ML20138H908
| ML20138H908 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Three Mile Island  |
| Issue date: | 10/16/1985 |
| From: | NRC - ADVISORY PANEL FOR DECONTAMINATION OF TMI UNIT 2 |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NACTMI, NUDOCS 8510290178 | |
| Download: ML20138H908 (136) | |
Text
ORIGINAL 1
1 UN11ED STATES
) NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO: -
ADVISORY PANEL ON THE DECONTAMINATION OF TMI-2 LOCATION: LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA PAGES: 1 - 132 DATE: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1985 l
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) Official Reporters
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 ADVISORY PANEL ON 4 THE DECONTAMINATION OF TMI-2 5
Lancaster Council Chambers Public Safety' Building 6 201 North Duke Street Lancaster, Pennsylvania 7
8 Wednesday, October 16, 1985 The advisory panel on the decontamination of TMI-2 10 convened at 7:00 p.m., Chairman Morris presiding.
11 12 PRESENT:
13 MIKE MASNIK THOMAS COCHRAN THOMAS SMITHGALL Id JOEL ROTH ARTHUR MORRIS, Chairman 15 NEIL WALD KENNETH MILLER j 16 BOB GERUSKY ANNE TRUNK 17 i
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UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY PANEL FOR THE DECONTAMINATION OF THREE MILE ISLAND UNIT 2 AGENDA FOR THE OCTOBER 16, 1985 MEETING IN LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA
- 1. Opening Remarks - Chairman ' Morris 10 minutes
- 2. FY86 NRC Regulatory Oversight - NRC 10 minutes
- 3. Results of the Pennsylvania Department of Health TMI 70 minutes Epidemiological Studies and Public Comment - PA Department of Health ,
BREAK 10 minutes
- 4. Continuation of Discussion of the TMI Epidemiological 30 minutes Studies - Chairnan Morris
- 5. GPU Defueling Status Report - GPUNC 10 minutes
- 6. Topics for Discussion at the November 19, 1985 Meeting 10 minutes with the NRC Commissioners - Chairman Morris s
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1 3
l b 1 THE CHARIMAN: I want to mention that the 2 next meeting we have with the NRC Commissioners is 3 scheduled for Tuesday, November 19, at 11:00 a.m.
4- Mayor Reed has resigned as a panel member 5 and we are looking for a replacement for the 6 Middletown area.
7 It is my understanding that Bill Travers
'8 will handle the management for the core accountability 9 requirements a little later, maybe in the second part 10 of the program.
11 Bill, while we are talking to you, could you 12 fill us in on a couple of items. One would be the 13 flow of information to the panel that we asked the NRC 14 Commissioners to allow us to receive certain 15 information, even if.it is confidential. They said 16 they would take it under advisement.
17 MR. TRAVERS: I believe today the Commission 18 adopted basically what the panel proposed to the 19 Commission, vis-a-vis the flow of information and the 20 kinds of things the panel ought to be seeing.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: So they approved what we i 22 asked for?
l 23 MR. TRAVERS: Yes.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: There are a couple of other 25 items. One would be the revision to the charter as
4 1 far as our ability to discuss the very thing we are 2 discussing tonight, the studies on the health effects.
3 MR. TRAVERS: You may recall what we were 4 awaiting was GSA concurrence. And the revised charter 5 already adopted by the Commission, or proposed to GSA 6 by the Commission, in fact, GSA has concurred in the 7 revised charter.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: How about the status of the 9 polar crane issue on the wilfulness and the parts 10 harassment and enforcement action, which I think there 11 was a fine assessment. And I am wondering if GPU has 12 decided to pay the fine or not?
) 13 MR. TRAVERS: On August 12 there was a 14- proposed Notice of Violation and a proposed S64,000 15 civil penalty for that harassment issue.
16 On September 9, 1985, GPU requested some 17 more information of NRC in preparation or to 18 facilitate preparation of their response to us, 1@ And in a letter from NRC dated September 20, 20 we provided some additional information and gave GPU 21 Nuclear some additional 30 days to respond to that l 22 Notice of Violation.
i 23 So that is pending. And GPU Nuclear will be 24 responding shortly, I assume, because they only had 30 25 days from September 20.
5 1 THE CHAIRMAN: That is on the parts issue?
2 MR. TRAVERS: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN:
3 How about the polar crane 4 issue on wilfulness?
5 MR. TRAVERS: The OI report, I believe you 6 have been sent a copy of that. And the Office of 7 Inspection and Enforcement, specifically Jane 8 Axelrad's office, has that report and-is assessing 9 what enforcement action the Commission ought to take.
10 I don't know exactly where they are at in discussing 11 what the Commission ought to do.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Is the status of the OI 13 report public or not?
) 14 MR. TRAVERS: I believe it is, yes.
15 THE CHAIRMAM: I don't know if it has been 16 released, but can you say what the OI report found?
17 MR. TRAVERS: In summary, the Office of ,
18 Investigations couldn't, and I will paraphrase from 19 the report, couldn't point to explicit instances where 20 they could demonstrate wilfulness.
21 They did conclude that GPU Nuclear's 22 contractor, Bechtel, had willfully rerouted around the 23 existing procedures to add that particular break into 24 the system. And that they should have known or 25 Bechtel management and GPU Nuclear management should
6 1 have known it.
2 Actually the finding-is very similar in the 3 way it is worded in the OI report to the way the last 4 instance regarding the polar crane breaks was worded 5 by the Office of Investigations.
6 So it is a positive finding.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: That has been given to 8 enforcement for --
9 MR. TRAVERS: It has been given to Bill 10 Dircks and the Office of Inspection and Enforcement 11 for consideration of what enforcement action the 12 Commission ought t, take.
13 MR. ROTH: Do you have a time frame on that?
14 MR.-TRAVERS: No.
15 MR. COCHRAN: On an earlier point, why does 16 the NRC have to get GSA approval on what they do?
i 17 MR. TRAVERS: It is an OMB requirement for la advisory panels. In an attempt to control government 19 advisory panels overall, there is a requirement that 20 GSA monitor the scope of advisory panel activities and 21 I believe they also monitor the expenditures that go 22 toward supporting the advisory pancis.
23 THE CHAIR!!AN: The next person on the agenda 24 to give us information on the regulatory oversight is 25 Bernie Snyder. And Bernie, as you come forward, I
7 l
1 think you were the person who was going to fill us in 3
2 on this.
3 MR. SNYDER: Yes.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Looking on page 16 of the 5 transcript, I don't know if the person is here who did 6 this transcript, but I didn't say that panel members 7 didn't realize that you were, in fact, living.
8 I said that panel members didn't realize 9 that you were, in fact, leaving.
10 MR. SNYDER: That is too bad because I would 11 rather be living than leaving, but it'is nice to do 12 both.
3 13 MR. CHAIRMAN: Just for the record, on page 14 16 there is an error. Bernie is here alive and well.
15 While this is his last meeting, we certainly want to 16 wish him well.
17 MR. SNYDER: What I wanted to is not go 18 through the same discussion we had down in Annapolis, 19 but for your benefit and perhaps for the benefit of 20 those members of the public that aren't aware, and I 21 want to bring you up to date on the status of our 22 reorganization.
! 23 Let me first apologize in advance for Frank 24 Morales inability to be here. As the members of the 25 panel are aware from the letter that Mike sent you
8 1 back in the end of August and from the discussion in A
2 Annapolis in September, Frank Morales will be the 3- person to whom the new director of this office will 4 -report. And he did commit at the Annapeolis meeting 5 to come to this meeting in the Harrisburg-Lancaster 6 area. But unfortunately he was unable to keep that 7 promise.
8 If you want him to come back at some other 9 time, he will do his best to come. It turns out he 10 has lots of other projects other than this one; and he 11 is on the West Coast this week. So I wanted to clear 12 the air on that point. That is why he isn't here.
. 13 Very briefly, the reorganization and 14 reemphasis within the office that was discussed in the 15 past-is moving, but as usual, a little slower than was 16 anticipated.
l 17 The office function of director of this l 18 office, my position, will be eventually transferred to 19 the site. It is part of a large reorganization within
! 20 the NRC. And it is a very small par.t of over a 600 l
l . 21 person reorganization. So you can imagine that takes 22 quite awhile to get fully in place.
23 In fact, I can't predict now as to when that 24 might take place. I can give you an outside guess 25 that it will probably be in the next month or maybe 1
9 1 two months. There are a lot of things, a lot of b
2 considerations, and a lot of opportunities to be given 3 to people.
4- However, when that does occur, my office 5 will be reduced by four people to a level of about 15.
6 There are 19 in the office now. The office being 7 primarily people at the site under Dr. Travers, who is 8 my deputy at the moment, and with a small contingent 9 of 6 people back in NRC headquarters. I am one of the 10 six.
11 The headquarter's office will be reduced to 12 a liaison function, of which one of the key 13 individuals in that will be Mike Masnik. He will
) 14 continue to perform the function that he does now and 15 be the liaison with the panel. I don't think the 16 panel from that prospective will see any real 17 difference.
18 The other individual who will be in 19 Bethesda, both of whom will report to the director at 20 the site. The other individual will be the fellow 21 that was standing in for Mike at the Annapolis 22 meeting, Randy Hall. The other four individuals, one 23 of whom is a secretary, will no longer be associated 24 with the proj ect.
25 For myself, I am going to be leaving the
10 1 government in a very short time. In fact, my 2 termination date is the 25th of October, which is a 3 week from this Friday.
4 What I see happening is in the interim 5 period between the time of my leaving and the time 6 that this new organizational change occurs, maybe a 7 month or more, I suspect that what will be done is 8 Carol Denton, who is my boss, will designate someone 9 as the acting director of the office. I think the 10 chances are very good it will be Dr. Travers. It 11 makes sense. That is to be resolved in the next few 12 days.
13 As I say, the total reorganization is not 14 going to happen in October, I don't think. But it 15 .should be perhaps a month or so af ter that.
16 So I want to thank the panel for their 17 efforts. This will be the last opportunity I have to 18 chat with you. It has been lots of fun. We have had 19 differences and lots more agreements, I think. I 20 think the panel served a good function.
21 I was one of those who helped put it 22 .together. And I think it is a reasonably balanced 23 group. I think it is done -- it has functioned very 24 well providing a liaison to the community. I think 25 the community has benefited as a result. It is a
11 1 unique thing, an experiment.
s 2 Like most experiments, there were errors 3 made along the way. And, I think, particularly with 4 Art as the present chairman, it has certainly taken on 5 a very important role in the cleanup.
6 We had a meeting this past few days in 7 Hershey. And one of the things that was discussed 8 was, what would you do differently if there was 9 another accident. One of the things I would do the 10 same would be to put together a group, hopefully as 11 talented as this one, that would provide a liaison 12 ,
with the community. Hopefully it wouldn't be 13 necessary, but it is not an impossibility either.
14 That is really all I had to say. Thank you 15 very much. I don't know if the public is aware, but 16 all of you folks basically spend your own time and 17 many cases your own money. The government does not 18 pay.you, except for per diem expenses when you travel 19 outside of your commuting area. Is that the way it 20 works?
21- THE CHAIRMAN: And then very slowly.
22 MR. SNYDER: And sometimes not at all, I 23 presume. Why should they treat you any differently 24 than they treat me.
25 But it is a notable civic task that I think
12 1 all of you who come to thr.se meetings are serving.
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2 And I think the public should appreciate that. I am 3 sure you would all rather be home doing something else 4 with your families, so would I as a matter of fact.
5 And I guess my parting words is : should be able to do 6 that much easier avw than you folks will.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: We appreciate what you have 8 done in working with the panel, and we thank you for 9 your efforts and your professionalism. We wish you 10 well in whatever it is that you do in the future.
11 It is my understanding that you wanted to 12 get going early this evening.
13 MR. SNYDER: Yes. I have to be way out on I
14 Long Island tomorrow for another meeting that I was 15 invited to speak at, and there is only one way to get 16 there and that is to drive. I didn't relish driving 17 through New York City at nine o' clock tomorrow 18 morning.
19 THE CHAIRMAM: Thank you very much.
20 MR. ROTH: As you know, over the last five 21 years you and I have had probably more disagreements 22 on issues than agreements; but nevertheless, they were 23 always on the issue and not on a personal level.
24 I respect that and appreciate that.
I 25 And also I know that your attendance at
13 1 these meetings is very good. And it would be easier, 2 I am sure, for you at times to stay back rather than 3 facing the music here.
4 And again, I just want you to know, speaking 5 for myself, that whereas we disagreed, it was on 6 issues. I respect what you have done.
7 I would also like to put in the record 8 something you said for the newspaper the other day, 9 which said that you are coming around. And basically 10~ you were talking about the nuclear industry the NRC.
11 And this is quoted out of the Evening News, " Things 12 can be turned around if the future brings safe and 13 economic nuclear power along with the elimination of 14 choddy workmenship and poor practices." And for that 15 I thank you.
16 I wish you well. And if you need another 17 hand on your boat next summer, call.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Anybody else have a word?
19 (No response.)
20 THE-CHAIRMAN: The next item is (3) Results 21 of the Pennsylvania Department of Health TMI i 22 Epidemological Studies and Public Comment - PA 23 . Department of Health.
24 We are fortunate tonight to have Dr. Muller 25 with us , who is Secretary of the Department of Health.
v 14 1- At this time I would like to turn the mike over to him
- 2 for the presentation. And he has agreed to attempt to 3 answer questions from the public after the i- 4 presentation has been made.
5 DR. MULLER: Mayor Morris, members of the 6 Panel, ladies and gentlemen, my discussion tonight 7 will center on our study of cancer mortality and 8 morbidity in the Three Mile Island area and the
.9 department's assessment of of the cancer mortality in 10 TMI areas selected by local residents.
11 As you remarked, I will be happy to try and
.12 answer questions after.the presentation. .The audience 13 should know that Mayor Morris extended this invitation 14 to me several weeks. I am pleased to be here. Mr.
15 Masnik called a week ago and suggested it might be
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16 helpful is technical people were here too.
17 Unfortunately that is impossible. There are 18 two technical people basically involved in this study, 19 Dr. Tokuha ta and Mr., Digon. Dr. Tokuhata cannot 20 attend, having-been so advised by legal counsel since 21 he is presently under suit. And Mr. Digon had long 22 planned with others to be away in the Carolinas for 23 months. And I couldn't bring myself to interfere with 24 that.
25 I am not a statistician. And I am not an
15 l' epidemiologist. I am familiar with the work and I 2 have talked it over with the principals. And if you 3 are dissatisfied with any of my responses, or if I am 4 not able to respond to you, or if any of you on the 5 panel or in the audience wish more information, please 6 write and we will respond.
7 The address is PO Box 90, Harrisburg, 8 Pennsylvania. You can address it to me, H. R. Muller, 9 M. D., Secretary of Health.
10 I will respond, or we will respond to you in 11: writing; and we will copy Mayor Morris with your 12 question and our response.
13 At the outset I would like to point out that 14 this study which took a fair amount of time to do has 15 been critiqued by a number of people acknowledged as 16 experts in their particular field, specifically Dr.
17 Robert Miller, M. D, Chief of Clinical Epidemiology, 18 National Cancer Institute; Dr. Charles Lamb, Chief of 19 Radiation Epidemiology in the National Cancer 20 Institute; Matthew Zack, M. D., Chief Cancer Branch, 21 Centers for Disease Control; Paul Shehee, PhD, 22 professor of biostatistics and preventive medicine, j 23 Upstate Medical Center, College of Medicine, Syracuse, 24 New York; and Dr. Troyce Jones, PhD, Radiation Biology ,
) 25 Section, Oakridge National Laboratories.
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16 1 They were given the information you have in s
2 three successive drafts and. asked to review, critique, 3 give us questions, suggestions, changes, et cetera.
4 ~What I am gr.ing to do is move through both 5 of these topics. I will not be reading verbatim. I 6 would like to~ address specific areas as I go along.
7 As we are all aware, TMI occurred are more 8 than six years ago. There has been and remains 9 concern about the potential health impact that may 10 result from the dispersion of radioactive substances 11 released at the time of the accident.
12 Our department was asked to assess the
. 13 situation more recently by the TMI Public Health Fund 14 and we were prompted by the Survey of Cancer Mortality 15 in sections of communities near TMI done by local 16 citizens.
17 As we all know, the Government's position la has been that radioactive substances released at the 19 time of the THI accident and the population exposure 20 that resulted from it are not felt to be of a degree 21 that will result in adverse health ef f ects or at least 22 those adverse effects will be too small to be 23 ,d e t e c t e d .
24 However, in August of 1984 there were 25 published reports that basically questioned the
17 1 standing estimate of exposure following the accident, 2 and pointed out that our current thinking in that 3 regard should not be regarded as final.
4 To set the stage, the Department of Health 5 reviews' cancer mortality and morbidity now since the 6 of advent of the Cancer Registry in the 2,600 minor 7 civil divisions of Pennsylvania. And we investigate 8 potential problem areas.
9 TMI, as we all know, has been the subject of 10 investigations by us and others. And S we continue with 11 our monitoring because people in the area are 12 concerned. There is widespread interest over the 13 subject. There is a question of whether low level 14 radiation is indeed injurious, and as I remarked 15 earlier, by a request by other groups including your 16 own that the department look ct various aspects of it.
