified, we point them to the appropriate agency; if it’s an environmental sample, we make a decision. Now, if we don’t think it’s related to the site (if we do modeling or whatever, and we see that some particular contaminant is not likely to come from Oak Ridge), then we may say that in our reports. But we will say there’s a problem if it’s a health problem. We do this at other sites. I don’t know if this helps you, but we put this (diagram) together to get that point across.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Jack, did the people who were doing all these studies feel comfortable that over all these many years, the releases have been truthfully reported?

Jack Hanley: No, they had some questions. That’s why uranium was looked at, actually. If you read the State’s reports, the Panel’s reports, they had concerns about what was reported for uranium. And when they went back and recalculated uranium, they found that because of technical issues and the technology of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s when it was measured vs. what we know today, they re-estimated and came up with larger estimates of releases for uranium. But for these others, they felt very comfortable with what they had and what was reported. But the ones that they didn’t (feel comfortable with), they went back and verified. And that’s part of this list, they why they did a rescreen.

Barbara Sonnenburg: But just overall, they didn’t feel that maybe some folks were a little embarrassed about that leak from the tank and just didn’t report it? Back in 1952 or some year? Could this have happened?

Jack Hanley: It could have.

Barbara Sonnenburg: They looked at all these releases, but . . .

Jack Hanley: And they looked at environmental samples, not just what was recorded as released. When you look here (?), this is surface water samples, biota samples, sediment samples, air samples, drinking water samples. It’s not just them estimating how much was released, they had a sample there.

Barbara Sonnenburg: I just have this feeling that there were probably some people who might have overlooked a few things. How do we know?

Kowetha Davidson: For assessments that are stable in the environment, they’re not going anywhere - they’re still going to be there when you go do measurements; only those things that are unstable . . .

Jack Hanley?: . . . like a volatile organic ??? . . .

Kowetha Davidson: it won’t stay there so that you can’t predict in the environment.

Jack Hanley: Most of the organic material has been screened out because they were small quantities, not large enough quantities to cause an off-site health problem.

Linda Gass: Releases of mercury, and estimates and re-estimates of that, . . .

Jack Hanley: That’s another example. Actually in the 1980s, they estimated the mercury that was released. They had the Mercury Task Force and reported to Congressional Hearing (Al Gore was on that Congressional Panel). Then ChemRisk, based on what we know now and having more time to study than the original group, they found out . . . I’m not sure they found out there was more released or not . . .

Susan Kaplan: Wasn’t it less? Didn’t it go from like 1,000,000 down to 200,000?

Jack Hanley: I can’t remember, but the State screening was more in-depth with a longer time period to look through all the reports. They looked at the previous report and they expanded upon it; they didn’t just take what the previous report had and use it.

Bill Pardue: Jack, I think in answer to Barbara’s question, it’s likely that DOE had some indication that mercury was coming out of Y-12 in the 1980s and didn’t report it.

Barbara Sonnenburg: They didn’t report it?

Bill Pardue: Not in the very early days.

Jack Hanley: It wasn’t reported because it was classified.

David Johnson: Okay, this goes back to my question:

Jack Hanley: They knew ?? mercury was released. They knew for years it was released, but they didn’t report it.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Is that possible for other things?

Jack Hanley: I guess anything’s possible.

Barbara Sonnenburg: How likely or unlikely . . .

Jack Hanley: I wasn’t here. I don’t know the mentality. But I know that over time, when things were made available, and the State had total access to all classified material (extensive). Typically, there’s a Need to Know clause, and that was taken off. If the State wanted to see it, they could see it. There was no “need to know.”

David Johnson: This was after the de-escalation of the Cold War, wasn’t it?

Jack Hanley: Yes, and the State had total access to materials.

Linda Gass: The ORHASP Minutes reflect many, many, many times there were problems of trying to get at data because of classification being used as an excuse. It was not just simply forthcoming. Read the ORHASP Minutes for 9 years and $15,000,000.

Jack Hanley: A lot of that, you correct them, and they had to try to get access, and getting documents declassified and that type of thing was a long drawn-out fight.

Linda Gass: There were people who refused to be interviewed. They just said, “I won’t be interviewed.” Quite a few were just plain stonewalling on mercury.

Jack Hanley: I don’t doubt that. A lot of people feel that it’s a security issues and they’re not supposed to report, and even though they were given permission by DOE and talk about what they knew, some did talk and some did not.

