ML20245A177
| ML20245A177 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/15/1989 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| CON-#389-8820, REF-QA-99990004-890615 NUDOCS 8906210131 | |
| Download: ML20245A177 (245) | |
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{{#Wiki_filter:.-. _ - _ - _ . _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ - _ i ki v \ J l\ L .O UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD .=====--===================================================e In the Matter of: )
)
WRANGLER LABORATORIES, ) LARSEN LABORATORIES, ) Docket No. ORION CHEMICAL COMPANY, AND ) 9999004 JOHN LARSEN ) O Pages: 486 through 725 Place: Provo, Utah
.Date: Thursday, June 15, 1989
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0\ HERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATION O OfidalReporters y, 1220 L Street, N.W., Suite 600 Washington, D.C. 20005 8906210131 8?O615 (202) 62N REG 4 OA999 EX1WRAljG 99990004 FDL
486
. UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD WRANGLER LABORATORIES, ) ..
LARSEN LABORATORIES, ) Docket No. ORION CHEMICAL COMPANY, AND ) 9999004 JOHN P. LARSEN ) (Evidentiary Hearing) J. Reuben Clark Law School Brigham Young University Moot Court Room Provo, Utah Thursday, June 15, 1989 The parties met, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 a.m. BEFORE: JUDGE CHARLES BECHHOEFER, CHAIRMAN Atomic Safety and Licensing Board U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 JUDGE FREDERICK SHON, MEMBER Atomic Safety.and Licensing Board U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 JUDGE JERRY KLINE, MEMBER Atomic Safety and Licensing Board U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 i l O
487- \,, : p L(L/%). . APPEARANCES: On behalf of the NRC Staff: ANN:P. HODGDON,.~ Esquire .s liRC Staff Counsel U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. . 20555 NORMAN D. ROMNEY, Esquire NRC Staff Counsel. U.-S. Nuclear. Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 DONALD. COOL Chief, Radiation Protection and
. Health Effects Branch Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 On behalf of the Licensees:
JOHN P. LARSEN, Pro Se 3853 N. Sherwood Drive Provo, Utah 84604 O- SALLY LARSEN 3853-N. Sherwood Drive Provo, Utah 84604 4
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488 CdE'IEEIE
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WITNESSES: DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS
- JOHN P. LARSEN ---
490 (Resumed) 612'
'630 KEVIN J. NOACK 558 567 SALLY LARSEN~ 636 649 CRAIG-JONES 660 681 699 703 D.'BLAIR SPITZBERG 693 695 LO.
o l L O
l 489 (~)
' TNSERTS l
DESCRIPTION AFTER PAGE Kevin Noack's direct testimony 559 Curriculum vitae for Craig Jones 660 Narrative report by Deputy Dennis Harris and related photograph 667 I l 1
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l
490
. ~)J T-1 MC I PROCEEDI
- - - - - - - - .N. G S-2 (9:05 A.M.)
3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Good morning, ladies and 4 gentlemen. We're back on the record. Are there any-5 preliminary matters this morning before we get started? 6 (There was no response.) 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: If not, Ms. Hodgdon can resume 8 her cross-examination of Mr. Larsen. 9 Whereupon, 10 JOHN P. LARSEN 11 resumed as a witness and, having been previously duly sworn, 12 was examined and testified as follows: 13 MS. HODGDON: When we stopped yesterday, I had 14 completed my cross-examination of Mr. Larsen on two 15 documents and was about to proceed to the third document 16 which he submitted as part of his testimony. That document 17 is Mr. Larsen's response to the show-cause order suspending 18 license. That response is dated March 18, 1988. 19 Have you located the document, Mr. Larsen? 20 THE WITNESS: This one? 21 MS. HODGDON: Yes. 12 CROSS-EXAMINATION (Resumed) 23 BY MS. HODGDON: 24 Q I have several questions on that document. You 25 state there in the second full paragraph that you have been O
LARSEN - CROSS 491 M2' I totally responsible for every facility that you have been 2 asked to clean up either by she State of Utah or the NRC -- 3 A That's right. 4 .Q. -- and resent being characterized as abandoning 5 any responsibility that you've been asked to perform. 6 A That's right. l 7 0- Does that continue to be your statement, that l l 8 you've never had any trouble cleaning up your sites? Or l 9 just exactly what is your statement with regtrd to that? 10 A Before we left a site, we were checked out by 11 instruments and an authority or agent for the jurisdiction 12 that was over us, be it the State of Utah or the NRC. Then 13 we were told that, "It is okay. You can leave the 14 premises." We never took off and abandoned any site. And 15 to the best of our knowledge, every one of them was cleaned 16 up, i l 17 Q Is now cleaned up. 18 A Yes. ! 19 0 What about for NRC license, which I have a copy 20 of? I2's in the record, I believe. Your NRC license in 21 Utah. I don't know how else to identify it. It's License 12 No. SUB-1436, and the license is for 47 North 1265 West, 23 Orem, Utah. Did you clean up that site when you left it? ; 24 A As far as we know, we were as clean as can be. 15 The authority released us from it and said it was clean. l l C)
l LARSEN - CROSS 492 L
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M3 I Q When was that? 2 A Whenever they were inspecting us, whenever that 3 period was. I'm not sure. It has been a while back, many 4 years back. 5 0 Do you recall cleaning that up prior to moving 6 to your next site? 7 A You bet. 8 Q What would that next site be? 9 A Now, what was the address again of that one? 10 0 47 North 1265 West, Orem, Utah. 11 A Okay, that one was the one by the freeway, I 12 believe. And I believe the next one was -- 13 THE WITNESS: Do you remember? 14 BY MS. HODGDON: 15 0 Was it the Gold Key Storage warehouse? 16 A Yes, that was probably it. I guess so, as far 17 as I can remember. 18 Q Did you put in a request for amendment of your 19 license? 20 A No. We didn't know we had to, Ann. We didn't 21 have knowledge that we were supposed to every time we moved 12 inform where we were going. We were very ignorant of the 23 regulations at that time. We weren't trying to hide, or 24 go away, or anything like that. But we didn't know that 25 we were supposed to file an amendment every time we did a O
LARSEN - CROSS 493
?
