ML20054M621
| ML20054M621 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/15/1982 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| FRN-47FR19152, RULE-PR-34 NUDOCS 8207140060 | |
| Download: ML20054M621 (121) | |
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NCCI. EAR REGULATORY COM!CSSION
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In de Mattar of:
l CERTIFICATION OF RADIOGRAPHERS REGION 5 DA*E: June 15, 1982 PAGES: 1 thru g9 AT:
Oakland, California
.-LLDERS)X REPORTING p
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400 Virginia Ave., S.W. Washd.g.:n, D. C.
20024 Telachc=e: (202) 554-2345 u: o t e.c o s:) m os 1:
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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3 PUBLIC MEETING 4
CERTIFICATION 05 RADIOGRAPHERS 5
REGION 5 6
Hyatt Oakland Hotel 455 Hegenberger Road 7
Oakland, California i
j 8
- Tuesday, j
June 15, 1982 9
l The meeting was convened, pursuant to notice, j
10 at 9:15 a.m., Bernard Singer, NRC, presiding.
11 PRESENT:
.i 12 B.
SINGER j
J.
JONES 13 N.
BASSIN H. BOOK
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14 D.
HONEY G.
SPENCER 15 T.
GAINES I
W. MORRIS l
16 C. JOHNSON C. JENSEN 17 L. TITUS M.
GUSTELY i
}8 18 C.
YOCUM I
B.
FRIEND j g 19 S.
JOHNSON
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MR. SINGER:
Good morning to all of you.
I'd
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3 like to start this meeting now.
I am Bernard Singer, 4
Chief of the Certification Procedures Branch in the 5
Officer of the Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards 6
of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
I 7
will be your Chairman for this meeting.
8 On behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 9
I welcome you to the Public Meeting on Third Party to Certification of Industrial Radiographers as an alternative 11 to the present method of permitting radiography licensees 12 to train and designate individuals as radiographers.
13 We are being hosted today by Region V of the 14 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
15 Before proceeding any further, I'd like to 16 introduce our host who will present a few brief welcoming 17
- remarks, Mr. George Spencer, Director of the Division of g
l 18 Radiological Safety and Safeguards of Region V.
19 MR. SPENCER:
Good morning.
I'd like to welcome 20 j
you to the meeting on behalf of Region V office.
I don't i
21
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think I have to tell you that meetings of this nature, i
d 22 that it's extremely important that you make your views known.
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23 It's sort of like the wedding ceremony where you're asked (m
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24 to speak up now or forever hold your piece.
l 25 Our licensing representatives are holding these l ()
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1 meetings because they do want to give you an opportunity 2
to participate in the rule making process.
They sincerely
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3 want your input se don't be shy about it.
Thank you.
4 MR. SINGER:
Thank you, George.
5 A proposed notice of advanced rule making was 6
published in the Federal Register on May 4, 1982 and this 7
public meeting was announced in the Federal Register on 8
May 11, 1982.
Copies of both of these announcements are 9
available at the table at the end of the room.
This 10 meeting is open to the public.
If you've not already 11 registered at the door, I would appreciate it if you would 12 do so with our receptionist there.
13 As indicated in the notice, this meeting will 14 be conducted informally.
A tentative agenda is available 15 from our receptionist.
As Chairman, I will try to per:c.it 16 those requesting time to provide statements, the opportunity 17 g
to do so in the order received.
Following these j
18 presentations, I will recognize members of the audience 19 j
who wish to go on record.
j 20 A transcriptof the meeting is being made, there-21 fore it will be necessary for anyone who wishes to make a
d 22 a statement or participate in the discussion be recognized.
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23 Each s,peaker should identify himself or herself along with (T
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24 their affiliation or organization before presenting views.
25 This is the third of five public meetings to be held on em n
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1 radiography certification.
A transcript of each meeting 2
will be placed in the public document room at 1717 "H"
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3 Street in Washington, D.C.
4 At this time I would like to present and 5
introduce the members of the panel who are here to 6
participate and resolve questions pertaining to the meeting.
7 At my right is Mr. Jones representing the research office 8
of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and who will have 9
the primary responsibility for answering questions pertaining 10 to the rule making.
11 Seated to my left is Mr. Nathan Bassin of the 12 Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards Office of NRC 13 who has the primary responsibility for responding to 14 questions pertaining to the licensidg of radiographers.
15 Also on the panel are Herb Book who is chief of the 16 radiological safety branch of Region V and Don Honey who 17 j
is a supervising health physicist froni the State of 18 e
California, 19 j
I'd like to say a few words about the purpose j
20 of public meetings.
i; 21 Whenever NRC proposes to change its regulations, 3
5 22 we usually according to our practice publish what we
- j 23 intend to do in the Federal Register and seek knowledgeable
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V 24 comments from the public or the industries prior to taking 25 our action.
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1 From time to time we deal with a subject that 2
is complex technically, has potential socio-economic
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impact and has been a source of concern which has not 3
4 been resolved inspite of numerous efforts to do so.
5 Radiography over-exposure is such a subject 6
along with the establishment of assurance that the 7
radiographer is sufficiently trained in radiation protection 8
and has a clear understanding of the effects of radiation 9
to himself and others to deal with this matter.
10 To deal with this matter we have done a number 11 of things including a major revision of Part 34 of 12 Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
We have 13 established a task force consisting of seven directorates 14 within NRC and has five representatives selected by the 15 Council of Directors of the agreement states participating 16 in this effort.
We have established an incident reporting 17 3
system which flags potential problems associated with the j
18 radiographic equipment and then issues both in which to 19 j
define such problems to radiographer licensees and j
20 equipment manufacturers.
We have published a training I
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j 21 manual to assist those wishing to use it.
We have l
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22 established performance criteria for radiographic 3;
23 equipment and we are in the process of grinding those 24 criteria through the bureaucratic paper mill.
We are i
l 25 studying several means of making our inspections more l
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I frequent and more meaningful.
Many of our involvements 2
are rediscoveries of past attempts to resolve the problems
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3 associated with the radiography industry.
4 One of the things we have not done is to 5
establish the mandatory certification of radiographers by 6
an independent agency.
Through public meetings, we expect 7
to obtain sufficient information which will effectuate a 8
decision to either establish a requirement for certification 9
or to maintain licensing practices, current licensing 10 practices and policies.
11 For that purpose, we published the advance 12 notice of proposed rule making which posed 13 questions.
13 Your response to those questions will serve in a large
,73
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14 part as the basis for our reaching a decision on this 15 matter.
16 I will now ask Mr. Jones to discuss the AMPR 17 and the questions in the AMPR in more detail, g
fl 18 Jimmy?
g 19 MR. JONES:
Thanks, Bernie.
In my comments, a
j 20 I will briefly cover some of the background and thinking i!
21 that led to the publication of the advance notice of 1
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proposed rule making and also to this public meeting.
23 First, I think I should say a few words about the s
24 distinction between an advanced notice of proposed rule 25 making and a notice of proposed rule making.
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I A notice of proposed rule making is published 2
when the Commission proposes to adopt, amend or repeal a O
reeu1ee1oa-vrior te eun11=nias e progo ed ru1e, the 4
Commiss(>n must obtain complete information concerning 5
the impact of the rule and the nost effective means of 6
implementing the rules.
The information obtained in 7
this process is used to prepare value impact statements 8
and regulatory flexibility act analysis which are documents 9
required in support of proposed rules.
10 Whereas, an advanced notice of proposed rule H
making is a mechanism whereby a regulatory agency can 12' inform the public at a very early stage in the rule making 13 process that a particular rule is being contemplated and 14 obtain public reaction and input concerning the rule.
15 In general, advanced notices are only published 16 concerning major policy issues.
The issue of radiographer 17 l
certification was determined to be a major policy question I
18 by the NRC.
l' And, in order to obtain broad public input f
and information at an early stage, a decision was made to 20 21 prepare an advance notice of proposed rule making and f
conduct a series of public meetings on the issue.
The NRC 22 3
23 Staff has internally considered the issue of licensure, s
24 of certification of radiographers since the early 1960's.
25 The NRC's interest in a radiographer licensing program is due O
8 1
to the health risks associated with. occupational 2
exposure and to the high rate of occurrence of over-3 exposure incidents by radiography licensees when compared 4
to other NRC licensees.
5 Although they constitute only 3% of the NRC 6
material licensees, radiographer licensees were involved 7
in over 60% of the reported over-exposures to the whole 8
body rated in 5 REMS during the years 1970 to 1980.
9 Although the NRC Staff had discussed the pros 4
to and cons of radiographer licensing programs for several 11 years, a concensus was never reached and nothing was done 12 until 1978 when a petition was received from the 13 Non-Destructive Test and Management Association requesting 14 that the NRC amend its regulations to provide for 15 registration, licensing and control of radiographers.
16 The NDTMA indicated in its petition that a 17 l
program for licensing would accomplish the following l
18 objectives.
It said one, that it would provide the 19 radiographer with a sense of pride in his knowledge that j
20 he has been registered by a government body.
They said 21 two, an awareness that he is directly responsible for 5
22 his safety performance and three, that he is accountable s
l 23 for his conduct to the extent his registration could be 24 limited, suspended or revoked and future employment in the 25 industry affected and four, it would provide continuity of O
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1 safety training and testing in an industry where employment 2
is very mobile.
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3 The NRC published a petition for comment in 4
the Federal Register on August 4th, 1978.
Only eleven r
5 comments were received concerning the petition.
t 6
Two comments favored the petition and nine 7
comments opposed the petition.
The NOTMA subsequently 8'
withdrew the petition by a letter dated May 10, 1992 9
without comment.
In March, 1980, the NRC Staff due to 10 the recurring problems of radiographer over-exporsure, 11 initiated a new program to improve radiation safety in 12 the industrial radiography industry.
As part of the program, 13 a steering committee consisting of NRC Staff personnel was O
14 formed to coordinate manpower, funding, scheduling and 15 priorities.
Representatives from agreement states and 16 non-agreement states were later added in order that a 17 uniform national program for radiation safety could be j
18 developed.
The steering committee established considerations g
19 of a national program for licensing or certification of a
j 20 radiographers as a priorly item.
f 21 For clarification purposes, certification is a
f 22 considered a process by which non-governmental agencies
- i 23 or associations grant recognition to an individual who has 24 met certain pre-determined qualifications, whereas, 25 licensing is considered a process whereby a governmental O
10 O
i esency or ea eseat or the sovern eat areate the recoeattioa-2 After careful evaluation of the guidance provided by the 3
Commission to the Staff in the Commission's policy, planning 4
and program guidance, the Staff determined that due to 5
budgetary constraints an NRC controlled licensing program 6
was not feasible.
As a result, the NRC Staff recommended 7
to the Commission that a regulatory program that incor-8 porates a third party certification program as an alternative 9
as an alternative to the present system be considered.
10 The purpose of the advance notice and also this i,
public meeting is to obtain broad public input to enable the NRC Staff to make a determination as to whether to 12 n
13 recommend to the commission that a proposed rule be U
34 published to establish a radiographer certification 15 program.
16 The advanced notice of proposed rule making 17 outlined issues that we are especially interested in
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l 18 receiving input about.
At this time, I will briefly g
19 discuss those issues.
j 20 (Slide)'
l 21 MR. JONES:
I don't know how well all of you i
f 22 can see the slide, but the items mentioned are covered in 23 the advanced notice which you all should have a copy of 24 and also I will be covering it in addition.
25 Before I discuss those specific thirteen issues
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I that we would like to hear your comments about, I would 2
like to mention an issue that has been raised at the
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other meetings and that issue that we didn't include is 3
4 the responsibility of the third party certifier.
5 Some committees have been of the opinion that 6
the third party certifier would guarantee the safe 7
performance of a certified radiographer and as such would 8
be responsible for the failure of any radiographers 9
who follow established procedures.
This is not the case.
10 The licensee on the certification program will continue 11 to be responsible for the safe performance of that 12 radiographer.
The third party certifier will only be 13 responsible for assuring that radiographers possessed the 3
I 14 minimum knowledge and training to operate equipment 15 safely.
They will not guarantee performance of the 16 radiographer.
That will still be the responsibility of 17 the licensee.
j 18 The thirteen issues that we're going to discuss i
i 19 next are the issues that we thought were the most important 3
j 20 in coming up with a -- in deciding whether we should a
l 21 pursue a third party certification program or let the a
f 22 present program remain in place.
The first question we 8
23 thought we should consider,is the training provided 24 to radiographers under the present system adequate?
There 25 is a lot of debate on that.
Some comment and say that it is, O
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1 some say it's not.
You know, what we're really looking for 2
is the program that will most assure that the radiographer
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3 who is out there in the field knows how to operate 4
equipment safely, will operate equipment safely and also 4
5 has a good understanding of radiation effects and we want 6
to know what system would be the best in meeting that 7
responsibility.
8 The second item we're interested in, would a 9
third party certification program reduce the number of to over-exposures in the radiographer industry.
- Again, 11 we've had comments both ways.
Some individuals say they 12 think it will, some say thet they think it uon't so I
13 we're interested in hearing what you have to say about gm 0
14 that.
15 The third item, would a third party certifica-16 tion program motivate radiographers to work more safely?
g Again, that was one of the items that the NDTMA did 17 l
18 mention in their petition that would happen, but again, g
19 we've had a lot of debate on that.
As a matter of fact, s
j 20 we even had a paper prepared by an NRC contractor to a
l 21 discuss that item specifically.
And in the paper it f
22 was stated that they didn't think it would, but again 23 like I say, no one really knows for sure.
We're
,3 24 interested in hearing further comment on that.
25 Number four, what elements in the present system
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i or eny suegested e1terneeive ere gerescuter1r desireb1e 2
or undesirable and why?
Again, we're interested in 3
discussing the good points about the present system and 4
the -- also the bad points and we're interested in 5
what you think about the third party systen as an 6
alternative.
7 Number five, if a third party certification 8
program is adopted, what items should be included in the 9
standard for determining the confidence of individuals to 10 act as radiographers?
The key to any certification program 11 of course, will be the development of a standard and 12 so we decided to go with a third party certification 13 program.
We need to develop a standard that will, that 14 all radiographers will have to meet in order to be 15 qualified as radiographers and what should be included 16 in that standard is a very important issue, so we are 17 certainly interested in hearing comments on what kind of g
l 18 items should be included.
g 19 Number six, if a third party certification j
20 program is adopted should it apply to individuals presently e
l 21 working as radiographers or only to new radiographers?
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22 Again, this is a big issue.
Should we just qualify e
8 23 new radiographers or should we only also test the old 24 radiographers?
25 Number seven, if a third party certification O
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1 program is adopted, should a certificate be issued 2
to individuals for life or should there be period renewals 3
of the certification?
Again, we're interested in hearing 4
comments on that.
Some licensing and certification 5
programs, once you issue a certificate or a license, like 6
doctors or lawyers, they keep it for life.
Should we have 7
that for radiographers or should there be a periodic 8
renewal?
We're interested in that.
8 They can change that for me; I think it's to number eight, the last one.
Would a third party certification program 12 affect the ability of a licensee to respond to variable 13 Q
manpower needs?
This is an important consideration.
We do realize many of the radiography firms are based, their 15 work to a great extent is based on contracts.
If a big 16 contract came up, they might need to increase their I7 i
manpower quickly.
Would certification affect that?
Would l
18 it be essentially the same as it is now?
We're interested
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in having comments on that.
j f
Essentially, third party certification programs 20 21 would likely be based on cost recovery by a fee system g
22 with the cost to'the. licensee of such a program be warranted.
2 23 Again, this would help us in preparing our cost benefit
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24 analysis which we have to do if we decide to go with the 25 proposed rule.
We're interested in comments on that would O
15
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I either support or not support the implementation of a 2
third party certification program.
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3 Number ten, and this question is somewhat like the 4
others, which alternatives of the two discussed, present 1
5 system, third party certification is preferable?
Why?
Are 6
there better alternatives?
If so, please explain.
i 7
Again, what we're primarily interested in is 8
having radiographers out there that are well-trained in 9
radiation safety, NRC regulations, the licenses, operating to the emergency procedures, all those key things.
I want to 11 make sure he's well-trained in those areas.
If there's 12 a better way to do it than we're presently doing it or 13 a third party certified is not the best way, we're interested 14 in hearing other ideas also.
15 With respect to the two alternatives, what kind 16 of enforcement action could and should be taken against 17 radiographers who do not operate equipment safely or l
18 follow established procedures?
What rights should i
19 radiographers have with respect to such snforcement actions /
j 20 Again, this is an area that we'd have to develop scme f
21 criteria in, like what -- how should we enforce this 3
f 22 kind of a situation?
Again, at this point, we really j
23 don't know for sure but we're interested in hearing 24 elements that everyone thinks should be included in any 25 enforcement program.
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Number twelve, would a small licensee because 1
2 of it's size, bear a disproportionate adverse economic
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3 impact on a third party system?
We need this kind of 4
information to help us prepare the regulatory flexibility 5
act analysis.
For any proposed rule, we have to consider 6
the impact that it will have on small entities and that's 7
why we put this question in.
We want to know how you 8
feel if it would or would not effect the small industry.
9 For those organizations who are interested in 10 participating in a third party certification program, what 11 would be the estimated cost to implement such a program?
12 We added this particular question because at this point, 13 we don't really have anybody who is up and expressed a
-Q 14 good firm interest in participating in a third party 15 certification program.
16 We're interested in knowing if there are some 17 organizations out there that are interested and if they've u
j 18 given any thought about how the program should work so g
19 we're interested in hearing from organizations that j
20 are interested in participating in such a program and f
21 also who might have some idea what it would cost, you know, a
f 22 because this kind of information helps us prepare again, 3
23 the value impact analysis.
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24 Okay, these are the thirteen basic issues we 25 would like discussed.
However, we are also interested in (A
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I hearing comments on other aspects of the program that we 2
may have overlooked.
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I will turn this back over to Bernie now.
3 4
MR. SINGER:
Thank you.
I'll now ask Nate 5
Bassin to discuss the current licensing requirements and 6
policy for radiography training.
7 MR. BASSIN:
Thank you, Bernie.
of the NRC regulations contains specific requirements 9
pertaining to the three major elements of a radiography 10
- program, management control, opera' ting and emergency 11 procedures, and training.
