ML20238F301

Direct Testimony of Dl Herzberg Re Seacoast Anti-Pollution League Contentions 7 & 33.* Related Correspondence

ML20238F301
Person / Time
Site:	Seabrook
Issue date:	09/10/1987
From:	Herzberg D DARTMOUTH-HITCHCOCK MEDICAL CENTER, HANOVER, NH, SEACOAST ANTI-POLLUTION LEAGUE
To:
Shared Package
ML20238F199	List: ML20238F196 ML20238F219 ML20238F231 ML20238F237 ML20238F244 ML20238F282 ML20238F301 ML20238F304 ML20238F313
References
OL, NUDOCS 8709160065
Download: ML20238F301 (9)

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September 10, 1987 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i: -

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION before the ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD In the Matter ofl ) Docket No. 50-443-OL

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PUBLIC. SERVICE COMPANY OF )

(NEW HAMPSHIRE, 'et al ') Off-site Emergency Planning

) Issues (Seabrook~ Station, UnitEl) )

DIRECT. TESTIMONY OF DONALD L. HERZBERG,;M.D.

RELATIVE TO SAPL CONTENTIONS 7 AND 3.1

1) Please state your name, your current employment and your.other experience relevant to your testimony.

My name.is Donald L. Herzberg, M.D. I am a Physician board certified in Diagnostic Radiology and also Nucl. ear Medicine,'and I am the Director of the division of Nuclear Medicine at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Medical Center in Hanover, New Hampshire. .I have taken part in-radiation accident drills both at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. .I have also served as as a Radiologist while on active duty in the United

, States Air Fcree. Other information relevant to my l qualifications is to be found in my~ curriculum vita, appended to this testimony.

2) Please state the purpose of.your testimony.

Having reviewed the New Hampshire' Radiological Emergency Response Plan, (NHRERP), a number of deficiencies stand out in terms of the provisions j for' monitoring and decontaminating evacuees.

The purpose of this testimony is to address SAPL Con-L tentions 7 and 33 and describe those deficiencies. 1

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L 3) Please describe the deficiencies you have identified.

The NHRERP states that a contaminated person will be sent to a state uc' contamination facility. At the basis of any decontamination program must be the identifica-tion of those persons who are and are not contaminated.

Most individuals in the area of potential radiation ex-posure will have no way of knowing whether or not they have been contaminated. As a result, in addition to l

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7 e c those people actually contaminated reporting to the de-contamination facility, it is likely, depending on the magnitude of the radiation accident involved, that an even larger number of noncontaminated people will present to the facility. The only means of determin-ing whether an otherwise uninjured person has been contaminated with radioactivity is to monitor that individual with a radiation detector or survey in-strument. Understanding that this is the only means of determining whether or not a person who otherwise appears well has been contaminated, it is essential

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to developing an appropriate emergency response program for radiation release accidents. The accident-response Jrogram in the NHRERP is deficient in its inability to accomodate the number of people that must be expected at the decontamination centers.

There are an insufficient number of people carrying out the monitoring and and decontamination procedures at the centers. From the figures given in the NHRERP and using the Dover Host facility plan as an example, the amount of work to be done in monitoring and decontamin-ating people appears to be well beyond the capacity of the number of staff assigned. Specifically, if 7,886 evacuees arrive at the Dover Center,(which is the number the State of New Hampshire has stated in response to interrogatories is the number planned for at the Dover facility) and approximately one minute per person is required for monitoring, it would take approximately 130 hours0.0015 days <br />0.0361 hours <br />2.149471e-4 weeks <br />4.9465e-5 months <br /> to deal with that number of people. The initial staff designation for exterior monit m ing at the Dover facility is'two people. Thus it would take approximate-ly 65 hours7.523148e-4 days <br />0.0181 hours <br />1.074735e-4 weeks <br />2.47325e-5 months <br /> per worker to complete the initial monitor-ing of the evacuees. If the additional four staff members designated'in the Dover plan were added, there would still be over 20 hours2.314815e-4 days <br />0.00556 hours <br />3.306878e-5 weeks <br />7.61e-6 months <br /> of work per individual for monitoring. There would be a similar time problem for the 3 to 5 minute monitoring of those evacuees identified as contaminated by the initial monitoring.