17 We have felt because of the latency period 18 commonly associated with exposure to radiation in 19 terms of cancer genesis, that it was unlikely that we 20 .would find much of significance five years out. But 21 again, because of questions asked and our own plan
'22 shortly after THI to periodically review the situation 23 and publish data, and because of requests from others, 24 we did move ahead at this time with the study.
) 25 The study's purpose was to determine, if
18 1 indeed, there was an increased morbidity or mortality 2 secondary to cancer in the TMI area. And if it 3 existed, whether values found were consistent with the 4 current theory regarding radiation carcinogenesis.
5 Now, the study is concerned with the 6 morbidity and mortality. The results presented 7 include the following: Comparison of the observed and 8 expected number of cancer deaths, comparison of the 9 observed and expected number of newly diagnosed cancer 10 cases, and an assessment of newly diagnosed, meaning 11' since TMI, cases of cancer within a defined population 12 cohort group of people, presumably all exposed at the 13 time of the T!!I; i.e., woman pregnant at the time and 14 their fetuses within a roughly 10-mile radius of TMI.
15 Would you flash the first overhecd up?
16 (So done.)
17 I want to clarify something that should have 18 been clarified earlier, that we thought people-19 realired, but obviously they did not. We are at fault 20 for n,o t making it clear earlier. You may have the 21 handouts that show the concentric diagrams.
22 Basically we are vell aware that there is 23 nothing mystical about a 5- and 10-mile radius. The 24 decision was made immediately after the Three Mile 25 Island event. However, that we would pay special heed
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19 1 to all residents within a 5-mile radlus.
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2 There were roughly 37,000 people within the 3 5-mile radius of TMI. That is the inner circle.
4 Those people make up the THI population registry.
5 They were contacted f ollowing TMI, and we were 6 following them and intend to follow them on ad 7 infinitum looking at various parameters as far as 8 health effects goes, since our job happens to be 9 health.
10 We did not have a population group within 11 the 5-mile area in terms of pregnant woman and fetuses 12 large enough, we felt, to be statistically 13 significant. And we went to the ten mile. But it is ,
14 an irregular ten mile. It is the green that you see 15 up there which obviously extends out beyond the 16 10-mile radius. Those constitute in part minor civil 17 divisions.
18 And the reason we did this is everything in 19 Government is reported in minor civil division terms.
20 We can't get a hand on this over a 5, 10, 15, 20 years 21 if we try to stick to the mythical circles.
22 Also it is presented on a calendar year 23 basis. So we have to stick to the calendar year. You 24 may object to the methodology, but it becomes a 25 practical situation when you are looking at something
20 I you going to be doing f or years and years. So we know 2 about the inner circle. We are keeping tabs on them.
3 And we also know about roughly 4,000 woman who were 4 pregnant at the time and their children. And they lie 5 within the ten mile and bayond where the green is -
6' radius.there.
7 And we are conversant with the population as 8 f ar out as 20-mile radius to a degree. And we have 9 looked at quadrants and the dispersion of the plume in 10 terms of what was the wind direction at the time and
.11 what have you.
12 .This was pointed out, as most of you 13 probably.know in the Patriot Evening News. -And we We thought people knew, and they
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14- stand corrected.
15 didn't. And I want to make it clear what we are 16 talking about as we go on tonight. ,
17 So the data.used for this study take into
'18 account these minor civil divisions,.which are smaller 19 than counties and get down to small-population groups.
20 And we look at - them in terms of age, sex, and race.
21 And this is important based on the every ten year 22- census.
23 We don't have statistics back in 1970 and 24 1960 that we can look to. And we have taken the 1980 25 census of the population in that general all area as
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l 1 the base. We have with other Government agencies I j 2 estimated populations before and since, but they are 3 estimates.
4 The time period that we are talking about 5 tonight is the five years that we say are before TMI.
6 And that is the calendar years '74 through '78. And 7 we say post-TMI and that is the calendar years '79 8 through '83.
9 Now, we all recognize that includes three 10 months roughly before the TnI accident. But again 11 when people in epidemiology and other people 12 conversant with this subject look at it, to do other 13 than that was essentially an irpossible task over of
.]4 the long haul. Because all of the data flow would be 15 based on calendar years; and to try and separate it 16 out would be an overpowering situation.
17 Also I believe, if there is an error 18 introduced by the roughly three months out of 60, it 19 begins to wash away the further you go away from that 20 point. Because there are more and more months added ,
21 on that would tend to reduce the likelihood of the 22 importance of that th ree .acnth period.
23 There are those who would argue it would be 24 crazy to look at the first three months anyway because I
25 of the latency period of cancer is such that you could
22 1
1 hardly expect anything to occur. We are all aware of l 2 that. But we wanted to start as near as we could to 3 the episode itself.
4 Now, we do not present death rates for very 5 small geographic areas. Because as you all know, if 6 you look at one house and there are five people in it 7 and two have cancer. And you say there is a terrible 8 increase in cancer based on this one survey and this 9 one house with five people, that you can't compare it 10 to the numbers that you have to in order to come to a 11 rational decision as to whether there is or isn't an 12 increase in that given area.
13 And also we use expected -- and we brought
)
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14 30 copies of our report which were distributed to'our 15 audience. I hope that suffices. I am generally 16 following that, but not exactly.
17 Basically you will see the words expected, 18 observed and expected. The observed is pretty true.
19 It is what the Aamodts looked at. It is the numbers 20 that exist. The expected is what people say they 21 think would exist or ought to exist under the 22 circumstances. And that becomes a theoretical number 23 based again on other parameters.
24 In this case, the expected holds true, if
) 25 the communities we are looking at have the same age,
23 1 sex, and cancer mortality as existed in Pennsylvania 2 during 1979 to 1981. And if the community didn't I.
3 change in size and age-sex distribution since the 1980 4 census.
5 Well, most communities obviously changed.
6 And we found was most communities in that area of 7 Pennsylvania grew. They grew during the 70's to '80 8 and they have grown since. All of which basically 9 means, if you use a base like that, if you use the '80 10 census base for expected deaths, you tend to maximize 11 those . existing cancers. .It gives more umph to the 12 cancers that exists;.because your population is 13 increasing in size and yet you are using a lower I
14 population as a base.
15 So for those who want to see more cancer or 16 believe something happened, the approach we used.would 17 favor their side is what it comes down to. We didn't 18 do it for that reason, but that is how it works out.
19 Ue have been about mortality, people that 20 die. Morbidity relates to those who have a disease.
21 One of the basic positions that we have is we are 22 perfectly happy to talk about the issue of mortality, 23 as I am sure are the Aamodts and others. But frankly 24 we really think we ought to be -f ocusing on morbidity, 25 as far as significance goes. Because if you look at
24 1 mortality, we are looking at people many of whom had 2 the disease before TMI occurred. And we will go into 3- all of that. And to try and relate those people to 4 Ttil really doesn't hold any water.
5 But if we look at people who developed 6 cancer after TMI, that makes more sense. We did not "I have the capacity in your Department. of Health to deal 8 with this until July of 1982, when the Pennsylvania 9 Cancer Registry came into being. And I suspect one of 10 the reasons for the Cancer Registry coming into being 11 was TMI and your concern over the health of the . people
'12 in the area. The Cancer Society was interested in it; 13 but obviously people in south central Pennsylvania had 14 a vested interest.
15 He are able to now tell who has cancer, not 16 who died of cancer. We are able to focus in much 17 better than we could bef ore on relationships that 18 might exist.
19 So we did a morbidity study using the data 20 f rom the Cancer Registry f rom July of 1982. And 21 fortunately for all of us, the Cancer Registry first ,
22 looked at the 14 counties in south central 23 Pennsylvania. That is good for us. It just happened 24 that way. And we have used the data from that date
) 25 until June of 1984 looking at morbidity.
4
25 1 We have augmented what we have done in 2 trying to get valid data by looking at school census 3 material. I understand the schools keep a ready track 4 of people and where they are and how many are there, 5 and what have you. 'I believe they do it on an annual 6 or bi-annual basis. We have made use of that in 7 developing our information.
8 The results of our mortality and morbidity 9 studies were as follows: First of all, as I remarked 10 there is an increase in the population within the 11 area. There was also, we believe, an increase in the 12 number of older people. Americans are getting older.
13 We al so knew that cancer, while not soley a disease to 14 older pecple, certainly has a higher incidence in that 15 age group.
16 So we have an increased number of people and 17 an. increased number of those aging and a better 18 approach of diagnosis of cancer, and an increase of 19 cancer incidence all over the United States, something 20 like 11 percent up during the 70's nationwide. All of 21 which would lead to you think we will f nd more cancer 22 in a given area then we might have.
23 With respect to the mortality, looking at 24 those 35 minor civil divisions I talked about in a 25 20-mile radius, we found no evidence of increased l
26 1 cancer mortality, looking at the 1979 to '83 time b
2 period and comparing it to the '74, '78.
3 It is true that the number of cancer deaths 4 among Pennsylvania residents increased by 8.5 percent 5 from the time period '74 to '7 8 to that of '79 '83.
6 That' increase was not limited to Pennsylvania, as I 7 remarked. It.was up 11 percent. nationwide. We 8 believe that reflect many factors.
9 This study that we did in no way looked at 10 other potential causes for cancer. There are a myriad 11 of causes that exist in addition to radiation. We dia 12 not try to sort out why people had it. Merely did 13 they have it, or did they just develop it.
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14 We also looked at the site of predilection 15 where we have seen an increased number of cancers of 16 certain organs or certain parts of the body. Certain 17 cancers of so-called radiogenic -- cancerogenic, 18 radiogenic are apt to (inaudible) after exposure to 19 radiation. Leukemia is perhaps the best example.
20 Was there any evidence, even if there wasn't 21 an increase in the number of cancers, was there 22 evidence of an increase in the number of certain types 23 of cancer? And we found no evidence of that.
24 So overall the cancer mortality by direction 25 -
from TMI,'if you looked at the different quadrants,
27 1 there was no statistically significant change.
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2 We looked at four selected communities 3 downwind from TMI. And that was principally because 4 of the Aamodt study and looking at th a t. And we found 5 no significant increase there.
6 Later we went back, as you know, and tried 7 to look at the specific areas that the citizens hadn't 8 looked at. And we did not find a significant increase 9 there.
10 I have a fair amount of material, all of 11 which is incorporated in what you folks have and all 12 of which basically end up concluding there is no 13 evidence so far of a statistically significant l 14 increase in mortality about the TMI area.
I 15 We did, as I mentioned, looked at the 16 mothers, those women who were pregnant in the rough 17 10-mile radi us. And we have a cohort group of people, 18 women who delivered a year later, '80 to '81 of about 19 the same number. We are looking at 4,000 woman and 20 their offspring. And in that group, we also did not 21 find a statistical significant increase in the number 22 of deaths.
23 There were, as you probably know, four woman 24 who died or who developed cancer during that time, I
25 with an expected incidence of 3.9. There were two
28 1 children who developed cancer, with an expected 2 incidence of one.
3 In conclusion referable to this study, we 4 feel that the study was comprehensive in its analysis.
5 It included comparisons of the observed number of 6 cancers and the expected for a series of geographic 7 areas within the 25-mile radius and beyond, down to 8 and including small census numboration districts, 9 which are smaller than the minor civil divisons.
10 The analysis also looked, as I pointed out, 11 .at different quadrants. We looked at the northwest-12 and the southwest in view of possible plume 13 dispersion. We also considered, as I mentioned, 14 various cancer sites, areas of the body among the 15 living and the deceased, where there was a 16 predilection. And also a predilection for 17 radiosensitive malignancies to develop. And we looked 18 at the incidence of newly diagnosed cases of cancer in 19 women who were pregnant at the time or become pregnant 20 after, within a year f ollowing.
21 We believe that the incidence data, meaning 22 those who developed the disease rather than those who 23 had it, is far more appropriate for assessing possible 24 linkage between environment risks, such as radiation,
) 25 to cancer. He think the respective cohorts, followup
29 1 study of the population exposed will offer us far 2 more. And as I poirited out , we are doing that.
3 We are doing it in terms of those 37,000 4 people living within the 5-mile radius and within 5 those who were pregnant and their offspring.
6 We intend to continue with these studies 7 over the next several years in an effort to determine 8 whether or not ,.th er e is or is not a relationship to 9 the TMI situation.
10 Now, the second aspect of this involved a 11 critique of the citizens' report. First of all, Mrs.
-12 Aamodt in one of.her statements indicated she felt our 13 report involved both of their motions. This report
)
14 involves only their 1984 motion. We had no data on 15 their January motion until September of this year. So 16 please view it in that way. He are not critiquing 17 that motion in any way.
18 The Aamodts and others looked at three 19 separate areas for their survey. We didn't have much 20- information initially as to where those areas where.
21 We ultimately were able to obtain some information 22 relative to them.
23 As you probably know, there was one area six 24 miles northwest of the plant, another three and a half
)- 25 miles southwest and a third seven miles northwest t-
30 1 The information we obtained relative to the 2 demcgraphics and cancer mortality was quite limited 3 initially.
4 As you are all aware, the Centers for 5 Disease Control did review that document at the 6 request of the NRC and commented that there were a 7 number of epidemiologic deficiencies.and concluded.
8 that the survey did not present convincing evidence of 9 cancer incidence, cancer mortality or adverse
-10 pregnancy outcome in the TMI area residents following 11 the accident.
12 Our department reviewed the document, did 13 obtain some additional summary survey information, 14 which permitted us, we feel, to do a more 15 comprehensive evaluation of the data in the document, 16 information that cast in our minds some doubt on the 17 accuracy of the survey.
18 We did analyze the cancer mortality data for 19 the four York County minor civil divisions initially 20 in the vicinity of the three survey areas in question.
21 Those analyses by us of those larger areas in the 22 areas that the citizens group had looked at did not 23 inSicate the existence of an apparent cancer problem.
24 But a critical evaluation of the allegations was not
) 25 possible because of necessary detailed information, L
31 1 including the precise location of the survey areas was 2 not available.
3 In November of last year, roughly a year 4 ago, we were requested by you to f urther evaluate the 5 cancer morbidity and mortality in the three area. And 6 we gained more information and we think we are able to 7 do a better job.
8 The information was lacking in age and sex 9 of the participants, health history, and individual 10 addresses, and length of residence. So what we did in 11 .'this situation was to determine as best we could the 12 precise geographic areas that the citizens group 13 looked at..
14 Fortunately, most of those areas fell within 15 the TMI census population group area, so we were able 16 to use th at in developing information about them. And 17 we thought we were able to delineate reasonably 18 pravisely the boundaries of the survey area.
i 19 Our people did go out and did make field 20 visits in an attempt to, ascertain and show that we 21- were looking at the right areas. We did not do 22 house-to-house surveys. We did not question people in 23 the homes. Our information was based on school 24 enumeration proj ects, the TMI survey, and other 25 information we were able to garner.
_m
e 32 1 But in reviewing the Aamodts' survey, and I A
2 will use their name generically as I go along, they 3 were not able either to question all people, which was 4 not unexpected who lived in the area. Roughly 5 one-third of those apparently they were not able to 6 deal with in that way.
7 We supplemented our data from the TMI and 8 school censuses, by cross references, by death 9 certificates, and by Cancer Registry files. We also 10 sent questionnaires to physicians and at times called 11 physicians relative to information.
12 The result of all this was as follows: With 13 respect to the minor civil divisions, all three of th e 14 arecs surveyed by the local residents are located 154 within the York County minor civil divisions. So we 16 were in the appropriate area.
17 In area tw o , Newberry Township we found what 18 we felt to be the greatest discrepancies as far as 19 their report was concerned. In that area the stated 20 boundaries did not coincide with the area actually 21 surveyed. There were a number of streets in the i 22 immediate area that we feel should have been included 23 in the survey, which were not. And there were at 24 least one cancer death on each of the four streets 25 selected by the local residents in the survey area;
33
'l but note on any of the streets not selected by the -
m 2 survey..
3 The blue lines are those streets surveyed by 4 the citizens' group. They believe they also surveyed 5 the stipple blue, and we don't believe so. They did 6 not survey the red, which f rom an epidemiologic sense 7 falls within the same area. And.the reds there are no 8 cancer cases or were none there. In the blue there 9 were.
10 One argument was there was a difference: in 21 elevation. If one goes out --
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Please, Dr. Muller is going 13 to give his presentation. I would ask that you keep l4' comments to yourselves for now. You will have a 15 chance for questions when he is. finished with his -
16 presentation.
17 If you have concerns or disagreements, there 18 will be an opportunity to raise the question when he 19 is completed.
20 A VOICE: He is not identifying the streets.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: I will be happy to mention 22 that to him. . But to talk and interrupt is not fair.
,. 23 DR. MULLER: The blue represents the streets i
24 that th e citizen's group surveyed and reported on.
25 But I don't know the street names.
34 1 THE CHAIRMAN: If somebody here would like 2 to get a copy of that, is it available?
.3- DR. MULLER: When they write just ask for 4 it.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: If.:you would like a copy that 6 shows the names of the streets, all you have to do is 7 write a letter and request a copy of that information, 8 and it will be provided to you.
9 DR. MULLER: The blue are the areas surveyed 10 by the citizens' group. The red are the areas in the 11 same geographic area not surveyed.