k. M4 I change. 2 Q How did you expect Utah to find you in order to 3 inspect your facilities if they didn't know where they were? 4 A You mean the facility by the freeway? 5 Q No. The facility by the freeway in Orem, 6 apparently you left that without notifying Utah. 7 A Oh, it was inspected before we left it. 8 Q You notified Utah, and they inspected? 9 A No, Utah came down and inspected us, and they 10 stayed with us until it was cleaned up. They inspected it 11 and said it was okay. 12 Q Then you opened up someplace else without telling 13 Utah that you were doing it. 14 A Yes, right, because we didn't know we were 15 supposed to file an amendment every time we changed. 16 Q And they didn't know where to find you; is that 17 correct? 18 A They didn't look for us, as far as I know. We 19 were not in contact. 20 Q But your testimony is that you called the l 21 regulatory authorities in Utah and told them that you wanted 22 to leave your 47 North 1265 West place and move to someplace 23 else, and that they came and inspected it, but that you 24 neglected to tell them where you were moving to; is that 25 what you're telling me? [ l l
l LARSEN - CROSS 494 (~')
%1 MS - ,
1 A No, I'm not telling you that. I'm telling you 2 that they came and inspected us and released the -- They 3 said we couldn't work there. Or the owner said we couldn't 4 work there; he didn't want us there, he wouldn't renew our 5 lease. So we had to leave. And Utah also was inspecting 6 at the same time. I imagine because of the inspection, the 7 owner didn't want us there. So they inspected and released 8 it, and then everybody went away, and that was it. So we 9 went to another area and worked. 10 Q I have just one more thing about that, and that 11 is: Did you in fact call Utah authorities and ask them to 12 come inspect you because you were being evicted from your 13 Premises by your landlord? 14 A No. They came and -- As I remember, they came 15 and inspected us and found that we should clean up. Then 16 the landlord said, "You've got to go." 17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, do you mean Utah 18 came in and inspected because the landlord called them then 19 and asked them to inspect? 20 THE WITNESS: I guess. They came in for some 21 reason, and I'm not exactly sure what it was. I think it 22 maybe was -- I just don't know. I think it was maybe that i 23 it was time for an inspection or something like the.t. 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Does Utah have a routine t, 's 25 of inspection of facilities? l
l 1 ' LARSEN - CROSS 495 j M6 ' 1 THE WITNESS: Well, they have come routinely about 2 once a year. But I don't know.when it's going to be. 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I see. But you don't know 4 whether or not that particular one was caused by your 5 landlord calling Utah and saying, "Come in here. This guy 6 is a nuisance." 7 THE WITNESS: I don't know that. 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. 9 THE WITNESS: It might have been neighbors l 10 possibly too. As I remember, though, the landlord wanted 11 to use that area that we were in, to expand the building. 12 And he has expanded it. So that's why we were getting l
' - 13 tossed out. That was another reason we were getting
]
14 evicted. ] 15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I see. j 16 BY MS. HODGDON: 17 0 I'm looking here at the same license identified; 18 that is, SUB-1436. The front page has conditions there. ; 1 19 And 10, it says, " License material shall be used only at ) i 20 47 North 1265 West, Orem, Utah 84057." Did you ever have 21 the occasion to read that condition? ! i 22 A Yes. We just -- At first there were so many l 23 things that you had to know that they were all a blur. So 24 we did that which we could do and we thought was wanted, 25 at first. And we didn't do many things, and that was one , O
< LARSEN - CROSS 496 (,
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M7 1 of them. 2 We should have filed an amendment. We didn't know 3 it was that critical. We were more interested in safety 4 and health things, and in instruments, and stuff like that. 5 O Do you mean to tell me that you think that this 6 license condition that says that the material shall be used 7 only in the place that's licensed -- do you mean to tell 8 me that you think that that doesn't have anything to do 9 with health and safety? 10 A I think it's more important, the clean-up and the 11 monitoring and things like that, are of immediate concern 12 about health and safety. And your location is down the road 13 from that.
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14 Q That's what you think. 15 A Priorities. 16 Q Do you think that Utah and the Nuclear Regulatory 17 Commission agree with you? 18 A Well, I don't know, Ann. I would say that we 19 should have done it, but we didn't. There were a lot of 20 things that were thrown at us all at once. Filing an 21 amendment with the state, we should have done it but we 22 didn't -- not intentionally, but more or less not knowing. 23 Q I note also another condition, Condition 11, says, 24 "The licensee shall comply with the provisions of Title X, 25 Chapter 1, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 19, ' Notices, O
LARSEN - CROSS 497 O M8 1 Instructions and Reports to Workers, Inspections,' and 2 Part 20, ' Standards for Protection against Radiation.'" Are 3 you aware of that license condition? 4 A Yes. 5 0 Were you aware of it at the time? 6 A Yes. 7 Q Well, I could continue to ask about the various 8 other sites at this time, but I will not. I will move on 9 to something else. 10 A Could I say something about that, about 11 abandonment? 12 O I said the five sites. I didn't say " abandoned 13 ' sites." 14 A Okay. 15 Q But if you want to say something about 16 abandonment, you may. 17 A I hope it's clear that we did not leave an area 18 without permission to leave. And if " abandonment" connotes 19 any irresponsibility or running away from the clean-up, I 20 categorically deny-that. We tried to be as responsible as 21 we could about cleaning up and not leaving any radiation 22 behind, and we were checked out before we left. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Should the word have been 24 " vacated" rather than " abandoned"? 25 THE WITNESS: I would have preferred that. O
LARSEN - CROSS 498 i Q,) l M9. I " Abandoning" connotes to me irresponsibility, which I deny 2 totally. 3 MS. HODGDON: Well, all right, I won't quarrel 4 with that. l 5 THE WITNESS: Okay. 6 BY MS. HODGDON: 7 Q Let's move on to the next page,.where you say -- 8 A Might I say, though, about that word that it is 9 characteristic of being pejorative. It is using a 10 pejorative word that puts somewhat of a cast, a shadow, on 11 the person. And when that is published in the Federal 12 Register and is part of the felony that they try to convict 13 you of,'I say that's not fair. 14 Q Well, you do go on and say on that same page that 15 this is a pejorative word, "and it's typical of the past 16 adversarial characterizations by the State of Utah." Do 17 you think "adversarial" is a pejorative word? 18 A Yes. But I think that's the way we were handled. l l 19 Q No, you said they were adversarial. l l 20 A That's right. 21 Q But you're using a pejorative word to describe 22 Utah. 23 A Okay, that's right. But, you see, this " abandon" 24 connotes -- It should have been " vacated." It has a 25 connotation of irresponsibility. So that shows that they're O
1 LARSEN - CROSS 499 M10 1 adversarial right there.- 2 0 On the next page you say, the end of.that 3 paragraph, "We cannot work with an agency that is 4 adversarial in attitude and somewhat ambitious to show how I 5 tough and regulatorial they are in order to establish their 6 reputations." 7 Is it the Utah Bureau of Radiation Protection that 8 you're characterizing with this language? 9 A Yes, and I would back off from some of the steam 10 of that statement. 11 Q What would be your statement today regarding them? 12 A Well, I would say that they're slightly 13 adversarial, but I don't know that they're trying to be O 14 tough to establish their reputation. 15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, does Utah have any 16 sort of a program where they issue a document which would 17 be comparable to what NRC occasionally issues, called Reg 18 Guides, to try to give licensees some guidance as to what 19 to do and when to do it? 20 THE WITNESS: I've received a lot of help from 21 Craig Jones. He has been helpful with the State of Utah 22 in getting me Reg Guides. I think these were NRC Reg 23 Guides. I don't know of any Utah reg guides. He did give 24 me a thick book of regulations from the State of Utah, and 25 he has helped me to understand some of the uranium bioassay i E- _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1
LARSEN - CROSS 500 (' ( M11 1 results and things like that. But as far as Utah reg 2 guides, I don't know of any. 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I see. 4 BY MS. HODGDON: 5 0 I'm'looking at a document named " Utah Bureau of 6 Radiation Control, Radioactive Material License, April 1984, 7 License No. UT-2500183"; expiration date, December 31, 1988. 8 It says, " Replaces NRC License No. SUB-1436," which is the 9 one I just read to you from, and it has conditions on it, 10 the first of which is, " License material shall be used only 11 at 2000 South 450 West, Orem, Utah, in the Gold Key Storage 12 Unit No. 3." r 13 A Okay. 14 Q Is this the license under which you operated in 15 Utah up until the time it was suspended? 16 A Yes. 17 O And I take it that this license is still current 18 by virtue of its suspension, even though it would have 19 expired in December but for the suspension. Is that your 20 understanding? 21 A Yes. 22 Q I note also another condition. "The licensee 23 shall comply with the provisions of Chapter URC 48, 24 ' Notices, Instructions and Reports to Workers by Licensees 25 or Registered Inspections,' and Chapter URC 24, ' Standards O
LARSEN - CROSS 501
-fS s M12 1 for Projections against Radiation.'" Are those in your 2 opinion comparable to the provisions of Parts 19 and 20 in 3 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's regulations?