James Lewis: I heard a couple of retired scientists tell me . . . they took it a little deeper. They said because of the intelligence nature in dealing with . . . if they ever told them how much was leaking out, it would have given indication as to what type of operation was going on in that area. In other words, I heard some logic that they just weren’t hiding behind that, even though they knew it was coming out. In other words, if they were to every acknowledge that, that could be very sensitive information that could be taken by our enemies to assess what we’re doing.

Bill Pardue: That’s a true statement, James.

James Lewis: I think that’s the kind of statement that’s been missing. I overheard that in a meeting, and it helped me to understand that they’re not just hiding - at least in that case they’re not just hiding behind it. There was at least a reason or logic as to why they took that position.

Kowetha Davidson: I think that for something like mercury, whether you know exactly how much was released from Y-12, you can find out how much would be a hazard to the population because that’s offsite. So regardless of how much was released, when you start measuring what’s offsite, that’s going to determine how much is a hazard to the population. And that’s what it all comes down to, not how much they say they released, but how much is out here for the population to have contact with. That’s where you really get down to the risk and the hazard.

James Lewis: But again, I think Mrs. Sonnenburg asked and I guess what I heard from Mrs. Gass was that the prevailing thought mechanism out here is that things are being withheld. I guess what I’d like is for logic like what we heard regarding mercury and some other things - that needs to be shared so that we can factor that into our thinking.

Kowetha Davidson: But it’s in the soil. So when you do your soil samples, your water samples, your biota samples and all of that, if they don’t tell you, it doesn’t really matter whether they tell you that (just as an example) plutonium was released. If you find this offsite, you know it was released. You find out how much is out there, then you know how much is a hazard. It doesn’t matter whether they tell you or not - you know.

Susan Kaplan: But I think we’re talking about from our perspective of these people - that they’re not just awful people who misled us intentionally – that they had a logical rationale.

Linda Gass: My question is since these things that are persistent in the soil can be sampled, why is the ORRHES Committee having such a major fuss about not wanting EPA to do this? To have to have EPA come through ATSDR. That was my question back when EPA was here and a number of members of ATSDR and this Committee who are here were very angry that EPA was doing this (which is certainly within EPA’s purview) without coming to the Committee. And I specifically asked you, Jack, what relationship does that have (offsite sampling of EPA) to this ORRHES, and you said there is no relationship. My comment was why is ORRHES trying to assume authority that is not really within its purview.

Jack Hanley: I’m not on the Panel.

Linda Gass: But you were one of the main ones very unhappy with EPA.

Jack Hanley: I think at that time, I made it very clear. I was not unhappy. EPA - I talked with EPA before, I knew what they were doing, I knew everything they were up to. I was not unhappy. I don’t know why you felt I was unhappy, but I was not unhappy. EPA is following up on a promise they made 3 years ago, and that’s what they were doing, and that’s fine.

Bill Pardue: I can clarify a little bit on that, or try to. I don’t believe (at least my opinion) that it was ATSDR or members of the Panel in general who were unhappy; there were some individual members of the Panel or the Subcommittee (including myself, quite frankly), but the unhappiness was not, in my opinion, at least in my case, that ATSDR wasn’t involved. The unhappiness was 3 or 4 years ago, there was a large meeting with a large number of various parts of the community with EPA giving suggestions on how that sampling should be conducted and why it should be more broadly based in the community than it was (wanted core sampling done, actually). And the letter which the group of some 50 people wrote to EPA was never acknowledged, never answered, none of the questions were addressed. That was the unhappiness.

Linda Gass: Well, the specific thing that I remember hearing was that they had not come before ORRHES, that they had not gone through the proper channels, and had not brought this through ORRHES.

Kowetha Davidson: That doesn’t have anything to do with the Scarboro sampling. We were trying . . .

(Two people talking at the same time and neither could be heard.)

Jack Hanley: There were two things that happened, as Bill mentioned. In 1998, DOE conducted their sampling. Right after that, EPA said that there were problems with the sampling. EPA said they were going to conduct follow-up samples. A year later (Fall of 1999), they put out a Plan, they went through the SSAB (Bill Pardue was at the meeting, chairing the meeting), and SSAB in December 1999 provided comments, the LOC provided comments, the EQUAB provide comments, the Environmental Justice Group provided comments, the Joint Centers for Economic and Political Development provided comments to EPA on this Sampling Plan. Basically, their comments suggested they wanted EPA to expand it, not just to focus on Scarboro. And there were technical problems with EPA trying to come and validate samples a year-and-a-half after the samples had been taken, because you can’t do it. Technically, you can’t do it. And so people had issues with that. And those comments were received by EPA in December of 1999. Then this past year in July, they decided that they were going to move forward on this promise.