As part of an application, 12 information concerning training is required.
In order 13 for the NRC to determine that personnel will use and handle O
14 seal sources and devices will be adequately trained.
There 15 are specific requirements in 10 CFR Part 34 pertaining 16 to training.
Section 34.ll(b) of Part 34 states that 17 an application for'a specific license will be approved j
18 if the applicant has an adequate program for training 19 g
radiographers and radiographers assistants and submits j
20 a description of the program which specifies one, initial i,
21 training; two, periodic training; three, on the job training a
f 22 four, the means to be used by the licensee to determine 23 the radiographers knowledge and understanding of and 24 ability to comply with the Commission regulations and 25 licensing requirements and the operating and emergency O
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la procedures of the licensee;.ab,' five, means to be use,d I
2 by the licensee to determine that the radiographers
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3 assistant's knowledge and understanding of an ability to 4
comply with the operating and emergency proce,dures.
In 5
a more specific manner, Section 34.31 of Part 34 deals 6
with training requirements for radiographers a d radio,
7 graphers assistants.
For,an individual to be designated
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8 as a radiographer,'he must one, be instructed.in the 1
9 subjects outlined in Appendix A of Part 3'. Two, received,*
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10 copies of and instruction in.NRC regulations, the NRC
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11 license under which the radiographer will perform and
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1 12 the licensee's operatiang and emergency procedures.
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s 13 Three, demonstrate confidence'to'use radiographic ex6 sure d +'-
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14 devices, seal sources, related handling tools and survey i
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15 instruments and four, ddmonstrate understanding of the subject matter in Appendix A'and'other p,ortions of a 16 g
radiography progr.am of a wri:t, ten test and a field examina-17 4
I 18 tion.
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g Foranindividual'\\obedesignatedasa 19 j
20 radiographer'2 assistant, he must one, receive copies l
21 of and instruction in the licensees operating in emergencyz s
d 22 procedures; two, demonstrate conpetence to use under the c a rgdiographer, radiographic
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23 personal supervision
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24 exposure devices, seal sources, related. handling tools j)L
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25 and radiation survey instrbments.
The expression personal 0
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3 19 O) supervision as used in the regulations in Part 34 means
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2 that the radiographer must be physically present and 3
watching a radiographer's assistant when he is manipulating
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an exposure device, making surveys, and any other action 5
taken by a radiographer's assistant except for the 6
determination of the perimeter of the restricted area.
7 And then three, the radiographer's assistant must demonstrate t
8 understanding of the matters just specified by successful g
completion of a written or oral test in the field examination.
to 33 In Regulatory Guide 10.6, the guide for the
- 7, 12 preparation of applications for use of seal sources I
13 and devices for performing industrial radiography, training r-(2) t 34 programs are discussed in greater detail and guidance is 1
15 Provided as to the type and extent and scope of informa-16 tion which should be included in a training program 37 description.
/ l 18 In general, a narrative description of the g
ig entire training program for both radiographers and s
20 radiographers assistants should be provided.
More j'f 21 specifically, for radiographers the training program
"'g, 22 description should include a detailed outline of 23 the matters which will be covered including the topics
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24 in Appendix A and the approximate amount of time which 25 will be spent on each major area of instruction.
We t
20
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I suggest, recommend that approximately 40 hours4.62963e-4 days <br />0.0111 hours <br />6.613757e-5 weeks <br />1.522e-5 months <br /> be 2
spent in the formal training portion of the program.
3 If an outside service organization provides part of the
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4 training, the name of the organization or organizations 5
should be specified.
There are commercial service 6
organizations which provide instruction in the radiation 7
and radiation safety aspects of Appendix A which have 8
been reviewed either by the NRC or an agreement state 9
and have deemed to be acceptable as partial fulfillment 10 of the requirements for training of personnel.
- However, 11 since outside organizations cannot provide instruction 12 in operating in emergency procedures, equipment and 13 facilities, these matters must be specifically provided
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14 for by the licensee and specific information concerning 15 the instruction which will be given in these areas, 16 needs to be described in the training program.
A 17 description of the on the job training program should be
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l 18 included in the training program description.
We g
19 suggest and recommend that as a minimum, three months a
20 full-time equivalent should be spent in on the job training.
f 1Then. finally, a copy of the comprehensive 21 e
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22 examination which would consist of approximately 50 questions
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l 23 or more, covering all items in Appendix A and other portions
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24 of the training program should be provided, together with 25 the examination answers, the passing grade for the examina-()
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1 tion and a discussion of the additional instruction which 2
will be given in those areas where the examination indicates
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3 weakness on the part of an individual taking the examination.
4 For radiographers assistants, the information 5
which should be provided in the training program description) 6 includes the instruction which will be given in the I
7 licensees operating and emergency procedures and the 8
equipment which the radiographers assistant would be 9
using.
And, a copy of the examination either written or oral to which should consist of approximately 25 questions which ji will test understanding of the licensees operating in 12 emergency procedures and equipment, together with the 13 answers to the examination, the passing grade, and a i4 discussion of the additional instruction which will be 15 given in those areas where weakness is indicated should be submitted.
16 17 For persons who have previous training and
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l 18 experience, that is, persons that may have been involved l
ig in radiographic operations for a licensee other than s
j 20 the one for which the training program is being described, f
it is the new licensee's responsibility to make his own 21 a
f 22 determination of the competency of each individual, even
- j 23 though an individual may have worked somewhere else and 4
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have been designated as a radiographer, it is still 24 25 the obligation of the person for whom he is going to work, l
22 0
1 to make his own independent determination of the competency 2
of that individual.
Along this line, information which (v~)
3 should be provided concerning instruction which will be 4
given in the licensee's operating in emergency procedures 5
and equipment and the examination or means which will be 6
used to make the determination of competency of that 7
individual.
8 Periodic training is required.
We suggest g
that periodic training be conducted at least annually and 10 the information which should be included in the description 31 of periodic training should include the course content 12 which will ensure the continuing knowledge and proficiency 13 of radiography personnel in regulations, procedures, O
14 policy and equipment and that the knowledge and proficiency 15 is current and up to date.
16 An important aspect of any training prograin 17 is the quality of the instruction which is given.
Therefore, I
18 we look specifically at the instructors who will participate g
19 in the training program.
To this end, the names of the s
j 20 persons who will provide instructions should be provided f
21 along with a description of their qualifications in i
f 22 radiation and radiation safety and in use of seal sources 23 and devices for radiography.
24 A person who will act as an instructor in a 25 training program should have qualifications at least O
l 23
()
i equivalent to those of a radiography and preferably 2
should have training and experience beyond the minimum
(}
3 required for a radiographer.
4 In the event a radiography certification program 5
would be adopted, it would no longer be necessary to provide 6
much of the detail pertaining to training programs.
7 Rather, training would be given so that a person will be 8
prepared to take the certification examination and the 9
length of time and so on that might be required could 10 be variable as long as the person in the certification ti examination' demonstrates his understanding of the topics 12 in Appendix A, the regulations and demonstrates competence 13 to use equipment.
However, there might still need to O
14 be some information cencerning -- some information provided.
15 concerning training.
For example, instruction in operating 16 emergency procedures which is something a third party 17 certifier could not test.
18 This briefly describes the current status of g
19 the requirements and regulations pertaining to training a
j 20
- programs, a
21 Bernie?
I f
22 MR. SINGER:
Thank you, Nate.
Our first speaker 23 will be Mr. Tom Gaines who is a Director of Non-Destructive j
24 Testing Management Association and he's representing that 25 Association.
Tom?
24 i
}
1 MR. GAINES:
Thank you, Bernie.
Ladies and 2
gentlemen -- well, there is a lady.
I'd like to first
(])
thank all of you for caring enough to come to this meeting.
3 4
All too often we are faced with the reality of regulations 5
which concern us and we have failed to get involved.
I 6
am speaking as the immediate past president of the 7
Non-Destructive Testing Management Association, hereafter 8
called NDTMA and as a current member of the Board of 9
Directors.
I am reasonably familiar with the history of 10 the NDTMA petition concerning certification or registration of industrial radiographers for I was present during many 11 12 of the discussions which resulted in the petition.
Those p) discussions may be described by the following quotations 13 g-14 which will give you some idea of the range of sentiments is involved.
16 One, you are out of your mind asking the 17 Government on the one hand to get off your backs and l
18 on the other hand to become even more deeply involved in g
19 your affairs.
20 Another, the employer must have some protection i
21 to relieve him from.some of the liabilities incurred a
f 22 by the mis-adventures of his employees.
As you might
- i 23 have already guessed, I've cleaned up some of the words.
/7 k/
24 We considered for example, the airline captain 25 whose certification can be rescinded with proper cause, as i
25 O) i 1
well as other categories wherein certification, registra-2 tion or licensing of individuals is currently in practice.
([}
3 I cannot quote chapter and verse of the 4
criginal petition which was submitted by NDTMA but I 5
can tell you that based on my knowledge of the discussions 6
previously mentioned, the original intent of the petition 7
has been subverted to such an extent that it is definitely 8
not acceptable.
NDTMA cannot support any form of 9
certification which will permit the government to participat e 10 beyond the acceptance of third party certification.
11 In essence, NDTMA will not endorse any certifica-12 tion program which will cause the already burdensome (9-)
level of bureaucracy to be increased.
13
%)
14 Strong feelings pro and con have been voiced 15 in NDTMA on the subject of certification and the test of 16 time has allowed of us to consider many of the ramifications
[
The result of this is that during my term as president, 17 l
18 we reached a decision to withdraw the petition and this 19 has been done.
I would like to briefly comment on the j
j 20 actions which this petition created.
Many hours and ij many dollars have been spent in the search for an 21 f
22 acceptable solution to the question of certification.
3
{
23 I call your attention to an example.
NUREG/CR-2088 entitled
'A 24 a literature review of occupational licensing applied to 25 industrial radiography by J. J. Turnage.
This report can O
26 O
i de coastaerea moaev wet 1 =9 eat or moaev westea aeve=aias 2
n your individual persuasion on that subject.
But it's 3
still money spent.
pJ 4
A small mountain of paperwork has been 5
generated representing the efforts of concerned individuals 6
and this too, is money spent.
Perhaps I'm being presumptuous when I say this but I do sincerely feel that two things 7
8 have been accomplished by the petition -- one, a seriously 9
concerned well-intentioned group saw a problem and took action to resolve it.
Two, a government agency was 10 responsive to the action.
11 12 I m st strongly urge those of you who cared 13 enough to attend this meeting to give us your opinions 14 on this important matter.
Thank you.
MR. SINGER:
Thank you, Tom.
Any questions 15 16 our panel would like to ask of Mr. Gaines?
17 MR. BASSIN:
Yes, Tom, I have a question.
You g
l 18 stated that NDTMA cannot support any form of certification 19 which will permit the government to participate beyond the 3
j 20 acceptance of third party certification.
Could you 21 expand on what you mean by you can't support certification i
22 beyond acceptance of the third party certification?
23 Could you clarify just what you mean by that?
24 MR. GAINES:
Yes, and at this point I'll have 25 to speak as an individual and only as a Director of NDTMA.
27 1
Anything would have to be cleared so that the 2
group is in accord or proposed.
(])
3 MR. BASSIN:
So noted.
4 MR. GAINES:
But essentially the pulese of NDTMA 5
reads like this.
We don't want more government participation 6
if it is going to be burdensome.
If it is a blessing 7
or acceptance of a program that will permit certification, 8
all well and good and in very simply terms, we are not 9
asking the government to establish a new level of organiza-10 tion within the government.
11 MR. SINGER:
Thank you, Tom.
12 Jimmy?
13 MR. JONES:
I would to kind of follow-up on that
\\m/
14 because it's not really clear, you know in this sense.
15 The petition more or less had requested that a licensing 16 program would be established where.NRC would be in control 17 of it, whereas our -- this advance notice is a certification
~
s 4,
18 where NRC would not be the testing agency.
Let's see.
-19 Is part of your reasons was the fact that you prefer a j
20 licensing program when NRC was the one responsible for 21 the testing over a third party certification program, a
d 22 where NRC would not actually be the testing body?
23 MR. GAINES:
Yes, I think we desire that the 24 NRC not be the certifying body.
I think we're very clear 25 on that.
Now, I must also stress and I'm going to cite an O
e
28
()
1 example of this and I'm not picking on you gentlemen 2
because this involves another agency.
That was yesterday,
{}
3 so to speak when that petition was submitted.
By, as I 4
said, a well-intentioned group.
The philosophy of the 5
group, NDTMA has changed to the extent that what was 6
originally requested was no longer desired by the majority 7
of NDTMA.
8 MR. SINGER:
All right, thank you, Tom.
9 (Whereupon, the statement of to Thomas Gaines was marked 11 Exhibit 1 and made part of 12 the record.)
13 MR. SINGER:
I will now call on Mr. William O
14 Morris from the Naval Energy and Environmental Support 15 Activity to make the next presentation.
16 Mr. Morris?
17 g
MR. MORRIS:
Good morning.
Our activity, 5
18 the Naval Energy and Environmental Support Activity g
19 is responsible for coordinating radiation safety of industry j
20 NRC licenses throughout the Navy.
l 21 Approximately 40% of the Navy commands who I
a f
22 have NRC licenses possess a license for industrial f,
23 radiography operations.
In maintaining these licenses,
(
(/
24 Navy licenses have used both their own internal training i
25 programs and they have also -- for shore activities and have i
29
/~N
\\_/
also used a Navy wide third party type internal training 1
program for radiographers on board ships.
2 In maintaining these license programs during the
()
3 last ten years, we feel the Navy has had a very good record 4
5 of radiation safety in industrial radiography.
This record has been due to management initiative and commitment to pro '
6 vide a thorough training, management self-enforcement 7
8 through detailed periodic audits, retraining to correct 9
audit deficiencies and periodic, at least annual refresher to training in radiological safety.
The Navy realizes that third party certification 11 may provide better quality training for small licensees 12 and may find it difficult to establish or maintain their
(])
13 own high quality training program and the Navy does not 14 believe that third party certification will reduce the is number of over-exposures in the radiography industry in 16 the absence of commitment by licensed management and 17 g
prefers that the third party certification be an option l
18 19 to the current system.
i 3
j 20 MR. SINGER:
Thank you.
We feel that it's appropriate to again stress that in looking at third party 21 a
d 22 certification, we are indeed trying to get the government out of the testing function and simplify the licensing jr g 23
(/
24 process of radiographers.
The reduction of time spent in reviewing the programs that Mr. Bassin has discussed is 25 O
30
/
O
considerable and the current back log of getting radio-I 2
graphers licensed is sufficient to be of concern to the O) 3 agencies involved -- governmental agencies, both state
(_
4 and federal, so that this would indeed be an alleving 5
factor in terms of speeding up that licensing process.
6 The recognition of trying to get some organizations to be representative as a peer function is a whole idea 7
8 of a third party, to get away from the government doing the 9
testing.
If there's any question, that should be the 10 clear understanding of the intent of these discussions.
11 Our next speaker is Mr. Cliff Johnson.
He is 12 the Quality Assurance Manager of GEO Construction Testing.
13 Mr. Johnson?
(~s) s.
i 14 MR. JOHNSON:
Good morning. As you've already 15 heard, the NRC was petitioned to develop and implement 16 a program for the licensing and certification of radio-17 graphers.
g I
~
l 18 You also heard testimony that the petition 19 has been withdrawn and I believe rightly so.
j 20 The NRC as I understand it has subverted the 1
i; 21 scope of the original petition and is now on a tangent a
d 22 addressing only a portion of the original petition.
The 23 current proposal to certify radiographers is not viable
)
24 for at least the following reasons.
25 The decertifying or cancelling of the certificatior l ()
i
31
()
1 is not, to my knowledge, being addressed.
Without this, 2
a certification is not worth the paper it's written 6n.
()
The term certified radiographer is greatly 3
4 misleading.
5 The certification program we're discussing here 6
today has to do with the safe handling and use of by-7 product material.
This does not mean that the person is 8
qualified to make a radiograph.
We're still open on 9
who is to underwrite this program.
The employer will 10 still be held responsible for any items of non-compliance.
11 It is his by-product material license, therefore he's
~ responsible.
Any time there's a non-compliance, the 12 13 standard wording is, Mr. Employer, you permitted the O
14 radiographer to... and it goes on from there.
The 15 employcr's only recourse is to terminate the radiographer 16 who then goes down the street looking like Mr. Clean and 17 gets a job with a competitor.
The employer's name is j
18 remembered forever, but not the radiographers.
19 You know, the best training program in the world, j
20 when a person is on a job, he does it his way.
All of 21 you when taking your driver's license exam followed the a
d 22 rules right to the letter of the law.
How many of you l
23 drive that way today?
However, if you're caught not 24 following the rules, you could have your license suspended.
25 I repeat you, not your employer.
If there is a fine, you O
32 a
rV 1
have to pay, not your employer.
If there's to be 2
- a. certification or a licensing program for radiographers, O
a gere of thee gregrem must be e method or e erstem wheresy 4
the radiographer shares some of the burden.
The 5
certification of radiographers will onlyjguarantee one 6
thing, higher cost to the employer, maybe, to the tax payer, 7
for sure.
8 Thank you.
9 (Whereupon, the statement of 10 Cliff Johnson was marked as 11 Exhibit 2 and incorporated 12 into the record.)
13 MR. SINGER:
I will perhaps make a couple of 14 clarifying remarks that relate to this same issue.
It 15 has never been the intent of the Commission working with 16 the agreement states to provide a means for the employer 17 i
to escape his responsibilities.
And, we know that there i
~
l i
18 are a large number of corporations that have very sound 19
[
training programs.
We also know that there are 2
20 a larger number of radiographers who are not possessed i
g 21 of sufficient funds or people to provide equivalent programs.
3 f
22 i
One of the meetings of NDTMA, one of the members
- j 23 there spoke of these people as Mama / Papa outfits and proposed 24 that something like 80% of the entire industry was made
~
25 up of Mama / Papa outfits.
And we feel very strongly that
33 O
1 those elements which comprised a higher percentage of 2
people have to be safeguarded in one respect or another.
()
3 Perhaps the most telling thing that occurred of the many 4
meetings that we've attended was the meeting at Odessa, 5
Texas where several of the wives got up and said that 6
their husbands who were radiographers knew nothing of 7
radiation, cared less, felt it couldn't be of any harm 8
anyway and thought it was all a bunch of nonsense 9
trying to go through all this type of training.