12 The only cancer cases-found were on the blue 13 streets. The elevation is similar in different areas.
14 In other words, there are blue areas that are high 15 elevation and red-areas that are also high elevation.
16 Our position-is, when one does on 17 epidemiologic study, one cannot exclude other areas.
18 We don't understand how it was that they were able to 19 select only the streets, 4 out of 14, where there was 20 cancer and did not evaluate any of the adjacent 21 streets. That is all it boils down to.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Again, questions pertaining i
23 to this, if you would make a. note and raise those 24 questions, there will be ample opportunity for you to 25 do that. I would like to see Dr. Muller complete his
35 1 presentation.
~
2 DR. MULLER: In evaluating the study that 3 was done, and we are sympathetic or at least I am, 4 with the f act that the Aamodts and others are not 5 expected to be epidemiologists, but people whose. lif e 6 is centered around this area, which mine isn't, feel 7 that the methodology presented a lot of deficiencies.
8 And that is what I think came through when CDC looked 9 .at it as well.
10 The study was based on cancer mortality 11 rather than cancer incidence. And I feel we will 12 learn mor e by looking at the incidence. And I hope in 13 years to come, we will all be doing that.
14 Most people still feel there.is a 15 significant latency period even for radiogenic 16 cancers. And that seemingly was not considered in 17- this situation.
18 Leukemia is generally felt to have a latency 19 period of 5 or more year's. There are probably 20 exceptions with high exposure. No one ever felt, 21 nothing I have read at any time, has suggested even 22 the highest exposures people think might have occurred 23 were anything like those that we saw at Hiroshima and 24 other places.
25 .The third point is that certain forms much
36 1 malignancy can be expected to occur after exposure to 2 high dose radiation. We don't know about low dose.
3 But the feeling is, if they occur at all, it would be 4 later.
5 In this instance when we looked at the 6 cancers that were found in these three areas, they 7 were not characterized by being radiogenic cancers.
8 They were not by and large the type of cancers that 9' one might have seen as a consequence of exposure to 10 radiation. They were a mixed bag of various types,
-11 most of which were not of th a t variety.
12 The study appeared to conclude there was a 13 cause and effect relationship between the cancers that 14 were found, the deaths.that existed without looking at 15 other possible causes for those cancers. .
16 And if you go through them, you will find 17 some of the cancers were diagnosed before the 18 accident, some existed in people who were long term 19 smokers, cancer of the lung and it is known there is a 20 relationship there. One can go on and on in that 21 line.
22 The expected number of cancer-deaths 23 calculated by the local residents was based on total 24 population figures and overall cancer death rates.
25 They didn't take into account either the age or sex
37 1 distributions of the populations being studied or the 2 fact that the cancer death rates generally increase 3 with age.
4 The purpose of establishing a causal 5 relationship between any chronic disease with a long 6 latency period, as cancer radiation, using cross 7 section on mortality studies, as was done here, and a 8 given population is not adequate.
9 What this means is, if you look at a -
10 population and try to relate incidence of cancer of 11 that population to a given causation factor like 12 radiation, then the studies that the Aamodts did and 13 those I have commented on that we were doing in here, 14 included people who moved into the area af ter the
'15 accident with cancer or developed it, included people 16 who had cancer bef ore the accident.
17 We don't have any reason to believe that the 18 local citizens believe their cancer was due to the TMI 19 incident, since they had the cancer before it. But 20 they were nevertheless included in the numbers that 21 the group would seem to want to relate their cancers 22 to the TMI incident.
l 23 So again, what prefercbly one does is 24 include only those people who were exposed and count 25 them in your population group and you look for th ose
1 38 1 who have moved away, and you count those. But you do 2 not count those people who have moved in or had the 3 disease before.
4 It should be pointed out again that the 5 citizens' group was dealing with a small number of 6 people. An'd that epidemiologically speaking, one runs 7 afoul. of statistics under those circumstances. The 8 significance test in applying them leave a lot to be 9 desired. And we do a lot better if we can gauge the 10 incidence against a broader scale.
11 We.are aware of cancer clusters. They do 12 occur. There are instances were people in a given 13 church, on a given road, in a given school or what d) 14 have you are found to have cancer. And it certainly 15 is awesome. And naturally people wonder if there 16 isn't something going on.
17 To date our information is that neither CDC 18 and certainly we have not been able to find a 19 Situation that we can pin down to a given cause; 20 because when you finally get with it, you will find 21 the incidence falls within the random variation that 22 can occur at any time. It is not consistent. The 23 cancer is high one year and low another.
24 We have to remember that cancer is a common 25 disease in cur society. It is number two as a cause
39 1 of death, vascular disease, blood vessel disease takes 1
2 most and cancer is number two. One out of every four 3 or five people currently can expect to develop cancer.
4 So it is fairly frequent.
5 We do, as I said before, have serious 6 concerns about what appears to be selection bias, 7 particularly in the study we have up on the screen.
8 It appears there was knowledge that cancer existed on 9 those four streets, and they were selectively picked 10 out.
11 I would like to conclude by reiterating.that 12 we looked at mortality and morbidity. We did not find
.. 13 to date any significant evidence that there is an
) 14 increase in the deaths due to cancer or in the 15 incidence of people developing cancer.
16 We know it is early. We believe it is 17 early. We really did not expect to find any this 18 early in the game because of the latency period. We 19 believe our study is good. It has been checked by 20 people knowledgeable in the field. We understand the 21 concern of the concerned citizens who did the other 22 study. We are sympathetic to their concerns. We 23 don't think and don't fault them for it that their 24 methodology was adequate despite their intent.
25 I will be free to answer any questions you
1 40 1- may have.
N 2 MR.- ROTH: I have an observation and a 3 couple of questions.
4' The way.the report was handled from a public
- 5. 'information or public-relations standpoint, which 6 these are my observations. Certainly feel free to 7' refute'them.
8 It just seems after six and a half years (Y
19 that the Department of-Health might have been more
_g 110 responsive to the public on this. I am not saying the 11- = report should have come..out earlier. But.there are.a
-12 number of-people who had called your office asking e .
i' 13 where . the report was. They really were not given any 14 an sw er s .
11 5 ' Some of.the people, whether they were right 16 or wrong I am not being to debate, picked the 17 Governor's mansion asking for the report to be
- 18. released. Someone people then went for Senator 19 Shumaker. And Senator Shumaker wrote your office a -
20 letter asking basically where is the report?
21 It was only at that time that an answer came 22 forth because Senator Shumaker asked. And I am 23 paraphrasing the answer, it was basically "The report 24 -kas under review. You wanted to be very careful that 25 it was not misunderstood by the public, and it would
. 41
41 1 be easily under standable by the layperson. "
2 Would you agree?
DR. MULLER: Yes.
3 4 MR. ROTH: It finally did come out and there 5 were questions raised about it. And I guess it is Mr.
6 Lindberg who is your public information officer.
7 In my opinion it was almost almost treated 8 as the Emperor's new clothes. Here is our report. We 9 standby it. There is no need to discuss it. That 10 type of thing, which after six and a half years I 11 . guess I would have hoped that your office -- and I am 12 not saying-you as an individual, could have handled it 13 better.
14 We have had a lot of interaction with the 15 state. We have Mr. Gerusky as a member of the panel.
16 He nave had Bob Banko from the Governor 's Of fice of 17 Policy here twice. So there has been a fairly good 18 rapport.
19 I think in this way, your public information 20 office really did not do a good job on handling it.
21 Again, it was the Emperor's new clothes thing. We did l
22 We standby it. There is no need to discuss it.
( it.
23 I think basically what happened then is 24 almost a month later after the report was put out, and
) 25 as you mentioned that the Evening News or Sunday
42-
~
.1 Patriot News report by Frank Lynch, it was edited out 2 the idea that you had gone beyond the ten mile and 3 included 122,000 more people. And he asked or 4 interviewed other statisticians, and they said at 5 least a footnote should have been made.
6 And I guess if this is, according to your 7 press release, the first scientific study in your 8 words, a month for that to be brought out. And it 9 wasn't brought out by your department. It was brought 10 out by the press. And if the press would not have 11 brought that out, I guess.my question to you is, How 12 long it have taken, if at all, would you have made 13 known this statement which seems to almost refute that 14 first scientific study thing?
15 In other words, it seems your department 16 went through a number of phases and it decided to at 17 least start being responsive. And I am wondering if 18 Mr. Digon said in the paper, if he was quoted 19 correctly, was the fact it was edited out and it was 20 an error. And it was a month later.
21 So I guess what I would like you to respond 22 to basically is, Why did it take a month? And why was 23 it not brought to the public's attention by your own 24 department rather than the press?
25 DR. MULLER: There always seems to be a
43 1 sense of something sinister with Government. There 2 was none here.
3 I thought it took a heck of a long time for 4 us to come up with this report to begin with. It 5 under went innumerable revisions. They were all 6 calculated to make it understandable.
7 The original report was written f or the 8 scientific literature, and frankly would have not been 9 understandable to 99 percent of us. It would have 10 been great.- And would it have had the appropriate 11 footnotes and all those kinds of things. But it 12 wouldn't have served the purpose for the people 13 concerned about this.
I 14 So I can merely submit that it was tedius 15 and frustrating it went under revision. There was an 16 ommission that should have been footnoted. I know it ,
17 would have been footnoted had it been in it scientific 18 literature. It was ommitted. We apologize.
19 I don't know, frankly, if it ever would have 20 come out; because as I indicated to you here, there is 21 a feeling among people who deal with this that 22 everybody knows whct is going on. And of course that 23 is the case. Eut that isn't the case and people don't 24 know. It was an oversight and I apologize.
25 f1R. ROTH: The only thing I would hope under i
44 1 lessons learned from the accident that the Department S
2 of Health now would -at least try to be a lot more 3 responsive to the public and their questions and deal 4 with the' public headon, instead of the way I think it 5 has been handled since the date of release or prior to 6 the release.
7 I don't think the citizens should have to go 8 to a senator and ask him to write a letter to find 9 out. I am not sure that is right.
10 DR. MULLER: Believe it or not, it was not 11 Senator Shumaker's letter that leveraged this. It was 12 frankly time, getting the whole thing done.
s 13 There were a lot of people who wanted it, 14 and it just wasn't ready. Believe it or not-that is 15 the case. I hope we are responsive. I think we are 16 responsive by being here. There is nothing to shroud 17 this in. It is for everybody to review.
18 I hope that it is subjected to other review 19 or better understanding of epidemiology and 20 biostatistics. We had good people look at it who felt 21 it is good. If somebody can poke holes in it, they are 22 certainly at liberty to do so.
l 23 .MR . ROTH: The only hole I am poking in it 24 is your approach.
25 DR. MULLER: I understand.RIGHT2:
L
45 1 MR. LINDEB ERG : Can I defend myself?
1 2 THE CHAIRMAN: If you would like to. We
- 3. have to get to other questions, though.
4 MR. LINDEBERG: He brought up the fact that 5 we didn't talk to people prior to the release of the 6 -report. I think Mrs. Lee would tell you I wrote her a 7 letter explaining a number of things on why the report 8 hasn't come out. I talked to Mr. Smith's wif e and 9 other women involved with the study.
10 We answered all of the questions we could 11 either in writing or over the phone prior to the 12 release. To all of them we tolp the same thing. It 13 was going under review for clarity. And I think Mrs.
14 Lee would tell you I talked to her on the phone. And 15 She will tell you I wrote her a letter.
16 'MR. COCHRAN: I have several questions.
17 First, you indicated that Dr. Tokuhata had 18 been advised by his attorney not to attend this 19 meeting because of a lawsuit.
20 I am not f amiliar with that. Can you 21 describe what lawsuit is pending against him?
22 DR. MULLER: I am not intimately familiar ,
i 23 with it, but the essence is the Aamodts have sued Dr. l 24 Tokuhata in order to gain release of information
) 25 relative to various aspects of this, particularly the l
1
)
46 1 data base we'used.
N 2 And he has been advised by our legal counsel 3 not to become involved in public discussions about it 4 until that lawsuit is dealt with.
5 MR. COCHRAN: You mentioned reviews by Dr.
6 Lamb _and others. You mentioned four or five people.
7 Can you provide us with the written comments 8 of any of these individuals and any correspondence 9 between your office and them so we may see the 10 critiques of your work?
11 DR. MULLER: If you will put in writing your 12 request, we will do the best we can.
13 MR. COCHRAN: It will be in the transcript.
-14 DR. MULLER: However you wish to get it to 15 us.
16 MR. COCHRAN: I wish not to have to write a 17 letter. I am not paid for doing this work and it is 16 of some burden for me to get up here to begin with.
19 THE CHAIRMAU: Mike, can you for the panel 20 members if there are questions to be asked and they 21 are raised in the transcript, can you put those 22 questions into a letter? I don't think the Department 23 of Health should have to read the transcript to get 24 the questions.
25 MR. MASNIK: Fine.
47 1 MR. COCHRAN: You mentioned a number of 2 criticisms of the local citizens, the survey by the 3 citizens' group. 'It has been referred to as the 4 Aamodt Study.
5 I found that study interesting independent 6 of whether one tried to Jink it to THI. I would like 7 to address the issue independent of the leakage of 8 TMI. Because I think that muddles up what would 9 otherwise be an interesting analysis.
10 First let me ask you, Do you think citizens'
.11 studies of this . type are a useful public service or 12 otherwise independent of this linkage?
13 DR. MULLER: I think it reflects the concern 14 of those people. That is one way to get Government's 15 attention. So in that sense of getting Government's 16 attention. I wish they had had better advice as to 17 how the study was developed.
18 MR. COCHRAN: Let me go through a number of 19 these criticisms that you made of it. And again I 20 want to divorce the issue from link from a causal 21 relationship to TMI 1 and just address the merits of 22 the study of whether there is a cluster there and 23 whether the cluster is real and whether there is 24 something going on.
25 DR. MULLER: Okay.
1
. ,.c 48 1 MR. COCHRAN: First you mentioned in your
'l 2 overview tonight that they only looked at mortality 3 and not incidence. That, of course, to me is not a 4 valid criticism if you are not linking this to TMI.
S In fact, many epidemiological studies used 6 mortality because the data is available. So that 7 wouldn't be a valid criticism.
8 DR. HULLER: It is true in the context of-9 linkage.
10 MR. COCHRAN: But in all fairness, if you 11 were doing a critique of this study, you should .look 12 at the larger question and address the merits of the 13 larger question as well as the narrow question.
14 That is my personal opinion. I see 15 grumblings from the other side.
16 The second question is the latency period.
17 And that is only relevant if you draw this linkage.
18 Am I correct?
i 19 DR. MULLER: I am looking at the study they ,
t 20 did, and what they purported, and what their beliefs l
21 are. I didn't try to discern how would it look if I
(
22 looked at it through another pair of glasses.
23 MR. COCHRAN: Didn't the study interest you 24 in terms of whether there is a number of excess number 25 of cancers in this ar a independent of TMI?
l -
49
, 1 DR. MULLER: It is the type of information N
2 that, if a group of citizens had come to us and said, 3 Look there are "X" number of cases of cancer in this 4 small area, our people would have gone out and looked
. 5 at it to see if there was any substance to it. It is t
6 typical of that type of situation.
7 But we wouldn't have credited it or given 8 other credibility without looking.
9 MR. COCHRAN: Here is some evidence that has 10 been brought to your attention that there is or is
, 11 not --
there appears to be excess cancers.
12 Now, isn't that of interest to your office 13 independent of whether there is a reactor nearby?
) 14 DR. !!ULLER : That's what I said, we would 15 have looked at it.
16 MR. COCHRAN: Did you look at it under those 17 circumstances, from that point of view?
18 DR. l'ULLER: We did. That is what we have 19 been talking about.
20 !!R . COCHRAM: Let me analyze it from that 21 point of view. If you looked at it from that point of 22 view, I want to analyze it from that point of view and 23 divorce it f rom the linkage with TMI and see if it is 24 a valid study independent of whether there is a 25 reactor in the area and whether it raises some
50 1 questions about whether there is something going on in
+.
2 terms of. cancers in that study area.
3 DR. MULLER: I think I can say we looked and 4 concluded there is no evidence that anything is going 5 on.
6 MR. COCHRAN: So far I have gone through the 7 two criticisms you made of the study. And j ust to 8 point out they are not valid criticisms of the 9 question of whether there is something going on in the 10 area.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: If there are other panel 12 members who disagree with me, let me know and I will 13 back off. I would like to have a feeling, at least as 14 Chairman, as to where your heading with this, because 15 this a panel that is regarding TMI. And if you are 16 going to end up making a point and then coming back to 17 TMI, fine.
18 But if you are going to talk about if TMI 19 didn't exist, it may be germane and the public may 20 want to know it. But this is a panel related to the 21 TMI accident.
22 We certainly can discuss the health effects i
23 of TMI, but I want to make sure we stay on the 24 subject.
25 MR. COCHRAN: My personal opinion is this l
l j
51
- 1 issue is an interesting issue independent of the W'
2 linkage. And I don't want to muddle it up with the 3 linkage to TMI.
4 I am not making a point about whether TMI 5 had a causal relationship to the cancers that were 6 detected that were found at the Aamodt Study.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: If the panel is prepared to 8 go through that, fine.
9 MR. WALD: We have always in the past tried 10 to f ocus on the issue f or which this panel was 11 created. And this seems to be more an exploration of 12 epidemiologic method independent of TMI.
13 There are a lot of other interesting things 14 we can talk about independent of TMI. But I am not 15 sure it is germane.
16 MR. COCHRAN: I think it is germane because, 17 there is a group of citizens who have come forward 18 with data, which I think is a useful exercise. My 19 perception ic, instead of being treated fairly for 20 what they did, they are being worked over unf airly.