4 A I would guess so. 5 0 And then another condition: " Licensed material 6 shall be used by or under the supervision of John P. 7 Larsen." May I ask what that condition meant to you? 8 A Can you say that again? 9 Q " Licensed material shall be used by or under the ., 10 supervision of John P. Larsen." 11 A That means that I'm responsible for it, I guess. 12 Q What does " supervision" mean to you in that 13 context? 14 A I supervise it. 15 Q How much? What percentage of the time do you , 16 think that you -- 17 A I guess you supervise it until you feel that it 18 can be responsibly handled, knowing that you are responsible 19 for what happens. 20 0 So what did you in fact do in that operation with 21 regard to supervision? I mean, how much time did you spend 22 in that facility overseeing your workers? l 23 A Part of the time I was overseeing it, part of the ) time I was off trying to do other things. It requires me ! 24 i 25 to do management while they're doing work. And if I j l
LARSEN - CROSS 502
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i-11 3 1 delegate the responsibility or whatever to someone else, 2 I don't do that lightly. I only do that to those who would
'A be responsible.
4 Q Did you ever work in another location in Utah 5 besides this one when you were under this license? 6 A I don't think so. 7 Q When you were under your Utah license. 8 A I don't think so, not that I can think of readily. 9 If you have any suggestions, I'll be glad to -- 10 Q Yes, I have a suggestion. Maybe I can put it in 11 the form of a question. What about Lindon? 12 A Yes, we did -- We didn't do processing there, 13 but we did -- Well, I guess we did some little bit there, 14 but it was mostly waste handling and storage. 15 Q I'll read you again the first license condition. 16 It says, " Licensed material shall be used only at 200 South 17' 450 West, Orem, Utah, in the Gold Key Storage Unit No. 3." 18 So I'm really asking you -- 19 A That's where 99 percent of it was done, Ann. 20 Q But did you use it in Lindon? 1 21 A Use it? 22 Q Yes. 23 A You mean store waste? 24 Q No, I'm asking you within the broader sense of 25 the word "used", whether you used it there. O
p i LARSEN - CROSS 503 l f'\ M14 1 A Well, whatever "used" means, we stored waste l 2 there. We did some small drying step, I believe, air drying l l 3 and that. 4 Q And you retrieved crystals from there? 5 A Yes. When we were pouring the waste and boiling i l 6 the liquid down to salt, there was crystals left over there. 7 Q Do you consider that that was within the terms 8 of this license condition, to use another facility? 9 A Well, I don't know. We weren't processing it, 10 as such. We had some crystals there that had crystalled 11 out on the sides of the buckets from stored benzene that 12 had been staying there for months, sometimes much longer. 13 And when we poured the benzene and the liquid wastewaters 14 out, the crystals were on the side there. So we took 15 them out and dried them. 16 Q So next I'll come to the other license condition, 17 which says, "The licensee may transport licensed material 18 or deliver licensed material to a carrier for transport in 19 accordance with the provisions of URC-19500 transportation." 20 Are you familiar with those regulations in URC-19500? 21 A What does that mean? Spell it out, if you would. 22 Q URC -- I asked you what it meant. I said, are 23 you familiar with the regulations or the provisions of Utah 24 Regulatory Code, I suppose it means, 19-500, Transportation? 25 A And what does it mean? I'm not familiar that O
LARSEN - CROSS 504 y-st i M15 I well with the numbers and things like that. I'm familiar 2 with what we do and what we were supposed to do.
'3 Q All right, I'll try again. Have you any idea what 4 Utah. requires of you, as a licensee under this license, 5 because it says that " Licensed material shall be used only 6 at 2000 South 450 West, Orem, Utah"? Do you have any 7 idea what it requires of you with regard to transfer or 8 transport of the licensed material? I mean, it says you 9 "shall" use it only there, but you "may" transport it i 10 according to your regulations. And I'm asking you if 11 you know what those regulations are, regarding transfer 12 or transport.
fs 13 A I would have to review what the reading is on
'b 14 that. I know what we're supposed to do as far as 15 transporting and that. We're supposed to have it packaged 16 up, and have certain external reading from the surface of 17 the box and three feet away, and swipes of how clean it is.
18 If that's what it refers to, type, we're not under Type A 19 packaging, but because of the readings that were on the 20 surface and three feet away. l 21 Q Do you believe that it allowed you to transfer 22 material to your Lindon facility? I 23 A You mean waste material? I don't believe it was l 24 referring to waste material? l 25 Q I don't mean anything. I asked about material.
LARSEN - CROSS 505 in l L) !M16 1 A Is waste considered material? 2 Q Didn't you tell me yesterday that Jerry Everett 3 told you that it was? 4 A I guess I'm lost, Ann. I don't understand that 5 Jerry Everett told us that waste was -- Oh, you mean the 6 uranium in the waste? Okay. 7 Q Counted against your possession limits. 8 A- That was under a general license. 9 Q What about a specific license; is it different? 10 A I guess not. So what are you saying, that we 11 broke a regulation because we took waste over to Lindon? 12 O I'm not saying anything. I'm just asking fs 13 questions. 14 A I don't know, that doesn't seem reasonable, that 15 there would be a problem. 16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, let me ask you a 17 question, which I don't know if this will clarify things 18 or make it more muddy. But does Utah have on its own a { 19 general license provision under which your Lindon 20 operations, which seem quite small, might have qualified 21 apart from the specific license? Might you have had a 22 general license? 23 THE WITNESS: Yes, I believe that would be 24 applicable, because it is in the federal license, and Utah 25 is supposed to be the sarae as the federal, as I understand O C -- -
LARSEN - CROSS 506 M17 1 it.
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2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes, well, I'm not sure about 3 that across the board. But if they had a general license 4 provision -- 5 THE WITNESS: Yes, they do. 6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- it might have been 7 authorized to at least store. I don't know what the 8 quantity was, but it's possible you could have been 9 authorized to store at that location under that criterion. 10 I'm just raising the question. I don't know, and 11 I don't know how much was involved or what the activity was. 12 But I'm just raising it as a possibility. 13 THE WITNESS: Okay. 14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: You might have been still 15 subject to the Parts 19 and 20 there, but you still may have 16 been authorized to do that. I'm not saying you were or you 17 weren't, but I'm trying to inquire whether that system 18 exists. 19 JUDGE SHON: Mr. Larsen, one other thing to 20 clarify a little bit the last line of questions that 21 Ms. Hodgdon asked you. When you carried waste material from 22 Orem to Lindon, transported it, did you fulfill all of the 23 usual conditions for transport as to packaging, and 24 cleanliness of outside surface, and things like that, or 25 did you think that they didn't apply?
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LARSEN'- CROSS 507 l^ 1
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L) L M18 1 THE WITNESS: I think, to be honest, that we just 2 -took it over, and we didn't have it packaged and labeled 3 and all of the -- with a materials safety data sheet _and l 4 all that stuff that you're supposed to have before you ship 5 it out. I think we were assuming that it was okay to just 6 take it over there and lock it up. 7 JUDGE SHON: Thank you. That's all I wanted to l l 8 know. 9 BY MS. HODGDON: 10 Q You say "we", Mr. Larsen. Who took it over? 11 A Kevin and myself. 12 Q Somewhere else in your testimony, you've stated g 13 that there were 17 barrels of waste at Lindon that were u) 14 subsequently shipped; is that correct? 15 A Yes. 16 0 How much uranium would have been in those 17 17 barrels, do you know? 18 A Well, it was hard to determine because it's quite 19 a bit, and it has been collected for over, I believe, 20 several years, like, 10 years. So you can't tell what is 21 in a barrel or a bucket just by the reading that you get. 22 But we estimate or guess that it was, what, 35 or 40 pounds 23 of metal, something like that. 24 /// 25
-LARSEN - CROSS 508-2A' bl l O-1 Q So if you had had a. general license pursuant to 2 your specific license, if.that provision is applicable in i Utah, then you would have been-well over those amounts in 4 Lindon, isn't that crue?