10 Now, we have heard from larger organizations 11 that have 40 to 300 radiographers and they've told us 12 what a wonderful program they've had, how good their
(])
management happens to be and that they have no problems 13 14 whatsover.
There is a responsibility to take care of 15 these smaller outfits -- they're in a very highly competitive 16 market and have to push like all get out to maintain the 17 j
level of quality assurance requirements that is demanded l
18 of them in their contract.
Those people aren't as well-19 l
trained as some of the people that you people have been j
20 talking about.
They do need to be given some protection a
l 21 and part of this total program is to provide some means a
d 22 of doing that, f
3 l
f-)/
23 At this time I think I'll take -- excuse me.
w 24 MR. BOOK:
I'm Herb Book with the Region V office
(
25 here and I'd just like to make a comment.
Part of our job
(^)
\\i
34 O#
1 is inspection and enforcement, so if a system like this 2
were established, we would be doing the inspection and
()
3 presumably taking some sort of action against the individual 4
radiographers and I want to -- it's my understanding at 5
least that the intent would be some sort of action against 6
radiographers if they do foul up and we're asking you, 7
I guess, what -- that was one of the --
8 MR. SINGER:
One of the questions.
9 MR. BOOK:
One of the points --
10 MR. SINGER:
Right.
11 MR. BOOK:
That Mr. Jones brought up, what 12 would be appropriate action, so I'd like to later on hear 13 some kind of comment on that.
)
14 MR. JONES:
Right, that's what we're really 15 looking for for you to tell us you know, like we said, 16 at this point nothing in this program is determined as g
to how it's going to work, okay, so what you saw in the 17 t
l l
18 advanced notice was a broad general outline of the 1
19 concept but nothing there is in specifics, so we are j
i i
~
j 20 trying -- we want you to help us if we decide to go that 1
i i
21 way, to develop a program.
Like from you, Mr. Johnson, a
d 22 we'd like comments on what kind of things, what kind of I
t 23 action should be taken against radiographers and what 24 kind of things you recommend.
I think we have a pretty 25 good idea of what kind of action you'd recommend but like I l
(1) i
35
()
1 say, nothing in this program at this point is specific.
2 Like, you don't really get specific if you go with the 3
{}
proposed rule like I mentioned.
At the advanced notice 4
stage, you're in the elementary, rudimentary stage of a 5
development of a regulatory program, so -- and you have 6
to really get good information at this point.
7 MR. SINGER:
Thank you, Jimmy.
I believe a
that it would be appropriate if we take about a fifteen 9
minute recess before we hear from our next speakers.
I'll to take that recess now.
11 (Whereupon, a fifteen minute recess was taken.)
12 MR. SINGER:
On the record.
13 We'll resume the meeting now. We have four h'
14 more speakers who have indicated they want to make a 15 statement and then I will open the discussion for any 16 and other members of the audience that wish to go on 17 record.
l 18 Our next speaker is Mr. C.T. Jensen, representing g
19 the -- he's with the United Airlines, s
j 20 MR. JENSEN:
Ladies and gentlemen, we're glad 21 to be here today and have an opportunity to respond a
l d
22 in this public meeting.
We have already responded by l
23 written comment and I don't.know how much more I should A\\/
24 go into this thing.
Perhaps I will talk very generally 25 related to our particular feelings regarding the certification
()
l
36
()
1 of radiographers.
Basically, we're terribly prejudiced 2
about our program.
We're prejudiced about the work that
/~T 3
we do and we feel that we have top notch operations and
(_/
4 people also.
We are also saying that there must be a lot 5
of problems within the industry but we feel that perhaps 6
depending upon the program that a company or a corporation 7
may have, we shouldn't all be treated the same way.
8 Now, I don't know how you would go about policing our 9
bringing these people in to line that do act in 10 irresponsible ways and in irrespoh'sible manners, but is 11 something that should be treated individually according 12 to their particular conduct.
13 I'd like to just very briefly tell you that we O
14 have a way of responding to all of the NRC rules and 15 regulations through the air"transpott association through 16 Mr.
E. L. Thomas.
And some of the rest of you will 17 respond in various different ways.
However, we do appre-l 18 ciate this opportunity here today and I would just like to 3
19 say that we strongly object to the proposal of licensed s
j 20 certified radiographers for this reason: the key to f
21 radiation safety as with any other kind of safety is a
f 22 proper training and qualification of personnel and the
- i 23 exercise of effective management over these people.
As (t /)
24 you know, all users of isotopes for an industrial 25 radiographer are now required to be licensed by the NRC and
37
()
I they reviewed the license requirements before they are 2
allowed to engage in isotope radiography.
In the case
(])
3 of the U.S.
Scheduled Airlines, radiographers are air men, 4
licensed by the FAA as air frame and power plant mechanics 5
as well as repairmen.
6 In addition, the airlines are required by 7
Part 121 to properly train and qualify such personnel 8
and provide any manuals and needs that these people need 9
to perform their duties.
The responsibility for a 10 radiographic operation including radiographer qualifica-11 tion and conduct rests with the radiographer's licensed 12 employer.
Fulfillment of these responsibilities is now 13 monitored by federal and state agencies.
The licensee g3
\\-)
14 has a vested interest in demanding proper radiographer 15 conduct and training.
As an employer, he also has the 16 ability to levy financial penalty up to the termination g
of employment for the types of negligent conduct presented 17 l
18 in the petition.
I 19 Therefore, the Schedule Airlines believe that j
20 the current NRC, FAA and state regulations already provide e
l 21 adequate control of radiographer conduct without unnecessary a
f 22 burden of an additional overlay of license requirements.
j 23 The impact of licensing radiographers for
}
24 United Airlines would be an astronomical thing, in 25 addition to our present training program already.
United
()
l
38 s/
1 would have to provide time, material and administrative 2
efforts to put the proposed licensing process into
()
3 effect.
4 The proposed rule change would be for United 5
and the Airlines redundant, wasteful and would have no 6
effect on the licensees radiation safety responsibilities.
7 Therefore, the proposed rule change should not be 8
adopted.
9 United Airlines' radiographers are also 10 licensed aircraft inspectors.
They are entrusted with 11 the signing of maintenance releases that ensure the 12 safe operations of all aircraft.
(/}
13 I guess in summary, if you send a kid to school
~
14 and he does a pretty good job, you're going to treat him 15 differently than you are the one who doesn't do a good 16 job.
The same, as already even brought up by Mr. Johnson, g
we're all licensed operators of automobiles yet we all 17 18 act differently when we get out on the highway and we i
19 believe that things should remain status quo and if there s
j 20 is someone who is unable to comply then he should be 21 treated accordingly.
Thank you.
d 22 MR. SINGER:
Thank you.
There's a couple of 23 questions from the panel for Mr. Jensen.
Mr. Jensen?
O 24 Go ahead.
25 MR. JONES:
Okay.
I have a few things that I
~
i g J
4
i l
39 1
1
()
I would like to go into from a clarification standpoint.
You 2
made the point that you felt a course of the proper
(]}
3 training and supervision of radiographers are a management 4
responsibility.
I don't quote understand how a third 5
party certification program would have any impact on that.
6 I don't really see how that would cause you to provide 7
less supervision and poor training.
As a matter of fact, 8
it would appear to me that since you would have to train 9
someone to take the exam to make sure that when you sent 10 him to wherever the third party certifier is, that I 11 think you would be more careful in training him because 12 you wouldn't want him to fail the exam so I don't quite 13 understand how this would --
14 MR. JENSEN:
Okay, what I'm saying is that we 15 already have a training program that's required in order 16 for us to get -our operator's license to use the radioactive l'7 source.
And, the additional expense that would be required
=
l 18 to take and send a person off base, time and money, we g
19 estimate that to be about $2300 cer radiographer.
- Now, c
j 20 you wouldn't have allowed us to become operators with f
21 the isotope unless you were satisfied with our training a
f 22 program, our supervision program and the whole ball of aj 23 wax, so what we're saying -- this additional thing, and
\\m/
24 it's not going to relieve us.of any responsibility, it's 25 redundant and it would just increase our operating expense.
40
()
1 MR. JONES:
Okay, but it wouldn't really 2
actually reduce your management or you would still do just
/]}
3 as good a job --
4 MR. JENSEN:
We would still have to have 5
responsible management.
6 MR. JONES: Right, and you would still do just 7
as good a job --
8 MR. JENSEN:
And training, follow-up and so 9
forth, very definitely.
10 MR. JONES:
Right, okay.
You said, also 11 mentioned that this would cause a tremendous amount of 12 time and effort to put a program in effect on the third 13 party certification program.
I don't quite understand O
14 that either.
15 MR. JENSEN:
Okay, I guess what I'm saying.is, 16 that we already have the program and again, a third 17 party certification would again be redundant.
l 18 MR. JONES:
So you don't see any value in -- like g
19 again, like say everyone is prejudiced, like we all think a
j 20 we're great as individuals, all right, or as competent f
21 or whatever.
You don't see any advantage in having someone a
f 22 who can outlook objectively from an independent standpoing l3 23 who actually -- like you say your program is really 24 outstanding, right?
But if someone outside actually 25 tested your radiographers, you're sure they all could pass Ov
41 O(-
1 it without any problem, so you don't see any advantage in 2
that kind of system where someone other than you actually
(]}
3 can give your radiographers a test based a fair standard 4
to see if they really do meet all the criteria you're 5
saying that you are instructing them in.
6 MR. JENSEN:
Realize that I'm prejudiced and 7
all of these good things that would be proposed by a 8
third party would not be anything different than what 9
we're already doing.
It would be additional expense.
10 When you looked at our licensing requirements, you said 11 yes this is good.
Otherwise we wouldn't have acquired 12 our license.
You come in and look at us, you inspect us 13 for violations and you say yes, you're really doing O
14 good or bad and you would still have this same sort of 15 a program and what we're saying is, we would have all the 16 additional expense required from the third party 17 certification.
l 18 It's sort of like a young fellow that you hire l
y 19 out of a school.
He hasn't had any experience, he doesn't a
i j
20 know anything about the equipment -- you've still got to 21 take him and train him and you've still got to give him I
n j
f 22 refresher training, whatever else is required and we 2
23 feel that training is a ongoing thing and we keep abreast 24 of whatever is going on in the industry and to keep 25 up to date.
I don't know whether that answers your question b) m,
42
('s sl 1
or not.
2 MR. SINGER:
I believe that what you're
()
3 stating is what others have stated.
Those of you who are 4
part of a larger program that have a stable work force and 5
that have good training programs and good supervision and 6
all these other good things, need not have any additional 7
burden or expense added to certify those same. types of 8
people?
1 9
MR. JENSEN:
That is correct.
We think if 10 this program does come about then there ought to be some 11 sort of special dispensation for a corporation or a 12 company that does have a good program.
13 MR. SINGER:
There's no reason in any of the 14 thinking at this point where nothing has been determined 15 that that couldn't be possible within that understanding, 16 that people that have large organizations and thereby g
can go through a certification process rather simply, 17 j
18 I would find it hard to believe that the cost therefore 19 would be very significant.
You've already done all the j
20 things that are necessary and the paperwork that is 21 involved and the examination by a third party shouldn't a
f 22 be that difficult nor costly to you.
It does say that 23 there are as we said earlier a large number of people 24 that don't enjoy the type of training and supervision 25 that you provide.
Somebody has to be concerned about those O
V
i 43
()
1 people.
If you're not concerned there are very few 2
alternatives and we're seeking alternatives other than
((~')
having the government increase its forces, increase its 3
4 penalties and increase all the other things that a i
5 regulatory agency would do in order to assure itself I
6 that those people are properly being protected that are 7
in the industry.
If it's possible to be done through 8
the peer function, so be it and that cost is absorbed 9
within, the arrangements are made that if United Airlines 10 is board certified by the peer function that's established, 11 we would accept that understanding.
On the other hand, 12 there are a number of people out there that might find 13 it more difficult and would have to pay to have their O
14 people certified in according to whatever came out of 15 the program.
That's what we're trying to determine 16 today.
We're not trying to determine whether your program 17 g
is either good or bad or suggest anything that is good l
18 or bad about it.
We are saying that there are a number g
19 of people out there that need to be given better training 2
j 20 than they are currently receiving.
a 21 MR. JENSEN:
We recognize that and we recognize l
3 l
f 22 the burden on the industry and the NRC and I guess what
- j 23 I'm really saying, don't treat us all the same way if
(")
(/
24 there's some other way of doing it. Now, we've been 25 responding to this thing for many many years already on the l
44
()
certification of radiographers and I don't think it's i
2 going to go away, but we're saying let's be properly 3
recognized.
(])
4 MR. SINGER:
Well, we properly recognize you and you'll help us most by answering the types of questions 5
6 that we're asking so that we can deal with this in some formal manner.
What we don't want to do is by fiat come 7
to a determination that we have to do x, y, and z without 8
9 giving you the opportunity to understand what x, y, and z might be.
to I thank you.
11 The next speaker.
Excuse me, a question.
12 MR. PICKLER:
I think there's another considera-C:)
tion here that I might mention.
14 MR. SINGER:
Can you please identify yourself 15 f r the record?
16 17 MR. PICKLER:
I'm Dave Pickler from the State
=
18 of California.
I just wanted to mention one thing I l
g 19 think has not been mentioned so fhr, that some radiography a
j 20 licensees do only in-house radiography.
In those f
organizations, usually the turnover of radiographers is 21 a
f 22 relatively small.
There are other radiography licensees that do radiography as a customer service.
There, the 23 (J
turnover of radiographers is relatively large.
24 25 MR. SINGER: Thank you.
That's very true.
It O
45 probably is as nomadic as any industry in existence and 1
2 that's one of the real problems you have.
There are 3
some thoughts that were presented that the NDTMA and 4
the ASNT, Penetrating Radiation Committee and things of 5
that nature, is how to establish a more consistent 6
work force.
That may be one of the end products of such 7
a program.
It's one of the things that has to be 8
determined.
9 The next speaker is also from United Airlines, 10 Mr. Leonard Titus.
11 MR. TITUS:
Ma'am, fellows -- I am a radiographer i
12 at United Airlines, also, ANP mechanic and an aircraft 13 inspector.
I received the training that Mr. Jensen
( -)
x 14 spoke of.
I set for 40 hours4.62963e-4 days <br />0.0111 hours <br />6.613757e-5 weeks <br />1.522e-5 months <br />, that was five days a week, 8 hours9.259259e-5 days <br />0.00222 hours <br />1.322751e-5 weeks <br />3.044e-6 months <br /> a day pouring over the manuals by General Dynamics.
15 16 I believe that's one of the training programs that would 17 be authorized.
And, it's starting from scratch, learning g
j 18 radiation.
If you've never been around it, you have to get 19 down and start at the atom so I did receive that training.
l 20 After I'd received formal training, discussion ij 21 with the safety officers, I went out to work as an i
d 22 apprentice, as a student with two radiographers that are 23 now retired. Fine men, knowing their field but they sure 24 knew safety and we know safety.
I think what we're asking 25 here as I see it is responsibility.
The average age of a AU
(
i 46 1
radiographer at United Airlines is 53 years old.
The-2 youngest man on the force is 35.
The oldest is 64.
These
(])
3 people are responsible! people.
They've been in the 4
industry for many years.
We're part-time radiographers 5
so to speak.
We use this NDT.
There may be two or j
6 three weeks going by and I don't do a radiographic procedure 7
because I'm busy-with eddy. currents, ultra-sonic and the 8
rest of them,.but when it come my turn, I have to be I
9 qualified.
When' they need that job done, somebody does it.
You're'nav'er sent out by yourselves. There's 10
/
ti always two radiographe s go on a job.
If it's a difficult 12 zoning, it may be'thr e.
And my safety officer of which ii 13 the three, Jensen, Trevor Hughes and Jim Blackhurst, and 0
14 that's strange because'he's on the other side o'f'the 15 fence.
He's not managguent, he's one of us.-
These people know and they check and't'1cy do see th'at we are operating.'
16 thinkwhatwe're'[rying,to' cay' islet'sgetresponsi-17 So I i
18 bility into the jobrand maybe'this is homely and maybe g
19 you people know this', but I wanted to bring this side of it.
,f a
j 20 We're the people that do the work day to day
?
a 21 and I would speak against licensing. because as I operate i
f 22 as a radiographer at United Airlines', it's not my basic-4,c a
23 work.
It is a tool that inspection uses to accomplish'
[]
1',;
24 a job.
It's not my ',asic -- that's not my livelihood.
25 There are 102 aircraft /i,nspectors.
There'are 35 working O
i
. ~
- 3
,/
'I
___~___.--____--.._a
b 3
y, l'
g O
radiographers so if the company could pull my name off 1
2 the qualification list, either both the company and O
a myse1f heve to sien thae 2eetificaelon 11st sefore I em 4
qualified as a radiographer, both.
In otherwords, I 5
know my responsibility before I go out there and I 6
think that's the word that we want to get here.
I can't 7
speak for the rest of the industry.
That'I've never 8
worked around.
I've never even been near, so, but this 9
is a tool that we use.
It's not the same as the industry.
10 I'm sure it isn't.
Thank you.
1 11 MR. SINGER: Thank you.
12 Well, I'm pleased to know and have verification 13 that United Airlines is doing a good job in training their 14 radiographers.
I can only add that in a number of recent 15 cases, last being cited by the State of Texas, they 16 too sat in on a session of training being given to
- j radiographers, a 40 hour4.62963e-4 days <br />0.0111 hours <br />6.613757e-5 weeks <br />1.522e-5 months <br /> session 8 hours9.259259e-5 days <br />0.00222 hours <br />1.322751e-5 weeks <br />3.044e-6 months <br /> a day.
It turned 17 l
18 out their students had about 10 minutes of attentativeness I
j during that 8 hour9.259259e-5 days <br />0.00222 hours <br />1.322751e-5 weeks <br />3.044e-6 months <br /> period.