21 The criticisms of the way these critiques 22 have been done are unfair to the people who have done 23 the studies and have f ailed to point out -- failed to i
24 point out the real value in what has been done.
25 How, in that respect it goes beyond causally
f; F
t 52 l
[ 1 linking the cancers to TMI. And you don't have to get 2 to the question of latency and wind direction and so 3 forth. I think oaat is the most interesting issue 4 here. Is you don't want to talk about it --
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Tom, I think the most 6 important issue here is that Dr. Muller is here until 7 nine o' clock.
8 MR. COCHRAN: Most important for you, Mr.
9 Chairman, and not to me.
10 THE CHAIRMAM: I think to the public.
~
11 MR. COCHRAN: We haven't heard from the 12 public.
13 MR. CHAIRMAN: You are going have to let me 14 finish.
15 MR. COCHRAN: You interrupted me, Mr.
16 Chairman.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Dr. Muller has agreed to be 18 here and it is on the agenda for some two hours and 19 ten minutes total.
20 The public,_if they want to have you go 2,1 through what you are going through-for that period of 22 time, I will not obj ect to that. You may do that.
l 23 They need to under stand, however, if you are 24 going to take their time, and that is the most
) 25 important thing to me is that they be given an
53 1 opportunity to ask questions. If they want to give up N.
2 their time to you to proceed to ask questions on 3 something that may not be related to TMI, that is okay 4 with me.
5 All I would like to do is give the public a 6 chance to ask questions, if they want to ask questions 7 relating to the study as it relates to TMI; if not, I 8 am ready to relinquish that time to you.
9 f:S . NORMA RITTERSPA: I am specifically 10 interested in your comments on the Aamodt Study 11 because I. was one of the interviewers. Also because 12 the slide which you projected with the blue and red 13 lines includes an area where I did extensive 14 interviewing.
15 If I could have that slide up one more time, 16 I would like to speak to the issue of sample selection 17 and why it is not a biased selection.
18 It is important for you to understand, one 19 of the reasons the Aamodt study samples the three 20 areas, and those areas was selected, was because of 21 hypotheses about plume location. In other words, 22 where did the plumes go at.the time of the TMI 23 accident?
24 This area here is interesting because it is 25 an area where, if you go up here, you will stand up
54 1 above the TMI stacks. And you will see the steam 2 coming up. In fact, it will float right up into your 3 face.
4 Then if you go down here and if you drive 5 along this rural road, which is so rural we had to 6 have cars going back and forth waiting for us to take 7 us from house to house -- and this is very time 8 consuming. So we didn't have time to do these others 9 in a house-to-house study.
10 So if you go down here, you are passing 11 along behind an elevated bluff. The plumes from THI, 12 we believe, came along this elevated bluff, were held 13 against the bluff, and flowed along the bluff, and 14 flowed therefore along the elevated area. Now this is 15 the reason why we chose four rural roads.
16 I want to ask you why you feel your 17 department did the right thing in using census 18 material and school material, et cetera, to decide 19 whether or not there is any cancer in those other 20 areas any way?
21 And I want to give you a quote from a 22 statement of an epidemiologist, a man who is an M.
23 D., a pharmacologist, a votinarian, Carl Johnson, who 24 was Director of the Medical Department in Jefferson
) 25 County, which is the area of Rocky Flats.
55 1 It was his study which was done in i
2 contradiction to state studies that were being done 3 which actually brought about those measures which 4 closed Rocky Flats.
5 Dr. Johnson provided our questionnaire 6 sample. And so you may criticize the Aamodt Study.
7 But the truth of the matter is we were well advised.
8 And he suggested to us we go where we thought the 9 plumes went. We knew that children had been evacuated 10 in that area and had been transferred to other 11 schools.
12 . He says here in his statement, which was a 13 supplement to the statement of the Aamodts to the NRC
). '14 on May 22, 1985, he says " Area household surveys of 15 cancer incidence and mortality are a more valid 16 approach than the state's use of concentric circles.
17 When those areas lie in the usual direction of exhaust 18 plumes from an industrial plant source like Three Mile 19 Island."
20 I would also like to point out that your 21 comment regarding the fact that the Aamodt, Study did l 22 not include consideration of age and sex, I would like
-23 you to refer to your own assessment of the Aamodt 24 Study on page 3 in which it is said that the Aamodts 25 refused to chare information about age and sex, as
56 1 well as names of households interviewed, although the.
4 1 2 actual. roads and the boundaries of the three areas 3 interviewed, et cetera. That material was shared,.but 4 not certain confidential material. And it was said 5 this for reasons of confidentiality.
6 You suggest the Aamodts interviewed only on 7 the streets where there was cancer. Let me ask then, 8 apparently you agreed then that the Aamodt Study 9 correctly defined areas where post accident cancer 10 mortality and cancer incidence are notably higher than 11 they -were prior to the accident. Yes?
12 DR. MULLER: No. We don't have any 13 statistics on what they were prior to the accident. !
14 And we have no evidence that Aamodts did either.
15 MS. RITTERSPA: Right. But you do agree 16 that there were areas of post accident cancer 17 mortality that 600 percent incidence of cancer is 18 significant?
19 DR. MULLER: What I have tried to say 20 tonight is, yes, you did survey streets with cancer on 21 them; and no, did you not survey streets with no 22 cancer on them. And in order to be ctatistically 23 responsible, you have to do both.
24 !!S . RITTERSPA: Statistically responsible?
25 DR. MULLER: Some of the cancer cases you
57 1 are linking, as Dr. Cochran wanted to get away from, 2 you are linking now those cancers to TMI. And it has 3 been pointed out that several of the people involved 4 had cancer long before TMI.
5 MS, RITTERS PA: No. The incidence of cancer 6 in the Aamodt Study, out of 20 which was in the first 7 draft of the study, there was one where the person had 8 cancer before TMI. But the other 19, they all 9 developed it after TMI. And it is incidence and not 10 only mortality which the Aamodt Study records.
11 Let me remind you that Dr. John Cobb 12 validated, and I know you know this because he got the 13 death certificates from your department. He validated 14 the studies f or TMI Public Health Fund that the Aamodt 15 found in the study.
16 Are you going to say no to that?
17 THE CHAIR!iAN: Give him at least a chance to 18 respond to the question.
l 19 DR. !!ULL ER : We certainly aren't taking 20 issue with the so-called validation.
l 21 !!S . RITTERSPA: You are not?
22 DR. MULLER: If you will let me finish? Are 23 you going to let me finish?
24 !!S . RITTERSPA: I can't hear you.
25 THE CH AIR!!A!!! It is very easy to hear when l
l
58 1 he has the Mike in his hand. He was trying to speak b 2 at that point.
3 DR. MULLER: There were death certificates.
4 These people had died of cancer, and we are not 5 questioning that.
6 MS. RITTERSPA: Now, I would like to ask you 7 a question about the pregnancy data.
8 In June of this year Judge Sylvia Rambo 9 ap' proved a proposal of the TMI Public Health Fund to 10 reanalyze the pregnancy data for TMI mother's 11 following the accident. And the Health Fund 12 researchers, columbia University epidemiologists Dr.
13 Suser (Phonetic) and Dr. Hatch claim that -- and I am 14 reading f rom their proposal to J;dge Rambo.
15 They say that, "Despite problems in 16 research, design, and analysis, the raw data from an 17 earlier study of fetal loss after the Three Mile 18 Island accident suggests that the population of early 19 pregnancies was indeed adversely affected in a manner 20 consistent with radiation damage."
21 DR. MULLER: That is what they said. And it 22 is up to them to prove their thesis.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: I must ask you how much
'24 longer do you expect to take on questioning? Then 25 when you are done answering that, I will try and find
59 l' out how many other people want to ask questions, s
2 because I cannot let you take up all the time. .
3 MS. RITTERS PA: I need three minutes. I 4 have two considerations specifically of the DOH study.
'S THE CHAIRMAN: How many other people would 6 like to speak to this? I see four.
7 You are going to be given three minutes and 8 at th at point your time will be up.
9 MS. RITTERSPA: I want to raise the issue 10 which Dr. Johnson -- the criticism he makes of your I
'll Department of Health study of the use of a pre-TMI 12 period ranging from between '7 4 and 197 9.
13 He makes the claim that this is actually a
, 14 biased study which should not be used as a basis for
! 15 projecting what can be expected in the post-TMI period 16 '7 9 '83 because of the impact of THI Unit 1 with its t 17 emmissions and its events of 1976 and 1977.
18 DR. MULLER: That is true. But if you look l
l 19 at data, other data, there is no evidence that there 20 was anything elsewhere in that area to suggest an :
21 increased cancer incidence. I am not sure where he is 22 coming from. We haven't any evidence to support that.,
23 MS. RITTERSPA: In other words, you could 24 use a base line data from 1967 to 1972 just as easily?
25 DR. MULLER: We don't have that data.
7:
- 60
[ 1 11S , RITTERS PA: Oh, you don't have that 2 data?
'3 DR. MULLER: No.
4 MS. RITTERSPA: I have one other criticism 5 here. It is really a criticism of trivializing in 6 your study, which I would like to suggest is 7 . unprofessional. It is simply not worthy of a major 8 epidemiological study. It has to do with your 9 statements about the nine leukemia deaths. This is on 10 page 14 of your study under Table 6.
11 "The fact that nine leukemia deaths were 12 reported during the five year post-TMI period in the
+ 13 four selected McD's compared to three leukemia deaths 14 in the pre-TMI period might appear to be of 15 importance." And that would be because it is 300 16 times increase.
17 DR. MULLER: If you look at the rest of
~18 that, the expected number was six.
19 MS. RITTERSPA: However, neither nino nor 20 three deaths are significantly different from the 21 expected number of six for the area.
22 So in other words, 150 percent increase of 23 leukemia, in your opinion, would not be something that 24 would be worthy of any interest?
f 25 DR. MULLER: I didn't say it wouldn't be i
61 1 worthy of interest. But from a statistical point of 2 view, it doesn't make sense. That falls within the 3 probable of happening.
4 MS. TAYLOR: Referring to Table 4 of what 5 you just gave us, the assessment of the Aamodt Study.
6 " Year of diagnosis for 9 out of the 15 7 mortalities you report was either after the TMI 8 accident or unknown."
9 That table does not include five verified 10 can:er mortalities that occurred in 1983 and '84. And 11 all were diagnosed after the accident. Although 14 of 12 the 20 cancers were all diagnosed after the accident, s
13 you state that the health department does not consider
)
14 this information statistically significant. And 15 states it does not warrant further investigation, 16 because the Aamodts knew where cancer existed.
17 As someone who is intimately connected with 18 the genesis of the Aamodt Study, I am interested in 19 learning the basis for your allegations that the 20 Aamodts had prior knowledge of the location of cancer 21 clusters in the TMI area?
22 DR. !!ULL ER : It was the opinion of the 23 people involved that it hardly ceemed likely that they 24 could have selected out only the f our streets that had
[ 25 cancer and not visited any of the other ten in the l
62 1 immediate area that didn't.
2 MS. TAYLOR: In view of the Health 3 Department position that not enough time has passed 4 for the development of cancer from the THI accident, 5 why did the Health Department elect to stady cancer 6 incidence rather than assess pos!.tive radicators such 7 as thyroid disfunction, benign thyroid nodules, 8 cateracts and immune system depression to name a few?
9 In 1979, the year of the accident, the 10 incidence of hypothyroidism in Lancaster County was 11 ten times greater eaan expected. That rate has now 12 returned to the expected rate.
13 How do you account for this ten-fold
) 14 increase in 1979?
15 DR. MULLER: That was addressed about that 16 time by a group of people from all over.
17 MS. TAYLOR: How do you feel about it?
10 DR. MULLER: I am not an endocrinologist, .
19 but they said it was not significant. If you go into 20 it, in Lancaster you have an Amish population. And 21 there is a higher incidence of anomalities of this 22 type. And to make a long story short, whether you 23 care to believe it or not, people who know about thece l
l 24 things, felt it was not significant.
25 MS. TAYLOR: But there were on13 two Amish
c -
63 1 in the hypothyroidism, others were not.
2 Why are there no statistical inference 3 lstatementsLin the report? These would put a.
4 statistical probability on the various differences 5 found and mcke the conclusions more objective and 6 scientific.
7 DR. MULLER: We seem to be coming full 8 circle. We tried to make this an understandable 9 paper. A lot of these things would have been put in.
10 The criticism then would have been nobody could 11 . understand what.we have. You can't have it.both ways.
12 MS. TAYLOR: Ever since#1981 the Health 13 Department has asserted that its studies of pregnancy 14 have shown no evidence of adverse effect from the TMI 15 accident.
16 Last June in response to the Aamodts' 17 request for access to the pregnancy data, the Health 18 Department claimed that it needed to conduct 19 additional analysis of the 1979 pregnancy data.
20 How come?
21 DR. MULLER: I can't answer that question.
22 If you want to put it in writing, we will get you the l
l 23 answer.
- 24 MS. ROD
- This paper, the study you gave.
25 You are saying is the public version of the study and a
i 64 1 there is indeed a more scientific one?
2 DR. MULLER: No. There is only one version, I 3 the version you have.
4 MS. ROB: Then if I were to write to you, 5 would you send me the more scientific data that you .
6 have from which you drew this information?
7- DR. MULLER: If you write to us and ask for 8 specific information, we will furnish it to you. rob 9 MS. ROB: If I write to you, can I be pretty 10 much assured that I can receive that information?
11 DR. MULLER: If we have it; but you have to 12 be specific.
13 MS. ROB: I would be happy to be specific if 14 you would be willing to send that information to me.
15 Can I write to you directly?
16 DR. HULLER: It will be shunted off to the 17 people with that information.
18 US. ROB: I would like it not to be shunted 19 off indefinitely. I want to be assured that I will 20 receive that information.
21 DR. MULLER: We work for you, ma'am. We l
22 will do the best we can.
23 US. ROB: The other question I have is with 24 regard to this map over here. You cay there were 25 cancers on the blue lines which the Aamodts had done.
i 65 i
fl And you are telling us there are no cancers on the red 5
2 lines?
3 I don't understand. How did you come to 4 that conclusion? Was that through your school 5 studies? You did not go door to door or canvass?
6 DR. MULLER: I may have forgotten to mention 7 it. But I meant to dwell on the fact we researched 8 through the death certificates, through the 9 Pennsylvania Cancer Registry, and found cancers -- we 10 agreed with the cancers that were found.
11 We then looked at the other data available 12 to us, like the Registry, and were not available to 13 find cancer on those other streets?
14 MS. ROD: Mot on those other streets?
15 DR. MULLER: I does seem to be incredible, 16 doesn't it?
17 MS. ROB: It does in deed.
- 18 MS. LEE
- I helped with the survey. And I l
19 had to look awhile to see what was going on here.
20 I was not completely satisfied with what we ,
21 did. The rgason I wasn't satisfied is beccuse I felt 22 that we went too fast. However, that was one of the 23 recsons this area was neglected.
24 This road sits on a high bluff. And unless b 25 you went down these streets and looked, you wouldn't i
66 1 realize there was a development down here. I was 2 surprised when I saw it on the map. Now, that might 3 sound a little stupid. But we went through that area 4 very quickly. So I am admitting where our short 5 comings are.
6 However, I do find it rather alarming that 7- the blue shows such a concentrated amount of cancer.
8 Also we f ound miscarriages. We found one woman in 9 particular stands out in my mind who had a large tumor 10 under th e arm. She never went to the doctors, no 11 biopsy, nobody knows what the situation is. Right 12 here. The plant is here two and a half miles as the 13 crow flies.
14 A woman on this corner stood out at 6:30 in 15 the morning, not knowing there was an accident. And 16 could taste the taste of iodine so strong in her mouth 17 that she said had she taken out an iodine bottle it 18 couldn't have been any stronger. Her mouth was full 19 of particulates.
20 Don't tell me these people didn't get a 21 heavy dose. He know they did.
j 22 Mc were sincere in what we did. And the 23 crime that is going on here is inexperienced novices 24 have to go out and try to prove a point to the Hecith
] 25 Department and never did it.
1
67 1 My question to you is, Did you go door to 2 door like we did? Did you talk to everybody in this 3 develop? Do you know that a woman up here this July 4 came up with pain in her abdomen, went to the doctor, 5 went to the hospital, was diagnosed af ter an operation 6 with pancreatic cancer, and was dead all in a matter 7 of two weeks? I interviewed that woman. You don't 8 have that in your data because she just died.
9 You don't have any of the data for 1984, and 10 why not?
11 DR. MULLER: Do you wish me to answer as you 12 go along?
13 MS. LEE: Yes.
14 DR. MULLER: I told you how we surveyed the 15 area. We believe it accurate. We did not go door to 16 door.
17 Cancer, as I mentioned earlier, will take 18 one out of four or five of us. We did not do '84 19 data, because it was not avail abl e . We were doing the 20 study during 1984. We couldn't assess the data that 21 hadn't been developed.
22 MS. LEE: Do you agree that if you had done 23 a door-to-door survey f ace-to-f ace rather than trying l 24 to do something on the phone or through the statistics
)
25 that you would have gotten more accuracy and you may
68 1 have found more?
)' 2 DR. HULLER: I have no way of knowing. We 3 think we-are reasonably accurate. The Cancer Registry
'4 is a base for this and it appears to be reasonably 5 accurate.