5 A .Probably. 6 0- That if you had 30 -- 7 A You know, the thing is, you've got a lot of l 8 regulations, and we're a small business with limited 9 staff, and we try to do what is reasonable, and when we 10 find out we're in fault, we try to correct it when it's 11 pointed out to us and do the best we can that way. If we 12 had a' big business operation, then we could assign somebody
'q 13 to make sure that we were in compliance with all of that.
(/ - 14' Q Mr. Larsen, didn't you agree with me yesterday 15 that the lungs and kidneys of the people that worked for 16 you are the same as the lungs and kidneys of those who work 17 for big corporations? 18 A Yes. 19 Q Okay, I will go on. 20 Now we come to the facility in Wyoming, which 21 is the facility that was shut down by the revocation order 22 issued by the NRC in August. You say in the first full 23 paragraph on.the_second page of.your filing which I'm 24 _ examining, "We had worked almost a year in the facility 25 and had processed 150 pounds of DU into-300 pounds of UAA O
LARSEN - CROSS. 509
.1 catalyst."
2 A Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 3 0 Is this a correct number? I believe that 4 yesterday you indicated that you moved not only crystals - 5 but also material in various stages of processing to 6 'Evanston.for completion. 7- JL That's right. 8 Q Is that not so? 9 A We moved Utah material to process it and finish
- 10. it up and get it out of our possession as Utah asked us 11 to do in their suspension order.
12 O You think that Utah asked you to.do in the 13 suspension order. They said, " Dispose immediately" -- the O 14 suspension order says.
.15 A Well, is it reasonable to throw away good 16 crystals, to throw away stuff that is in the process 17 of doing'it?
18 Q I don't know what's reasonable, but -- 19 A It's not contaminated. It's not waste. 20 0 -- I question your reading of "immediately" and 21 " waste" both, and -- 12 A Well, they said to finish processing the waste 23 material you've got on hand. Part of it was waste for 24 over 10 years; part of it was in-process material. They 25 also said, "You can't process it in Utah." O
7 LARSEN - CROSS 510- J r 1 l 1 1 So we take it over to Wyoming, the Utah material. j L 2 We; finish'iteup, and-then we sent it out, so we don't break 3 their processing rule -- suspension in Utah. We also get 4 rid-of it because that's what they told us to do.- And so'
]
5 that's what happened there. q 6 0 I just read you the provisions of your Utah j l 7 . license regarding transportation, and you seem to agree ! 8 that Utah had something else in mind other than what you. 9 in~ fact did in transporting it to Evanston; isn't that j
. 10' correct? ;
I 11 A There's a question about use and possession and 12- transfer that we've already discussed a couple of days -- 13 yesterday, I believe. l
.l 14 Q Isn't it also true, now, the question I asked 15 you was whether you did not in fact process more than 150 ,
16 pounds of depleted uranium -- ] 17 A No. ! i 18 0 -- in Wyoming during 19877 l 19 A No, I didn't. The 150 pounds was the material l l 20 bought in 1987 from Nuclear Metals and was possessed in ; i 21 Wyoming. j 22 Q There was that; plus there was also the stuff 23 that came from Utah. 24 A~ That was Utah possession. 25 Q But you used it in Wyoming, is that not true? O
LARSEN - CROSS 511 f -- .. - - l' You processed 1it. My question wasn't possession. 2 A Yes, we processed it in Wyoming. 3 Q You processed it in. Wyoming. You gave --
'4 A .Right, but it was bought in Utah in 1986, and 5 it's-150 pounds per year.
6 Q Didn't you also show Mr. Griffin records which 7 are included in the OI report which-show that you shipped 8 211 pounds that was processed in Evanston in 1987? 9 A. It was 150 pounds that were purchased in'1987, 10 and that's the only Wyoming material that was-reported,
-11 because that's the only material that was of Wyoming 12 possession under the general license there. The extra 13 61 or whatever pounds was Utah material, and he wanted that, 14 -and'so I gave him his records. He put the 150 pounds and 15- the 61 pounds together. I didn't do that. The 61 1 16 keep separate in Utah.
17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Pardon me. Let me interrupt 18 one point. There was a description of transportation a 19 while back, and I had -- my own impression was that that 20 transportation, the method you used to transport goods only 21' applied when you shipped to Lindon. And there was some 12 follow-up questions which implied that that was how you 23 shipped to Evanston, and I'd like you to clarify whether 24 you used the same method of transporting materials to 25 Evanston that you used to transport them to Lindon, the O
LARSEU - CROSS 512 bh 1 one you just described several minutes ago, you know, lack 2 of packaging and -- 3 THE WITNESS: Right. 4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- all that kind of thing. 5 THE WITNESS: Right. 6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: When you shipped to Evanston, 7 did you do it the same way, or did you -- 8 THE WITNESS: We were more careful because we 9 were going a longer distance there. The material, I 10 believe, was put in a drum, but I'm not exactly sure. 11 You'd have to ask Kevin how that was packaged and that, 12 but it was --
-s 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: He'll be here, and we will.
N)"' 14 THE WITNESS: Yes. 15 It should be noted, though, that it was safe, i 16 and it was done carefully. It probably wasn't done 17 according to DOT packaging and that, but it was done 18 carefully. 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, did it follow the 20 requirements of that particular section of the Utah 21 Regulations that's cited in your license? 22 THE WITNESS: I'm not exactly sure what they says, 23 but I would -- we just did what we thought was reasonably 24 safe and being very careful about it, and there was no 25 spill, and we did it successfully. So we may have been m
$ h %d l
t.: i
; LARSEN - CROSS 513 p
1 in violation of some regulation, which we should have done 2 but probably didn't do, but we were reasonably careful and 3 tried to be as careful as we could on that. 4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay, thank you.
-5 Sorry for the interruption.