If their qualifying grades 19 j
20 were all passing, individuals were tested, questionned ii 21 I should say, questionned by the inspectors and F Md a
22 them to be grossly wanting and they just stopped O.em at the jobsite and sent them home, so there are other outfits 23 24 that are providing the kind of training that you're speaking 25 to and that's perhaps a very unfortunate situation but we
\\
48 O
1 have enough evidence to know that that is the case and 2
what we're seeking is a way through these discussions to
()
3 find an assurance that those people who are given the type of training that you receive are given an opportunity 4
5 to receive such training, to be assured that they have i
6 your understanding.
7 Our next speaker is Mr. Mark Edward Gustely from 4
8 Kaiser Aero-Tech.
9 MR. GUSTELY:
I'm Mark Gustely.
I've been to a radiographer for four years now and I've worked in 11 several industries being it industrial as well as laboratory 12 work.
I've worked with cobalt isotopes, iridium as well 13 as x-ray equipment.
I have been trained by four different
({}
companies and have a quite diverse inspection background.
14 i
15 I came to this meeting tonight to hear what 18 the NRC had to say to possibly either improve or to 17 change my work field with radiation safety.
Now, I am l,
18 a qualified Level 2 radiation safety officer as I have
(
i 19 been certified in that field by Peabody Testing X-Ray 3
j 20 Engineering Company who was certified by NRC.
Now, what 21 I see that they have proposed tonight as far as discussion a
1 d
22 is the concern of the NRC to create a field of let's say,
=
! -s 23 high level of quality related inspectors as far as safety b
24 is concerned.i And with their existing plan that they have 25 now they are licensing agencies who performthe training or
(:)
1 I
- _ _ ~
49 O
certification of these personnel in respect to radiation 1
2 safety.
as I can see from what has been stated 3
- Now, here today, the safety related companies or businesses 4
that deal with a high level of business as well as a high i
5 level of consciousness of safety towards their workers 6
are doing an extremely adequate job.
They might even 7
be spending more money than might be necessary for the a
individual worker were it not for the competence level l
9 of individual people to try to sustain a reasonable level 10 of safety among a vast najority of people.
11 How, as far as the small independent company, 12
()
13 l there is where I think they are addressing to he the major problem, that being that that small company is 14 trying to keep a very independent status with it's work 15 and as such is trying to side step with some degree that nS I'm not aware of the regulations and let's say paperwork, 17 that is required with doing qualification work,' qualifying l
13 safety work or anything that requires a qualification 19 l
of personnel and certification.
20 j
the NRC is responsible for licensing of f
- Now, 21 o
those agencies and it is those agencies that I think a
f 22 that the majority of the hazardous conditions that 3
k~%
23 U
have existed to create the over-exposure to personnel.
3 24 the NRC is the one responsible for licensing those 25
- Now,
50 0
1 personnel and as you have stated this evening, I have 2
heard you say that your agency is incapable of keeping O
3 up with the tevet of work es we11 es the aue11er of your 4
work in assuring that the certification of those companies 5
is of the level that is need for the industry.
- Now, 6
what I see is you, or what is being propcsed as a third 7
party inspector I think is deceptive.
What is being said, 8
I think by the NRC is that we don't want to be the prime 9
person responsible for this certification and safety to of the personnel but we want to be the ultimate person 11 and not the major person responsible for the certification.
12 Now, if that is their intent, then I think that 13 they ought to address it as such.
If you want to release 14 the government of the responsibility to be registering 15 and certifying companies and training processes and 16 certification process to be qualified to these processes, 17 if the NRC wants to release them of that responsibility g
18 and of course, the cost, then that ought to be the way g
i 19 the presentation be presented.
I've seen so many different j
20 people out here make reference to so many different f
21 subjects that don't really deal with specifically what it a
f 22 is you're interested in hearing and what we're talking 2i 23 about is over-exporure.
That's the bottom line.
That is
'O 24 the major issue, over-exposure to radiographic personnel 25 and to worker personnel as well as other personnel working O
1
51
()
1 or passing through the area of exposure.
Now, the only 2
one that can maintain that area is the radiation safety
(])
3 officer, not the radiographers.
Radiographic inspection 4
is film, radiation safety is working with radiation safety.
5 They should be and to my knowledge are maintained as two 6
separate certifications.
7 Now, to maintain that safety in that environment 8
is only done by the radiation safety officer, not 9
necessarily the radiographer.
And those radiation safety 10 officers have been trained and certified to their companies 11 guidelines which have been licensed by the NRC.
12 Now, if that employee fails to hold to the 13 regulations set forth by the company that can either be
)
14 the employees responsibility for his negligence, it 15 could be the company's responsibility for not enforcing 16 the policy which they've been licensed to or it could 17 be the NRC's failure to examine the companies' effectiveness l
18 of thier policy of examination, training and certification l
j 19 of their personnel.
t j
20 Now, myself, I've been involved in several f
21 incidences where I'll speak of one in particular where a
f 22 a person was over-exposed to radiation.
This was done e
(
23 under extremely adverse conditions where no man and in 24 this situation could have controlled the circumstances 25 and that was a personnel walking into a high level radiation O
4 1
52 0
ignoring a radiation sign due to his own curiousity.
1
- field, this is something totally out of the control of 2
- Now, any radiation safety officer.
And this is nothing that 3
an individual person can do to protect.
Now, according 4
to the type of operating procedures that are licensed 5
6 by the NRC, constant surveillance of the area is necessary.
Unfortunately, due to the extreme conditions 7
that these types of exposures is taken in, it is somewhat 8
inconceivable that 100% of the area be monitored visually 9
and this is something that could only be done through 10 extremely high manpower in that region.
And the conscious-11 ness of the worker in the field not licensed to radiation 12
=afety due is worxina in en area thet is beins bomberaed O
13 by penetrating radiation is the person that needs to 14 15 be aware of this radiation, its effect and uses for that 16 matter.
17 As far as the meeting today, I mean, what I g
can do to improve the system -- I see there is a need to 18 increase,the consciousness of the general environment, 19
-g personnel in the environment of the areas where penetrating j
20 21 radiation radiographs are being taken.
Now, that can i
f 22 come from NRC or individual companies.
I think that I
might be a subject that would be addressed tonight, or
{
23 today that*might have significant effect in reducing 24 And one subject I've not 25 the amount of over-exposures.
O
53 O
heard on is what the actual percentage of for instance, 1
2 if there are 1000 radiographers and 3% of them are
([)
3 negligent in their work and have let's say exposed in 4
their one year period of time, 15 people to a higher 5
level of radiation than what was allowed -- now for a 6
non-radiographer or person related with the work in i
radiation, that person is not allowed to receive any 8
doses over 2MR per hour.
As far as the radiation safety 9
worker himself or the radiographer, he can receive up 10 to 5 REMS a year which can be exceeded for a once in a 11 lifetime exposure -- I believe it is 50, to save a life.
Now, all of these regulations and everything
- 12 13 have been set forth or at least agreed upon by the NRC
[)
14 and the individual companies, to see that they would 15 provide a safe working condition and what I think we're 16 seeing now is a lot of surfacing of radiation exposure 17 and not just in this industry but throughout the world 18 and this is where it's coming, in our industry it's l
g 19 coming up in over-exposure and you stated 5 REMS per year, a
j 20 Unfortunately, I've heard no statistics stating ai 21 as to what level that these over-exposures have resulted a
f 22 in actually negligence that can be attributed to the lack
- i 23 of training to the personnel and that issue is, I think 24 extremely important as to whether or not any action should 25 be taken at all.
If that can't be clarified, then you don't e-
.,.,--w-
,4g
~e, a
g
--n w
m
54 O
1 know whether or not action should be taken by the NRC as 2
to whether or not any new regulation or de-regulation is
(])
3 needed.
4 There are many issues I could speak of.
I'm 5
very hyper at the moment as far as all the different 6
types of activities that are going on in the room.
It 7
seems very difficult for any one person to be able to 8
approach the actual condition that exists here that this 9
meeting is all about and I would hope that everyone would 10 approach the situation which is that I see that we are 11 trying to deal with the reduction of over-exposure to 12 personnel working around penetrating radiation and this 13 generally is happening in the field.
I know very little --
[)
14 I think,I have my own book of over-exposures that was writte n IF by a private party.
I don't even know the author's 16 name any more but if you were to thumb through it, you'd g
find that the majority of these incidents happened in the 17 j
18 field or are deliberate incidences in the laboratory and 19 I don't think that the majority of them, the ones that j
20 are performed by the larger companies are found to be the a
l 21 cause for concern.
It's the ones that are performed by a
d 22 small companies who cannot either afford or do not share a
f_
23 the consciousness of providing the quality of personnel V
24 to perform the radiation safety procedures that are 25 mandatory for working in this field.
Thank you.
O
55 O
1 MR. SINGER: Thank you.
I'd like to compliment 2
Mr. Gustely as one of the better discussions that I've
()
3 heard through these series of meetings and I think he 4
should be commended for putting things into his own 5
understandings and giving of his perspective.
It was 6
very well done.
7 MR. BOOK:
I'd like to make a quick response 8
also.
I second your description of his presentation.
It 9
was very eloquent and I think important.
We want to hear to from radiographers.
One thing puzzled me just a little bit.
11 You seemed to separate the radiation safety officer function 12 from the radiographer function but in so many cases we 13 find that there's only man out there.
He has to fill
{)
14 both sets of shoes or wear both hats.
15 MR. GUSTELY:
This is true.
16 MR. BOOK:
On a construction site or whatever 17 where there's only man.
So, in those situations, it i
18 is difficult to separate those two functions.
Would you g
19 comment on that?
j 20 MR. GUSTELY:
Okay, the separation comes from 1
i l
g 21 a radiographer, a Level 2 radiographer which I am presently f
22 right now certified with Kaiser Aero-Space and Electronics.
t 23 It says that the qualifications by that company to perform i
24 Level 2 tadiographic work is such that I am capable of
~
25 interpreting film to quality level of ASNT's, and ASME and
)
56 O
1 several other different requirement levels of film 2
interpretation.
In conjunction with being a Level 2
(])
3 radiographer, it has been accepted that I should also 4
be' knowledgeable in being able to perform the radiograph 5
and that means the use of either x-ray equipment, gamma 6
equipment or cobalt equipment or several others that 7
are in use today.
8 Now, in the use of that equipment an entirely 9
separate type of qualification comes in and that is 10 radiation safety.
Working with radiation safety has 11 very little -- how can I say it, comparison with being 12 a film interpreter or with working with processors or 13 working with x-ray film and things of this nature.
()
14 Radiation is quite a different type of energy than what 15 you're dealing with than the working environment of being 16 a radiographer.
17 Now, most companies require that a radiographer i
18 also be a radiation safety level 2.
This means that g
19 not only can he perform the film interpretation that's c
j 20 required by customers to the quality level of their f
21 requirements, but he can also go out in the field or a
f 22 in a laboratory or wherever it be necessary to actually 8
23 work and take the radiograph under the conditions of O
24 your safety operations.
And as a Level 2, the Level 2 25 is responsible for all the actions hi that environment with O
57 O
1 only one other person above him as far as being the 2
other person responsible and that's the Level 3 that
()
3 would be provided by the company, or by the company in 4
a site -- it would be the supervisor in that area.
5 MR. BOOK:
Okay,. don't go away, I want to 6
ask you one more question.
I'm pleased to hear somebody 7
say something about radiation safety.
It's been a little 8
disconcerting to me also, all of this talk and nobody 9
has said anything about safety which is the reason we're 10 here, I think and it's been -- a great many of our 11 incidents we find that the individual has been adequately 12 trained as far as we can determine, but the cause of 13 the incident is negligence or carelessness or that
(}
14 sort of a thing rather than lack of training and one of 15 the possibilities that we might achieve from this proposal 16 would be it puts a little more responsibility on the g
individual -- that is, he is presumably action could be 17 i
18 taken against him.
His certification could be suspended g
19 or rescinded or whatever.
Do you think that that would a
j 20 increase radiation safety?
f 21 MR. GUSTELY:
Well, a significant amount of 1
f 22 thought would be put on a person if he were to -- for 8
23 comparison, I'll first start with an auto accident.
If O
24 a driver is involved in a felony auto accident, it's a 25 major issue for him.
Most drivers are aware of drunk driving O
i
l 58 O
1 and hitting someone or felony acts or acts that are 2
extremely serious and they're also aware of any criminal
()
3 action that is extremely serious.
The type of penalty 4
for such action is quite severe.
Needless to say of the 5
destruction of the personal life, the penalty for that 6
action is quite severe.
Now, in radiation safety when 7
a radiation safety officer commits a violation, whether 8
it be his intent to commit the violation or his neglect, 9
I have seen very little consciousness at that level as to to whether or not he will lose his certification or 11 whether or not he'll have a job next week, if his paycheck 12 is going to coming and this.
And those are matters that
[}
have a great deal of consciousness, whether or not he's 13 14 going to have his paycheck next week, whether or not 15 he's going to have a job.
Those are thing people think 16 about day to day and radiation safety, after you've 17 j
been trained and worked with.it and you become accustomed j
18 to your own type of design and working conditions for 19 creating your own safety environment in working with 20 radiation, they don't -- they're not forgotten but they 21 become ordinary.
But the thing that becomes a day to a
d 22 day problem with everyone is whether or not they're going s
23 to have the money to live on and the job to go back to 24 work to and those types of restrictions or penalties or 25 attention put on the radiation safety person might gain an O
59 1
increased level of consciousness to provide the safety 2
for his environment.
()
3 MR. SINGER:
Thank you.
4 MR. JONES:
You did say you worked for about 5
four different firms?
6 MR. GUSTELY:
This is true.
7 MR. JONES:
Was the level of training essentially 8
the same at all four or was it different?
g MR. GUSTELY:
When you say level of training, it is a difficult -- I cannot say yes because in all 10 different instances, I worked in entirely different fields 11 as far as -- when I saw fields, I mean environment under 12 j'T 13 which I used radiation, so each company has its own cv individual as well as specific training plans for their use.
g 15 Under the typesof contract and the type of work they 16 do, each one has its own training program that would 17 create a technician who is most familiar with those E
18 environments.
Take him outside that environment, he g
19 will not be as familiar and he should require additional 2
20 training in those fields and I did, yes, I did get further f
21 training.
Myself, as being very conscious about radiation, i
f 22 it is to this day somewhat unknown as to its effects on
,l_s 23 the human body.
They've tried to say that they know what U
24 it does but to every person it acts differently and I 25 knowing this do not wish to become exposed to any unnecessary O
V
60
()
radiation and with that thought in mind, I do not become i
2 exposed to unnecessary radiation.
([)
3 MR. BASSIN:
I have a question.
Let me ask you 4
a question. You indicated working for different companies.
5 Was there any difference in your training, the philosophy 6
of management toward radiation safety.
For example, you 7
brought up the situation where there was an over-exposure 8
or a member of the public who was curious and walked into 9
a high radiation area because it was not possible for the entire area to be under surveillance.
Did management io 11 at any time say these are the requirements -- pour 12 operating procedures say that you must keep the high 13 radiation area under surveillance and usually if there's 14 a person who tries to enter the area, either get him out 15 of there in a hurry or immediately stop operations?
Did 16 management ever tell you if it was not possible to 17 maintain total surveillance, don't even start the job but g
l 18 rather get back in touch with whomever is in charge g
19 to determine what you should do.
This too, is an important a
j 20
.part of training and an understanding of that is important.
You indicated that these things are separate --
21 i
f 22 MR. GUSTELY:
I can elaborate on that.
23 MR. BASSIN:
But management philosophy in its A/
24 training attitude is an important aspect.
Do they really 25 provide you with the understanding that safety comes first J
i 61 0
1 and that if you don't do that shot because it's not safe f
2 to do so, there will be no penalty or is it vice versa?
()
3 MR. GUSTELY:
In response to your last question, 4
yes, they do.
They do inform the personnel, the technician 5
of this requirement that you maintain surveillance in 6
the area.
t 7
Now, in a nuclear power plant where there might-8 be 50 different entrances into the high level radiation 9
area -- okay, let's say 50 different entrances into the 10 low radiation level, that's any area exceeding 2MR per 11 hours1.273148e-4 days <br />0.00306 hours <br />1.818783e-5 weeks <br />4.1855e-6 months <br />, or depending on the length of your exposure, that 12 could be an extremely high level of radiation in that 13 area, but the 2MR per hour divided down to a 5 second
()
14 shot comes down to a different radiation level at that 15 time.
Now, you may only be able to monitor let's say 16 a 50 foot diameter circle or area around the actual 17 source of radiation.
You may not be able to monitor g
l 18 each individual entrance into that region be it in a y
19 nuclear power plant, there are corridors and you can come a
j 20 from the top, the bottom, all different sides you can come f
21 from.
All these areas are marked off, that they're a 2
f 22 radiation area and that if it's exceeding 2MR per hour 2:
23 it's a high radiation area.
O 24 Now, if the company does inform personnel that 25 you are to monitor these areas, constant surveillance, now, O
1 1
62
(~'#\\
\\-
1 you do monitor the high radiation areas, and if a person 2
is to enter them, then you have to take corrective action
()
3 immediately.
But once he's entered the area, there's 4
nothing you can do to take away the exposure he had.
5 That was given.
Now, the incident I was referring to 6
specifically was in Montana on a Minuteman reconstruction 7
Site where the silos were being reconstructed, the 8
personnel entering the radiation area was a government 9
officially, thoroughly aware of the effects of radiation, 10 totally.
Now, why he did it was because he wanted to it see what was going on down in there.
Now, the moment he 12 happened to come up to the sign, we were hit by an 80 mile 13 an hour blizzard.
Now, I don't care how close you are to
(])
14 a sign, at 80 mile an hour winds, you do not see anything.
15 being at December in Montana up at where you are, let's say 16 15 miles from 14,000 foot mountain.
These are extremely g
adverse conditions where the most, utmost safety has to be 17 j
18 maintained but even under the most scrupulous safety g
19 operations, something can fail.
And what failed here a
j 20 was a government employee, a very knowledgeable man of 21 the effects of radiation, walked into an area that had a
f 22 a sign hanging.
He walked into the silo and it was t[
23 determined that he was exposed to a relatively low amount V
24 of radiation due to luck.
He didnot walk -- it was a 25 cylindrical silo and he did not walk on the side of the gammt O
63 O
1 iridium source.
Now, his negligence caused his exposure 2
to radiation and this was something under the conditions O
3 thee were being __ the radiogragh that wes being texen 4
that was totally out of the control of the radiation 5
safety officer.