Tape 1 ended, and the rest of this issue was not captured on tape. The following few comments were taken as notes at the meeting and are sketchy (relying on tape!).

L.C. Manley asked Jack Hanley about known health effects of niobium, sheet metal form. Jack Hanley said he’d get back to him about this.

EPA decided to focus on Scarboro. ATSDR tried to bring all the factions together. Mr. Gibson is not against sampling. He wants it done correctly.

James Lewis: I was one who was upset with EPA. Timeliness and responsiveness of a federal agency are his chief problems.

Jack Hanley: The State Health Department is involved because they agreed to be. Let the State Health Department take the lead. Dr. Moore was a staff of one.

Linda Gass said it would be helpful to inform about the public about these things. The public would like to know what’s going on. Linda asked Jack Hanley if he would share some of the related correspondence about this matter. Bill Pardue said he would supply Linda Gass with a copy of the letter that 50 people wrote to EPA, which got no response or even acknowledgment from EPA.

3. Mangano Letter (Attached)

Susan Kaplan: Isn’t it Dr. Mangano? - NO

L.C. Manley: What do all those initials mean?

Bill Pardue: Masters of Public Health and Masters of Business Administration.

Bill Pardue: Let me try to put this in perspective. The sequence was that we did this evaluation. Apparently someone who attended that meeting, a member of the public, contacted Mr. Mangano and told him the results. There’s some question about the accuracy of which results were relayed to him, based on the letter which he then wrote back to The Oak Ridger, which criticized the evaluation that this Work Group made. In looking at the letter that he wrote, it didn’t appear that he had an accurate representation of the meeting - fairly close, but not quite accurate. Now there’s a question, do we want to, at this stage, send this letter to him or do we want to let the activity or conversation die? How many people on this Work Group saw his letter to The Oak Ridger? Did everybody see that? (NO) I believe it is inappropriate to talk about this until everyone has the chance to see a copy of that letter.

Pete Malmquist: Mr. Chairman, I would just as soon let it drop. I refer back to what Kowetha said the other day (last meeting) that if you publish something, you put it down on paper, it’s open for criticism or evaluation. We evaluated, he responded, and I don’t think we have to do anything else. All we’re doing is keeping the fire going. I’d recommend that we drop the subject and let it go.

Pete Malmquist: I move that we don’t send the letter.

David Johnson: Second.

Discussion:

Barbara Sonnenburg: Yes. This is what I had said from the very beginning - not that we shouldn’t do the study, but that if we DID do the study, I thought we should tell Mr. Mangano about it and give him the opportunity to have his part of the story before us. I have felt that from the first time Lucy mentioned it, and I have repeated it any number of times. I also told all of you that I was going to get in touch with him. Now I did not get in touch with him earlier, which caused his Letter to the Editor, but I did get in touch with him last week.

Bill Pardue: Oh, did you?

Barbara Sonnenburg: Yes.

Bill Pardue: You talked with him?

Barbara Sonnenburg: Yes.

Bill Pardue: Could you tell us some of the conversation?

Barbara Sonnenburg: Well, I have never tried to take sides on whether it was a good report or a bad report. My only position was I thought he should have his say. I told him that, too. I told him that the Work Committee was going to make the Recommendation to the full Subcommittee on December 3, and I even went so far as to say, would he at that time like some kind of input - I didn’t know how, and I didn’t even know whether Kowetha would allow him to speak if he came, or telephoned, or wrote something, or whatever. But I was trying to tell him that this Committee’s recommendation was a Recommendation at this point to the full body when we meet on December 3. He seemed very interested. He did not give me an answer at that time.

Bill Pardue: Now the question at one time: I believe you were going to supply our Matrix and the other outputs from this Work Group for his advice.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Yes, I send that to him, but I don’t know that he’s gotten it yet.

Bill Pardue: I think that makes good sense. The reason that alleviates the concern I had is what I mentioned before: I thought some of the information he had gotten back from a member of the public about our meeting may have been inaccurate, but I think getting this to him lets him see actually what was said.

Bob Eklund: You sent him the Matrix?

Barbara Sonnenburg: Yes.