The figures for the decontamination work are more difficult to determine, since it is hard to arrive at an average time required for decontaminating an in-dividual, and no figures are available on what the projected percentage of contaminated people might be.  !

If, however, approximately a fourth of the people arriv-ing are contaminated, and it requires only 5 to 6 minutes of work to decontaminate each of these people, that would still represent roughly 200 hours0.00231 days <br />0.0556 hours <br />3.306878e-4 weeks <br />7.61e-5 months <br /> of work to '

i be divided among the two initial staff people. If the l 1

four additional staff were added, this would then come to over 30 hours3.472222e-4 days <br />0.00833 hours <br />4.960317e-5 weeks <br />1.1415e-5 months <br /> of work for each staff person.

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1 7 -The DPHS^ Supervisor is the director of each decontamin-ation facility.- ' However, in addition, to his responsib-111 ties as coordinator of the center, his job also includes overseeing.the decontamination-procedures.them-selves, taking responsibility for patients with

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residual contamination following the= decontamination procedures, maintaining the link between the decontamin-ation center:and the state EOC, and. insuring-that.the personnel dosimeters of all the workers are read'every 30 minutes. All of this will place an unreasonable-burden of responsibility on the DPHS Supervisor and com--

promise his. ability-to coordinate the decontamination center. My experience in other emergency situations has been that proper. functioning of.the emergency response team requires a single. individual be solidly in charge of all the ongoing activities. The scope of.

rssponsibilityfof the DPBS Supervisor in the NHRERP would make'this impossible. . Similarly, the EOC.

Radiological Health Technical . Advisor (ECC RHTA) must single-handedly deal with all of the problems forwarded to him by the local DPHS Supervisors, including whatever number of people at the local centers have wound contamination, internal contamination, or residual contamination following attempted decontamination procedures. It is difficult to imagine both the EOC RETA and the DPHS Supervisor functioning effectively both as coordinators and people who must deal with individual contamination problems.

4) Are there additional deficiencies?

Yes. A more general flaw in the response plan is the view of the incoming people as a homogeneous population.

In fact, these people will be in various states of health, both because of underlying medical problems and because of'the reactor accident. No guidelines are given for dealing with non-ambulatory individuals or with people whose response to the reactor accident results in their behavior being disruptive. These things should be expected in a disaster situation. My

< own cxperience in a mock radiation disaster involving

about 20 " victims" demonstrated the level of chaos that develops when injured and ill people are combined with

- people who are apparently well, but could be i significantly contaminated with radioactivity. This aspect of the emergency response must be expected and planned for.

). Perhaps the largest oversight of the response plan is the failure to conduct practice drills on a routine basis. My experience has been that' regular practice of disaster drills plans is a basic requirement for any

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-4. j o successful emergency response program. The Emergency

! Response Plan must specify-how often the drills should be held and how closely they should. approximate a true l

disaster situation. Responsible individuals must be fami3iari:;ed with the roles they would play in a ,

disaster. Schools to be used as decontamination j centers must have a traffic flow pattern set up in them  !

to familiarize the workers with this exercise. A large enough number of people must be included so that the unaviodable errors of any complicated maneuver that !.s carried out only infrequently can be kept to a minimum.

Without these efforts, even the best emergency response plan cannot possibly succeed. I In addition to the disaster drills, there must be quality control on the radiation detection instruments.

There is no such program apparent in tho.NHRERP. At specified intervals their function must be checked to be certain that they will be in working order should.an actual disaster occur. Similarly, all the materials used within the decontamination area must be periodically checked to be certain that the right numbers are there and that the condition of the materials is satisfactory. Again, there is no program apparent for materials checks in the NHRERP.

