Savannah River Site Health Effects Subcommittee (SRSHES) Meeting

Executive Summary

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List of Acronyms
	ATL  Advanced Technology Laboratory  ATSDR  Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry  CDC  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  DOE  Department of Energy GDNR  Georgia Department of Natural Resources NIOSH National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health SRSHES  Savannah River Site Health Effects Subcommittee

During the opening session of the SRSHES meeting on March 13-14, 2003, the September 5-6, 2002 meeting minutes were unanimously approved with the changes as noted and submitted into the record. A status report was provided for all current action items. SRSHES members whose terms will expire on June 30, 2003 and are interested in continuing to serve should submit completed application packages to CDC by March 31, 2003.

The history of the SRS is chronicled in a book that was released in June 2002. Savannah River Site at Fifty is divided into five parts: the history of atomic energy; the SRS construction era; the history of SRS technology, and SRS's transition period. SRS newspapers, national publications and a collection of SRS artifacts were used as data sources. Efforts are currently being made to appropriately house, preserve and exhibit SRS artifacts collected for the book and other historical items in SRS buildings. The preservation plan should not interfere with current efforts to de-commission, decontaminate and destroy these facilities.

After ATL was awarded the dose reconstruction in August 2002, CDC changed the scope of work to eliminate the screening process. Modifications were made to the rural, migrant and urban family scenarios. The number of source and receptor locations will be decreased from 20 to 10. In its technical approach, ATL will base releases on the Phase II report; apply generic environmental models; calculate endpoints of dose, risk and organ doses as needed; use SRS-specific characteristics to revise established models; review many exposure and source locations for each receptor; and evaluate quantitative and qualitative aspects of uncertainties associated with dose and risk.

Dose calculations will be based on an existing risk assessment model and will include release, transport, exposure and consequence assessments. ATL plans to conduct separate studies to calculate acute short-term releases because spikes are averaged over one year and will not be precisely reflected. If ATL is unable to select solid figures, conservative values will be chosen. ATL has initiated computerized analyses with the GENII version 2 computer code to specify the transport of radionuclides in the environment and exposure variables of persons. The computation size for the study is extremely large with >300 million data points.

ATL is proposing to combine air and water release points and merge exposure locations to make the model simple, tractable and representative of actual doses. ATL added source terms for unspecified alpha and beta releases; added to or deleted from isotopes listed in the Phase II report; and partitioned some radionuclide releases into one isotope to address several outstanding issues in the Phase II report. ATL is attempting to develop a source term that can be divided by the flow in the Savannah River to address environmental holdup of releases. All findings will be compiled in a draft report. SRSHES unanimously passed a resolution in response to ATL's revised scope of work.

Monitoring data collected by GDNR show that radionuclide concentrations in the vast majority of samples from all pathways have been below detectable limits. SRS, Plant Vogtle and other facilities are monitored once or twice per month. Matrices tested around SRS include direct radiation samples from thermoluminescent dosimeters; air samples from filters, charcoal cartridges for iodine-131 and silica-gel cartridges for tritium; water samples from river water, ground water and precipitation; soil and river sediment; vegetation, crops, milk and game; and fish and seafood. SRS, Chernobyl and weapons testing were the most common sources of radionuclide concentrations. GDNR expects to publish an updated environmental radiological monitoring report in the next month.

The role of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health is to advise the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services on the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. Guidance is also given on the scientific validity and quality of dose reconstruction as well as radiation-exposed employees at DOE facilities for which a dose reconstruction would not be feasible and radiation exposure may have endangered health. DOE, NIOSH and the Department of Labor are mandated to determine whether workplace toxic chemicals contributed to illness, reconstruct doses of claimants, and identify recipients for compensation. NIOSH established the Office of Compensation Analysis and Support to interact with and serve as a point of contact for claimants. Of 1,302 requests for worker monitoring and workplace data submitted by the Office of Compensation Analysis and Support to SRS, 499 responses have been provided.

Of 18 dose reconstructions completed in January 2003 for all DOE sites, no awards have been made. Compensation is made if the probability of cancer causation is calculated to be >50% at a 99% confidence interval based on an overall probability of cancer distribution for each organ and different exposures to each organ. ATSDR requested SRSHES to compile comments on the final internal version of the health education needs assessment and develop a plan to collectively submit revisions. NIOSH recently completed several extramural projects among DOE workers to study heat stress, glycophorin biodosimetry of patients treated with iodine-131, solvent-related hepatotoxicity, and lung fibrosis.

NIOSH's three new grants awarded in 2002 will focus on occupational exposure health effects, radiation carcinogenesis, and susceptibility to occupational radiation risks. Several research projects of DOE workers are expected to be completed and communicated in 2003. These studies will address health effects of ionizing radiation, beryllium disease, uranium milling and plutonium exposure among others. During the SRS workgroup reports, the Scenario Workgroup made several recommendations in response to the ATL status report.

Assumptions should be well documented and ATL's results should be compared to existing monitoring data. Drinking water pathways from rain and river water, a family living by the water and an elderly individual should be added to the scenarios. Scenarios should reflect worst-case realistic scenarios. Dose contributions from non-SRS source terms should be identified and SRSHES should be allowed to comment on ATL's protocol. An explanation should be provided for the discrepancy between the number of source terms in the Phase II report and those identified in ATL's technical approach. SRSHES passed a resolution by a majority vote for the workgroup's recommendations to be submitted as a guidance document to CDC and ATL for a response.

The Epidemiological Data Workgroup expressed concerns about ATL's plans to use overly conservative estimates. This approach is unlikely to generate findings at a significant level that would justify an epidemiological study. Instead, doses with higher levels and longer exposure periods should be used in ATL's calculations ¹. The workgroup suggested that an updated review of current epidemiological data impacting SRS be presented by an epidemiologist at the next meeting. SRSHES unanimously passed a resolution for CDC to distribute ATL's monthly progress reports to SRSHES. The Outreach Workgroup distributed mock copies of the new SRSHES brochure. Each SRSHES member will receive 100 copies of the brochure for distribution to community members, local groups and local media. SRSHES unanimously passed a resolution to use the mock copy as the official version of the brochure after minor changes are made.

The Agenda Workgroup will consider three epidemiologists to make a presentation at the next meeting. The workgroup is compiling a list of outstanding agenda items to identify topics that are still relevant versus those which should be removed from the SRSHES agenda. A report on these findings is expected to be presented at the next meeting. During a discussion of new SRSHES business, action and agenda items raised during the meeting were reviewed and votes were properly taken for consensus recommendations. The Chair opened the floor for public comment at all times as designated on the agenda. The next SRSHES meeting will be held on September 4-5, 2003 in Savannah, Georgia. The following SRSHES meeting is scheduled for March 25-26, 2004 in Columbia, South Carolina.

 

¹ One SRSHES member noted that the observations by the Epidemiological Data Workgroup reflect a misunderstanding of ATL's use of the word conservative. Use of conservative values in dose calculations will generate higher doses.