Bob Eklund: Good!

Bill Pardue: I think that’s good.

Barbara Sonnenburg: But it was late last week when I sent it (maybe Friday), so I don’t even know if he’s seen it yet.

Susan Kaplan: Another reason why we should send this letter is that you’re asking him for information about these other studies, and I think that’s a valid thing for us to look at.

Bill Pardue: For those of you who have not seen the letter in The Oak Ridger, let me try to summarize it.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Would you like it? (She had a copy.) You can read it if you like.

Bill Pardue: Bill (Murray), would you please make copies for everybody. Let me try to summarize it while copies are being made. It basically said that he had heard that this Group had criticized his report. He did not agree with the criticism. He did not, as well as I can recall, actually defend against any of the criticisms. The tenor of his letter was that there’s an awful lot of data since I wrote the report which supports my position. He never, to the best of my knowledge, said that he was defending his report. He said there’s a lot more data which supports it. That’s immaterial, I think, to our criticisms.

Barbara Sonnenburg: I don’t think he went into any detail defending it because I don’t think he had any detail of what our problems were with it.

Bill Pardue: That’s exactly right. He did say there were 3 other reports which he did not reference, and he said there were 3 sites I believe on the CDC web site which supported it.

Barbara Sonnenburg: I’ve asked Bill (Murray) to try to find that but I think he’s been too busy to do it.

James Lewis: Can I make a statement? What I heard you say was ‘he heard,’ and that means somebody has conveyed some information. One of the reasons for putting together the Matrix, and going back and looking at it, and being clear with all these issues . . . And I will say that I still think we need, to some degree, Lucy’s input as a wrap-up on this Matrix. And what I’m saying is: at that point, if that’s what we agreed to and that documents our worksheet, then if there’s a challenge to be made, then we’re putting all the facts before him on what we’ve done and what we agreed to, then I think that the challenge ought to be made to the Matrix, not to what he heard (if there’s going to be one). In the absence of the worksheet, you don’t know what we did. No there are some things in that letter that I like that sort of gives the basic introduction. I don’t know if our Minutes were out. I think that letter contains some things that say why we did this, what the logic and reasoning was. I think that needs to be expanded on. And then we have a package, in my opinion, for potential closure as it relates to this issue.

Kowetha Davidson: I think the closure on this issue depends on us. The thing is that we haven’t done anything that we should not have done. And as far as the evaluation is concerned, it’s closed.

James Lewis: I’m not denying it.

Kowetha Davidson: You can keep something like this going indefinitely.

James Lewis: I’m just saying we’ve done what we needed to do. I think Lucy, who started this, needs to bless it and decide what needs to be done for the last wording. Then, as far as I’m concerned, it stands on its own. We go on to . . .

Bob Eklund: I agree with James, and I think the Matrix ought to be our conclusion because it has all of what we did, and that’s all we need.

Susan Eklund: And provide it to him.

Bill Pardue: It’s been provided. Barbara, we ought to give him this most current version.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Well, he has everything except the one sentence we added.

Bill Pardue: But he ought to have a copy of that.

Barbara Sonnenburg: He has that. He also has the draft of what you’re giving to the other Committee (full Subcommittee).

Bill Pardue: Does he have a copy of the Minutes of that meeting where we evaluated his paper?

Barbara Sonnenburg: I believe so.

James Lewis: I think we ought to, if we put together a final package on this (now he’s got a draft, we’re waiting on a few comments from Lucy, I know she had a few things that Kowetha wanted to add). We’re very close - we’re about 95 or 98% there - we ought to put the ribbon around it, close it, and that’s it.

Bill Pardue: There is a motion on the floor, so I think we ought to vote on it - that’s on this draft letter that you see. The motion is that we NOT send it.

Bob Eklund: This draft letter?

Bill Pardue: No, no, this one here. This is in response to this letter to The Oak Ridger.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Can we take a moment and read this?

Bill Pardue: Yes.

<Silence while everyone reads the letter.>

Barbara Sonnenburg: I don’t know whether you all want a copy of the article that was in the paper.

Bill Pardue: That’s right, on the same day, there was an article in the paper about our evaluation.

Barbara Sonnenburg: . . . saying that this study was . . . (couldn’t hear) and the recommendation . . .(couldn’t hear).

Kowetha Davidson: There was also an article in the paper regarding . . . on the day that we had our meeting.

Bill Pardue: Yes, that’s correct. About a previous review that had been done by somebody else.