5) Are there additional points to be made with regard to the plan for monitoring and decontamination? -

Yes. I would like to make a point about checking the thyroid for. radiation. Checking the thyroid for radio-active iodine which it has concentrated because of the released radiation from the reactor is certainly desirable. However, it should be pointed out that the thyroid requires roughly 12 to 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> to maximally accumulate the iodine that is in the blood stream.

Because of this, an early check of the thyroid gland will give an inaccurately low reading of the radio-activity that will eventually be accumulated there. Some provision should be made for checking thyroids later.

6) What is your conclusion regarding the adequacy of the provisions in the plans fer monitoring and decontamin-ation of evacuees at reception centers?

For all the reasons I have stated above, it is my professional opinion that the NERERP is inadequate in its provisions for monitoring and decontaminating evacuees in the event of a radiological emergency at Seabrook Station.

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CURRICULM VITAE NAME: Donald Loren Herzberg ADDRESS: RFD 173, Norwich, Vermont 05055 l

BIRTHDATE: 9/15/43, Los Angeles, California MARITAL STATUS: Married, Victoria Liss Herzberg CHILDREN: Jill Irene, b. 1968 David Lowell, b. 1970 MILITARY STATUS: Honorable Discharge, United States Air Force July 22, 1974 MEDICAL LICENSURES: ' Missouri, Texas, Califoria, New Hampshiro BOARD EXAMINATIONS:

Missouri State Board Examination, June.1968, passed American Board of Radiology, part I, June 1972, passed American Board of Radiology, part II, Dec. 1973, passed American Board of Nuclear Medicine, June 1976, passed EDUCATION:

1961-1962 Tulane University, New Orleans Louisiana 1962-1964 University of Texas, Austin, Texas B.A.

Degree 1970 1964-1968 Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, M.D.-1968 1968-1969 Maimonides Hospital, Brooklyn, New York straight medicine internship 1969-1972 University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, Diagnostic Radiology Residency 1974-1975 Unversity of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Little Rock, Arkansas, Fellowship, Nuclear Medicine

Donald Loren Herzberg, M.D. Curriculum Vitae PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

1972-1974-Chief of Radiology, Barksdale Air Force Base Hospital, Shreveport, Louisiana 1974-1975 Instructor, Nuclear Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas 1975-1980 Assistant Professor, Nuclear Medicine University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences 1977-1980 Director, Section of Diagnostic Ultrasound University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences {

1979-1980 Director, Medical Inaging Residency Training Program, UAMSC 1980-Director, Division of Nuclear Medicine and Staff Radiologist, Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, Hanover, New Hampshire Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine (Radiology),

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center 1985-Director, Residency Training Program, Section of Radiology, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center 1985-1988 Course Instructor; Health, Society & The Physician (Dept of Community & Family Med)

PUBLICATIONS:

Herzberg, D.L.: Decreasing pain in arterio-venous cannulograms, Radiology, 97:264, 1970 Herzberg, D.D and Schreiber, M.: Angiography in mass lesiens of the extremities, AM. J.

Roent., 111:541, 1971 Vieras, F., and Herzberg, D.L.: Focal de-creased skeletal uptake secondary to metas-tatic disease, Radiology, 118:121-122, 1/76 Saha, G.B., Herzberg, D.L., and Boyd, C.M.:

Unusual in vivo distribution of Tc-99m-Dipho-sphonate, J. Clin. Nuclear Medicine, 2 (9):

303-305, September, 1977

e ie : b Denald L Herzberg,lH.D. Curriculum Vitae PUBLICATIONS (CONT'D) _

Friedman, B.J., Herzberg, D.L., et al:

Characterization of the human lrightLventri-cular. pressure-volume relation:'effect-of Dolutamine and right coronary artery. stenosis, J. American College of Cardiology 4 (5):999-

j. 1005, 11/84 Herzberg, D.L.: The Nuclear Medicine Physician as a consultant, Applied Radiology 13 (6):

43-5, 11-12/84 Noss, P.J., Herzberg, D.L.: Fogging of rad-

~iographs by'in. vivo. radionuclides, Am. J. Roent.