Blizzard warnings are not given in the 6
middle of Montana.
I think I've said enough.
7 MR. SINGER:
Thank you.
Our last speaker is 8
Mr. Carl Yocum, RPO, representing the U.S. Navy.
i 9
MR. YOCUM:
Gentlemen.
I will try to approach 10 a couple of those specific questions that the previous i
11 speaker was worried about.
12 The object today is to discuss the improvement 13 to the condition for over-exposure that the industry would 14 have should third party certification be implemented.
15 I personally believe that third party certifica-16 tions will not necessarily lead to a reduction in over-17 g
exposures.
There are several reasons.
l 18 One, as Mr. Bassin noted, there still will be 19 training required by the licensee, even if a third party
- l 20 does implement a separate procedure and program prior to i
21 certification, there will be training still required by a
f 22 the licensee and that training will therefore not t
23 g
necessarily be improved by the requirement for the 24 certification.
25 Training being a large and major issue, considerable O
64 1
weight has been given to reasons for over-exposure being 2
to the failure on the individual's part to follow operating
()
3 procedures.
Now, whether that failure in following 4
operating procedures is due to personal negligence or to 5
a lack of training, I do not believe that third party 6
certification is going to, improve ~that condition and 7
therefore will not lead to a reduction of over-exposure.
8 Secondly, I believe, presently the training 9
is more than adequate in the largest majority of cases.
10 Much has been said about large company versus small it company, having access to an adequate training program.
12 Even now, many small companies had the option of going 13 to an outside source, a third party for training, should
{])
14 they not have adequate resources in-house to accomplish it.
15 I do not believe that the third party certifica-16 tion program would improve the training that is currently 17 available either in the large companies or to small
,i 18 companies going to a third party, to an outside source for g
19 their training.
One of the most significant parts of this c
j 20 is that training is still required by the licensee, f
21 whether that certification and third party does provide a
f 22 training or not.
That licensee will be required to provide 23 certification training both for initial, periodic and on 24 the job training in the emergency operating procedures 25 and specific equipment which that licensee uses.
That is
.)
65 O
1 not going to change anc. the negligence, lack of training, 2
whatever that causes overexposures will not be changed
()
3 by the fact that a third party will be required to provide 4
certification.
5 Another element and a specific question that 6
was asked by Mr. Jones is whether this third party 7
certification would help motivate the radiographers.
I 8
think not.
There is an existing defacto mechanism for 9
certification and that is the designation by the licensee 10 of approved radiographers.
Now, if that radiographer's job 11 presently depends upon that certification, it will in the 12 future, should this third party certification be implemente4 13 not be necessarily dependent upon that particular licensee
(])
14 any longer.
He_will'have a piece of paper in his pocket, 15 he can move next door.
Now unless there is some large 16 mechanism for assuring an overexposure and a negligent 17 act by a radiographer f'or one licensee does not follow l
18 him to the next one where he will work, then this third g
19 party certification program is not going to be effective t
j 20 in preventing that individual from being negligent a f
21 second time.
i f
22 At the moment, the individual's job depends upon 2
23 his competency.
I believe that should remain that way 24 and that third party certification is not going to improve 25 that situation.
O
66 O
I There's one other element that I did want to 2
mention and that was regarding the cost for implementing 3
third party certification.
4 Since the training has to be maintained in-house 5
for a licensee for operating emergency procedures, specific 6
equipments which will include on the job training, etc.,
7 etc., I believe that there will be very little if any 8
cost reduction off-set by having third party training and 9
certification.
Those costs will still be born by the to licensee as well as the additional costs for that certifica-11 tion from that third party, frequently which would include 12 training.
13 I therefore think that the costs would be 14 large for any user if it is required for third party 15 certification without having a beneficial offset in 16 terms of reduced over-exposures which is what this is 17 i
intended to accomplish.
Thank you.
l 18 MR. SINGER:
Just hold it there a second.
Are 19
[
there any questions from the panel?
j 20 MR. BASSIN:
Yes, I have.
I have a comment first 21 of all about training program descriptions.
What I said f
22 earlier was that the amount of detail on training 1
23 s,
program descriptions would not be necessary.
t'Rather, we b
24 would still depend on training and instruction being 25 given by licensees and the certification or the testing of 0o O
67 O
1 that individual would be conducted by a third party and 2
we would not have to review the training programs.
As (G
_j 3
you know, right now our review of training programs is 4
what is represented on paper and we have no mechanism 5
of determining in advance that the program will indeed 6
be carried out exactly as describ.ed in the training 7
program description.
That's just a comment.
8 Now, I have a question.
The point Mr. Yocum 9
was making or one point was that if a -- there was a 10 certification program and the radiographer were certified, 11 he could go to another job even though he had been 12 negligent on the previous job.
My question to Mr. Yocum 13 and anyone else who is here, that under the present
(}
14 system, what checks if any are made by a prospective 15 employer of the past employment record of a person who 16 wants a job as a radiographer to determine if he had g
been negligent on another job, careless or some past 17 j
18 record that might indicate that person, regardless of 19 how well trained he might be, has a pattern and work habits 20 that would lead one to conclude that the same things, that 21 he might be negligent on the job.
Comments from Mr. Yocum a
f 22 or anyone else would be appreciated on that particular s
k 23 point.
24 MR. YOCUM:
That is a problem for us.
We have 25 no bona fide mechanism for assuring that a new individual
()
a
68 1
coming in has not had negative performance at a previous 2
site.
We do take the precaution for contacting previous 3
sites if they are all listed of discussing the individual's 4
competence and performance with the previous employer.
5 That has an advantage of personal contact and personal 6
recommendation, but there's no guarantee that we're 7
going to get the whole rtory under the present circumstance.
8 In terms of his action and activity, the individual must 9
go through our own training program, our own motivational 10 techniques, whatever, to implement safety awareness in 11 the individual when they do come to work for us.
Each 12 individual is of course, put on a probationary period 13 prior to being released on his own for independent operation.
14 As I say, there's no true guarantee.
15 MR. JONES:
Let me clarify the statement.
16 Mr. Yocum's comments are primarily based on third party i
17 certification as a means to reduce over-exposures.
As j
18 Mr. Singer said earlier, that's not just the purpose 19 l
of a third party certification program.
It is to assure j
20 a minimum level of competence by everybody out there.
ll[
21 As you know< radiography involves both in-house and a
f 22 programs where individuals use very largensources'out in 2h i
23 public that are very hazardous.
I think there's a -- in V
24 many cases over-exposures don't happen but I think there's 25 also value in assuring that everybody out there does possess
69 O
1 a certain level of competence.
In addition, a third 2
party certification program wouldn't really involve (3
(_)
3 training.
It would only involve a situation whereby 4
once a firm wants an individual to be qualified as a 5
radiographer, they would send him to wherever a test 6
site is, or someone would come out to his job site and 7
an independent body would perform the test and make sure 8
that he does meet a standard that would be developed 9
and is qualified to operate as a radiographer.
10 So really, all we've got involved here is 11 the determination of a training according to a-standard 12 that would be developed.
It's been~done by the' licensee, 13
'it would be done by an independent body so that's all 14 third party certification is.
No more or no less.
15 MR. YOCUM:
If I may, on that.
The' object 16 of the third party certification then is to determine 17 j
competency by an examination.
l 18 MR. JONES:
By a standard that would be i
19 developed which would include -- the basic form would be a
4 j
20 an examination, but there could be other things in the a
l 21 standard which would determine before someone could a
d 22 take the examination, might be a -- again, that's the 3
[,
23 kind of discussion we hope to hear.
It might be an on U
24 the Job training requirement.
They may have to work for 25 six months before they could even take the test.
Those O
70 O
\\'
I are the kinds of things that would have to be determined 2
in the standard that would be developed.
(')
3 MR. YOCUM:
Okay, my position is that exists 4
now in the present regulations and that that determination 5
of competence by exam (a), by on the job training (b), and 6
since the majority of over-exposures to my understanding 7
come from failure to follow operating procedures which 8
would be a local licensee trained and examined condition 9
in any case, that would not change with a third party 10 certification.
11 Personally, I'm only looking at it as an 12 additional regulation and additional certification 13 requirement beyond that which we must already follow and
[}
14 one which will not meet the end results desired.
15 MR. SINGER:
Mr. Johnson?
16 MR. JOHNSON:
Mr. Bassin asked what we do when 17 a new employee comes to our company to find out what he has j
18 done in the past.
We contact the employer and he will
}
g 19 not tell us very much unless we ask very specific questions.
j 20 Many times we don't call until we've looked at his f
21 radiation history that he brings with him or we get 3
f 22 from a prior employer.
If he's been real clean and has I
g 23 no periods of high radiation, that tells us something, 24 but if we see where he has received some high radiation 25 readings or high film readings within a certain quarter or O
71 0
1 a certain month, then we get very detailed in our 2
questions.
Most of the time, you ask someone well,
()'
3 you know, what kind of a guy is he?
And he says, well, 4
you know, he's a pretty good worker, he's the average 5
kind of guy, he's like the rest of them running around 6
the world.
7 You ask why he was fired if that be the case.
8 Well, he didn't follow rules, insubordination or something 9
like that.
It is rare that you can get anyone to admit 10 that he was terminated for not following the O&E procedure 11 and getting, consequently picking up high radiation and 12 he can still go down the road today and go to work for the 13 next guy.
You know, the fact that he gets a certification 14 from a third party, a national body or whomever.
For example 15 three months ago we had two guys that we terminated for not 16 following procedures.
They did not get a high radiation 17 but they didn't follow procedures.
Within four days, they
=
l 18 were both working for another employer, and since that g
19 time one of them has had another incident.
They can still j
20 go right down the road today.
f 21 MR. BASSIN:
Question.
Did the next employer f
22 contact you as a reference check?
This is the point I'm 3
y, 23 getting at.
As a reference check and would you tell him 24 yes, we discharged that man because of fail 6re to follow 25 procedures?
O
l 72 0
1 MR. JOHNSON:
You can't say that.
2 MR. SINGER:
Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
/~T
\\/
Jimmy?
3 4
MR. JONES:
Since this is on record and we are interested in cost, Mr. Jensen did make a -- give us a 5
figure for $2300 additional cost by -- if a third 6
cost Party certification program was implemented per individual 7
and since we do have a record, I would like to see if 8
you can expound a little bit on how that particular 9
30 figure was derived?
MR. JENSEN:
Basically, this is the way we 11 figured this.
He'd be away from home for at least a week 12 attending one of these institutions.
There would be
()
13 14 his salary and his hotel, living expenses and all of the other miscellaneous and I think that would be an under-15 estimation, what I figured.
If he goes the full program 16 17 for two weeks, it is going to be just about double that 18 and I think we figured around $2400, which was our
'l g
19 estimate, per individual times 35 radiographers that would a
be quite a burden for us to have to, comply with.
j 20 MR. SINGER:
Are there any other -- Don?
21 i
f 22 MR. HONEY:
If you. train, why is there any cost over and above the cost to administer the examination 2
l( }
23 24 to the company?
25 MR. JENSEN:
At this particular point, I don't have
73 1
any confidence in third party training.
2 MR. HONEY:
No, you're saying you'd do the dhh 3
training.
4 MR. JENSEN:
We do the training.
5 MR. HONEY:
And your training is satisfactory?
6 MR. JENSEN:
Okay.
7 MR. HONEY:
Therefore, the only cost to be born 8
by the company is the cost in the examination itself?
9 MR. JENSEN:
The way I look at this thing now, 10 the other third party training would be in addition to 11 what we're already doing.
12 MR. BASSIN:
Perhaps I should clarify this.
13 There is no contemplation or any thought that there would
( ;
14 be a requirement for training by a third party or any 15 specific requirement as to how an individual would gain 16 his training.
Rather, the third party certifier would 17 just be a testing body which would determine whether or j
18 not an individual has certain minimum competence and there i
19 is contemplation of what you're referring to as third c
j 20 party training rather --
a l
21 MR. JENSEN:
Okay, I see what you're saying, a
d 22 that you would provide the training and some other party 2fs 23 would do the examination.
V 24 MR. BASSIN:
Exactly.
25 MR. SINGER:
Somebody else would do the examinatior,.
7,
~,A
,/..
,/
O l
o 1
That's all that would be involved.
You still would do I
/
/,
2 the training.
That's all that'was ecntemplated".
O 3
arethereenyotherfueetionsfrom,oranyother 4
statements from the audiencei-Yes?/ State your name L
i/, l 5
for the record again.'
'l
'. j' 6
MR. TITUS:
Or In agai-i, ' Leonard Titus.
Thl's' 4
l question gets in my mind heye. -
i The training part o# it, 4
8 if anybody, if it can' be done there, gty;much better,
1 v.,
9 does the/ company know rc,thanla,outside man that I go
/
10 to which maybe meets me for,.While I'm taking the written,
- r r
11 maybe we'd discuss a few-tihincj.7, but he doesn' t know my 12 work habits, he doesn ' t know'-- lie' don ' t 'k,now me half as
/
2; Q
well as Smiles or Ron o[;the,pecple' that I work with, 13 r
./
14 and when -- it' /already e 'I already have to sign it as c
-l 15 does my supervisor before'I'm classified or' qualified as 16 a radiographer.
How can..an outsi'de man -- maybe the written
?.
-a?
/
3 part of it, fine, but/I think *d at v$'re talking' about,is
~
j,-.
+
18 a responsibiliEy.
Whca pou pick that pill up'and you g'o j
/
/
i 19 out on the job' site, your safety habits towards you and s-
{ '
t-j 20 J
l the people that you worf with -- that's what were -- that i
j,.
-f
~
i 21 is what this licensing V '6dd' is 'about isthisadfetything.,
y
'j j
d 22 I-mean, more_than knowledes.is that man a rehponsible man?
J
,i,
J,1 I
23 That's the kin [of peop'.le that you yant wodk'Ing that i
s'
/',
24 equip 5nent I'm sure{ it,is as^far.as I'm concerned,.
I 25 M R '. SINGER:
Yes, I think that there may;be some O
9 t,-
- \\*
s j
'"ly
+
J f
(
8 a
f l
/
f 1
b 4 a
75 I
misunderstanding as exemplified by these last few 2
discussions.
A: far as we are concerned as a regulatory I) 3 agency, it's a determination that the written material 4
we receive is a factual document represented by the 5
applicant for a license.
You read what you receive, you 6
determine that it provides all the necessary answers that t.
7 you wish to see and if it's all there, you assume 100%
8 integrity and honesty and understanding and you give the 9
individual license.
s,-
10 We have found through the inspection staff i
.D 11 over the years, that not all of the things that we read 12 are that factual for whatever the reasons there may be
, ()
13 that we can go into that type of thing and find that in J, m 14 many cases consultants have written the kinds of things 15 that are expected to be read by a regulatory body and 16 so we get a very erudite type of paper that pronounces 17 j
all the good things as far as training, management and l
18 all the otper things that are involved.
I mean you say 3
19 hey, that's great -- we issue a license.
That's not j'
20 proven to be what we have found in the field in too many i
r 21 instances so we were seeking to determine a means of a
f 22 assuring that people like the gentlemen who has spoken i
s 8
23 as a radiographer is made aware by the actual understanding
)-
24 and by having this third party simply testing both 25 practical tests as well as written tests that there is an l
l
! /
76
()
I understanding as prescribed in the kinds of applications 2
we've been receiving for thirty odd years and that's the
(])
3 whole business of going through all of these discussions 4
so that the responsibility of the employer does not go 5
away.
He does provide the training and if it's as wonder-6 ful as it's been propounded here and I'll assume it is, 7
then there wouldn't be any problem with that individual 8
passing a test and the cost for passing that test should 9
not be all that high.
Whatever you have built in in jo time for training now, would be the same as it would be it then and the third party I would presume would publish 12 its requirements.
It would be just like taking a driver's 13 test.
There would be a standard which would be published (v^3 14 which would specify the requirements very clearly.
And 15 those should not be any different than those that 16 concurrently are required to know in your respective jobs.
17 I hope that clarifies some of that.
Tom?
l 18 MR. GAINES: If I may, I have one more.
y 19 Bear with me, I'm not trying to dominate anything.
a j
20 My name is Tom Gaines and I'm now wearing another hat 21 as vice president of Industrial Nuclear Company.
We are i
f 22 one of a limited few number of manufacturers of equipment 2
3 23 and this is from notes, it's not written.
Basically the 24 question in my mind is this.
Are we talking about a 25 bandaid on the wrong wound?
Certification.
Let's consider O
77 O
some factors that are relevant to safety which is a very 1
2 important aspect although it's not the only aspect to
()
3 be considered in certification.
These factors -- number 4
one, the number of hours the radiographer has worked and 5
the attendant affect on his ability to perform safely.
6 I think you know how many hours on some of these job sites 7
a radiographer can and does work.
It's not 8 to 4:30.
8 Number two, they said it was on the moon, but 9
it's here also.
A hostile environment.
There are to conditions that many of you are familiar with, many of you 11 may not be.
There are some situations that well, I'll 12 clean it up and say they don't lend themselves very well 13 to radiation safety, but still somebody says it must
(]}
14 be done.
It's a gray area as to whether it will or will 15 not be done and I'll come to that.
16 Number three, the attitude of the radiographer.
17 Now let's consider who is doing the actual work.
We've l
18 trained this man to the best of our ability.
We hope.
g 19 Go back, the man has worked how many hours?
I didn't c
j j
20 bring it up, but I have a little bottle of Jack Daniels ai 21 in my briefcase.
This has an impact on that man's ability i
l f
22 to perform.
I'm talking real world, now.
Narcotics and a
E 23 other problems that effect that man's ability to work k-)
24 safely either by himself or by other people.
He can be l
25 one hell of a menace.
O
78 l
GU 1
Item four, condition of equipment and it 2
runs the gammut.
Part of this also bears on the attitude 3
of management.
Profit versus risk.
And we all know if 4
the company doesn't make a profit they're out of business.
5 Now, there's a very fine line there at times, defining 6
is that risk really worth it?
Does management shut 7
the job down because the survey meter is questionable?
8 Is it a question of well, we migh.t get caught, we might 9
not.
10 How many of these things are already covered 11 by adequate regulations?
Either government regulations 12 or company regulations.