Kowetha Davidson: I think someone has funneled him some misinformation.

Bill Pardue: That’s my . . . (opinion) . . . after reading this letter, but I don’t know that . . .

Kowetha Davidson: Some of the responses from him . . .

Bill Pardue: One of two things could have happened. If I could interrupt, Kowetha, it may be that he has had misinformation or it could be that he interpreted the information he got incorrectly.

Susan Kaplan: What do you think is incorrect?

James Lewis: You may have heard one comment from one person that does not reflect ...

Linda Gass: For the purpose of the tape recording, could we let Kowetha go first and then James Lewis. I want to hear both of them.

Kowetha Davidson: I said what I . . .

Susan Kaplan: We couldn’t hear.

Linda Gass: I’m in between you two. I couldn’t hear either one.

Kowetha Davidson: Oh, she asked me what information, and I said it’s the paragraph under #4, “So it is difficult to understand how the panel can make a decision on Oak Ridge’s health effects with so little information to work with.” That wasn’t what we were doing.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Well maybe he was just reflecting that in all these years, there’s only been one report.

Kowetha Davidson: We weren’t making any health effects decisions. We were just evaluating a study.

Bob Eklund: Exactly, he overlooks that fact - that we were just evaluating a study. We weren’t at all drawing conclusions about health effects. What he said about the cancer rates may be true, but they may or may not be (and probably are not) related to low-level radiation. They’re probably related to the PCBs more than anything else.

Bill Pardue: Have they increased since his report - dose rates?

Bob Eklund: If they’re valid, yes.

Pete Malmquist: Mr. Chairman, the other thing is if we’re going to look at several other studies by other authors, and if we get into a discussion that we’re going to respond to everybody and write them back, we’re going to be here the next 10 years responding to people. He published it, we did the study, we said we didn’t like his conclusions. We didn’t say anything, like Susan said, we didn’t ?disprove any links? or anything else. We said this study was flawed. And we’re going to find other studies that we may agree with or disagree with. But I don’t think . . . if we keep going through this and writing to everybody and responding . . .

Linda Gass: I’d like to say one thing: You won’t find any epidemiology studies that don’t have some flaws. And that’s one of the things that Lucy pointed out repeatedly when everyone was jumping on it like a duck on a junebug.

James Lewis: I just want to make one other comment: I think that anybody on the other side - if some of us go and relay information, it’s not written down, he’s heard this or somebody called him, then they may be sharing what was said by one individual or a group of individuals or something that they heard. I think we have to let the final body, when we come together, be our position. And he may be reacting to information that was conveyed that may have come from one or two people. We need to let our work just stand as is, and I consider it closed. And we should caution ourselves from doing that in the future. If we’re leaking stuff out, then we can expect responses like this.

Susan Kaplan: I’d like to reiterate: We’re asking him for more information. And we’re here to study. I think it’s a valid thing to get his information.

L.C. Manley: Well, if you don’t send it to him, you won’t be asking him for more information.

Susan Kaplan: That’s the point, he’s giving us other resources.

Pete Malmquist: His own study references 3 reports. It could be those very 3 reports.

Bob Eklund: If we ask him for them, we’re going to have to evaluate them.

Pete Malmquist: That’s right.

Bob Eklund: . . . and do an epidemiologic evaluation of them; not just one but three, and look how long it took us to do one.

Susan Kaplan: No we don’t we can read it.

Bill Pardue: It would be nice to put this to bed.

Susan Kaplan: Why can’t we get the information and read it?

Kowetha Davidson: The thing is the studies that he is showing - what he is talking about are still not going to show a link between low-level radiation exposure and cancer.

James Lewis: Furthermore, if he gives us a study that’s linked to another study, we could go on forever.

Pete Malmquist: He referenced worker exposure, didn’t he?

Kowetha Davidson: No, he mentioned cancer death rates of 27% in children and dropped to 21% across the U.S.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Nationwide, it dropped to 21%.

Kowetha Davidson: It doesn’t show anything about radiation, though.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Well, what caused it?

Kowetha Davidson: I don’t know. But it doesn’t . . .

Barbara Sonnenburg: Well, something caused it.

Kowetha Davidson: It doesn’t tell you that radiation caused it. That’s what I’m trying to say. When you make a general statement like that, you can’t attribute it to one thing.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Well they didn’t smoke!