6 MS. HODGDON: No, that's fine. Just to complete 7 Judge Boechhoefer's thought.there, then --
- 8. BY MS. HODGDON:
9 Q - ,you are stating, are you not, that your 10 transportation from Gold Key warehouse or Gold Key facility 11 to Lindon was the same as the transportation from Lindon 12 to Evanston, that you used much the same method. 13 A No, I'm not saying that. 14 0 You're not? 15 A No. 16- 0 What are you saying? 17 A I'm saying we were very careful because it was 18 a longer distance to Evanston. So we were much more 19 careful than just, you know, putting it in the back and 20 making sure that things were sealed up and taking it a mile 21 or two or three down the road. 22 Q And it was your understanding that Kevin carefully 25 put this material, whatever it might have been -- 24 A Yes. 25 0 -- in drums and put it in his car --
.. O
LARSEM - CROSS 514 7\ k_) 1 A Right. 2 0 -- and drove it to Evanston -- 3 A Right. 4 0 -- where he processed it. 5 Did you instruct him regarding how to do that? 6 A No. I just said, "Be careful in doing that." 7 Q Had Kevin been trained either by you or anyone 8 else in transportation and transportation requirements? 9 A I guess not. 10 Q Now I want to come back just one more time for 11 this sentence where it says that you processed 150 pounds 12 of DU into 300 pounds of UAA catalyst in Wyoming in 1987. 13 A Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 14 Q The fact is, is it not, that you processed'more 15 than 150 pounds. You processed 211 pounds, at least, but 16 your dispute is as to what you attribute it to, Wyoming 17 or Utah? In other words, the material was there. It was 18 in fact processed; was it not? 19 A I think we understand what each other's position 20 is on that. 21 Q I think this is a misleading statement, though, 22 in that it talks about processing, and you have agreed that 23 you processed more than 150 pounds. 14 A And you know what I think on that. We've talked 25 about that. O
LARSEN - CROSS 515 i b8 h 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Have you put that on the 2 record so that --- 3 MS. HODGDON: My problem is I need a record of 4 it. 5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. So do we. 6 THE WITNESS: A record of what, now? 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: You were mentioning that you 8 had explained something to Ms. Hodgdon, but we don't know 9 what that is, and we're the ones who have to have the 10 record before.us. 11 THE WITNESS: What I'm referring to is that the 12 understanding that we've talked about here that the
,' 13 material.was Utah materir.1, not Evanston material, and my 14 understanding of.the regulation was it's 150 pounds per 15 year, and that's what I kept to it, and it's a question 16 of transfer and possession and things like that, l
L . 17 interpretation of the regulation. 18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: All of your work on the 19 material beyond 150 was done -- the processing was done 20 in Utah or -- 21 THE WITNESS: No. The processing was done in 22 Evanston, because Utah had suspended our license and 23 said, " Don't process in Utah, but get rid of this 24 material." 25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So at the Evanston location, O. m- n-_--_--_-_--------------- - - - - - - - - - - -----.u. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
l' LARSEN:- CROSS 516 l I then, you're saying you did process more than 150. 2 THE WITNESS: We did process it at Evanston, 3 finish it up, and then send it off.- 4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: But that's more than 150. 5 THE WITNESS: Yes. But we counted that material 6 as Utah material. Now, we could have'gone and done that 7 in Arizona or any other state -- 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes, but you did it at the 9 same location -- 10 THE WITNESS: But we did it at Evanston. 11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- that you did the other -- 12 THE WITNESS: That's right. 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- 150. So -- 0 14 THE WITNESS: That's right. 15 MS. HODGDON: Okay, well, I think we cleared that 16 up, then. 17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. 18 BY MS. 'isDGDON : 19 Q Mr. Larsen, in your mind, then, the statement 20 would be correct if it read, "We worked almost a year in 21 the facility and processed 150 pounds of Wyoming material 22 and 50 or 60 pounds of - " 23 A Utah material. 24 0 "-- Utah material in Wyoming - " 25 A That's right. O
ILARSEN - CROSS 517. .b -
.1 Q- "-- into UAA catalyst."
2 A Right. 3 0 Is that correct? 4 A That's right. 5 0 All right. I'll try to move along here. 6 I have a question again about Nevada. I think 7 that last word should be "It" on the bottom of page 2, 8 last sentence beginning on page 2: "It came forth in 9 the enforcement conference that work had also been done 10 in California and Nevada, going back 10-11 years ago." 11 It's California that you mean 10 or~11 years, 12 isn' t that correct? 13 A That's right.
'O 14 Q And in fact, the Nevada processing was done more 15 recently --
16 A Yes. 17 Q -- probably in 1986. 18 A Right. 19 0 "The batch in Nevada was a very small amount, 20 mostly drying out crystals done in Nevada so as not to 21 violate the Utah jurisdiction." 12 A Right. 23 Q Later in this same statement you say -- I'll see 24 if I can find the place. You say at the top of page 8, 25 "I processed a small batch, 14 pounds of UAA in Nevada, O
LARSEN -- CROSS 518 1 mostly just the' drying out stage of the crystals." 2 A.: .Where is thi$ in? 3 Q Top.of page 8. 3A- 4 A Okay. 5 0 :Theniyo~u 'say there that it was done in December 6 of 1985 and was complete in one day, out on a road in the it 7 desert near -- I take it that's " Mesquite," Nevada. L l 8 A Nevada,_yes. 9 Q Is it " Mesquite"? 10 A -Yes. l l' 11 Q I can't read it. l l l 12 A Right. 13 Q Nevada.
'O- '14 You say there_that it was 14 pounds. I believe 15 that yesterday on the record, and I haven't found the place, 16 but I heard you say "six."
17 A Six pounds of metal -- 18 Q- That's what I was going to ask. 19 A -- fourteen pounds of AA. 20 Q You processed six pounds of metal into 14 pounds 21 of UAA -- 22 A Approximately, yes. 23 0 -- in the desert in Nevada in December of 1986, 24 and according to your testimony yesterday, that was the 25 only processing that you did in Nevada. L OL
LARSEN - CROSS 519 1 A Rjaht. 2 O Is that correct? 3 A Right. 4 . Q Okay.
'5 A That was a small process of drying out, too. It 6 wasn't the full six steps.
7 -Q Okay, I understood that. It took a day. And 8 so it couldn't have been much processing because --- 9 A That's right. 10 0 -- it took only a day, and -- 11 A That's right. 12 Q -- I understand that. ! 13 How did you know that you'had six. pounds of metal, l O- 14 then, if -- did you mean to say that it was six pounds of 1 15 metal approximately when it started out, and you may have 16 based that judgment on the fact that you had 14 pounds when 17 you finished? i 18 A That's right. It's 50 per cent approximately ) i 19 of metal and 50 per cent of AA. { 20 O But so that you weren't in fact using metal; you 21 were using something else. l I 22 A That's right. It was crystals that we were drying I 23 out. 24 Q When you transported it, was it in solution? 25 A No. It's crystals. .O
I LARSEN - CROSS 520 1 Q What state was it in? I don't mean Nevada. 2 A It was in crystal -- 3 Q I mean what -- 4 A It was crystals. 5 0 Crystals. 6 A Yes. 7 Q How was it packaged? 8! A Drum, or a bucket in a drum, carefully. I 9 Q Do you believe that to be in conformance with i 10 the requirements of your Utah license? 11 A No. Not now. Well, no, it wasn't up to the 12 regulations probably. It was careful, though, and eq 13 reasonable. 14 0 Okay. Moving down to the second full paragraph 15 on page 3 where it says -- on page 5, item 2, November 10, 16 1987, CAL, was "a failure by the licensee to require 17 individuals who were to perform the processing of the 18 licensed material on hand to wear air samplers." 19 Then you say, "This is not true. We did wear 20 the lapel air sampler." 21 A That's right. 22 O "I've already shown them," et cetera. 23 Isn't it true that it was only Kevin Noack who 24 wore the air sampler? , l 25 A That's right. We just had one. And there were
/' l
(_]- ! I 1 l
r.:. h LARSEN - CROSS. 521- l [oi i . 1 two people there. So we did try to comply.as-best we could'. l 2 We didn't have two air lapel samplers.-
< a. . .
3- O Didn't you also testify yesterday that.you only 4 had it-'in time for the1 decontamination and it hadn't been j 5 wornLprevjeusly?- 6 A Well, yes, that's right.
- p. 7 Q Okay. Thank you.
8 Then I think I'll go onto page 4. i 9 A We hadn't used it'previously.to that. I 10 0 Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 11 A Okay. Go ahead. 12 Q Then I want to come.down-to on page 4. Page 4 13 is all right. I'll move to page 5. O 14 The item starting on page 4 regarding, "We decided , 15 to:try another lab in Wyoming called Energy Labs because j 16 TMA was expensive and slow. Their results were relayed 17' to us on December 9th and 10th were much higher,"220 - " Ib -- it looks like to me. j 19 A Yes.