6 MS. LEE: I will survey this area. And I 7 will find out what is going on. I have already done 8 another 500-home survey. That is not ready for 9 release yet. I did it alone. And I did it door to 10 door. And I have the signatures of every single 11 person on that interview. It took me five months. No 12 pay or remuneration, not for phone bills, not for gas 13 or anything.
)
14 Why is it that I have sent a request through 15 an attorney, under the Right for Information Law to
-16 your office requesting the Cancer Registry and also 17 requesting the scientific data that you developed out 18 of your health report and it has not been forthcoming?
19 You are now going to get another letter in the mail.
20 Why has that not been forthcoming?
21 DR., MULLER:
When we did our initial survey l
[
22 in 1979, the understanding with those surveyed was the 23 data and their identities would be kept confidential.
24 We understand that for other people to h
l' 25 ~ verify our findings t.ey have to somehow access the l
E p
! 69 I-( 1 situation, and we are working on it now.
2 But the courts have ruled this 3 confidentiality is meaningful. And we have to stick l
4 with it for the time being.
5 MS. LEE: Every instance when we have asked 6_ for.information, the Health Department when we get 7 them in a corner will fall back on confidentiality.
8 I am not asking for streets or names or 9 house numbers. I am asking you for raw data and how 10 you developed'your study. And unless you are able to 11 release th a t , than your study is not worth any more 12 than ours-is. We have been charged with selectivity 13 because-of what you have shown on-this map.
14 We did something_that was sincere. Granted ,
15 itEisn't epidemiology. It is not even a health study; 16 it.is a health survey. There is a vast difference 17 between the two. I don't pretend-to be an expert.
18 But when you are charging us with 19 selectivity, is not the Health Department equally 20 selective whenever they ignore the year 1984 in view r
- 21. of what we'are confronted with here?
22- DR. MULLER: I think we have already L
(
23 -answered that question. When we did the study in '84, 24 the inf ormation was not available.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Dr. Muller, is it possible to
70 1 get information of the nature Ms. Lee is talking about 2 that would be general in nature. Specific 3 information, but not identifying streets or names?
4 DR. MULLER: It would depend specifically 5 what she asks for. All I can suggest is that she 6 write. And I am sure she will tell us she already 7 tried. But in view of this meeting tonight, we will 8 take a look at it.
9 MS. LEE: If you will remember the news 10 conf erence you had when you first released this, you 11 said this is a simplified form. We have a more 12 professional, scientific form.
13 DR. MULLER: I certa' inly didn't mean to say 14 that. The original, which is no longer, was modified 15 so it was understandable. Nothing in terms of fact 16 was changed. But certainly the way it was presented 17 was changed.
18 MS. LEE: Are you saying the original is no 19 longer available? What do you mean by that?
20 DR. MULLER: We haven't published the 21 original. We haven't done anything with it. We
-22 modified it for your sake to try and accomodate the 23 people we thought would be interested in it.
24 MS. LEE: I don't want a modification. I 25 want to know how you arrived at your figures. I want
71 1 the raw data.
Leave it to me to determine what that raw
) 2 3 data is. Don't insult us by saying we are not 4 capable. We hav: people who are very capable.
5 Can we get that data?
6 DR. MULLER: You send the request; we will 7 see what we can do.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: There are people on the panel 9 who would like you to explain what you mean by " raw 10 data."
11 MS. LEE: It is something that is pulled 12 together by an epidemiologist to substantiate their 13 reports. You pull all the data together.
}
14 MR. WALD: I raised the question because I 15 am puzzled. It seems to me raw data has to be the 16 names and locations and types of disease.
17 MS. LEE: Let me be more specific.
18 Give us the. figures on those people who have 19 cancer, just eliminate -- give us everything but the 20 identification of the individual.
.21 That is what we went; and that is.not what.
22 we are getting. We want to know how the Health 23 Department arrived at their figures. We don't have 24 that. And the Health Department definitely made a
)
y 25 differentiation between the professional report and a l
L r
72 1 simplified report.
2 And we are asking for that professional 3 report. Does that make it clear?
f 4 THE CHAIRMAN: I would ask Neil and Ken l
5 that.
6 MR. MILLER: I am not sure I understand.
7 Dr. Muller has mentioned half a dozen times there is 8 no professional report. The information before that 9 was put in somewhat lay terms so people reading that 10 could understand.
11 MS. LEE: That is a put down. We want the 12 professional data, pure and simple. That is what we 13 want. We don't want any simplified form. To treat us 14 like a bunch of simple Simons that we don't know what 15 is coming off. We know what is going on. We know
( 16 exactly what is going on.
17 MR. COCHRAN: Can I make a recommendation?
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Certainly.
19 MR. COCHRAN: In the national security area, 20 there is such a thing as classified data. And it is 21 also, to some extent, the same documents are reachable 22 under the Freedom ot Information Act. The Government, 23 in this case the Federal Government, has an obligation 24 to review the classified reports and scrub it of those l
25 portions that need to be held by the Government.
i l
73
( 1 I assume you could do the same with respect 2 to what you need to do to maintain confidentiality and 3 then release the rest of the data ~upon which the study 4 is based. It would be all the data used from which 5 you'did your analysis and wrote your report.
6 So perhaps you could just go back and look 7 at the data and scrub of what needs to be scrubbed 8 maintain confidentiality and give her the rest?
9 MS. LEE: I just want to make one other fine 10 . point. I want to solidify what Mr. Roth said.
11~ We had to go so.far as to demonstrate in l 12 front of the Governor 's office f or three days and then
- ~13 they decided to release the report. What is the big 14 cover up?
l 15 MS. OSBORN: I have so many questions it i
l 16 would take hours. I am going to try and follow up at
~17 the next meeting.
18 I have had a. lot of trouble through all l 19 these years of trying to figure.out where the 5-mile l
l 20 radius is. I see GPU's maps and they have a 5-mile i
21- radius. I see the Health Department's maps and they l
22 have something else. Then we have the evacuation 23 maps. And none of them are even close.
24 So my question is, What is the area of the 25' five mile population registry, the one you did after l
l
74 1 the accident? What area did you use? Is it a 5-mile 2 radius study, or is it similar to the township 3 breakdown you showed on the previous map?
4 DR. MULLER: I meant to make it clear. With 5 respect to the TMI Population Registry, it was a 6 5-mil e radius from the plant.
7 MS. OSBORN: Why didn't you use that base 8 data for your cancer study rather than going out and 9 kind of watering down the figures when you already had 4
10 a population that you had gone through the first time?
11 Why didn't you use th at data instead of the way you 12 did it?
13 DR. MULLER: We haven't watered down
}'
14 anything. I wish I was as sinister as we apparently 15 are thought to be. We are following that group.
16 There should be a report.
17 MS. OSBORN: That's not what I asked. Why 18 did you use the cancer study?
19 DR. MULLER: We are following that group.
20 The report will be made in a year or so on them. We 21 are not only looking at cancer in that group; we are 22 looking at other health problems. Somebody said what 23 about cateracts and this and that.
24 MS. OSBORN: Why didn't you originally use 25 that area f or the 5-mile cancer study instead of using
.~ .- _.
75 1 it by township the way you did? It would have been quite simple for us to understand it.
) 2 3 DR. MULLER: It would have been simple, but 4 we can't do it over the 5, 10, 15, 20 year period with
-5 a sufficient population. That is what the*MCD's 6
enable us to do. Others have pointed out there is 7 nothing miraculous about five miles.
Eh What marters is which way the plume went.
9 Cancer is not confined, as far as we know, to the 10 5-mile radius, 11 MS. OSBORN: That is correct. And your 12 answer just is not satisfactory.
13 The Health Department claims the cancer 14 mortality rate was not caused by.the accident because 15 cancer requires an excess of five years for the 16 latency signs to develop for diagnosis.
17 On what specific studies, the scientific i
'18 studies, has the Health Department relied in making i 19 this assertion? And how are these studies applicable l '20 to the TMI situation in light of the unique omission.
! 2:1 from TMI? Do you have anything to base your so-called 22 knowledge of the five year latency period?
23 DR. MULLER: Only what is published in the 24 literature.
25 MS. OSBORN: Can you run --
l i-
1 I
76 DR. MOLLER:
- l. Put it in writing.
2 MR._WALD: Can I answer that?
3 Unless you are aiming at dealing with one 4 person, if you want the information, the Mational 5 Academy of Science's, National Research Council, 6 Committee on Biological Effects on Ioniz?ng 7 Radiation --
8 MS, OSBORN: That is not good enough.
-9 MR. WALD: That is the best we have in the 10 United States. If you can find somett.ing better, 11 fine.
12 MS. OSBORU: There are more state of-the art 13 studies that don't necessarily agree with the f ive 14 year latency, basically on cancers, mostly dose 15 related and things like that.
16 Has the Health Department so far cooperated
~17 with the Columbia University researchers? And will 18 you give them of the data they request, because they 19 are not laypeople? They are professionals or a 20 scientific body.
21 And I would like to know if you will give.
22 them access? I don't want it for myself, but I think 23 those people should have it.
24 DR. MULLER: We are looking into that now.
25 MS. OSBORN: What does that mean?
77 1 DR. MULLER: That means we are reviewing it 2 in the same context.as I talked at earlier in terms of 3 the availability of data and whether we can break the 4 confidentiality.
5 MS. OSBORN: How has the scientist anywhere 6 on this whole earth ever done a study if you keep 7 hiding behind this confidentiality?
8 I was always under the impression that a 9 . scientist or somebody in good standing would have 10 access to data. I know what you folks have done with l 11 this confidentiality thing.- I don't know who you are 12 trying to kid.
13 DR. MULLER: I don't know either. I didn't 14 know we were trying to kid anybody.
15 MR. WALD: .This is one of the major problems 16 in epidemiology today, is the access and the 17 availability of data. It is frustrating a lot of 18 research because of the legal complications.
19 And having been here;during the TMI event 20 and the census, I remember distinctly how'we locked up 21 all that data in a sealed safe by requirement of.the l
l 22 Census Bureau, which would only collaborate on the 23 terms that it operates crdinarily. None of the census
'24 data, person by person, is available to anyone.
25 MS. OSBORN: How about street by street or
78 1 township by township?
2 MR. WALD: That is the kind of problem. You h
l 3 can trace back to the individuals.
4 MS. OSBORN: How has the study ever been
'5 done? How do these scientific people --
6 MR. WALD: With great difficulty.
7 MS. OSDORN: The Health Department was 8 gathering pregnancy data in the TMI area about four 9 years before the accident. And I was wondering why 10 didn't you people use that base line data in assessing 11 the pregnancy outcome?
12 I was pregnant in '76, and I was one of 13 those people. Why did you use that data that was 14 already available?
15 DR. MULLER: I don't know why that decision 16 was made. I wasn't onboard at that time.
17 MS. OSBORN: You were on board afterwards.
18 DR. MULLER: Those decisions were made 19 shortly after TMI in March of 1979.
20 MR. WALD: My understanding in reading the 21 report on the pregnancy study was that a comparison 22 was made. And indeed that was precisely the 23 underpinning of the comparison. It was because the 24 study had been going on in advance, the part you were 25 in in advance of TMI. It was an ongoing study and it
~ .. . . . _ .
79 1 was used.
- 2. MS. OSBORN
- I believe Mrs. Aamodt is to be
-- 3 here next month to talk about everything.
4 Is it possible to have a reprecentative from 5 the' Health Department here? -Because we are going to 6 have questions back and forth. And it is Just very 7 difficult to say, put it i n writing when you can get 8 an answer or explain it better.
9 Can Mr. Digon come here or you? I don't 10 .want Tokuhata.
-11 THE CHAIRMAN: It was decided at the last' 12, meeting ,that we would have somebody here at this f'13 - meeting from the Health Department and the Aamodts at 14 the next meeting. A'nd we would not mix .the two, at 15 least at those -two meetings.
.16 MS. OSBORN: Do you think somewhere'along 17- the line to get this ironed out, because there have 18 been so many confusing things? I helped with this 19 study and people have commented about that map.
20 I don't know exactly where that is because-I 1
i L 21 went to the courthouse. And it is true, when you go l
[ 22 to this area, if you are in a car and you don't have a 23 map, you don't know those streets exist.
- 24 THE CHAIRMAN: I understand. And I think
- 25 that after the presentation by the Aamodts and the
- 7 F7-rr w4N --W---- t--g - -p.+w -
mo+ --
--mrv- -7w
80 1 ability of people to ask questions, if you want to 2 raise your points to the panel at that time to see if 3 we feel we would like.to try to get the two groups 4 together, that is a decision the panel needs to make 5 following the Aamodts' presentation, and not tonight.
6 I don't even know whether under those 7 circumstances we could have people present at the same 8 meeting, whether the department would agree. But I 9 think we can discuss it following the Aamodts 10 presentation.
11 MS. OSBORN: I want to tell you something.
12 When he referred to Tokuhat as not being 13 allowed to come here, there is a suit in Commonwealth 14 Court. And they are to rule in November. It is 15 before, or I guess the matter is against the 16 Pennsylvania Department of Health. It is not really l
17 against Dr. Tokuhata.
18 DR. MULLER: I told you what legal counsel
! 19 told me. He has been instructed by legal counsel.
l 20 THE CHAIRMAN: I asked which people had 21 questions. And I provided everybody an opportunity to 22 raise their hand. Tom Smithgall is a=a panel member 23 that hasn't had a chance. We will go to him next.
24 MR. SMITHGALL: I came in late here, so I 25 may go over old ground, and I am sorry.
81 1 My question is about the Mother-Child 2 Registryand the cohort followup you have in your 3 study. Maybe I am missing something, but you 4 mentioned 4,000 pregnant women used in your study at 5 the top of page 22. And in the middle of page 22 you 6 refer to 3,600. What happened?
7 DR. MULLER: Are you sure the 3,600 refer to 8 -the woman, or are they children?
9 MR. SMITHGALL: I have 4,000 pregnant women 10 at th e top of the page and 3,582 mothers in the middle 11 of the page. I think the number is 3,960 something.
12 DR. MULLER: I am not aware there has been 13 any significant change in the numbers. And I have to 14 look into it.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Could we list that as a l
l 16 question, Mike?
! 17 MR. SMITHGALL: And along with that, I look 18 down on that page. The group you use is ages 10 to 19 44. I was wondering the median age? Was that 20 answered earlier?
~21 DR. MULLER: No.
. 22 THE CHAIRMAN: Neil has an answer.
L 23 MR. WALD: Are you referring to the material
.24 on page 22?
L 25 MR. SMITHGALL: Yes.
t
82 1 MR. WALD: That was a cohort comparison of
). 2 nearly 4,000. The study group was 3582. They are 3 separate.
4 MR. SMITHGALL: Okay.
5 MR. SMITHGALL: My question still stands 6- about the median age. I think that would be 7 significant, because you refer in your study 8 continually that age has a significance in cancer 9 incidence. And if the woman were 25, it would refute 10 that somewhat.
11 1D R . MULLER: My impression is they are age
-12 adjusted.
13 MR. WALD: I am not sure.
)
14 MR. SMITHGALL: I would like to know, if 15- that was age adj usted, what the median age was and 16 what the age of the four mothers that had cancer were.
17 I think that would be important to your study and 18 maybe as information to the public as well.
19 In my lay understanding of epidemiology, I 20 am wondering why only studying.that group or that 21 follow-up -- are you=saying in your study that the 22 f ollow-up was the 18 month or two year period you have 23 mentioned here, or has the follow-up been ongoing?
- 24 DR. MULLER: The follow-up is ongoing, but 25 the periods th.at they looked at in terms of cancer is t
w -,-,e----,..w,-- - --.
l1 83
'l an-18-month period.
2 MR.lSMITHGALL: Have you looked at them 3 since?
4~ DR. MULLER: They will be looked at as time 5 goes on.
-6 MR. SMITHGALL: Have you looked at them in 7 '83 and '82? You mention here '79 and '80. And I 8 think you mention also that-'82 to '83. Is it 9 continually updated?
10 DR. MULLER: Yes, it is looked at, but I 11 don't know when it was last looked at.
12 MR. SMITHGALL: I think on your Table 10 you 13- mention the cancers diagnosed radiogenic cancer cases.
)
14 And you list the primary sites. Is skin one of them, 15 Table 10?
16 DR. MULLER: It is not listed.
17 MR. S MITHG ALL : It isn't there. I am 18 wondering if that is one that is excluded or included 19 for any particular reason statistically?
20 DR. MULLER: Not chat I know of.
21 MR. SMITHGALL: Is skin one that would have 22 -a snorter latency period?
23- MR. WALD: Skin is specifically not included 24 because it is not one that is specifically radiogenic.
)
25 Ultraviolet radiation, yes; ionizing radiation, no.
84 1 11R . SMITHGALL: Again on Table 10, if I am reading the ratios that you have there for all areas,
). 2 3 there seem to be some dramatic increases from observed 4 to expected.
5 Am I reading that chart wrong? and seeing 60 6 percent increases and 58 percent increases and the 114 7 percent increases?
8 DR. !!ULL ER : Well, here again, my 9 understanding is and Dr. Wald or others can refute or 10 support me. Although they represent increases, they 11 are not increases above what might be expected.
12- THE CHAIRMAN: Can you walk us through where 13 you are looking?