Bill Pardue: Look at the second page of his letter, starting at the third paragraph, “Perhaps most importantly . . .” every other statement on down that list, while they may be true or they may be false - I won’t argue either way - are pertinent post his report; they have nothing to do with his report. They’re all data that have changed. So all these, while they may be true or they may not be true, and I don’t know how we can evaluate that, have absolutely nothing to do with the information he presented in his report. So they’re not perfect, as far as I’m concerned.

Pete Malmquist: Mr. Chairman, I call for a vote on the motion.

Bill Pardue: All in favor of the motion of not sending the letter, signify by raising your hands, please. 8 in favor, 2 opposed. Motion carries.

Bill Pardue: But her does have the packet of information, the Matrix, and the Minutes.

Barbara Sonnenburg: But it didn’t come from the Committee, it just came from me.

Bill Pardue: It’s public information, so if he chooses to respond to that . . .

Barbara Sonnenburg: So if he responds, if he comes, what do we do about it? Do we just not let him speak?

Bill Pardue: Oh, I would think we would let him speak. Madam Chairman?

Barbara Sonnenburg: I don’t know what direction . . . I mean, I don’t want to tell him to come, then when he gets here . . .

Kowetha Davidson: Madam Agenda Work Group Chair,

Barbara Sonnenburg: Yes . . .

Jack Hanley: You may have him, if he responds, you may have him respond via phone to the Work Group as a starting pont. That’s a suggestion. And then you all could decide if he should come to the Subcommittee. Does he have anything new and relevant to bring to the Subcommittee? That’s one way of handling it. And via the phone, at least that way, we can have the handouts ahead if he has handouts, and we can make copies and do it by the phone. Then, if necessary, if he’s bringing something important and new to the table, then you can see about trying to bring him to the Committee.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Well, I tried to be open about all this. You all knew I said I could get in touch with him. Now you all want me to keep up this conversation . . .

Kowetha Davidson: Now the ball is in his court.

James Lewis: Wait a minute! I guess I’ve got a point. Whoever the technical lead of the PHA Work Group, I think it needs to go through a focal point. I’m not saying you’re not knowledgeable of this, but if he’s getting ready to come, let him hear it from the horses’s mouth and whoever that may be in here . . .

Barbara Sonnenburg: In other words, he should call Bill?

James Lewis: Right, in my opinion, if he’s got any additional information, he ought to contact the head of the PHA Work Group.

Barbara Sonnenburg: Right, that’s the sort of thing I wanted to hear because I’ve been feeling a little . . . lonely out here.

<Lots of conversation going on, but James did say (apparently to Bill Pardue) that Barbara probably should put Mangano in touch with either Bill Pardue or Kowetha.>

Bill Pardue: I’ll get out of the loop.

James Lewis: She (Kowetha) tried to dump it on you (Barbara).

Kowetha Davidson: I thought she (Barbara) might want to put it on the agenda.

Barbara Sonnenburg: If he were going to come, I think we should put it on the agenda.

Bill Pardue: If he offered to come, I think we should put him on the agenda.

Linda Gass: The single biggest reason that I voted against it, in sending this letter, is the phrase that says, “participation from a wide range of citizens.” For a year, this Committee’s been begging for public involvement. And I have a couple of suggestions that I’m going to pass out after the meeting (copy attached). It’s not just relevant to this Work Group, but last week there was an invitation for people to come and express their concerns or ideas about this process. I wrote down a couple of things, and of course, one of the things I’ve been harping on for a long time is who’s conspicuously absent and the fact that there’s no representation on ORRHES of people who are in touch with sick workers.

George Gartseff?: You’re saying there isn’t a wide range of citizens, huh?

Linda Gass: I’m saying not only is there not a wide range of citizens, there is a conspicuous absence of significant stakeholders.

Kowetha Davidson: . . . at this particular meeting - that’s what he’s referring to.

Linda Gass: I understand that there were a few more people in the audience at the Garden Plaza than fit into this room here.

George Gartseff? But you’re still saying there was not a wide range . . .

Linda Gass: There was not a wide range, and also the few people that came that have never come to anything else were not really prepared to participate in the meeting.

Jack Hanley: The fact that there hasn’t been a sick worker represented at this Subcommittee has been something that ATSDR has tried to work on, and now LaFreta is working with James to try to figure out something. And that position will be open.

Linda Gass: A sick worker as well as a sick resident. In June, that was discussed and they said there’s a freeze, so I’ve asked several times the status. The thing that was stated was that there’s no money, but when Lands quit, I don’t think that was addressed the fact when Lands quit . . .