Now if the company wants to
(])
13 stay in business, he has regulations that he must abide 14 by.
If he doesn't, he's going to be like an incident 15 I'd like to explain to you that made me realize.
I got 16 a speeding ticket.
A very brief story.
The Justice of 17 g
the Peace explained to me, I'm going to fine you the l
18 maximum I can because you respect money more than your 19 j
life.
You know, I very much resented what that Justice j
20 of the Peace told me.
It stayed with me and I haven't i
s 21 had a ticket since.
a d
22 Now, if the employer and I don't suggest massive s
h 23 infusions of penalties as a cure, but if push comes to 24 shove, if that's what it takes to get the message across, 25 it might have to come to that, but I honestly do not believe
79 O
that we are putting the bandage on the right wounds with 1
2 certification.
3 MR. SINGER:
Thank you, Tom.
Are there any 4
other?
Yes.
Yes, my name is Bob Friend and 5
MR. FRIEND:
6 7.m with Pittsburgh Des Moines (ph) Steel and the question I have is, does NRC have any indication that in any area 7
that third party would tend to alleviate the problems which 8
9 they have stated?
We have a heard a great deal of 10 MR. SINGER:
things and some of them mentioned here and one of the 11 things that we did was to put together questionnaires 12 gO that we've already discussed having thirteen questions.
13 We felt that responses from the public to those thirteen 14 questions would help us provide the type of answer to the 15 question you just asked, and that's the reason we're 16 We didn't try to come here and tell you we thought 17 here.
j we ought to do anything.
We told you that we were trying 5
18 to find a way and a determination if the third party 19 j
certification would be an appropriate change from our 20 j
current method of doing business as far as licensing i
21 l
So I can't answer your question directly f
22 is concerned.
O hecause that's what we're here to find out.
23 Yes, well, this brings to mind 24 MR. FRIEND:
a thing that I've seen on a testing companies -- one test i s
25 p)
I
80 O
1 worth one thousand opinions and if there was some area 2
to indicate, it would probably be good.
The other 3
question is, is in the area of third party testing, I've 4
been familiar with third party testing in some other 5
areas and I know that when you get into third party 6
testing, there's a breakdown also in what kind of a job 7
different third party testers do.
Some do a legitimate 8
job and some have a breakdown within their organization.
9 So you really when it comes to that area of whether what 10 kind of a ' job they are doing, you still have a potential 11 problem in that area.
12 MR. SINGER:
Yes, we recognize that and we
. {}
recognize we would have a standard for testing but what 13 14 we haven't found is a great number of people who have come 15 up and said we are prepared to provide third party 16 certification.
We, representing some factor of the industry 17 j
could perform this and this'is how we would do it.
We l
18 haven't found that.
We were looking to see somebody 18 l
that would come up and say we think that can be done 20 and here's how we propose doing it and this is how much f
21 we think it will cost.
Those questions that we have f
provided give that type of interpretation where you're 22 3
23 responding to them.
There would be perhaps a national V
24 registry which would have people who are certified listed 25 and that would be available on a 24 hour2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> basis through one O
81 0
1 of the many agencies that keeps such records so that if 2
somebody wanted to call and find out if so and so is
()
3 registered it would appear and if the man was removed 4
from that registry, that would appear.
Those are the 5
type of things that could occur in the process of 6
establishing a certification program.
The idea of 7
having it through a third party is to get the government 8
out of the act and let the industry do its own thing 9
about making sure that the people out there are fully 10 aware of the effects of radiation and are fully aware of 11 radiation protection so that that's the intent of our 12 discussion.
()
13 MR. FRIEND:
Another thought I had was, I was 14 wondering if it was possible to try third party, maybe 15 on a small scale in some kind of a medium area for 16 effectivity.
It seems like -- but from everything I've 17 heard here and my own opinion is it's highly questionable l
18 and rather than just to say this is it, it would seem i
19 like it needs to be tried in some way or another to see a
j 20 if it is going to actually give you what you're looking 4
l 21 for.
1 22 MR. SINGER:
At least that's some form of a t
23 suggestion towards a determination and that's not what 24 we've been hearing in general.
So, yes, I think that 25 if a pilot plan was to be considered then one would propose L
82 how this can be conducted and what area it might cover 1
and that's certainly within the functional capability 2
3 currently.
4 MR. JENSEN:
Jensen, back again.
Getting down to the real crux of this thing is what you're saying is 5
we don't trust the licensees to administer the licensees' --
6 7
MR. SINGER:
We don't trust some licensees, 8
some licensees.
You don't trust the licensees, okay, 9
MR. JENSEN:
If okay, so how do you know you can trust a third party?
10 you're going to assign, you're going to certify under 11 perjury that_this is the truth and so on, you might just 12 b
as well go to a court and have someone take and administer s/
13 14 a license examination.
15 MR. SINGER:
We consider that someone of your We would certainly stature would be on that third party.
16 17 trust you.
g 18 MR. JENSEN:
Okay, okay, but that's what l
you're really saying and when we really get down to this 19 3
a 20 thing --
j 21 MR. SINGER:
That's what I'm really saying.
f 22 MR. JENSEN:
What you're saying is hey, we've a
got a problem and we don't know what to do about it.
s( )
l 23 What I'm saying is yes, you do have a problem but don't 24 give me everybody else's problem.
25
83 O
MR. SINGER:
I understood that, sir.
Are there i
t any other -- yes?
2 O
MR. GUSTELY:
Mark Gustely.
I thought an 3
interesting point about the certification aspect is again 4
But one trust and I'm glad that this already came up.
5 of the important factors is, if you take any student or 6
any man and put him down to a test and tell him to answer 7
it correctly otherwise he won't pass, he will try his 8
best to answer correctly.
g MR. SINGER:
Yes.
10 This is an intellectual as well MR. GUSTELY:
jj as a knowledgeable feat.
The radiation safety tests 12
()
are matters concerning safety.
Generally, I think that 13 if they are previous will not be answered the violations, 14 on the test incorrectly.
If a violation has been made 15 he will not state that he made it or she in the past, 16 People do not admit to breaking the laws for that matter.
f 17 3
openly and easily.
l 18 MR. SINGER:
Why do you want to know what that I
19 g
~.
individual --
20 j
is the trust of the individual MR. GUSTELY:
It l
21 i
and their ability to maintain the safety of their work.
i f
22
!(~D MR. SINGER:
I see, I see.
23 MR. GUSTELY:
Now, a third party certification
- ss 24 system again just relies on the same existing plan you l
25
84 O
1 basically have now which is crust that tthe employer's 2
certification process is capable of maintaining the O
3 s_/
safety level of the employees which is trust and do'ing it 4
on a third party level doesn't change the basics of that.
5 MR. SINGER:
I think that's more along the 6
lines of everything else we do in the pursuit of 7
education.
All we do is find that you're given a test, 8
you pass a test, you get a grade.
You pass enough 9
courses and you get a diploma and if you get that diploma 10 from a well-recognized establishment then it might 11 serve a better purpose than if it was one that wasn't 12 quite that well.
There would be a standard that would
(])
13 be made in conjunction with the agreement states and 14 NRC that would specify the exact types of questions that 15 would be asked and the types of answers that would be 16 expected as a result of that.
That goes as a given.
17 j
The standard would be the means upon which these things l
18 would be based and that's not too different from any 19 j
other national testing whether they be SAT (ph) tests j
20 or whatever they may be.
There would be a standard of i
21 required performance in terms of understanding and for d
22 new people a practical test which would demonstrate their s
j l3 23 understanding of what they would do in actual conditions
(-)
l 24 and cases.
That's the basis of a certification test.
25 MR. GUSTELY:
I don't feel personally that that
85 1
system would be effective.
It might have a very small 2
effectiveness.
Now the government for security reasons
()
3 uses an extreme, I'll say an interrogation of personnel 4
to find that they can withhold security levels involved 5
in be it the military action or government secrets.
Now 6
they, the government has to be assured that that person 7
has the ability for one, he's telling the truth and 8
that his background is truthful.
9 MR. SINGER:
I think that rather than get into 10 this, we as the governmental body have an option of 11 conducting a national test, creating a fee to the industry 12 for taking that test, maintaining a requirement of
]}
13 having that test retaken at any given period we wish 14 and that would all be part of a cost type of thing where 15 under the current conditions we would be asking fdr 100%
16 recovery through the governmental involvement and if 17 j
you look at the costs for setting up a program by the l
18 bureaucracy, and wanted to get 100% recovery, you might 19
[
be well advised to think in terms of setting it up well j
20 within the industry and we're trying as kindly and as i!
21 straightforward as we possibly can be to suggest that a
f 22 if the industry has the means of making sure that l3 23 everybody that's in it gets the kind of treating that you
(_/
24 have had, then that would satisfy all concerned and we 25 would be delighted with that interpretation and if it turns O
86 1
out that isn't feasible, it's one of the things we it and haven't looked at -- we will and are looking at 2
GV we'll have to react to the determination in which, 3
whatever way it comes out to be as a result of these 4
5 meetings.
6 MR. GUSTELY:
The only closing statement I'd 7
like to make is, 1 look at the Department of Motor Vehicles ability to examine a driver to see that they're 8
9 capable, is very poor.
Now, hat is another type of test that's given that is supposed to prove that the 10 It's driver can maintain a certain level of driving.
11 effectiveness -- I think you're all aware of how many 12
()
people a year are killed.
13 14 MR. SINGER:
Yes, yes.
15 MR. GUSTELY:
Now, you're still on the same 16 line.
Tests are tests.
Now, if you want to get into something a little bit deeper that explores more the 17 competence level of the personnel, I would appreciate I
l 18 19 something along that line.
l j
20 MR. SINGER:
I think your driver's analogy could be taken to extremes and for pilots you can say a
l l
21 i
a find the he goes through the same tests and you wouldn't f
22
.f) 23 answers.
24 MR. BOOK:
There's one area of this whole
>I think I situation that hasn't been discussed very much.
l 25
~
87 l
I
' O 1
touched on it.
It goes something like this.
Under our 2
present regulations and licensing system, the NRC has 3
no hold, no club at all that can be used on the individual 4
radiographer and that has been a great deal of the complaint 5
I don't know how true this is, but we keep hearing you know, 6
there's some bad actors out there.
There's individuals 7
that we train then and we do all sorts of things and then 8
they still don't pay attention and they get involved in 9
an incident.
And one of the things that this certification 10 might do would be to give some sort of a regulatory hold 11 on the individual.
It would be an entirely new concept 12 and we.could presumably, if there are bad individuals 13 out there, we could remove them from that profession.
14 MR. SINGER:
No, they could, I correct you only 15 to say that they would remove them.
16 MR. BOOK:
They could be removed from that 17 i
profession.
l 18 MR. SINGER:
It would not be a governmental 19 g
removal but it would be your own removal.
j 20 MR. BOOK:
That certification, that card, whatever l
21 it is could be rescinded and that individual could no 3
f 22 longer work as a radiographer.
That's one point that i
23 hasn't been spoken to very much here and I think it's a 24 fairly important one.
25 MR. SINGER:
I think that's true, Herb.
Certainly,
88 O
1 currently there has been a number of statements made that 2
says a man gets fired from one jobsite, goes across the
()
3 street, gets hired as another job site and this goes 4
on all the time.
5 Question?
6 MR. JOHNSON:
My name is Scott Johnson.
I'm 7
with Pittsburgh Testing.
I'm a radiogrppher.
I've worked 8
for four different companies -- I've worked for about 9
4-years.
I would like to know how that regulation in 10 the broadest stretch of your imagination you think you 11 can get that guy out of the field.
I've seen radiographers, 12 they'll pass any test you put in front of him.
You can 13 hire any kind of record you want and they'll still be
(])
14 working.
You'll never get them out.
I just. don't see 15 where your regulations are going to help get these guys 16 out of the field.
17 MR. JONES:
The program would be very much like, l
18 everybody's using the driver's license.
You would have g
19 a standard which would tell what qualification an individual c
j 20 has to meet.
There would also be some sort of standard k
which tells what action should be taken for certain i
21 i
f 22 violations.
It would depend on severity somewhat like if 23 someone, if you catch a radiographer who was working with
-s N-]
24 out a survey instrument, there should be a reporting system 25 where that was reported to a certifying agency and there.
O
89 O
I would be some sort of demerit for doing that, you know.
2 There would be certain kinds of things that would be O
3 developed for a certification where the NRC would require 4
the certification agency to withdraw certification.
It 5
would be a system that would have certain standards that 6
would have to be met and that would be a means for doing 7
this kind of thing so I think that guy out there, you 8
should be able to pull his certification if he continues 9
to pass the exams but continues to exercise poor work 10 habits.
11 MR. TITUS:
Could I csk about inspection?
12 On site inspection?
I have never had one fromt sither the O
'a State or the -- at 1eest white I was workins.
I'm welcome, 14 any time that anyone wants to walk out and see me operating 15 that equipment and I'm wondering if a little more of this 16 wouldn't do more than licensing that radiographer.
17 i
MR. SINGER:
Herb, do you want to --
l 18 MR. TITUS:
I know that -- I know it would take 19 j
a bigger staff and it would be a money problem there but--
j 20 and it should be unsolicited.
In otherwords --
21 MR. SINGER:
Don, you can get on that one, too.
d 22 MR. BOOK:
I wonder why everybody's looking at me.
23 MR. PICKLER:
1 personally have inspected United 24 Airlines.
25 MR. BOOK:
I know, and my inspectors have personally
90 0
1 inspected United Airlines when they had an NRC license.
2 MR. PICKLER:
He'll back me up on that.
(
3 MR. BOOK:
But, I think I would be the first 4
to admit that many of our inspections -- all of aur 5
inspections are unannounced, by the way.
We do not 6
announce our inspections, but they are not made at 7
inopportune times.
Most of them are made on the day shift 8
and there may not be work going on.
There is not a 9
complete and overall effort to actually observe work.
10 MR. TITUS:
This is true.
11 MR. BOOK:
I'll have to admit that.
12 MR. SINGER:
I think that in addition to that,
()
13 there has been a human cry about the number of inspections.
14 There are approximately 30 inspectors in the 24 non-15 agreement states and it's pretty difficult for these 16 30 people to get spread out and do all the things that 17 they're supposed to do.
They've got about 10,000 licensees
=
l 18 that they're supposed to cover and it's very difficult g
19 for them to do the type of job to have with the manpower j
20 that they possess.
In fact, the Commission has told these a
l 21 people when they've asked for more help to plan better f
22 and work more effectively.
Let's hear what the State of i
t 23 California does.
They may have 2000 inspectors out there.
24 I don't know.
25 MR. TITUS:
Most of our isotope is done at night
91 0
1 because the airplanes are there, but then any time that 2
they want to come out and watch me on the job they're m
3 welcome to.
4 MR. HONEY:
Do more radiography in the daytime.
5 MR. SINGER:
I would like to close this meeting 6
if there aren't any other discussions.
I believe that 7
we've had a very useful session and I'd like to thank 8
you all for coming.
I'd like to request that any of you 9
who have not responded to our questionnaire be sure to 10 do so.
You may submit your comments or suggestions --
Can we have a comment after the 12 break?
A comment period after the break?
Are you going i (}
13 to be adjourning?
14 MR. SINGER:
I'm going to close this meeting r5 unless there are other comments.
Do you have another 16 comment?
I'll be happy to have you make that comment.
My name is Paul De Nuccio, 3
l 18 Rockwell International Space Systems at Downey, California i
19 and we hold two NRC licenses, two State of California j
20 licenses and a State of Mississippi license.
i g
21 I want to express my gratitude and appreciation a
g 22 for being able to comment before the Commission today.
t IO Mr. Bassin has been very supportive at helping us at 23 us 24 Rockwell and Mr. Jones also and the State of California 25 has helped us considerably and Mr. Pickler here today can O
-m.---
92 1
vouch for that.
We've had a very strong program since 2
we first became an agreement state in the late 50's and
(])
3 early 60's.
However, being a large company, we never 4
really had the problems of the smaller NDT labs who work 5
out in the field, mostly unsupervised most of the times.
6 I have a couple of comments regarding the 7
publication which you released, which NRC released a 8
couple of years ago, 14 odd cases of over-exposures.
I'm 9
aware that the Commission has information on everyone of to those specific cases and that information is privvy and 11 probably very confidential.
But I wonder how many of those 12 cases are large corporations and how many are very small 13 companies?
We at Rockwell and I find this through other
)
14 large corporations, they attempt to assist the small 15 test labs that come into their facilities, be it within 16 a community or in a test site.
We found discrepancies 17 and if they need help, we give it to them and I think l
18 that it would be wise for us at this meeting to do a little g
19 soul ~ searching in our operation and I'm speaking of the a
j 20 larger corporations.
There have been some abuses in the a
l 21 fields in working these radiographers.
I've been a a
f 22 radiation safety officer for Rockwell now pretty near
- i 23 11, 12 years; an assistant radiographer probably going yw
\\-
24 back to 1961.
Assistant Radiation Safety Officer.
25 The men in the field and the gentlemen from Kaiser AV
93 C~]/
1 Aerospace and Electronics brought it out.
The inspector climbed down into that silo into a radiation area and 2
(])
3 there was an 80 mile an hour blizzard.
Would certification 4
prevent that incident again?
I doubt it.
On third 5
party certification, the past seven months we've had to 6
go back to an outside third party training and certification,
the certification agent comes before our radiation pro-7 8
tection committee.
We were unable to find a qualified 9
radiological safety training instructor.
The one that to we had for a good 18 years transferred to another area.
11 Did we find any difference going back to our 12 outside third party training and certification that we 13 had in the early 60's?
Yes, we do find a difference,
( s}
u 14 Not so much in cost -- the training is performed at our 15 site but it's the scheduling problem.
If you have a mid-fuselage that has to be radiographed and you require 16 17 six to eight radiographers and their certification is
=
j 18 running out on you, you have to get these men recertified.
g 19 The problem arises that if the third party independent 20 certifying agency is available and if he's not, you're in f
21 deep trouble.
I i
f 22 MR. SINGER:
Sure.
How do you assess that?
Top
+S
~#
24 management can't assess that.
It's difficult.
I find 25 also that a well trained radiographer rarely moves from a
()
1
~
94 Ak#
1 large corporation and there are many reasons for that.