}
14 MR. SMITHGALL: I'm sorry it is not Table 15 10, it is Table 8. I was.looking through all areas of 16 the primary sites of cancers enumerated there and 17 seeing increases and Dr. Muller has responded saying 18 they are not significant.
19 MR. WALD: You were reading percentages?
20 MR. SMITHGALL: Yes.
21 MR. WALD: The. final column, yes. The 22 others are cases. -
23 MR. SMITHGALL: I was looking at the ratio, l
24- Column 1.0 is 10 percent increase. )
i 25 MR. WALD: Yes. ;
i
La -
85 1 UR. SMITUGALL: And 2.78 is --
2 THE CHAIRMAN: There is a 1.78 there.
3 MR. SMITHGALL: No, 2.78. What does 2.78 4 refer to?
5 MR. SMITHGALL: Observed and expected.
6 MR. COCHRAN: It'is the second Table 8.
7 MR. SMITHGALL: Sorry. Are we on the same 8 page? Am I wrong in reading that?
9 MR. WALD: Yes, you are right.
10 MR. SMITHGALL: And, Dr. Muller, you are 11 saying they are not statistically significant when you 12 see numbers like 2.14 or 2.78.over 1. Am I reading 13 those wrong?
.14 DR. MULLER: You are right. I was on 15 another table with the rest of them. .
16' MR. WALD: If you read the two columns just 17 preceding, there are only two cases altogether and 18 then an expectation of more than half a case. When 19 you are down to those small numbers, you can't put 20 much statistical confidence in those numbers.
21 MR. SMITHGALL: Then you are saying the 22 study is not valid?
23 MR. WALD: You have only one one extra. It 24 is only when you have large enough numbers that these 25 become significant statistically.
86 1 MR. SMITHGALL: I look at 2.4 expected and 5 2 observed. And you are saying that is not 3 statistically significant?
4 MR. WALD: I a.a saying they are small 5 numbers.
6 MR. COCHRAN: In that particular case.
7 MR. WALD: The numbers man is sitting next 8 to you. He can explain it better.
9 MR. SMITUGALL: I have one other question.
10 What was the total number of the sample?
11 DR. ?!ULL ER : Which sample?
12 MR. SMITHGALL: What was the sample size you 13 are using for your statistics?
14 DR. MULLER: We did several studies. There
,15 was a mortality study and a morbidity study. The 16 sample. sizes varied.
17 24 R . SMITHGALL: Pick one.
18 MR. MILLER: 37,000 within the 5-mile 19 radius.
20 MR. SMITHGALL: Okay.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Dr. Muller, thank you.
22 .MR. COCHRAN: You cut off so the public 23 would have a chance to ask theirs.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: I did that. And I would 25 leave it up to the panel to decide whether they want
87 1 to_go through you testing the study that was done, 2 regardless of whether it was related to TMI or not-3 because you felt it was a very interesting thing.to do 4 any way.
5 I would leave that up to the panel to 6- - decide. I don't think it is related to THI. We are 7 here to give the public an opportunity to ask 8 questions about a study that was done. We were 9 supposed to be acting as a conduit, not as somebody to 10 go on separate turf.
11 I will leave it up to the panel.
12 MR. COCHRAN: Before-we vote, I would like
) 13 to argue my case.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: What is your pleasure?
15 MR. COCHRAN: I would like to speak to the 16 panel before we vote.
, 17 THE CHAIRMAN: We will make it a motion.
18 DR. MULLER: Do I have a say? I will be 19 happy to talk to Dr. Cochran, but my understanding was 20 I war, to be here f or a certain period of time. I have l
21 another engagement.
l 22 MR. COCHRAN: Could you meet at the next 23 meecing?
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you for being here. We
. - 25 will take up Mr. Cochran's feelings at this meeting.
I l
f
.r - - - -
_e-- - . - -
88 1 And if the panel f eels it is an area we should be
) 2 setting into, we will probably invite you or somebody 3 else back to speak to that.
4 But I think it is not worthy of taking the 5 time up right now because of the hour and you did say 6 you needed to be scmewhere at ten.
7 We will break at this time and come back and 8 take up the the rest of the agenda.
9 (Recess from the record at 9:25 p.m.)
10 11 12 1
14 15 l
16 17 l 18 19 21 22 23
) 25
89 EEEEEEEI EEE 2 The next item on the agenda THE CHAIRMAN:
3 is Item No. 5, which is the GPU Defueling Status Report.
4 After that we would get into topic number six which is 5
Items of Discussion with the NRC and then we wou'ld con-6 clude with'providing Tom Cochran with time to make his 7 pitch, I guess, to the panel for further discussion on 8' that last item and then we will put that to a vote.
9- If we could then go to Item No. 5 and ask if they could 10 us the defueling status report.
11 MR. STANDERFER: I am Frank Standerfer, the 12 Director of the TMI-2 Cleanup Project. We're still on 13 schedule with the installation of equipment, preparation 14 procedures and the training of operators to begin the 15 defueling phase, the last week of this month. I 16 currently expect that the first manipulation of the 17 damaged. core will be done during the last week of 18 October', as I mentioned in the last meeting.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: What exactly, you are saying 20 during the last week of October you will get into the 21 fuel removal?
22 MR. STANDERFER: We will start the fuel
! 23 rem val pr cess, yes. As to defueling process.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Which would mean what, taking
- " O' 25
f 90
' MR. STANDERFER: The first step -- when the
!=
A 2 plenum was lifted this Sp ring , the fuel elements were
) 3 standing around the peripheral of the core. Many of 4
them caved in because parts of the pins were gone and 5
so now the top of the core kind of looks like a' flower 6 with its petals closed. So the first step'is to cut 7 those pieces off at the hinge point and segregate them 8 and ready to put them in cans. And the first of those 9 would be probably put in the fuel canisters a few days, 10 four or five days after we start that surrogation pro-11 cess.
12 'So the first step is to cut those fuel pieces off 13 and ready them for the canisters.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: When would you anticipate 15 actually removing material?
16 MR. SANDERFER: The first canisters probably 17 will be removed from the reactor vessel in a week to two 18 weeks.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
20 MR. SANDERFER: Af ter that starting point.
MR. SMITHGALL: Do you have to have NRC 21 appr val f r the operators?
22 23 MR. SANDERFER: Yes. Yes.
MR. SMITHGALL: Has that been given?
24 3 MR. SANDERFER: The operators have taken the
91 1
written, the special defueling SOR's'have taken the 2
written, exam and passed the written exame There are six 3
of them. They will be getting a walk-through practical 4
exam by NRC, t h a t '; s the second phase of their exam.
5 Three of them I believe, will get that walk-through 6
tomorrow. The other three will get that on Monday. So 7
I.would expect to have them successfully accomplish that 8
and my expectation is that they will have their NRC 9
approval or their licenses by the end of next week.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Let me restate my earlier 11 question. The fuel removal as you always imply, is not 12 necessarily what you are going to be doing now.
13 MR. SANDERFER: We're going to start the 14 fuel removal phase and that is where operators will be 15 routinely scheduled. for work on the rotating platform 16 with long handled tools, manipulating the damaged fuel 17 pieces. For the first week or so they will be segrega-18 ting these large pieces that fell over at the end of the 19 plenum lift. Then they will put them in cans, the cani-20 sters. They then are transferred to the fuel storage 21 -Pool. That process will start the last week of this j , 22 month. I can't pinpoint the first day a canister will 23 be moved out but it will be within a week or two weeks 24 after that first scheduled operations on the platform.
25 T H' HAIRMAN: Okay. Was that the procedure
92 that you expected to start with? I'm trying to get a 4 2 feeling here for how far behind schedule you are with 3 the work you expected to be beginning, first?
4 You have to start MR. STANDERFER: Yes.
5 preparing those pieces to be put in the canisters. Scme of them have to have bands 'put around them because the 6
7 . pins that play out a little bit.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Anything else?
9 MR. WALD: I may have missed it but when was 10 the first shipping of that fuel planned to begin?
l 11 'M R . SANDERFER: The shipping. task which-the 12 Department of Energy has ordered is expected to be 13 delivered to the site in January or early February. We 14 have ordered a companion transfer task from that same 15 vendor. We will get that task in January or early
- 16 February. There are a couple of extra attachments which 17 'We've added to that order. We have a team out in 18 Seattle this week. We will get their schedule next week.
l' 19 We're currently projecting the first shipment to leave
- 20 the island late March or early April.
21 We're driving towards that date because the 22 Department of Energy has some hot cell capacity to start 23 examining the first samples, if we can get it delivered 24 at that time.
3 MR. WALD: Has the restart of TMI-l had any L
93 1
effect upon the planning operations or ongoing opera-k~' 2 tional- staf f or activities related to the cleanup of 3
TMI-2?
4 MR. SANDERFER: None.
5 MR. WALD: Thank you.
6 Any other questions?
THE CHAIRMAN:
7 Anybody from the public have a question on this item of 8
Defueling?
9 KAY PICKERING: I am in the Three Mile's 10 Alert Office and I am very conscious of the concern of 11 the public with the restart of Unit One. There have
'12 been a number of concerns from the public that haven't 13 been answered. The accessibility of ~ GPU staf f and NRC 14 at Unit One is just not there as-it has been at Unit Two.
15 With the advent of the defueling, could you please 16 detail for us what your plans for public information are?
17 MR. SANDERFER: Mayor Morris, I have a member 18 from our Public Relations here who could answer that.
19 Since I do not work on Unit One I really am not prepared
~ 20 to discuss that item.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Are we talking about Unit One 22 now?
23 MS. PICKERING: I did. I asked what are 24 your plans for public in formation on defueling.
25 MR. SANDERFER: Yes. We will put out a press
94 I
release when defueling has started. We will be showing 2
video tapes of the progress of defueling, monthly in 3
these meetings. And we will continue to put out press 4
releases as we have, since I've been here, on each major 5
evolution.
6 -THE CHAIRMAN: Any followup questions?
- 7. MS. PICKERING: Well many people consider 8
the defueling to be, I guess, the most alarming or they 9 have the most concern, more so than for instance a lot
.i 10 of concern at this time of the head lift. And then there 11 was the. plenum removal. But I think that as the stages .
12- go along, it's very important that the public be fully ,
13 apprised of all of the steps that are taken before they 14 are taken not after they are taken. And the more 15 in f o rm a t ion that's available, the press has been more 16 than willing to put information out to the public.
,t C '
17 And I think that a description o f what is going to 18 be done and when it's going to be done, how it's going ,
19 to be done, why it's going to be done, where it's going 20 to be stored, all those details are very important. The 21 Public wants to know. And I'm not talking about just 22 brief press releases. I'm talking about some detailed I' ,
i
23 in f o rma ti o n .
24 MR. SANDERFER: We intend to comply with that 25 We will put out press releases, we will have press con-i
95 1
ferences if appropriate. We will brief this body on a 2 monthly basis. I believe we've been doing that in the 3 last year since I've been'here.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Any other questions?
5 MS. PICKERING: I would j ust like to add that 6 the public also be apprised of the press conferences.
7 The last press conference GPU had I was asked to leave.
8 I did not leave. I was allowed to stay. I think that 9 those people who represent public in te re s t groups and to deal with the public should be apprised of and be allowed.
11 to be a part of information sharing.
12 MR. SANDERFER: Maybe Doug Bedell can answer 13 how we run our press conferences but the press con-
) 14 ferences are, I know, are for the media. They are not 15 a public meeting and they are not a form for public 16 comment.
17 This form certainly is that kind of form. And 18 if it's appropriate to have some sort of additional jg public forum, I'm sure we will do that.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Any other questions?
DEBRA DAVENPORT: I have two questions 21 really. Today I was calling about the Turban Room in 22 Unit One. I was called back by Mr. Abraham. I expressed 23 g concerns of the department is going over to Unit Two 3
when no one is finished with one.
o
~
- ' 96 1
He called and said something I didn't ask about.
A 2'
I think he misunderstood me. He said that apparently 3
there is a steel line that goes over to Unit Two. That that is used for cleaning but there is a cutoff on the 5'
Condensor coming back. In othe r words , nothing is cominc 6
back'but you have to supply cleaning water in some sort 7
of low water waste in cleaning steam. This is what he 8
said.
9 MR. SANDERFER: There is no connection for 10 our steam from Unit Two to Unit One. We are sending no 11 Unit Two waste to Unit One. The steam leaks that they 12 have had have to do with an auxillary boiler they have.
13 If you would like to have cur Public Affairs office 14 answer that question here, I am sure Doug can answer it.
15 MS. DAVENPORT: I'd appreciate it.
16 BILL TRAVERS: I'm Bill Travers. I think 17 what Carl Abraham and he briefed me a little bit on your 18 conversation, was trying to get at was, many multi-unit 19 sites have shared-off steam system and at TMI, at least i
i 20 before the accident that was the case. Since the acci-21 dent, however, the aux-boiler steam supply system to
- l. 22 Unit Two has been isolated. In fact the return line has 23 been cut out. There is really no potential for an inter-24 action between Unit Two Cleanup and Unit One operations 3 and any radioactivity releases that may have been I
I w
- - - r
. _ _ , , , ,-r w-
97 associated with steam leaks by the drain system.
E 2 MS. DAVENPORT:
But no line is going over 3
to.One? It doesn't come back?
MR. TRAVERS: That's isolated as well. In 5
f a,c t there may be a blank flank. We couldn't establish ,
6 that this afternoon. But there are isolation valves 7 that are closed leading from the aux-boiler steam supply 8' system to Unit Two and the return line to the aux-boiler 9 steam supply system has been cut out.
10 MS. DAVENPORT: So that one is still open?
11 Maybe this is what he means.
12 Secondly, on the matter of your defueling opera-13 tions. You have plans to use hydraulic fluids that 14 could affect it with the fluid around the core itself.
15 That material is viscous right away. It's not going to 16 mix with the water. It if mixes with the water it could 17 --
18 MR. SANDERFER: Yes. The hydraulic fluid 19- has been an issue that had been opened up till about two 20 weeks ago. It is somewhat like antifreeze fluid. It 21 mixes readily with water. We have' decided to add Boron 22 to that fluid so that it is equally borated and will not 23 cause a potential a criticality issue.
l 24 MS. DAVENPORT: Are you sure that can be 25 borated adequately?
98 I
MR. SANDERFER: Yes.
( 2 MS. DAVENPORT: Thank you.
k 3
MR. SANDERFER: In fact the last thing that )
s 4
is being done right now is there is some material tests 5 being run at Westinghouse to make sure when that fluid 6 is borated we will not have any corrosion problems in 7 our hydraulic lines. Those tests will be done next week.
8- JANE LEE: I deal with alarm but I have 9 experienced in recent weeks an attempt to shut the public 10 out from news conferences. This is the second time in 11 recent weeks the public has been barred from going into 12 a news conference.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: As Chai rman , I am saying at this point we are not getting into how GPU has handled 14 15 their press conferences. It is a news conference that 16 they're saying, they are not letting the-public into it, 17 That's their right to do.
18 As to in fo rma tion to the public, I would certainly 39 ask them as the point was made by Kay Pickering, that as 20 much information as possible before a process begins be 21 given to the public as to what is happening arad all the 22 things that Kay was talking about, I think are very 23 important so that people aren't surprised.
24 As to what happens in the press or news conferences
) 25 I don't think this panel has anything to do with
99 1
and neither can we control. Normally when any entity E 2 calls a news conference, they deal with the news media 3 .themselves so that'they can give their story out. They 4 do not want unnecessary people there arguing or raising 5 other concerns or whatever it is that happens. 'I t is 6 really up to them to decide that. We can't get into it.
7 We can ask the public be given the information as it is 8 available to inform them what's going on and I think we 9 should ask that.
10 MS. LEE: The Health Department did the same ti thing and I view this as an infringement on freedom of ,
12 speech and the right for public gatherings under the 13 Constitution of the United States.
34 I just wanted to get it in. I know you can't 15 follow it.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. All I'm saying is 37 I think that is-between you and GPU.
18 Is there any other question on the fuel removal 39 part of the program?
MS DAVENPORT: Will we have it transferred at night when the core sampling takes place?
MR. SANDERFER: We alrcady sampled the core
.g several times. The first sample was taken in 1983.
MS. DAVENPORT: No. I mean the core you are going to do.
I-100 1
MR. SANDERFER: You are talking about the {
2 core boring maybe.
3 When we've removed the loose material from the top of the core and get down ? 0. _t he area which we believe w
5 the re is a hard layer, and we would exp[ct "to get there 6 the first part of January. But~ the Department of Energy 7
has developed a machine which is in Idaho at the present a time, and that is to be installed over the top of the 9 Reactor Vessel and four samples will be taken of that
-10 portion.
11 THE CHAIRMAU: This is what she is asking --
12 MR. SANDERFER: And there --
this panel will 13 be advised of the plans to do that and we will put out 14 press-releases as we go through that evolution in the 15 same manner we will of other evolutions.
16: THE CHAIRMAN: So the answer is yes, the
'17 public will be informed prior to that starting?
18 MR. SANDERFER: Yes.
19 MS. DAVENPORT: Are there any requirements 20 for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Federal Law 21 some procedures for Nuclear Plants , are there some things 22 required as far as notification?
23 THE CHAIRMAN: I would ask the NRC that.
24 I'm not sure there are any.
25 MR. TRAVERS: No. What is re q ui re d , of l
l l
101 .
I course, is that the company perform safety evaluation k 2 ~and that we review it. In'the case of TMI-2, also 3 written into.their license is the requirement that were 4
safety significant detailed procedures that NRC also 5
reviewed and approved them.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you very much.