Jack Hanley: It’s not a money issue, it’s a White House issue. The White House will not let us as close as 2 to 3 weeks ago (it might have changed since then), but 3 weeks ago when this issue came up, the White House still had a freeze.

Linda Gass: That’s illogical, because that slot was already accounted for. There was money budgeted for that.

Jack Hanley: It’s not a budget - the Administration does not let, hasn’t let us, for higher-level people, you can’t fill those positions like GS14s and GS15s and Special Government Employees. They know that Special Government Employees are on FACAs and there’s been a freeze.

Linda Gass: If 10 more people quit, . . .

Kowetha Davidson: We’d have a Committee of 6. They still wouldn’t replace them as long as there’s a freeze.

Linda Gass: Okay..

Jack Hanley: It might have changed in the last few weeks, but every now and then, LaFreta gets updates and tries to find out if . . .

James Lewis: I think Mrs. Gass made a statement, and correct me if I’m wrong, you said a sick worker. I thought we’d focused on a sick resident. I don’t know if we’d made any indication that we had to have a sick worker.

Kowetha Davidson: Yes, we did.

Linda Gass: The recommendation was both - sick worker and sick resident - because the issues are very, very different.

Kowetha Davidson: The nomination was open for sick worker, and we can only open the door, but we cannot force anyone to walk through it. And when we opened the door, then they have to walk through.

Linda Gass: But nobody can walk through the door if they are on disability - that’s come up over and over before.

L.C. Manley: When did we get to the point where we request ATSDR when to hire and who to hire.

Linda Gass: We are a community-based, participatory process, so it should be open to all the stakeholders.

L.C. Manley: Well, it’s open to sick workers - I’m sick. I’m a sick resident, I’ve worked at the plant, and I’m sick.

Linda Gass: Have you been in contact with organizations . . .

L.C. Manley: I . . . doctor . . .

Linda Gass: Well, I didn’t get to talk - you interrupted me.

L.C. Manley: Well, you interrupted me, too. You’ve been talking all night.

Bill Pardue: Folks, we have one other thing to do, and we have 10 minutes to do it. I think everybody, speaking for myself, is very concerned that we have a broader representation on here. I remember the first Subcommittee meeting we had and Janice Stokes got up and made her statements of concern, and we encouraged her to participate and anyone else that could as much as possible. Anyone can walk into these meetings without being appointed so there is a participatory mechanism.

4. Letter to Dr. Koplan Regarding Sampling Activities

Bill Pardue: Kowetha, we’ve been through this for a couple of meetings. Do you want to summarize where we are on that?

Kowetha Davidson: I think there are just a couple of things. A sentence that I added, and I did change the wording on this: The USEPA also did not communicate to the public the rationale . . .

Barbara Sonnenburg: Is this the draft of 10/?

Bill Pardue: 10/31/2001. It’s been changed, very slightly.

Kowetha Davidson: It’s just a . . . and the other had to do with allowing the ORRHES members to participate in the planning sessions for developing soil sampling plan.

James Lewis: Mention specifically their Core Values because I want to hold their feet right to the fire. Remember that I identified their area of meaning. Item #6 - they violate.

Kowetha Davidson: Well, you gave me a copy that had red lining on it, it had these two sentences on it, . . .

James Lewis: Well, you take care of that; I’ll take your word for it.

Kowetha Davidson: There was an added part on this that I did not include because I didn’t think that we wanted to state that. It had to do with the confidence of the community . . . the community hasn’t bought into it yet.

Bill Pardue: Do I hear a motion to (forward this letter to Dr. Koplan)?

Pete Malmquist: I so move.

Bill Pardue: Second?

David Johnson: Second.

Bill Pardue: Any further discussion? I think we’ve been through it several times.

Bob Eklund: What is the motion?

Bill Pardue: To forward this letter to Jeffrey Koplan.

Bob Eklund: Fine.

Bill Pardue: Any other discussion?

James Lewis: This goes through the Subcommittee, right?

Bill Pardue: All in favor? 9 in favor; 1 opposed. Motion carries.

Kowetha Davidson: The Subcommittee has already approved . . .

Bill Pardue: We have about 5 minutes. Are there any other topics we need to discuss?

Susan Kaplan: What about the letter on office support?

Bill Pardue: That was approved last time.

Susan Kaplan: It was approved. So that went?