144:847-8, 4/85' PRESENTATIONS:

Arkansas Medical' Society Annual Meeting,'Little Rock, Arkansas, April;26, 1977, Donald L. Herzberg, M.D., Abdominal Gray' Scale Ultrasound New Developments in. Technical and Diagnostic Methods-Family Practice Symposium, February 25, 1978, UAMSC, Donald L..Herzberg, M.D.

Imaging with Ultrasound-capabilities and Limitations American College of Radiology: Arkansas Chapter, Fairfield Bay, Arkansas

.AprilL1-2, 1978, Donald L. Herzberg, M.D.

CT, Ultrasound, and Nuclear Imagingfof Renal Neoplasm Nuclear Medicine Technologists of Arkansas Annual Meeting, Little Rock, Arkansas, September 22, 23, 1978, Donald L. Herzberg,M.D.

. Liver Imaging-Ultrasound and Nuclear Medicino Southwest Chapter Meeting, Society of Nuclear Medicine, San Antonio, Texas

. March 16-18, 1979,' Donald L. Herzberg, M.D.

Spleen Size in Malignant Melancma and Other Tumors Hepatic Scintigraphy and Sonography: Complementary Studies UAMSC, Department'of Radiology, Course in Interventional Radiology

, ' November 3-4, 1979, Donald L. Herzberg, M.D.

Ultrasound Techniques for Biopsy and Aspiration Pediatric Radiology Course, Department of Radiology, UAMSC February 9-10, 1980, Drnald L. Herzberg, M.D.

Nuclear Medicine for the Pediatric Patient

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Donald L. Herzberg, M.D. Curriculum Vitae PRESENTATIONS (CONT'D):

Southwest. Chapter Meeting, Society of Nuclear Medicine, Houston, Texas March-27-30, 1980, Donald L. Herzberg, M.D.

Which Radionuclides for Brain Imaging-99mTc-Glucoheptonate or 99mTc-DTPA? 99mTc-PIPIDA in the Assessment of Biliary Disease Cardiology for Practioners Symposium, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Hanover, NH, March 26, 1981, Donald L. Herzberg, M.D.

Cardiac Nuclear Medicine New Hampshire Radiological Society, May 16, 1981 Donald L. Herzberg, M.D. <

Renal Nuclear Medicine Antioch Unversity/New England Graduate School, Keene, NH Teaching Symposium on Radiation Safety, July 11, 1984 Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH Symposium on Nuclear Power, June 17, 1985 Poisonings & Toxicology, Dartmouth-Hitchecck Medical Center Symposium, Hanover, NH, September 10, 1986, Donald L.

Herzberg, M.D. Radiation Emergencies ABSTRACTS:

American Heart Association National Meeting, November 1981 "The Pressure Volume Relationship of the Human Right Ventricle and Its Use To Access Right Ventricular Fur.ction" EXHIBITS:

Society of Nuclear Medicine, Detroit, MI, June 1980 99mTc-PIPIDA in the Evaluation of Biliary Disease Committees (Current):

Radiation Safety Committee, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Head Radioactive Drug Reasearch Committee, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Head TEXTSOOKS: Boyd, C.M. and Herzberg, D.L.: Fundamentals of radio-immunoassay in: Urninary Practical Radioimmunoassays, Moss, A.J., Dalrymple, G.V., and Boyd, C.M. (Eds), Grune and Stratton, New York, 1980 l

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Donal'd L.!Herzberg, M.D. Curriculum Vitae SOCIETY MEMBERSHIPS Radiological: Society of North-America AmericansCollege of Radiology American College of Nuclear, Physicians Society of. Nuclear Medicine-American Roentgen' Ray Society l

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