7 The next item is in regard to Topics of Discussion 8 for the November 19, 1985 meeting with the NRC Commis-i 9 sioners. There are several items that we discussed 10 recently that we might want to talk about. One is pos-11 sibly the process water, maybe more of a report than 12' a major discussion and that is to let the NRC Commis-13 sioners at least know-that there seems to be no decision
). 14 made'on that until the next year or.something like that.
15 .But it was a matter that was raised at the last meeting
-16 with the Commissioners, so I think it would be good to 17 at least report on that. -
18 They have in the past asked us for topics that we 19 might discuss over the coming months. If anybody has 20 any suggestions on those topics then it is usually a 21 laundry list of things that I'm supposed to develop and 22 submit to the Chairman for at least his comments.
23 And one of the things that is concerning me and j 24 maybe some other people can offer some thoughts, is why-3 fuel removal is supposed to be beginning late October
102' I It does continue to concern me that it's really not to 2 the point that we had hoped it would be at this level 3 and one of the ' things we continue to ask about is some 4 . kind of compliance schedule. It all seems like the fuel
~ ~
5 removel part is maybe a month away and I'm not convinced 6 at this point that they are going to really be underway 7 'to the level we thought until early next year. And I 8 .would want to bring that to the attention of the 9- Commissioners as a concern.
10 MR. WALD: Weren't there some open questions 11 which decisions hadn't been made concerning the canister 12 shipments?'
13 THE CHAIRMAN: There was.
~
/ 14 - MR. WALD: I remember the issue of whether 15 one at a time or two. It seems to me that is getting 16 close now at least somewhere between January and March.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Could you speak to that?
18 Wasn't the re some kind of concern expressed regarding 19 the canisters to be used in shipping outside? Something 20 hadn't been resolved?
- 21 MR. TRAVERS
- Maybe I'm best qualified since t
22 it is our concern.
23 One of the things that the NRC staff is doing, f course, in the context of looking at the defueling 24 25 peration in the safety significance aspects particularly I
103 I
l is reviewing the technical adequacy of the canisters. l h 2 In that effort we sent an inspection team down to the
.3 canister supplier and the vendor inspection branch for 4
Inspection and Enforcement Office sent a team down and 5- they had some concerns about the programatic qua'lity 6 assurance being' implemented on those canisters. We are 7 in the process of resolving those issues, particularly 8 as they affect-or not the first cans that are being 9 proposed by GPU to be used for cleanup in October.
10 So there is some outstanding i ssues yet to be 11 resolved. We are workir.g on those.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Can they be resolved prior to 13 the need for them?
14 MR. TRAVERS: I believe they can-be. We 15 are close.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: The feeling is that it is 17 getting awfully close.
18 MR. TRAVERS: You're right.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: And therefore, it potentially 20 could be a holdup.
l l
21 MR. TRAVERS: That is true. But the reason 22 I say that is because if we have been -- we are there on 23 site and we have been having a multitude of meetings ,
24 interactions asking our questions but getting responses, 25 reviewing our subsequent inspections and resolving the l
,e -i % - - - aw -.cp w-.- -y +
104 1 issues as they arise.
4 2 THE CHAIRMAN: But I think the point is that
)
. 3 Neil-is saying is it 's p robably a subject that we will-4 bring up with Commissioners and express our concern 5 that it'could. result in delays. If approval isn ' t f orth-6 coming.
7- Any other items that anybody has on their minds at 8
this point for future agenda items because that would g be helpful to me on providing that information to the 10 Commissioners as well as agenda items for our meeting 11 with the Commissioners.
12 MR. MILLER: I'm concerned about the recent 13 releases involving the amount of in all the g waste that has already been shipped to the burial site and I would like a review of that so I can better under-15 stand how such a large mistake was made in the estimate 6
g and it was undetected for a three or four year period.
MR. SMITHGALL: Are you talking about the calibration?
l 19 MR. MILLER: And what potential effect that now has on --
-21 THE CHAIRMAN: This is something we would j 22
.really want to do as a future discussion item rather thar i 23 right now. You might be able to an swe r it , but I-think 24 there is going to be need for ample time to ask questions.
105 1
because I have some concerns on that too and I think we
~= 2 need to have that as a separate agenda item.
) 3 So that's an item we would have at a future agenda.
4 MR. COCHRAN: With the re s ta rt of Unit One, 5 it seems appropriate to revisit the issue of mon ~itoring s' if nothing else to find out whether the Federaliand 7 State agencies are shifting their monitoring requirement 8 to cover both areas simultaneously and what-is the 9 relationship between the two, that there was, you recall, 10 an effort to shape the monitoring and coordinate it 33 amongst the Federal and State agencies to be more con-12 sistent with the reactor being in a shutdown mode and 13 now we have also operating and I think that ought to be g reviewed.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Any other ones? Any 16 ther ones for the agenda with the Commissioners? If 37 not, if I think of any or any come up in reviewing the 18 ther mate rial, I might add to the list we have here if 39
'that's okay.
MR. MASNIK: You just reviewed the ones for the Commissions, please. The p rocess water?
THE CHAIRMAN: Process water, the topics for l 22 the,next six months or whatever I can develop with that.
The delay in the commencement of the fuel removal as related. That plus the concerns we have about the cani-
)
o l
l l
L.
106 1
sters.
2 MR. WALD: You might want to at least review 3
c' with them what they_have done in the health area since 4
they gave us the go-ahead virtually gave us the go-ahead 5 Reassure them.
to consider it.
6 MR. SMITHGALL: A sleeping dog walk.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: I think it is something that 8 we probably should-bring it up because they recently 9 ' approved it. TSA recently approved a revision or what-10 ever.
11 Anything else? Anybody have any concerns with the 12 reorganization of the NRC group that we are working with 13 Do you want to bring it up in a discussion point?
14 MR. SMITHGALL: Is.Bernie still living?
15 THE CHAIRMAN: We can ask him if he is still 16 living or whether he i s leaving?
17 We -an go right to Mr. Cochran and give him his 18 time. I'm sorry.
19 MR. GERUSKY: Can we talk about a next 20 meeting date befo re we go to Tom?
21 THE CHAIRMAN: We could do that. What's 22 your pleasure? November 19th there i s a meeting in
=23 Washington. Do you want to meet in November? I think 24 it is too late for us. If we don't meet in November I 3 think we definitely need a meeting in December. The f
--% .r --.m. - - - .., c-+ ,--_.-,p -
107 1
question is-would you rather meet twice in November and 2
1 not meet in December or one in"each?
3 MR. COCHRAN: Early in December?
THE CHAIRMAN: Early December we should have 5
one. So we would go to the normal meeting date in 6 December which'would be the second Thursday?
7 MR. MILLER: The 12th.
8 MR. GERUSKY: Are we going to discuss the 9 contents of that meeting at the next meeting? We usually 10 meet prior to the NRC meeting. Do we discuss it then?
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Why don't we do it then.
12 I think one item we would definitely have on it, the
.13 biggest item is going to be the Aamodt', involvement 14 with the --
15 MR. GERUSKY: Set the date and ask if they 16 can be here.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: That's agreeable as, it would 18 probably be as tonight was, two hours or so of the 19' whole session and then we would take one or two of the 20 items that have been raised tonight or whatever and add 21 that.
22 MR. GERUSKY: Well the update on the de-l
-23 fueling is important.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: And the place I guess would 3 be Harrisburg if we can get it at the Holiday, again.
1
'108 1 MS. TRUNK: Are we supposed to have th'e 2 'Aamodt Study?
'3 THE CHAIRMAN: Are we supposed to have it?
4 MS. TRUNK: I don't have it.
5 MR. MASNIK: There was a large packet of 6 material that was given to us the last time we met here 7 in Lancaster. I can get another copy to you.
8 MS. TRUNK Okay. I appreciate that.
9 THE CH AI RMAN : Does anybody else need a copy 10 of it?
j, MR. GERUSKY: I do. Send me one so I can 12 get it out from on top of the pile. We had 9000 :
13 requests for Radon decimeters in two days from our add.
34 I'm snowed under. We asked for it. The Governor asked 15 for it.
j THE CHAIRMAN: If we could we would go at 16 37 this point to Tom and then Tom is not last because you 18 have something, Bill Travers, on the fuel accountability
,9 issue.
MR. TRAVERS: Pending exemptions. .
THE CHAIRMAN: That's right. Thank you.
Mr. Cochran, sir.
22 MR. COCHRAN: Well the line of cuestioning
~
23 I was pursuing, I thought went to the scope of the study by the state, its validity, the intent of the researchers
109-I '
Jimplications of bias, quality o f the' work. Also it 3 2 goes to the quality of the work that the. citizens' 3 I reread the charter.
group, the Aamodt Study Group.
4
.I didn't reread the one as the Commission finalized it 5 at least my reading of the charter is my line of 6 questioning was within the charter.
7 I ag ree that the public should be heardeat these 8 meetings. I don't have any objections to them being
-9 heard first although historically, that's not the way 10 we operated. . And I would have some criticism of 11 reversing course in the middle of at least my remarks.
12 I do believe D r. Molle r should be allowed to 13 leave if he has other commitments and he had agreed to 1 14 leave. I think the panel has a perfect right to chose 15 the issues that they want to discuss and the time they 16 wish to allot. I don't have any criticism of the way 17 the Chairman has handled this issue. He's entitled to 18 his opinion and are other members of the committee.
19 I think it is the most important service of the 20 panel to serve as a conduit between the public and the 21 Commission. And arguably their comments are more impor-
! 22 tant than mine. But with all that said, let me say that 23 if the panel wishes to cut of f my line..of questioning 24 or any other panel's line of questioning, let's talk 3 about me since I am the one involved here, and it thinks 1
I
,- , , , . . , - , . _ _ e -.-c --_
,.-e. - ,- -- ._ - .,_-a ,-.e-- - - - - . - ,g- - -
110
' that because its priority is to se rve as a conduit for-
% 2 the public to get its position known to the Commission, 3 then I have to rethink my usefullness on the~ panel 4 because, frankly, you don't need me to do that service.
5 And I've asked myself more than once in the last 6 several years whether my time is up on this panel, not 7 at all because of the behavior of any other panel mem-8 bers or the members of the public or the utility of this 9 panel and so forth, but simply because it's for me 10 personally' coming from Washington, having to leave about 11 three or four hours early, having to say overnight away 12 from my family, having to get up at six in the morning 13 to catch a plane to get back to work on time. It's 14 guite a burden to do that every .aonth at least_the 15 month's that I've attended and even though I requested 16 Personally for the Commission, it is without pay as 17 'everyone here knows and so there is no incentive in that 18 regard.
19 And Oo I'm going to think hard about my utility 20 if the case is for right or wrong reasons, that I'm 21 not going to be able to ask the questions that I wanto 22 ask when I come up here. Bear in mind that this was an 23 agenda item that I had requested and we went through 24 a long discussion at the last meeting about how this 25 agenda item would be handled at this meeting. And l
- - . . - _ -- - . . . ~ _ _
111 I
enough said. Throw it away.
x 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Well if I could, just on a 3
couple of points you made of the Chair. It's true that '
4 Dr. Moller, I guess it is, is leaving and I'm sorry in 5
your absence of mispronouncing your name. He was only 6 going to be here for two hours and I think by the time 7 he got finished with his presentation it was somewhe re
~8 around twenty after eight and we were going to conclude 9 by nine o' clock and I know from discussions with Joel 10, ..Roth because he gave me a list of people ahead of time, 11 that nine citizens who had interest in asking questions 12 on this issue. And I know that the last time we had 13 somebody here from the state, he left before anybody 14 could ask a question.
15 MR. COCHRAN: I don't have any criticism 16 about doing it the way you do it.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: I just want you to understand 18 that in the past I feel as Chair, you have been given a 19 lot of opportunities to ask questions and raise concerns 20 about just about any issue. Today is an issue that we 21 have taken up most recently and our charge on it and I 22 use the wording because I thought that was the wording l 23 that we used a lot. We would operate as a conduit to 24 the public so the public could ask questions after the 25 PeoP l e have presented their studies. So really it is to
112 I serve the public in that vein.
2 And that's why I asked them to be given the first
) 3 tioe and then it was time for Dr. Moller to go and 4 so be it.
5 Now on your issue, I think I am happy to go to a 6- vote on that part of it. But I just want you to know 7 that as your role on the panel, it's only when we get 8 into this particular subject matter, is it that I feel 9 we should be given the public almost first shot at to asking the questions because that's the reason we are 11 taking it under advise.
12 MR. COCHRAN: Just so we understand each 13- other. I am not criticising you for what you've done,
) 14 for giving them the first opportunity or-for allowing 15 Dr. Moller to leave. If we are going to vote, I assume 16 the issue is whether we are going to come back to this 37 issue at another meeting fairly soon, so that I can pur-18 sue my own line of questioning.
19 I think that's the issue at hand.
A g ee.
20 g MR. C OCIIRAN : My only criticism really of you is if we had both had a little more foresight, wn e uld have understood how it was going to be handled 23 before I got in the middle of my line of questioning.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: I appreciate that and some-f 25 l
113
.1 times those things aren't so easy to foresee.
b 2 3
So at this particular time we have, I guess --
3
" Tom-is asking and meybe we should have that in the f o rm 4
of a motion to pursue further discussion with the state 5
and I don't think, do I need to restate what it is that 6 he wants to do. Does anybody misunderstand?
7 MR. GERUSKY: What he just said he wanted to 8 do and what 'lue was doing is two different things. I mear.
8 if its what he --
there's a significant difference be-
'10 tween what he said he was~1eading to and what he now 11 said he was leading to. And I oon't want to vote on 12 either of those at this point. I think we ought to 13 table it and wait until the discussion comes up after 14 the Aamodt about whether we are going to bring back 15 together again and handle it at that point.
16 I'm not sure what Tom wants to do and I don't 17 want to-vote on it.
18 MR. COCHRAN: Either you are not sure or 19 you know. Make up your mind, Tom. Tell me what you x) think I've said I was doing and what you think I'm 21 asking for.
22 MR. GERUSKY: Well what you said you were
! 23 doing earlier is to determine whether the study done by 24 the citizens was without relationship to TMI, an inter-25 esting and well-done study. That had nothing to do with
. I
114 1
TMI. Now what you've said just a few minutes ago is s 2 not that.
3 MR. COCHRAN: I still maintain and I mean 4
you can argue the other case. 'I still maintain that 5 pursuit of questions, that line of questions, does go 6 to the validity of Moller's study or the Tokuh'ata Study.
7 The intent of that research group, the quality of their 8 work, whether they are doing their job at this State 9 Health Department and it goes to the quality of the 10 Aamodt Study.
11 MR. GERUSKY: I think that ought to be dis-12 cussed at a Aater date. And i think that can be dis-13 cussed and decided upon. We can take that up later.
14 That is not what I had anticipated voting on.
15 MR. COCHRAN: I would ask that I not be --
16 I mean you can vote on tabling it. If this thing is 17 tabled, I read it the same as --
I'm not going to get 18 to it.
ig THE CHAIRMAN: I have to admit that truly, 20 I am somewhat confused on what we are getting into here.
21 Earlier on it was clear to me as a layman, I mean I may 22 have misunderstood what you were saying. You were saying 23 the Aamodt Study while it had been done with regard to 24 TMI accident, that we should forget that and not consider 3 that. Just put it aside and look only at the study as
-115
~1 it relates to any kind of study to see whether it was 2 valid or not and not bring TMI into it.
3 My concern on that, just hearing that and under-4 standing it in that way was, that we could do that on a 5 lot of things and'that's not what this panel was about.
6 We recently went to the Commissioners and one thing we 7 said, we would not let this issue override everything 8~ else we worked on. And secondly, we would work as a 9 conduit on the health effect studies relating to TMI.
10 And here you seem to be bringing something up that was 11 not related to TMI under those circumstances and 12 therefore, not germane to this panel.
13 MR. COCIIRAN : The study, the study Dr.
14 Tokuhata performed on the Aamodt analysis is related 15 to TMI and the quality of their work and the quality of 16 the Aamodt work is an issue. It's of interest to me and 37 I think others.
18 How the state handles the issue, even to the 39 extent of whether they are smart enough to read beyond
-20 an allegation that there is a link between TMI and the cancers, I think whether they go beyond that issue and 21 L
22 analyze whether there is something significant in those 23 cancers in that area is important in determining the 24 quality of their work, whether they can see beyond that 3 narrow question of, is there a linkage between those l i
L
'I cancers and TMI.
2 T MR.-WALD:The problem with that approach D 3 it seems-to bem and I think that's really the crux of 4
it. How far one investigates how .the Health Department 5
approaches other problems. I mean once you step away 6 from this one, you can review all of their activities, 7 but there is no boundary left. That I think is where 8 the problem comes in because you, you know, specifically 9 . exclude this relationship to TMI and I don't see any to boundary. I'm afraid to let the public lose its time 11 and its chance, you know. .We did that once before with 12 sort of a generic. issue ~on the basis for radiation 13 standardh. And I had the feeling after I thought about 14 it, it was very useful to me to have all the experts 15 and the discussion that we had, but I had the feeling 16 that nobody you understood and were following it and 17 I was to a certain extent but I'm not sure if.the public 18 ever benefited from that. And rather than people Icsing 19 five hours that they could have been expressing their i 20 opinions and understanding what is going on.