Bill Pardue: Yes, well it hasn’t gone yet, because the Subcommittee has to approve.

James Lewis: I think we spend a lot of time in a number of meetings, and I think we need definition of terms. I think unless we get some definition of terms around here like “hazards,” things like that, that we can all agree on and live with, we will all be spinning our wheels in the PHA Work Group. I’m going to give you an example of one. It says “Disease and Symptom Prevalent Study.” This is what I’ve been hearing everybody talk about. It’s a study designed to measure the occurrence of self-reported diseases that may, in some instances, be validated through medical records or physical examinations, if available, and to determine those at-risk health conditions that may require further investigation because they are considered to have been reported at an excess rate. This study design can only be considered as a positive generator.? I guess what I keep hearing is I’m finding all these definitions around here, and I hear people saying things. It’s easier to say if that we’re not going to do that, and that’s not what we’re going to do, let’s rule where we are and let’s refer back to those definitions.

Jack Hanley: That particular study you referenced is the kind we don’t do anymore.

James Lewis: Okay, what I’m saying is then we keep hearing that being requested. If there’s a category and definition here that they’ve written down and is on the Net, we need to go through there and figure out what we’re doing.

Jack Hanley: So you’re requesting that we list . . .

James Lewis: . . .frequently used terms that fit in the PHAWG such as that would mean that I could fill a couple of sheets with that, make our position known, and we wouldn’t have to go through this again.

Kowetha Davidson: Taking a position on the definitions or using definitions for reference?

James Lewis: Using definitions for reference. Just have them defined, look at them, etc. In certain cases, when certain issues are brought up, you make a motion for review, go back to that, and say we’ve already discussed it.

Jack Hanley: That particular Symptom and Disease Prevalent Dtudy - I understand your point about definitions and we can work on that - but that particular issue keeps coming up. I think it would be a good question for Lucy. I’ll let her know about it. You guys have brought this up a couple of times. And she’s very familiar with the subject, and she can explain the appropriate time to use those, and when it’s not appropriate to use those. Traditionally, we’ve gotten away from those. The Disease Prevalent Study is one that we’ve gotten stung on by the Inconclusive by Design . . .

Barbara Sonnenburg: Mr. Chairman, I’m going to give you two pieces of paper that appeared in the Knoxville paper. Some of you may not have read them. One says “Oak Ridge Safety Still Needs Work,” by Frank Munger, about the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board report (of Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC). <Bill (Murray) made copies.> Let me just read one sentence from it, and that’s why I want you to consider it at our next meeting. “Without safety controls and supporting analysis in place at all nuclear facilities undergoing cleanup, it’s impossible to determine whether the public, workers, and the environment are being protected from hazards,” Board Chief John Conway wrote in an October 15 letter to DOE. There’s a lot more in here. But it applies not just to workers, but to public. That’s why I think somehow we should become more knowledgeable about this - I don’t know how.

Jack Hanley: Is this about clean-ups?

Bill Pardue: It pertains to Bechtel Jacobs, a contractor.

Barbara Sonnenburg: The same things that they’ve tried to get fixed for 10 years (I guess it was 10 years), still weren’t getting fixed.

Bill Pardue: Bill has copies for everybody. One last point before we adjourn: Our next meeting would normally be two weeks from tonight - the Monday of Thanksgiving Week. Some people have said they will be out-of-town that week. Should we postpone it until the first week of December?

Kowetha Davidson: No, that’s our Subcommittee meeting.

Bill Pardue: Well, do we have anything else that we have to do in the way of preparing for the Subcommittee meeting?

Kowetha Davidson: Just prepare all the reports and get them to Marilyn.

Bill Pardue: So, there’s no need for a Work Group meeting before the Subcommittee meeting?

Kowetha Davidson: Do you want to do another presentation, Jack?

Bill Pardue: Oh, Karl?

Kowetha Davidson: No, Karl won’t be at the next meeting.

Bill Pardue: No he won’t be at the next meeting, but he can follow up with the Work Group in December. So, we won’t have another Work Group Meeting until after the Subcommittee Meeting?

Bill Murray: Are you going to have one after that, because that would be December 17.

Bill Pardue: Which is almost Christmas? How about the week after the Subcommittee meeting, which would be December 11. There may be a lot of things on the plate as a result of the Subcommittee meeting. Next PHAWG Meeting will be December 11.

The meeting adjourned at approximately 8:40 p.m.