~
20 Q And that looks like " milligrams," but I think-l 21 it must mean " micrograms." 22 A " Micrograms," yes. 23 0 "-- as micrograms. Then when they retested and i 24 got 88 - " 25 A Sixty-eight.
)
i
LARSEN - CROSS 522 s
]
i b*")k .J% l 1 'O Oh,"68,'okay, 68. Mine says "88," but I think I 2 it's maybe filled in. That's bad reproduction. L 3 'A- .Okay. j i 4 .Q " -- 68'on December 23rd." Was this sampling i 5 'for the same individual? ! i 6 A Yes. It was the same sample. They did it one 1 7- ' time at the end of the day, and then they retested, as I ; 8 understand it. It was around Christmastide. They retested j 9' it the next day and got 68. So that made us a little j 10 leery that there was such a change in the number in one j 11 day. .And we started wondering whether they were -- you ; i 12 know, what was wrong, why were we getting all these numbers, whether they were doing a good job or what. h 13
'~\J '
14- 0 Was that result of 220 ever made known to the . I 15 NRC? 16 A No, because that's not what'they reported. They 17 said, "We have a preliminary result of 220." I called them j 18 up and wanted to know what the results were, and they 19 raid, "Well, we have an initial one of 220." But the ; 20 official one they wanted to stand behind was 68, I believe. 21 Q Did they explain why they had such a discrepancy? 12 A No. They didn't know either. That's why they 23 retested. 24 O And so that's why you sought to get another lab, , I 25 or was that -- OL l
LARSEN:- CROSS 523. y 1 A Well, we -- 2 O Oh, that was the lab that you got another. .That 1 3 was your second lab, wasn't it? Or maybe --
-4 A No. That was TMA.
5 Q- Oh, that was TMA. Oh, because TMA were the people , j 6 that.gave you that -- 7 A That's right. j l 8 'Q- All right. Now, I wanted to get back into this ) 9 whole business that came up yesterday and the day before j 10 about the discontinuation-of the taking of samples, because ; i 11 there are various discrepancies in the record regarding i 12 that. g,, 13 In your interview with OI in a signed statement
\ )' 14 on page 8 of your signed statement, you say.--
I 15 A By the way, Ann, this is a very confusing time 16 right here as to what was going on, and there were very 17 intimidating questions being asked. And I didn't know what
'18 they wanted me to say or anything like that, and for me 19 to cross out and sign that I didn't think they were 20 contaminated -- I don't know why that appears in the OI 21 record, because I certainly do think they were contaminated, 22 and the report that the lab says they were probably 23 contaminated. So I don't know why that crossing-out is 24 in there.
25 O I don't know anything about that, and I'm not O
o ,n ' LARSEN - CROSS 524' ' ' bp ' ' c ;J .. L 1 asking a question about that anyway. I'm asking about 2 something else.. 3~ Q- But my point is that it was-a confusion there, 4 but go ahead. 1 5 . A' I'in asking where it says, "I discontinued taking 6 samples for myself on December 30th, 1987, because I 7 anticipated lower readings,. and I did not want to bear the 8 expense of unnecessary testing," so there you say you l l 9 discontinued taking -- L . 10- JUDGE BECHHOEFER: December 31, I think it says, 11 but -- 12 MS. HODGDON: I said December 31. 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Oh, I'm sorry; I thought you 14 said 30. 15 MS. HODGDON: I said 31st. 16 vDDGE BECHHOEFER: Oh, okay. 17 MS. HODGDON: Thirty-one, 31st. I8 ' JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. 19 MS. HODGDON: Okay? 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I misunderstood. 21 MS. HODGDON: Yes. All right, fine. 22 BY MS. HODGDON: 23 Q I just wanted to straighten the record out on 24 that, Mr. Larsen. Do you have any recollection today of 25 what happened with that whole sampling program under O ______-___mm-_________-._m-__m______m _ _- . - _ _ .-. _ ._m ._.
.LARSEN'- CROSS. '525 h
1 -the CAL's, when -- what samples you took and when? 2 A Yes. We sampled every three days like we were 3 supposed to, and when we got the information back on the-4 8th that the box was broken, and they said, "You want us o 5 to sample them? You want us to test them?" and I said, 6 " Yeah,.go ahead," and they said, "They are very high, and 7 they're probably contaminated."
=8 I said, "Will you please send me some. certified, 9 clean bottles."
10 And they said, "Well, we don't certify them,'but 11 we'll send you the bottles that we do use." 12 And they sent them Federal Express, and we gave 13 ' urine ~ samples and sent them back. And we threw those O 14' others out because of.the suspect bottling, being 15- contaminated. 16 O The sworn statement given to OI from which I just 17 . read says that "On March 10th, 1988,-I resumed sampling." 18 A On when? 19 Q March 10th. 20 A Okay. 21 O "-- I resumed sampling." 22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: January 10th. 23 MS. HODGDON: Oh, I mean -- excuse me. January p 24 10th. I'm sorry. I'm reading " March" above. 25 The written statement of March the 3rd, 1988, L O
LARSEN - CROSS 526 b$^3 (_) j 1 says, "On January 10th - " -- thank you - "-- 1988, I ) 2 resumed sampling." . l 3 BY MS. HODGDON: 4 Q Now, that was a statement that you made -- 5 A Oh, you mean -- okay. 6 Q -- two months after this took place, and now 7 you're telling me that that statement isn't right. 8 A No, that's right. We did resume on the -- in 9 fact -- yes, that's right. We got the bottles. We asked ; 10 for them on the 8th. They came the 9th or the 10th, and it we gave a sample -- what was it? -- the 10th and the 13th? 12 O But I think it was your -- you wouldn't have to l 13 resume sampling because it's been your testimony before, 14 has it not, that you took the samples on the 6th and 15 discarded them. 16 A That's right. So we resumed it on the 10th. 17 0 You didn't resume it. You were in'the same 18 program, were you not? 19 A Well, okay. Excuse my word there. We're in the 20 same program, yes. 21 Q So is it now your testimony that what you did 22 was to take samples every three days as required but you 23 discarded the ones of the 6th -- 24 A That's right. 25 0 -- because you thought that they were O E --
LARSEN - CROSS 527 1 contaminated. e 2: A. They were' suspect, right. 3 O And then -- 4 A We wanted good containers. 5 Q Then you resume. d 6- Don't you think that it would have been adequate 7 to have used other bottles? I mean, if your feeling was 8 that the containers were --
~
9 A I wanted a surety on the bottles, and so I asked
-l 10 them for their bottles, knowing that they were the experts 11 in doing this.
12, O But you did throw out what could have been a
'^ 13 very valuable sample.
14 .A But they were suspect. 15 O They weren't suspect. It was the other ones. 16 A All my bottling -- I lost confidence in all the 17 bottles I was getting, my bottles, the pharmacy bottles. 18 And this was about the time that I was learning too of all 19 of the things that can contaminate a sample, that the 20 fluorimetry tests will not reveal the correct readings. 21 And there are many things that can contaminate. And I 22 learned this from these labs. 23 So I said, "Well, you send me some bottles that 24 you know are clean." 25 Q Mr. Larsen, is it now your testimony that you O
L LARSEN - CROSS 528.
)
1 discarded the samples of January 6th, concluding.that they l 2 were probably contaminated because.other samples that you 3 had.taken and put in similar bottles had been contaminated? 4 'A That's right. They were contamination -- we felt 5 there.were contamination of many bottles. We didn't know 6 what bottles were clean. So we throw them all out and ask 7 'for their bottles. 8 Q But I thought that what Energy Labs told you was 9 - a different thing, that the box that you shipped them in 10 was broken and that -- 11 A The samples. 12 0 -- therefore there might be cross-contamination. 13- A They told us that it arrived broken open,.that
.: O-14 the liquid was spilled out. I guess they had some~ liquid 15 left over.to test in them.