21 I was afraid that you were getting into another 22 area which may be beneficial in the long run and in L
23 general but not in the kind of type format that we have 24 to work in. And I don't see where, you know, their 25 approach -- sure I agree a cluster of cancers is always L
1-117 1 interesting and should be investigated. I have no )
y 2 problem with that. But I don't know that we can test l 3 them in all of their functions outside the specific e
4 issue that we are-concerned with.
5 MR. COCHRAN: If a citizens' group comes to 6 the state with a so-called cluster of cancers, don't you 7 think it's the responsibility of the Health Department 8_ to test the validity of that, independent of the linkage 9 issue to a specific cause? I mean what if we had come to up with 20 death certificates that have cancer and some-ti - body asserted it was from inhaling paint. Doesn't the 12 Health Department have a rccponsibility to go beyond the 13 issue of whether --
) 14 MR. WALD: I am not saying that they don't 15 have the responsibility. I'm saying that our respon-16 sibility can't extend to an investigation of all of 17 their activities and I don't know where you draw the is line.
ig MR. COCHRAN: I draw the line.
20 MR. WALD: Also there is the fact that they 21 did investigate.
MR. COCHRAN: I think they didn't. I think 22 l
23 if y u g through their study, they didn't because they 24 concluded their analysis on the basis --
I mean they w ro te it off on the basis of things like latency period
) 3 l
l I
118 I etcetera. I was trying to go through the arg ument s that 2 were aiven to see which ones were still valid.
3 MR. WALD: You take away latency when you 4- take away the relationship to TMI. How can you go 5 through the arguments when she is separated from TMI.
6 MR. COCHRAN: I wanted to go through the 7 arguments to see if any arguments still applied, if you 8 were looking at that broader issue. I think.looking at 9 the broader issue is important in assessing what is to behind these guys. What is their intent and what is the 11 proper way to analyze the results of that study, is it 12 that the cancers are not important up there or is it that 13 the cancers are only unimportant to thd extent that they i4 are linked with TMI-27 15 MR. WALD: I have to come back with the same 16 thing you referred to, which was the criteria that we
,7 set up. The panel will not serve as either a referee 18 r as an independent technical. reviewer of such studies.
3g And really, you're serving as a independent technical reviewer, not only of the radiation related studies but g of the Health Department's approach to others.
MR. COCHRAN: I am trying to understand the scope of the analysis that was done by the Health Depart-23 ment n the Aamodt Study and what underlies their intent.
24 MR. WALD- You make it a hypothetical study, 25
119 I It is no longer the Aamodt Study when you take Tom.
2 away TMI.
3 MR. GERUSKY: .I have been involved. I was ,
4 in the Health Department until the Department of 5 Environmental Resources was created. We have gone out 6 because of reports of cancer clusters and done all kinds 7 of environmental analyses to try to determine why this 8 cancer cluster was there and as of yet we haven't come 9 up with any reason. Not this particular, but other 10 cases in the past. I knew the Health Department has 11 done it in relationship to other nuclear facilities in 12 the state, inddpendent of DER and independent of any I
13 analysis to see if it's valid or not.
14 I just, you can ask for additional studies to take 15 a look at what they do no rmally, but to question this 16 one because the question is, is this in relationship, ,
17 the thesis that they presented was that this had a ja relationship to TMI and that's all the Health Department 19 is asked to do is to review what they said. They did 20 not go out and do independent evaluations of the plants 21 around there and they can't do that. Cochran fully
! 22 disagrees.
l 23 MR. COCHRAN: About a couple of points.
24 They do have the capability and have had the 3 wherewithal in their own study that they did to make
- . , . ,.----.,n, .e-m-.. - ,,- .,,.n.~.,-- .-n-.- ,- --c
120 1
assessments of whether there is something there signi-2 ficant aside fr.om this linkage to TMI-2. It's not 3 whether it's a further look and I think they dismissed 4 that issue on the basis that it's not TMI related.
5 And I think we ought to pursue that issue'to get 6 out on the table the underlying fact of whether or not 7 that is what they did, whether they did the kinds of 8 studies you described.
9 MR. GERUSKY: I don't agree. Let's vote.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Let's put it to a vote one 11 way or another. Somebody make a motion that we pursue 12 the issue as presented by Tom Cochran. I a s s ume , Tom, 13 you will put that in the form of a motion?
14 MR. COCHRAN: Yes. I move that I be allowed 5 to continue my line of questioning with the officials 16 from the State Health Department at some future meeting 3 17 in the not too distant, and again --
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Do I have a second to that?
19 MR. ROTH: I will second it.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Moved and seconded.
21 MR. ROTH: Can we have a minute of further 22 discussion?
THE CHAIRMAN: I truly, from a selfish 23 standpoint, somebody else wants a chair, we would like 24
) 3 to finish this whole meeting up in the next ten minutes
- 121 1 or co. .
f, 2 MR. ROTH: I guess my whole point is that 3 in the past we have trusted each other on the panel in 4 questions that we pursued. I know that the rest of the 5 panel certainly allowed me a lot of. leniency on the 6 financial issues years age ehen some of you felt it was 7 not in our purview and yet we went through with that.
8 Also on the harrassment issue which again some 9 people felt wasn't our purview and yet I was allowed to 10 Pursue that. It just seems there is just a little basic 11 thing I think there was a lot of specifics here. But 12 I am really not-sure that whether Tom would have needed 13 ten or 15 more minutes is really such a major thing or 34 a half hour. And I would say the same --
I don't know what time he needed but in the same thing, it just seems 15 to me that if Tom Gerusky or Ken Miller or Neil.Wald 16 had an area that they wished to pursue my p,oint is that 37 18 they certainly have the right to pursue that within reason. And not cut that person off regardless who it 39 is on the panel. I guess I am looking at it,more as a philosophical point rather than this one specific issue.
Because then I think that we are sort di limiting I would rather error.on half hour constantly ourselves.
more than on not. Because we are giving the public and I have been one who has been fighting for the public to l
f
' / v 122 x
1 bo port of this for five years. Some of their questions
~
h, 2 sometimes are way off in left field and we do allow them
.3 to continue.
4 And I'm just saying, why don't we let a fellow 5 panel member do it on any of you. That's all I'have to 6 say.
t 7- < MR. SMITHGALL: I concur with the sentiment 8 that Joel is expressing there. We will be voting every 9 time someone has a specific issue that they want to 10 question. And I think that's ridiculous to consider that 9, we set a precedent that we're going to vote everytime 12 som e o,ne has an extensive line of questioning that might 13 be disagreeable to another panel member.
34 I agree with what Joel has said.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: I have to say that I don't s'
. ' ( 16 6 understand that as the issue at all here. That there is f
,'7 disagreement with a certain line of questioning. It's b 18 a disagreement with the fact that the questioning is r
f ,. 39 <
getting into an area totally apart from what we have asked to be able to do. And I think there clearly is a difference and I think in the past we have been very i ; firm on,TMI-l versus TMI-2 fo r instance , and we have not 22 .
i l- gotten into TMI-1. We told the public that and we cut 23 ,
h ,
the public out when we've gotten into it.
Those decisions have to be made by the Chair on h
123 1 occasions in the past. This is really nothing new.except.
2 the feeling was that Tom wanted to pursue it and have a 3 vote taken. That is really what we are doing. Other-4 wise I would say we souldn't pursue it.
~
5 MR. COCHRAN: I disagree with you.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: I understand. So we pushed 7 for a vote. That's all I'm saying. Not that we have to e go into a vote everytime. It's when the Chair rules 9 somebody out of order they are going in an area t.here 10 they shouldn't be, we should vote.
33 Anybody else?
12 All those in favor.of the motion to permit the 13 discussion at some future date, say aye.
MR. SMITHGALL: Aye.
34 MR. ROTH: Aye.
16
- ^ ^Y**
g THE CHALRMAN: All those opposed say no.
18 R. ALD: No.
" * " * "U*
19 MR. GERUSKY: No.
20 MS. TRUNK: No.
21 MR. MORRIS: No.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: It is a' vote of five to one.
23 against him.
MR. TRAVERS: Well I want to thank you first
,- -g-
, 124 1 for granting me some time unannounced on what it turns 2 out be an awfully busy agenda. I think it will become
)- 3 apparent when I get into this subject why it is impor-4 tant that it not wait until December.
5 In April of this year GPU submitted a request for 6 an exemption to specif4c NRC regulations that cover 7 record keeping.and core inventory requirements related 8 to fuel and byproduct material. Mike Masnik subse-g quently'sent that to the panel in one of your packages to and in a meeting in hay Tom Cochran raised the issue 3,
and Bernie Snyder committed to come back to the panel 12 to discuss it before the NRC staff took action on that 13 exemption.
g We-have completed our review, a technical review of that exemption request. We have done it in con-junction with the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 16 Safeguards. They are the real experts in this area.
37 We are prepared to act on the exemption favorably.
18 g
Before we do it I want to brief you on what went into our analysis, basically what the exemption is asking of us and give you a chance to interact with the staff.
As I mentioned in April GPU submitted a request 22 for exemption from specific NRC regulations relating to maintaining records and perfo rming physical inventories 24
) of special nuclear material and byproduct material. I
/ 2i 6
125:
i ought to stop for a second and just tell you what those 2
words mean, for those of you who don't know.
3 Special nuclear material relates to Plutonium 4
and uranium enriched in isotopes of U233 and 235. Think 5
of that as a hundred metric tons or so of the core erial, the material that existed in 177 fuel 6
7 assemblies prior to the accident.
Bypr duct material refers to fission products 8
9 9
- essentially all of the requirements, there are four, 30.51, 40.61, 70.51, and 70.53. These all related to 11 maintaining records and as I mentioned performing actual physical inventories of fuel.
) The regulations are really only a subset of all of our regulations-that are in place to assure that 15 diversion of nuclear material doesn't take place and 16 accordingly that the public is protected from any poten- -
17 tial diversion.
18 At a operating plant the way these requirements 19 are implemented are by an actual physical inspection 20 when the head is off of the number of fuel assemblies 21 that are in the reactor core region. Based on the 22 effective full power days of operation they can calculate l 23 with computer program the actual quantitative amount of 24 special nuclear material that exists in the core and the 25
126 1
byproduct material that exists, actually a quantitative 2 analysis are performed.
3 TMI-2, of course, we've seen from the films that 4 the condition of the fuel is to say the least, unique.
5 There is really no way for GPU to go in and perforn the 6 kind of physical inventory that is usually completed to
-v 7 conform with the rather quantitative requirements of 8 these specific regulations. We have seen for example, 9 that at most a total of two of the fuel assemblies are 10 in tact. And I think you've seen films on the way the 11 molten material or formerly molten material is slopped 12 down in the lower reactor vessel head.
13 In order to comply with the letter of these regu-14 lations, GPU would need to perform detailed quantitative 15 assessments of special nuclear material and byproduct 16 material, particularly during shipment of individual 17 fuel canisters. They would need to use sophisticated 18 hot cell and laboratory facilities. It really is not 19 feasible because there is no representative sampling 20 that can account for the amount of special nuclear material fuel and byproduct material that is going to 21 .
wind up in any particular cancer. To do it you really 22 have to do almost a hundred percent sampling analytically 23 l
- f r everything that goes into the canisters.
24 Of course, there is also a dose commitment that
127 '
I would be entailed from such procedures, although we 2 haven't quantitated that it goes without saying that 3 there is a significant-dose savings by not doing that 4 kind of approach.
5 In lieu of strict conformance with the existing 6 regulations, regulations which really envision intact 7 fuel assemblies, GPU has proposed alternatives and we 8 have analyzed those alternatives. Specifically, they 9 intend to provide a great deal of information on the to fuel, special nuclear material and information on the li byproduct material for individual caniste rs as loaded 12 prior to shipment to Idaho. Specifically, they intend 13 to provide empty weight regardings, loaded weights and 14 dewatered weights, an estimation of maximum total 15 purities based on a radiological profile of each cani-16 ster prior to shipment. They intend to provide informa-17 tion such as canister I.D. numbers, canister type, the is pressure of the can and a general description of the 19 material that's loaded into the can including when applicable or when it can be perf o rmed. For example ,
20 with fuel _ canisters, they are going to videotape the 21 g . material as it is actually loaded into the canister.
THE CHAIRMAN: Bill, let me ask you, how 23 g long a presentation is this?
MR. TRAVERS: About three more minutes at 25 l
128 1
L most.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: I am getting a little tired 3 at-this point.- I have a very very full day tomorrow as 4 some other people do. I am willing to stay here for 5 about truly, five more minutes and if the panel'is still 6 of the mind to hecp going, I am going to ask somebody 7 else to chair it.
8 It seems like I think it is technical enough that 9 you can put it in writing and send it to the panel 10 members who may be more knowledgeable on that and can 11 ask questions at a future date.
12 I appreciate you taking the time to do this but it 13 seems like you have two or three more pieces of yellow
) .14 paper there.
15 MR. TRAVERS: Thirty seconds will do.
16 Well, essentially we have completed our review and 17 recognizing the existing conditions of that fuel as 18 compared to the fuel in normally operating reactors and 39 the_way physical inventories are performed and in con-20 sideration of the alternative approach that GPU has pro-21
_ Posed, and one other thir.g I would include in that 22 approach is that following the end of the defueling, 23 they will have the ability to perfo rm a quantitative 24 assessment of the fuel that remains in the system by 25 subtractions you can really then get a quantitative
129 1
assessment of all of the fuel loaded in the canisters 2
and shipped to Idaho.
3 Based on our look at this we think that the regulations as written really don't reflect the condi-5 tions at TMI-2. And if ever an exemption is appropriate 6 this situation, we believe, is warranted. And we think 7 that the proposed alternative method for keeping records 8 or quantitating fuel, keeping track of fuel, where it 9 is, are reasonable enough that we will propose that they to pprove that exemption request.
11 Why don't I wrap it up there and let you fire 12 away.
13 MR. ROTH: Any public input on this at 14 all? Is this an agency decision?
15 MR. TRAVERS: It's an agency decision. One 16 of the things that has occurred is we published in the 17 Federal Register, whoever reads it, an environmental 18 assessment which details what we looked at and what we 19 believe the impacts are or are not in granting these 20 kinds of exemptions.
21 I think it's important to emphasize that the 22 exemptions in this case are really a subset of all of 23 the things that are in place to make sure that diversion 24 doesn't take place. Those other things aren't really
) 25 affected. Security force, a l a rm s , guards, key card
130' 1 access, the fact that this particular material is 2 radioactive, you know, it would be awfully difficult 3 to think that.you could divert it from the reactor 4 vessel.
5 MR. ROTH: There is no way could it be ,
6 considered a licensing ame n dmen t or something of.that 7 nature?
8 MR. TRAVERS: It's an exemption to the g regulations and there are different procedural require-10 ments associated with exemptions to regulations'as ji opposed to license amendments.
12 MR. SMITHGALL: When are you going to act 13 on this? When have you proposed acting on this or
)
34 making _ the recommendation?
O MR. TRAVERS: Within days.
15 .
16 MR. SMITHGALL: Ten days from now?
37 MR. TRAVERS: No, within days. We can do 3g it by the end of this week.
19 It's been published in the Federal Register but we did make the commitment to come back and give you a briefing and that's why I wanted to stick it on even
! though it's late on the agenda. 1 MR. MILLER: What is the estimated accuracv '
23- l 1
of accountabilitv with this technique vdrsus what you i
l 24 1
deem acceptable prior to this?
i
L 131 I' -
MR. TRAVERS: I think what I've heard and
. 2 Frank can correct me if I'm wrong, a tenth of a percent i 3 is what the final quantitative assessment of fuel 4 remaining'in the reactor system will be.
5 MR. MILLER: No. The analysis that'you're 6 going to do on what you put in the canisters and some-7 where along the line you are going to add all this up 8 to account for this special nuclear material that should 9 have been in the whole system. What is the accuracy of to this technique versus the technique of dete rming the ii presence of undamaged fuel?
12 MR. TRAVERS: I think it is probably pretty 13 close. The way they are going to do it, you can't make 14 a quantitative assessment of special nuclear material 15 in those cans shipped until after you do this assess-16 ment of what remains. So by subtraction and if you have 17 good accuracy in that assessment of plant systems 18 following-defueling, you can say.with some certainty 19 that you can come within a rea.conable margin of the tota) 20 fuel that's been shipped in all of the canisters out to 21 Idaho.
g A VOICE: I think it's fair to say the 23 a uracy is the same because it's all based on the 24 calculated quantities and the material present in the 25 core at the time of the accident.
, 132 1
MR. MILLER: Can we put this on a future 2 agenda item?
3 THE CHAIRMAN: We can very easily put this 4 as a future agenda item. The only think it is going to 5 be after the fact.
6 MR. MILLER: I would still like clarifica-7 tion.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Why don't we do that.
9 MR. GERUSKY: It is going to be a long time 10 before they make a final determination on what's left.
ij THE CHAIRMAN: Would you want to put this 12 on a future agenda item?
13 MR. WALD: Is the objective of these regu-14 lations security of the material or is it concern about 15 criticality?
16 MR. TRAVERS: Security o f the material .
37 MR. WALD: I think that should be made 18 clear. It's a security issue rather than --
I think gg that's important.
MR. GERUSKY: I move to adjourn.
O THE CHAIRMAN: I second it.
21 (Hearing adjourned at 10:45 p.m.)
! 22 23 24 25 l
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