2 I don't think that independent third party certification A
3 will eradicate some of the discrepancies which you are
(_j 4
finding.
Unfortunately, it will perhaps slightly bandaid 5
a bad situation but in the final analysis you might 6
consider the civil penalties.
It's worked wonders for 7
EPA.
It's come a long way for OSHA and I think companies 8
listen very good to that.
9 I don't see where the competency of a radiographer 10 is going to meet your approval and bring down over-exposure 11 by certification.
I agree with many of the points that 12 were brought up by Mr. Gaines, from Mr. Yocum and from
(')
13 Kaiser Aerospace and Electronics.
I think one area we U
14 should reconsider is the civil penalties.
The larger 15 corporations obviously listen very well to that.
The 16 smaller companies will listen harder and I think if they 17 g
have any radiographers that are questionable, they will l
18 release;..them.
Thank you, gentlemen.
19 MR. SINGER:
Thank you.
Let me clear the record.
j 20 In any case that if you want any information about over-a l
21 exposures, they are not kept as privvy information and they a
f 22 are available if you still wish to obtain those records.
3
[
23 We, as an agency are essentially under a microseppe and 24 everything we do is available to the public.
As far as 25 I know, there's nothing in my office that you can't have O
a
95 O
1 through the Freedom of Information Act.
Yes?
2 MR. STOWE:
My name is Fred Stowe and I'm A)
(_
3 with Booth-Twining, Inc. and that's one of your Mom and 4
Pop stores and we hire a lot of gypsies.
So, maybe I'm 5
the guy you want to be talking to.
6 First off, we do have some problems and there 7
are some major problems throughout and we feel that 8
we've got to have something to put some teeth into the 9
responsibilities that the radiographers are bound to.
10 Now, we've talked about civil penalties.
To me, that's 11 a fine and we're going to have to pay some money.
- Okay, 12 now our outfits can only take so many fines and how do
(])
13 we control the radiographers.
We feel that if you'll i
14 put that a little bit further as the State of California I
15 has in their Title 17, it says that any violation to 16 Title 17 is a misdemeanor offense, although I don't know 17 g
of any radiographers who have ever put any money out l
g 18 of their pocket, but I know that a lot of our Mom and Pop 19 stores have put out quite a bit of money to the NRC l
j 20 for violations.
We would also like to see the radiographer i!
21 held financially responsible because, as you've heard it 3
d 22 said, he's worried about his paycheck,too and if he knows i
a 4
23 he's get to pay the fine like he does to the Judge for j O i
24 a traffic violation, maybe he'll take the company into
~
25 consideration and the next time he's out on the pipeline l
{
.~.
96 O
1 and he wants to smoke a joint and hurt somebody, he's 2
going to think about it twice, so I think we have to O
s/
3 have something that's going to hold the radiographer 4
responsible.
I think when we originally went after this 5
licensing by the NRC through the NDTMA, maybe it was 6
our group that did it.
The thing that happened in 7
Southern California where a man almost lost his -- in fact, 8
lost a big part of his buttocks and the company no longer 9
does mobile x-ray, I think is what concerns us all as to far as the independents and the small people in the 11 industry.
12 What we wanted to do was put a little teeth in
(])
13 it because why should this man be allowed, as experienced 14 as he was to get away with just a warning or a little 15 probation for awhile?
I think if a case had been made 16 about it that he was going to pay, all radiographers g
would have taken a second look at that thing and 17 l
18 responsibility as we've heard would be first and foremost i
19 in your mind.
j 20 Now, I am in management and I am the alternate i!
21 radiation safety officer for Booth-Twining, Inc., one of a
f 22 them.
We have three alternates along with the RSO and t
\\
i 23 we chased 60 radiographers all over the state of California 24 and some 35, iridium-192 isotopes and two cobalt sources.
l l
25 We've tried to depend heavily on a regional management, whic s
()
t
97 O
1 we have a division in Bakersfield, Santa Ana and Santa
~
2 Maria and also Oxnard.
You can see we're spread out.
()
3 One man can't hardly do it so we depend on our regional 4
managers to oversee the radiographers in those areas.
5 You've heard it said that we've had problems 6
as far as securing areas.
We also have to talk to our 7
customer about meeting his schedule and if we give him 8
one little ration about safety, he calls our competitor 9
who then gets away with it and it just upsets me that 10 this is allowed to happen and I think that some of the 11 things that we have to do is make sure that we get 12 investigated the proper way and there is follow-up, okay, 13 but I still think that the radiographer should be held
(])
14 responsible and I think that's what the licensing is 15 all about.
16 Now, as far as why we're here and I have to 17 agree with Tom, I think we've got the bandage on the g
l 18 wrong wound, as far as the third party testing, I have g
19 taught NDT for the last four years and I also take 3
j 20 care of the semi-annual radiation safety program that i
21 we're required to do for the State of California and
=
f 22 I find that when you give somebody a test, as far as a
!)
23 sitting down and writing an answer, there's about a 25%
t' 24 retention rate if you're lucky on what you've told them.
25 As far as NRC regulations, forget it.
There's not a O) l
98
(
1 radiographer out there that can quote you any part of it.
2 There isn't a radiographer out there who can quote you,
()
3 in California any part of Title 17 but you hand him the 4
thing and say now, look up the answer, he's going to do it.
5 Now, is this going to be an open book test?
They'll give 6
you the answers.
What does that prove?
The fact that 7
he can read'a book.
8 The thing that we've been talking about is, 9
does he get out there and use? good work habits.
Tom 10 hit on them all.
I'm not going to hit on them again.
11 Those are the problems that we have out there.
And 12 what we're looking for, is that if you're going to make
,(])
13 rule-making, come out with a rule that's going to hold 14 the radiographer responsible for his actions also because 15 we know that you're not going to take it away from the 16 licensee.
We're still going to have ours but hey, let's 17 g
pass on a little bit of the responsibility to the guy that's l
18 screwing it up for us.
Thank you.
j 19 MR. SINGER:
Thank you.
I l
j 20 Are there any other commentors that would want i
aj 21 to go on record?
Again, I appreciate all of these a
22 remarks and I think that we will look at these things
[
23 very carefully.
I again would lika to request that 24 any of you who have not responded to our questionnaire 25 be sure to do so.
You can send your suggestions to the l
w e
+-
+
n
+
= - -
=
99
(
j Secretary of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 2
Commission, Washington, D.C.,
20555, attention of the 3
Docketing and Service Branch.
s 4
With that request, I want to again thank you 1
5 for your attendance and participation and this meeting 6
is closed.
7 (Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m.,
the public meeting 8
in the above-entitled matter was closed.)
9 i
10 4
j 11 i
12 c(2) s 14 15 16 17 l
18 g
19 a
j 20,
i i
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i 22 s
23 I
24 25
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the k'
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the matter of:
CERTIFICATION OF RADIOGRAPHERS Date of Proceeding:
15 June 1982 l
l Docket !!umb er :
l
? lace of Proceeding:
Oakland, California were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the Commission.
DEBORAH LYNN EASLEY Official Reporter (Typed)
Q
/0jbnsL4 v
Official Reporter (Signa re)
+
06-15-82 LADIES & GEtJTLEMEt4 I WOULD LIKE FIRST TO THANK ALL OF YOU FOR CARIfJG Ef40 UGH TO COME TO THIS MEETING.
ALL TOO OFTEN WE ARE FACED WITH THE REALITY OF REGULATIONS WHICH CONCERtJ US AND WE HAVE FAILED TO "OET ItJVOLVED" 4
I Ad SPEAKING AS THE InitEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT CF THC tJOt!~
DESTRUCTIVE TESTItJG P1AtJAGEMEtJT ASSOCI ATION, 'HEREAFTER CALLED NOTMA, AND AS A CURPEtJT MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. I AM REASOf4 ABLY FAMILIAR WITH THE HISTORY OF THE tJDTMA PETITION CONCERNING CERTIFICATIOfJ (OR REGISTRATIOtD OF INDUSTRIAL RADIOGRAPHERS FOR I WAS PRESEf4T DURItJG MAtJY OF THE DISCUSSIOtJS WHICH RESULTED IN THE PETITIOtt THESE DISCUSSIOf45 (1AY BE DESCRIBED BY THE FOLLOWItJG QUOTATIOf45, WHICH WILL GIVE YOU SOr1E IDER OF THE RArJGE OF SENTIMEtJTS INVOLVED: "YOU ARE OUT OF YOUP MitJDi ASKIfJG THE GOVERtJMENT OfJ THE OtJE HAf4D TO 'GET OFF YOUR ESOKS' Af4D OtJ THE OTHER HAND TO BECOME EVEN MORE DEEPLY ItJVOLVED IN YOUR AFFAIRS". ANOTHER "THE EMPLOYER MUST HAVE SOME PROTECTIOrd TO RELIEVE HIM FROM SOME OF THE LI ABILITIES INCURRED BY THE MIS-ADVEtJ'JURES OF HIS EMPLOYEES". AS YOU MIGHT HAVE ALREADY GUESSED, I HAVE " CLEANED-UP" SOME OF THE WORDS.
WE CONSIDERED, FOR EXAMPLE, THE AIRLINE CAPTAIf4 WHOSE CERTIFICATIO!J CAN BE RESCItJDED WITH PROPER CAUSE, AS WELL AS OTHER CATEGORIES WHEREItJ CERTIFICATICtJ, REGISTRATIOrd OR LICEtJSING OF INDIVIDUALS IS CURREf4TLY IN PRACTICE.
I CANNOT r 9PTER AtJD VERSE OF THE ORIGItJAL PETITIOf4 WHICH WAS
.ED BY tJDTMA, BUT I CAfd TELL YOU THAT, BASED OtJ MY KNOs._
uE OF THE DISCUSSIOtJS PREVIOUSLY MENTIOtJED, THE ORIGItJAL INTEf4T OF THE PETITION HAS BEEN SU9VERTED TO SUCH Rtl EXTE!JT THAT IT IS DEFItJITELY FJOT ACCEPTABLE. NDTMA CA!Jf40T
' SUPPORT AtJY FORM OF CERTIFICATIOtJ WHICH WILL PERMIT THE GOVEPtJMENT TO PARTICIPATE BEYOf4D THE ACCEPTAtJCE OF " THIRD PARTY" CERTIFICATIOtt ItJ ESSEtJCE, FJDTMA WILL NOT ENDORSE ANY CERTIFICATION PROGRAM WHICH WILL CAUSE THE ALREADY BURDEf4SOr1E LEVEL OF BUREAUCRACY TO BE INCREASED.
STROtJG FEELINGS, PRO AtJD COtJ, HAVE BEEtJ VOICED It4 fJDTr1A ON THE
' SUBJECT! OF CERTIFICATIOf4 AtJD THE TEST OF TIME HAS ALLOWED ALL OF US TO COf4 SIDER MAfJY OF THE RAMIFICATIONS. THE RESULT OF THIS IS THAT, DURItJG MY TERM AS PRESIDEtJT, WE REACHED A DECISIOf4 TO WITHDRAW THE PETITION AND THIS HAS BEEtJ DONE.
I WOULD LIKE TO BRIEFLY COMMENT ON THE ACTIOtJS WHICH THIS PETITIOtJ CREATED. MAtJY HOURS AfJD MAtJY DOLLARS HAVE BEEF 4 SPEtJT IN THE SEARCH FOR AN ACCEPTABLEfSOLUTIOrd TO THE QUESTIOf4 OF CERTIFICATION AtJD I CALL YCLR' ATTENTIOfJ TO At1 EXAMPLE: NUREG/
CR-2088 ENTITLED "A LITERATURE REVIEW OFtOCCUPATIONAL LICENSING APPLIED TO ItJDUSTRI AC RADIOGRAPHY" BY J. J.
TURF 4 AGE.
THIS REPORT CAN BE CONSIDERED MONEY WELL SPENT OR MOf4EY WASTED, DEFENDING ON YOUR INDIVIDUAL PERSUASION ON THE SUBJECT, BUT IT STILL IS MOtJEY SPEtJT. A SMALL MOUtJTAIN OF PAPERWORK HAS BEEF 4 GENERATED, REPRESENTING THE EFFORTS OF COtJCERtJED ItJDIVIDUALS AND THIS TOO IS MONEY SPENT.
PERHAPS I AM BEING PRESUt1PTUOUS WHEtJ I SAY THIS BUT I DO SINCERELY FEEL THAT ' TWO THINGS HAVE BEEN ACCOf1PLISHED BY THE PETITION: -(1) A SERIOUSLY COtJCERNED, UELL INTEtJTIOtJED, GROUP SAW A PROBLEt4 AND TOOK ACTIOrJ TO'RCSOLVE IT.
(2) A GOVERNMEtJT AGEtJCY WAS RESPONSIVE TO THE ACTIOtt 1 MOST STROrJGLY URGE THOSE OF YOU WHO CARED ENOUGH TO ATTEfJD THIS MEETING TO GIVE US YOUR OPItJIONS Ord THIS IMPORTANT MATTER.
PESPECTFULLY SUCMITTED, T. M.
GAINES
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A NUCLEAR BEGULATORY C0'IIISSION OfficialExh.No.[---
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Docket No.
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GEO Construction Testing, Inc. l formtrly X Ray Engin:ering Company e
3 1118 Chess Drive l Foster City, CA 94404 l Teieonons 415 573-6000 Construction Testing June 15, 1982 CERTIFICATION OF RADIOGRAPHERS As you've aircady heard -- the NRC was petitioned to develop and implement a program for the licensing /ccrtification of radio-graphers.
You also heard testimony that the petition was withdrawn and I believe rightly so.
The NRC has subverted the scope of the original petition and is now off on a tangent, addressing only a portion.
The current proposal to certify radiographers is not viable for the following reasons.
1.
The decertifying or cancelling of certifications is not, to my knowledge, being addressed.
Without this the
" certification" is not worth the paper it's written on.
2.
The term " Certified Radiographer" is misleading.
The certification program we're discussing here today has to do with the safe handling or use of by-product material.
This does not mean that the person is qualified to make or interpret radiographs.
3.
Who is going to underwrite this certificaton program?
4.
The employer will still be held responsible for any items of noncompliance.
It is his by-product material license, therefore, he is responsible.
Anytime there is a noncompliance, the standard wording is
" Sir. Employer, you permitted the radiographer to..." and goes on from there.
The employer's only recourse is to terminate the radiograph-er, who then goes down the street looking like hf r. Clean and gets a job with a competitor.
The employer's name is remembered forever, but not the radiographer's.
6.x L
\\
~Corir,truction Testing Certification of Radiographers June 15, 1982 Page 2 You can have the best training program in the world, but when a person is on a job, he does it "his way".
All of you, when taking the driving test to get your driver's license, fol-lowed the rules to the letter.
How many of you drive that way today?
- However, if you are caught not following the rules, you could have your license suspended.
I repeat, you, not your em-ployer.
If there is a fine, you have to pay, not your employer.
If there is to be a program for certifying or licensing ra-diographers, a part of that program must be a method or system whereby the radiographer shares some of the burden.
Certification of Radiographers will only guarantee only one thing -- higher costs -- to the Employer, maybe -- to the taxpay-er for sure.
Respectfully submitted:
GEO CONSTRUCTION TESTNG, INC.
Clifton Johnson Quality Control Manager CJ/rld Enclosure
I I
s o
J Construction Testing THIRD-PARTY CERTIFICATION OF RADIOGRAPHERS -- COMMENTS Q1.
Is the training provided to radiographers under the present system adequate?
Answer:
For our Company yes.
However, I hear rumors about practices of other companies which are not accept-able.
Q2.
Would a third-party certification program reduce the number of overexposures in the radiography industry?
Answer:
Possibly -- particularly for those who haven't re-ceived proper training.
Proper training must in-clude " hands-on".
i l
l l
The largest impact on the number of incidents will be a product of management's philosophy.
i "If you can't do it right -- don't do it."
l l
So long as production is a controlling
- factor, there will be a management condescension of loose-ness.
Page 1 of 8
-Coristruction Testmq IMw many companies will shut down a job for a
" borderline" condition.
Example:
Last month we shut down the radiographic operation on a major construction project.
The survey meter calibra-tion had expired, the set of calibrated meters had not been received.
We were down for two (2) days, flow many companies place enough importance on ra-diation safety to have a full-time Radiation Safe-ty Officer?
Most times this is just another hat he wears.
For many smaller companies, he is a user also.
I agree that many companies don't have the need for a full-time person, but that job could be giv-en to someone other than a user.
Q3.
Would a third-party certification program motivate radio-graphers to work more safely?
Answer:
No -- no one motivates anyone.
That comes from within.
If the certification route runs both ways
-- that is, decertification for major infractions that will certainly be a deterrent.
Page 2 of 8
C-EO
-Construction Testing In today's world it is possible for a radiographer to have an incident, be terminated, and go down the street and go to work for another company.
Most former employers will not pass on that the radiographer is a " bad actor" for fear of liabili-ty, unless you ask very specific questions.
If there were a process whereby a radiographer's
" certification" were suspended for a
period of
- time, that would be a deterrent.
I have heard colleagues state "you can't do that, you are de-priving a man of his livelihood".
I can't accept that.
What happens to a pilot or a truck driver if their license is suspended?
Q4.
What elements in the present system or in the suggested al-ternative are particularly desirable or undesirable?
Why?
Answer:
a)
We don't have to use a " third-party".
We j
have one of the best programs in the country.
b)
New Program -- Some standards of training will be set.
Hours of
- training, properly docu-mented.
The trainer will have no axe to grind, this will be part of his livelihood.
Page 3 of 8
i Construct 10n Tosting Undesirabic a)
The word " certified" radiographer -- Many peo-ple will construe this to mean that he is qualified to perform radiographic inspection.
only qualified to handle /use by-pro-Wrong duct material.
b)
The performance of radiographic inspection is a totally different thing.
That's like com-paring apples and oranges.
c)
It may establish another bureaucratic agency.
QS.
If a third-party certification program is adopted, what items should be included in the standard for determining the competence of individuals to act as radiographers?
l l
Answer:
Accreditation of the
" Third-Party" Provision that those companies, which have acceptabic pro-grams, be able to qualify their own peopic.
It's l
not economically practical for a company, such as us, with approximately a
165 radiographers, to send all our people to a third-party.