16 Q Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 17 A But there was a question whether there was 18 contamination. 19 0 Whether there was cross-contamination. 20 A I guess so, whatever -- 21 Q Broken -- 22 A I don't know if it was cross-contamination or 23 whether the bottles were contaminated or what or whether -- 24 0 Isn't it true that the breaking open of the box 25 would not add uranium contamination to urine in all O
LARSEN - CROSSL 529 1 probability?' I mean -- 2 -A Well, there are.many things -- 13 0 -- to the best of your knowledge? 4 A Ann, there are many things that can give a false i - 5 reading in the fluorimeter; is that correct? Lanolin, 6 amines,. soap, stuff like that -- many things can 7 contaminate. 8 Q Didn't Dr. Fisher testify that they were 9 routinely. screened for that?
'10 A That's not what Energy Labs was telling me.
11 .They said there were many contaminations, that give false 12 results. 13 0 I still fail to see the connection about the l 14~ . broken box an Energy Labs -- 15 A Well, the point is that.there are many things 16 that can give-contamination to or give a false reading
- 17. or a suspect reading to the material, and if the box is
'18 broken open, you don't know what has been in there, 19 contaminating the sample..
20 Q But you can't anticipate that the next box is 21 going to break open, can you? 22 A No, that's right. So you ask for a good 23 container, and you package it securely. 24 Q Don't you now understand that a more reasonable 25 thing to have done, having obtained the January 6th O
O'b 1 'LARSEN - CROSS 530~ 1.
- b ,
I ' samples was to have:gone ahead and sent them, whether~in 2 the bottles in-which they were originally collected, or l' in other bottles once they_were obtained? 4 A We wanted to.get correct readings because our. 5 bottles were suspect, and the pharmacy bottles were 6 suspect because of organic compounds. And so we asked for l l 7 ' their bottles. That's what we did. l 8 I would want to get certain readings and not have 9 to worry about suspect containers. 10 0 Isn't it true, then, that you unilaterally 1 11 decided not to comply with the CAL based -- 12 A No, I -- 13 0 -- on your own feeling, belief that'the Energy 14' Labs' data represented something other than high readings 15 caused by uranium in the urine of your workers and 16 yourself?
~17 A I didn't sit down and say, "I think I will 18 violate the CAL and ask for clean bottles." I was more 19 concerned with getting correct results than anything else.
20 I wanted to have the -- well, I wanted to try to do the 21 right thing and get the correct results on those things. 22 O But you do realize -- l 23 A I didn't sit down and say, "I will violate the 24 CAL." 15 0 You do realize, do you not, that the high O
'l
LARSEN:- CROSS 531
~1 readings could have been caused by uranium,in the_ urine i
- 2 and not by --
h 3 A Not when they're broken open. 4 0 -- contamination. 5 A Well, I guess it's possible, but they are 6 certainly suspect, aren't they? -- especially when one of 7 them reads 68.and then 286 or something like that. I mean, 8 they're just all over the place. 9 Q Any contamination in the bottles was -- any 10 cross-contamination was from uranium already there, was 11 it not? 12- A No, it wasn't. No. That contamination can be 13' many things. ()- 14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen -- 15 THE WITNESS: Yes. 16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- let me clarify something. 17 THE WITNESS: Yes. 18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: You said that you thought all' 19 of the bottles in your possession -- 20 THE WITNESS: Yes. 21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- were suspect. 22 THE WITNESS: Right. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, isn't it true that the 24 one that the lab raised a question about was suspect 25 because it had been broken during shipment? D l'
r Y ( LARSEN- CROSS 532 40! 1 .THE WITNESS: Yes. That's -- 2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So what effect would that have
~
~
'3 on the others that hadinever been shipped that were in your t
$4 possession?
5' THE WITNESS: -If they were suspect, they were 6 nin the same bottles that were in the box that -- in other 7- words,'the bottles-were all taken from the same' box. 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER:- Yes, but weren't they suspect 9 -because'they were-broken in' shipment? 10 THE WITNESS: Yes. Suspect for that, but also 11 it was suspect for the box of bottles being contaminated. 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Were all the boxes being 13 shipped -- 14 THE~ WITNESS:- In fact, as I remember, Judge ISL Bechhoefer, these were in pharmacy bottles, the plastic 16 bottles. So in that way they were suspect too. 17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Weren't some of those bottles 18 back in your laboratory or your facility? 19 THE WITNESS: At the first they were, and I think 20 we switched over to pharmacy bottles when they gave us 21 readings.that we_couldn't interpret. We couldn't find out 22 where there was a high reading from because there wasn't 23 that dust floating around anywhere. So where did the high , 1 24 readings come from? And so we suspected that they might 25 be from contaminated bottles. LO
533 LARSEN - CROSS- [ Ly h o 1- So we went from our bottles to pharmacy bottles L 2 Jfrom thinking.that they were clean. But then we found out
'3 that the amines and organic chemicals can-fluoresce and 1
? 4 give false readings. So those were: suspect. So?I;said, 5 "Please, would you send me some bottles that'you know are-6 clean, certified clean." 7 And they sent me some bottles. They said, "We 8 won't certify them, but we think that they are pretty 9 clean." 10 And we then gave a specimen and got the results 11 of less than five. 12 We were changing bottles when we found out that. gg 13 there were many things that can contaminate fluorescent V 14 readings that can fluoresce. So that's why we were , 15 searching for a good container to give good readings. 16 Is that understandable? 17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, I hope so. 18 THE WITNESS: Does that answer your question? 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: 'I hope so. I'm still -- it 20 was my impression you shipped one or two bottles at a time 21 and that they were broken in shipment -- 22 THE WITNESS: They were. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- and therefore, the primary 24 cause of bad readings would have been the broken bottles 25 in shipment. But I can't see what that had to do ()
LARSEN - CROSS 534 b?" ( ~ 5 , r I with~the other bottles.that weren't shipped. l l 2 THE WITNESS: .Well, and we.were finding out'-- ! 3 I-believe when they called us at this time,.I was asking 4 about contamination, and they~would say, " Yeah, you can j 5 get contamination, from lanolin, from amines, organic' 6 chemicals." l
- 7. And.I said, "Well, if that's-the case, give me- l l
8 some good bottles."
? JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. But'this is all i 10- . completely different from the'one or two that were-broken 11 in shipment, I mean.
12 THE WITNESS: Yes. If that's -- yes. 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes.
-14 .THE WITNESS: If I understand you. .l 15 JUDGE KLINE: -Were there other high readings, i
16 i.e., not traceable to -- l
-l 17 THE WITNESS: Yes. .j 18 JUDGE KLINE: -- broken bottles -- l 19 THE WITNESS: Yes.