Page 4 of 8
i Construcnon Testing There has to be some standard set for the number of hours of classroom training, lab or practical work and a standardized testing program.
Also, the number of hours that person must work as an assistant.
All this must be documented and subject to audit.
Q6.
If a third-party certification program is adopted, should it apply to individuals presently working as a radiographer or only to new radiographers?
Answer:
It must apply to all, some of the worst offenders are "old dogs".
You must break them of their old habits prior to teaching them new ones.
l Q7.
If a third-party certification program is adopted, should certificates be issued to inviduals for life or should l
there be periodic renewals of the certification.
l
(
Answer:
Absolutely not.
Three (3) to five (3) years maxi-l mum.
Things change too often, may certify for t
three (3) years with recertification possible l
t l
based on satisfactory performance.
Maybe give a short refresher and test every six (6) years.
Page 5 of 8
[
650_. _ _ _ _
CcInstruction Testing
-- -- Or certify for five (5) years and refresher training and retest.
Q8.
Would a third-party certification program affect the abili-ty of a licensee to respond to variable manpower needs?
-- -- Technically you I don't think so Answer:
No -- --
can't hire a person and put them out on a job im-mediately.
This might make things easier.
A large part of our new hires are experienced.
If they were al-ready certified, we would only have to give them an indoctrination program covering our Operating 1
and Emergency Procedures, our equipment, our me-l ters, etc. and put them to work.
Q9.
Since a third-party certification program would likely be based on cost recovery by a fee system, would the cost to the licensees of such a program be warranted?
Answer:
Probably, it costs money to train a man today.
In many cases it would be cheaper to send person-nel to an organi:cd program than to pull an in-Page 6 of 8
~~ Construction rasting structor away from his other work to train only one (1) or two (2) people.
Q10.
Which alternative of the two discussed (present
- system, third-party certification) is preferable?
Why?
Are there other better alternatives?
If so, please explain.
Answer:
For our people, there would be little change.
But we chance to gain by the third-party program.
We plan to be one of those third-pairies, if the program is adopted.
Q11.
With respect to the two alternatives, what kind of enforce-ment action could and should be taken against radiographers who do not operate equipment safely or follow established procedures?
What rights should radiographers have with re-spect to such enforcement actions?
Answer:
As stated previously, a method of decertifying or suspension of license.
If their license were suspended, depending on se-verity, they could continue work while attending a retraining program or refresher, similar to the drivers' education program that we have in most Page 7 of 8 I
s
'Coristruction Testing states today.
Or give a man a choice of suspen-sion or retraining.
Q12.
Would a small licensee, because of its size, bear a dispro-portionate adverse economic impact under a
third-party system?
Answer:
If they have a lot of incidents, possibly.
Are drivers of small trucking companies treated dif-I forently than those of large companies?
i i
This is something that rubs me a little wrong.
Recently, during an audit by an Agreement State, the auditor made a comment that we had to be bet-ter because we are bigger; therefore, we should know better and could better afford to be better.
What kind of impact is that?
1 i
I Page 8 of 8
CY: MINOGUE/ROSS ALEX8MDED/McG'JIRE PR FILE
~7 l
GTLLESPIE ARSENAULT/COMELLA
/,,,
"~
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GOLLER/MORRISON MILLS
./ "*%'
UNITED STATES i
[i NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 5,,
/
Office of Putdlc Affairs Washington, D.C. 20555 No.
82-79 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tel.
301/492-7715 (Monday, May 24, 1982) 1*C TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETINGS ON L..ut.'FICATION OF RADIOGRAPHERS The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold public meetings in June in Atlanta, Houston, Oakland, Chicago and Washington, D.C.,
to discuss the advisability of establishing a national program for certifying radiographers.
Industrial radiography involves the use of sealed sources that emit gamma radiation to test metallic materials for defects.
In most cases, the sources must be used in open air outside of their shielded containers and a high radiation field is allowed to exist around the sources when they are being used.
For the years 1971 through 1978, radiography licensees constituted only about three percent of the NRC's material licenses but accounted for more than 60 percent of exposures to radiation in excess of the agency's annual limits.
Applicants for licenses to use radiographic sources currently must include a training program for qualifying radiographers as part of the overall application, but it is difficult to verify the effectiveness of the program.
Consequently, the NRC announced earlier this month that it is considering establishing a regulatory program that incorporates a third-party certification system as an alternative to the present system.
The public meetings are designed to obtain broader public input on the proposed program.
The dates, times and locations of the meetings are:
Tuesday, June 8, Colony Square Hotel, Peachtree and 14th Streets, Atlanta, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.;
Thursday, June 10, University of Texa;, School of Public Health Auditorium, 12000 Hermann Pressler Boulevard, Houston, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.;
i
'l
~
J
. No. 82-79 Tuesday, June 15, Hyatt Oakland Hotel, 455 Hegenberger Road, Oak. land, California, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m; Thursday, June 17, American Congress Hotel, 520 S.
Michigan Avenue, Chicago, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.;
Wednesday, June 23, General Services Administration Auditorium, 18th and F Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C.,
9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Persons wishing to make prior arrangements to present an oral statement (not to exceed 15 minutes) should centact James A. Jones, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, U.S.
i Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C.
- 20555, 301/443-5970, by June 2, 1982.
Arrangements to speak may l
also be made at the time of the meeting on a time-available basis.
Written comments are welcome at any time.
l I
UNITED STATES
..sr etass uait NUCLEAR REGULAToNY CoMMISSloN NT 'GQc'8 'O WASHINGTON, o.C. 20565 u sa o c OFFICIAL BUSINESS PENALTY FOR PRIVATE USE. 8300 i
120555063903 1 CZ US hRC RES OFFICE DIRECTOR 1130 SS WASHIhGTCN DC 20555
'19152
~
"d='"+'"
Proposed Rules Vol. 47, No. 88 Tuesday. May 4.1982 TNs secton of the FEDERAL REGISTER FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
determines the training and knowledge contains nobces to the pubFic of the Mr. James A. Jones. Office of Nuclear of only a small percentage of the total proposed issuance of rules and Regulatory Research. U.S. Nuclear number of radiographers. Therefore, the regulations. The purpose of these notices Regulatory Commission. Washington, training and knowledge of the majority is to give interested persons an D.C. 20555, 301-443-5970. -
of the individuals conducting opportunity to parbcipate m the rule' SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATIO9C radiography in areas under NRC Industrial radiography involves the use jurisdiction is not known.The lack of an "E
of relatively large (multicurie) gamma.
effective means of verifying the training emitting sealed sources in non-of radiographers by the NRC increases NUCLEAR REGUI.ATORY destructive testing of metallic material the chance of having inadequately trained individuals using potentially l
- COMMISSION,
for defects. Most radiographic operations require use of the sources in lethal sources of radiation in the public l
10 CFR Part 34 open air outside a shielded container.
domain.
Therefore, a high radiation field is Under present NRC regulations, certification of Industrial allowed to exist in the areas individual radiography licensees are Radiographers surrounding the source. NRC licensees permitted under the authority of their AcENcy: Nuclear Regulatory must train radiographers to employ
' licenses to train and designate -
Commission.
sound radiation safety practices to.
Individuals as qualified to act as ACTION:Advancinotice of proposed assure that neither the radiographeinor radiographers. In such cases, tha
~
rulemaking. "
members of the generalpublic are prospective radiography licensee exposed to excessive radiation during
' submits a description of the training
SUMMARY
- In this advance notice of the conduct ofindustrial radiography.
program for qualifying individuals to act
_ proposed rulemaking, the Commission is-~ The most critical element in the conduct as radiographers as a part of the overall presenting an alternative to the present ofindustrial radiography is for the application for a radiography license.
system of permitting a radiography radiographer to return the source to its The training program is reviewed for its licensee to train and designate shielded container after each adequacy by the NRC staff and,ifft is individuals as radio 5raphers.The
- radiographic exposure and to' verify that found to be acceptable, the licensee is
, suggested alternative would require that the source is in its shielded position.
granted authority to train and designate
~
each individual who uses byproduct Dunng the years of1971 through 1980, individuals as radiographers.He materialin industrial radiography be radiography licensees, although they inherent problem with the present certified by a third party approved by constitute ap roximately's percent of s system is the difficulty of verifying the the NRC.This action is intended to NRC materia licensees,have been effectiveness of the training programs.
ensure that all radiographers possess involved in over 60 percent of those The NRC inspectors
- primary means of adequate training and. experience to reported over-exposures to the whole determining the adequacy of a licensee's '
operate radiographic equipment safely.
body that were greater than 5' rems and training program is byinspecting This action is taken in response to a over 80 percent of whole body f... -
traininF record _s. While training records petition for ruleinaking and continuing exposures greater than 25 rems."Ibe may serve as evidence that training was Commission concern over the problem NRC Agreement States have had a.
given, they do not provide an adequate qf radiography overexposures.-
similar experience. -
basis for concluding that the training dates: Comment period expires Investigations of radiography.."
-was effective or th'atindividual September 3.1982. Comments received '
overexposure incidents have indicated radiographers are knowledgeable in after this date will be considered if it is that the majority of the overexposures
. NRC regulations and the licensee's practical to do so,but assurance of are the result of a failure by the operating and emergency procedure / '
l consideration cannot be gwen exce9t as radiographer to follow established,
The Nondestructive Testing j
to comments received on or beforr this operating procedures.The most common Management Association (NDTMA) date.
. procedure violated ts the failure to requested,in a 1977 petition for -
AoDRESSES: Send comments or perform a physical radiation survey
' rulemaking, that the NRC amend 13 after each exposure to verify that the regulations to provide for registravon -
suggestions to the Secretary of the v
Commission. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory source has been returned to its safe licensing and control ofindividual Commission, Washington. D.C. 20555.
storage position.
radiographers.This advance notice of -
Attention: Docketing and Service' investigations of overexposure. '*
prbposed rulemaking is being published r
Branch. Copies of comments received incidents by NRC and Agreement State to resolve the NDTMA petition and to further NRC efforts to improve radiation may be examined at the Commission's-inspectors have also indicated that
- public Document Room at 1717 H Street inadequate training of radiographers safety in the radiography industry. In NW., Washington, D.C. Submit may be a significant contributing cause 1 August 1978, the NDThiA petition was comments in writing or present
'in many of the overexposure incidents.
published for comment in the Federal comments orally at public meetings to The NRC does not at the present time Register (43 FR 34563). Eleven comments s
be conducted in NRC Regions 11. III. IV, have an effectiva means of determming were received concerning the p' tition.
e V and in Washington, D.C. In May or the competency of individual The majority of the comments received
}une 1982.The exact location, date, and radiographers.The NRC's Office of concerning the petition stated that the time for each public meeting will be Inspection and Enforcement, as part of present system for designating announced at a later date..
Its inspection of radiography licensees, individuals as radiographers,is adequate F
e
19153 Fcderal Register / Vol. 47. No. 88 / Tuesday May 4.1982 / Proposed Rules.
and that an NRC licensing program NRC would encourage and support
- 4. What elements in the present would be costly and would not reduce initiatives on the part of the radiography system or in the suggested alternative industrf n establishing a third party are particularly desirable or '
tha number of overexposures in the i
radi: graphy industry.
certification program for testing undesirable? Why?
In the petition for rulemaking the radiographers.
5.If a third-party certification program NDntA stated that in its opinion the implementation of a third party is adoptid. what items should be Commission was overlooking a major '~ certification program would require the. Included in the standard for determining
. contributing cause ofincidents in the development of a certification standard the competence ofladividuals to act as radirgraphy industry. He reference was thatis satiActory to the NRC the radiogrfiphers?
ts c. ses where the radiographer acts radiography adustry, and other
- 6. If a thapany cedEcadon program n:gligently on his own despite being interested persons. The NRC wouldilso is adopted, should it apply to individuals provided proper training. testing, and be required to amend 10 CFR Part 34 of saf2ty~ equipment.The NDnfA its regulations to specify that only pasently working as ra&,ographers or "I.to new radiographers?
indicated that a program forlicensin8 Individuals who have been tested and Y
and control of Individual radiographers certfEed as meeting the provisions of the
- 7. If a third-party certification program would reduce the rate of occurrence of -
standard may act as radiographers -
is adopted, should certificates be issued this kind ofincident by making under the authority of NRC licensees.
, to individuals for life or should there be Individual radiographers more - -
ne NRC would especially appreciate pe'riodic renewals of the certification?
responsible for their actions.ne receiving comments from organizations
- 8. Would a third-party certification NDutA added that. "it is not the Intent, that would be interested in participatiitg program affect the ability of a licensee
,nor would this proposalin any waY in a third-party certiEcation program for to respond to variable manpower needs?-
uce the msponsibility of the.
fr
$ns tha p te the program would likely in be based on He N'DTNIA petition did not include, industrial radiogra phers. Participants'in - 9.Sin
- 'I'****
. any information to support its opinion nondestructive testing industry or c st M Ge Ucenseedsd a pmgram th:t a n'ationallicensing program would organivations that are independent from be warranted?
m:tivate Individual radiographers to the industry.The NRC would make a -
- 10. Which alternatives of the two w:rk more safely. Interested persons are determination as to whether to specifically invited to comment recognize a particular orga'nization's '
discussed (present system, third-party concerning the motivational aspects of a program for certification. Following certificatie] is preferable? Why? Are cedEcatim pmgram.
there other better altematives? If so..
He Issue of radiographerlicensilig acceptance of an organization's-has been considered for implementation certiEcation program as meeting NRC please explain.
~
standards, the NRC regulations would 11.With respect to the two et various times by the AEC/NRC since be amended to require certification by alternatives, what kind of enforcement
- 1964. In its past considerations, the staff action could and should be taken h a not conclusively determined that organization..
wbsther an NRC program failicensing Radiography. Licensee Designation
- against radiographers who do not cf radiographeis is desirable.ne NRC (Status Quo)
Operate equipment safely or follow established procedures? What rights now believes that due to budgetary An alternative' to the third-party should radiographers have with respect constraints and the lack of personnel cedHeat a program would be to to such enforcement actions?
and equipment, an NEC program for.
continue with the present system of
- 12. Would a smalllicensee, because of licensing of radiographers is not fe.sible. However, the NRC does permitting radiography IIcensees to train its size bear a disproportionate adverse bilisve that the present system of
, and designate their own radiographers.
economic impact under a third-party permitting individual radiography Invitation To Comment system?
licensees to train and designate Comments concerning the desirability ' interested in participating in a third
- 13. For those organizations that are radi a he s ha eficiencies An of establishing a third party certification alternative to the present system is program for certifying radiographers are party certification program what would invited. Comments are specifically be the estimated cost in implementmg discussed below, solicited concerning the alternatives such a program?
Rird. Party Certification -
described in this notice. Suggestions of
~
i
%e present system for training other alternatives, and estimates of 1.ist of Subjects in to CFR I art 34 radiographers permits wide disparity in costs forimplementation of the Packaging and containers. Penalty.
. the competence ofindividual programs, are encouraged.
Radiation protection. Radiography, radiographers depending primarily uport In light of previous discussion. the Reporting requirements. Scientific tha quality of the particular licensee's NRC is particularly interested in equipment. Security measures.
training program.The NRC believes the receiving comments concerning the J
g present system would be improved if the follow, g-m amended (42 U.S.C. =ct))
fint.1 determination of competence to act
- 1. Is the tra..ining provided to rd a radiographer was made by an radiographers under the present system Dated at Washington. DC this 27th day of ladependent body. In view of the limited adequate?
Apn11082.
staff resources, the NRC believes the
- 2. Would a third-party certification For the Nucles't Regulatory Commission.
devslopment of a regulatory program program reduce the number of Samuel J. Chilk, that incorporates a third party overexposures in tSe radiography Secretary of the Commission.
certification requirement for individual industry?
m radiographers is the most feasible
- 3. Would a third-party certification nm means ofincreasing NRC's assurance of - progract motivate radiographers to work ths competency of radiog sphers. The more safely?
Oaklanc5, C A i.
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 10 CFR Part 34 Certification of Industrial Radiographers AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission ACTION: Notice of public meetings
SUMMARY
- The NRC published in the Federal Register on May 4,1982, (__ FR
)
an advance notice of proposed rulemaking concerning certification of radiographers.
In the notice, the NRC presented a third-party certification program as an alternative to the present system of permitting radiography licensees to train and to designate individuals as radiographers.
In order to obtain broader public input, the NRC is supplementing the advance notice with a series of public meetings. This notice provides the dates, locations and times of the public meetings.
1 DATES: See Supplementafy Infarihatimr-for-datae af.J;te.eti,ng s..,
ADDRESSES: See Supplementary Information for meeting locations.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. James A. Jones, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C.
20555, 301-443-5970.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Public meetings on the advance notice of proposed rule-making on certification of industrial radiographers will be held on the dates and at the locations listed below:
Tuesday, June 8,1982 L
L Atl anta, Ga.
s e
m A-.
Location:
Colony Square Hotel, Peachtree and 14th Street Time:
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Thursday, June 10, 1982 1
J' '
Houston, TX Location: University of Texas, School of Public Health Auditorium,12000 Hermann Pressler Boulevard (Address may be 1isted on older maps as 6905 Bertner Avenue)
Time:
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Tuesday, June 15, 1982 Oakland, CA Location: Hyatt Oakland Hotel, 455 Hegenberger Road Time:
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Thursday, June 17, 1982 Chicago, IL
- o Location
- Americana Congress Hotel, 520 S. Michigan Avenue '
Time:
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
l Wednesday, June 23, 1982
.,b$
Washington, 0.C.
i l
Location: General Services Administration Auditorium,18th and F Street, N.W.
Time:
9:00 a.m. to 4 :30 p.m.
Persons wishing to make an oral presentation should contact Mr. Jones by May 25, 1982 either in writing or by telephone.
The following information is required: (1) l names of participants; (2) length of oral presentation (not to exceed 15 minutes, written presentation of any length may be submitted at any time); (3) organization
,n
-3 represented, if any; and (4) daytime telephone number. Arrangements may also be made at the time of the meeting on a time-available basis.
Dated at Washington, D.C. this 30th day of April,1982.
For the Nuclear Regulatory commission
([ '. -
/<i. /
.... f,,
a-u Robert E. Alexander, Chief Occupational Radiation Protection Branch Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research 9
e e
1
__