20- JUDGE KLINE: -- that were confusing to you? 21 THE WITNESS: Yes. j i 12 JUDGE KLINE: Okay, so there were cases where l 23 urine arrived in sample bottles intact. 'l l 24 THE WITNESS: Right. j 15 JUDGE KLINE: And not suspect of contamination l 1 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - _ _ __- _ - - u
7_ LARSEN - CROSS 535 b?"i i )
\_I 1 from the box or spillage or anything else --
2 THE WITNESS: Yes, yes. 3 JUDGE KLINE: -- and those samples were high and 4 confusing in your mind or interpretable in your mind. 5 THE WITNESS: We couldn't understand where they 6 were coming from. 7 JUDGE KLINE: Okay, I understand that. But there 8 was really two cases: 1) the case of the broken bottles -- 9 THE WITNESS: That's right. 10 JUDGE KLINE: -- the other, the case of -- 11 THE WITNESS: Of contaminated bottle suspect. 32 JUDGE KLINE: -- bottles that just had an r- 13 unexplainable result in your mind. 14 THE WITNESS: Right. 15 JUDGE KLINE: Now, your sample bottles, the ones 16 you used, the pharmacy bottles -- were they stored in your 17 laboratory facility? 18 THE WITNESS: Yes. 19 JUDGE KLINE: Prior to use? 20 THE WITNESS: Yes. 21 JUDGE KLINE: They were. 22 THE WITNESS: And we -- you see, this is the first 23 time we were doing these urinalysis. We didn't know they 24 were done by fluorimetry. We didn't know how they were 25 doing them, and when we learned they were about fluorimetry, O
LARSEN - CROSS 536 bO
%/
1 then we learned something more about it. Then we learned 2 about the pollution of fluorimetry that can occur. So it 3 was a process of gaining experience as we go along. 4 JUDGE KLINE: I understand. 5 Did they spend a long time in your facility, say, 6 more of -- 7 THE WITNESS: Yes. 8 JUDGE KLINE: -- months rather than days? 9 THE WITNESS: Years. 10 JUDGE KLINE: Years rather than days, in your 11 facility where you were processing. 12 THE WITNESS: In the facility where we were storing our -- a
-) 13 14 JUDGE KLINE: That is the same --
15 THE WITNESS: -- waste. Yes. 16 JUDGE KLINE: But the same building where -- 17 THE WITNESS: That's right. Where there was -- 18 JUDGE KLINE: -- bulk material was being handled. 19 THE WITNESS: -- suspect and a source of the 20 contamination that could explain it better than exposure. 21 JUDGE KLINE: And the urine samples -- were they 22 actually taken in the same facility where you did your 23 work? 24 THE WITNESS: That's right. 25 JUDGE KLINE: They were. In the same room, say, O
k LARSEN - CROSS 537' b?7 D
- 1 as;where'you --
- 2 THE WITNESS
- .Same building.
3 -JUDGE ~KLINE: -- the.same building where you did' 4 processing or handling of waste. That's where you.also 5 Ltook your samples. 6 THE WITNESS: Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative' response.) 7 JUDGE ~KLINE: Okay. 8 THE WITNESS: And'that would account for'a 9 possible explanation for the high readings.. i o 10- JUDGE KLINE: If to-the extent that there is-any; 11 contamination, and it's hard to tell from the record, but 3
-12 .might it not justLbe simply uranium?
~
13 THE WITNESS: That's right. It could have been
~
14 that. It could have-been fluorescing-dust or whatever, 15 ' things.like-that, from -- well, okay. I
'16 BY MS. HODGDON:
f-17 Q Mr. Larsen, with all that's been said about this j 18 bioassny program, do you believe that your implementation g I 19 of the bioassay program devised by Dr. Spitzberg in the 20 CAL's to which you agreed was in conformity with those ; 21 CAL's? ) 22 A Well, we were doing the CAL's as to what we 23 thought we were doing as reasonable as possible. Now that 24 I know more about it, I know in the future what is j 25 expected, what -- for instance, that a baseline is I
~ LARSEN.-~ CROSS' 538 I I
jq
' I bb[
1 important, that.you've got tol watch our for contamination, l- ?2 that'you've got to package very carefully. All of this' 13 builds up experience, and so I think as we-gain experience, 4 we can do a lot better. Then you'll look back and say to 5 'yourself, "Well, I.was not doing what I should have.done,' 6 but I will do it in the future." 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen.-- 8 THE WITNESS: Yes. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- at the time you signed the 10 various CAL's or agreed to them, were you given any sort 11 of instruction as to how to take the samples and how to - 12 ship them, the --
- 13. THE WITNESS: Well, I was told basically what 14 it says in.those CAL's, but at the first I didn't know that 15 you had to get them -- I mean, there was such a fast 16 excretion rate to some of them. I learned these things 17 as I went by, as time went on, and I made mistakes. As 18 I made mistakes, I learne' from them and didn't repeat 19 them.
20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, no one sat down with 21 you and said, "Now, Mr. Larsen, you've got - " 22 THE WITNESS: They didn't explain at all at 23 first, no. They just said -- 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. 25 THE WITNESS: -
"Do this, this, and this." And O
Fr .- , 7 1 l p 4 . H LARSEN.- CROSS; .539-l E~b}w s :l} ! I then when'you ran into trouble, you learned from that. i 2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: During,your operations, had
-i 3 you.ever taken' urine samples before? l
)
4 'THE %ITNESS: Under the specific license they. 1 t D 5 wanted me to do it every'six months. We~did a few of them.. l 6 We got'less than five readings every time. And so we l l 7 skipped a few of them we should have done, and now -- we L. < a didn't~think'e w had a problem. That's~why we didn't 9- continue doing them as we should have, because they were 10 all less than 5. 13 MS. HODGDON: Yes. I'd like to follow up on that l 1 12 if I'may. l 33 BY MS. HODGDON: p/
'\_ -. -1 14' O. -One question I wanted to ask was whether you i
. 15 didn't think.it was necessary to report the breaking up l i
16 in.the bottles. Weren't you required by your CAL to report- j 17 the results to the NRC as soon as you received them? 18 A I should have in retrospect reported that. , j 19 0 Yes. j l 20- A I understand that now. When I was in that l
- 21 situation, I thought all they were in want of was reliable 22 results. So I did not report it because it was not 23 reliable and proceeded immediately to get reliable results.
24 Q Don't you think that Dr. Spitzberg would be in j 25 a better position to make a judgment about the reliability i LO l
\
LARSEN - CROSS 540 i
.(\
b3v 1 of the results, he being an authority in these matters, l l l 2 than you, who profess not to know very much about urine l l 3 sampling -- 4 A I would guess so. ! l l 5 0 -- bioassays? 6 A I would guess so, but I don't know how -- I didn't l 7 know how he thought at that time. I didn't know the- l l 8 priority or what was important, what was not important. 9 I thought the importance was on reliable results that you 10 could say definitely this is what was in there. ; 11 Q I have another question, and that's along the 12 lines of the question that Judge Bechhoefer was just asking 13 about whether you weren't required previously under specific ; 14 license to take urine samples from your workers. 15 A Yes, we were. , i' 16 O And I -- 17 A We were lax on that. l 18 0 -- can see that they were always less than 5, 19 and I don't see why, if you were using the same contaminated 20 bottles -- 21 A I don't either. , i 22 Q -- you got less than 5, and suddenly, here you l 23 are over in Wyoming. You go back apparently to the same l 24 place where they're the same bottles, and you're getting 25 what you consider to be anomalous and inexplicable readings.
)
- _ - - - - i
i LARSEN - CROSS 541' I e D ) 1 A Isn't that a mystery. l 2 Q .Ye s . l I 3 A I don't know either.
~
4 0 I have here -- a lot of the materials that you
.5 gave us which is in your Exhibit, I believe, 1,-there are !
1 6~ a lot of bioassay results in there, and I have one in front ! 7 of me here that says, "TMA," Thermoanalytical, Inc. You'll 8 never find it. The pages are not numbered, but it's toward 9 the back.. 10 A What's the date on it? 11 Q. It's dated June 16th, 1986.
]
12 A' Okay. 13 Q It's 'one of several in there, I believe, but I { O- 14 just happened upon this one because it has a name of-l 1 15 somebody that you didn't identify yesterday as being one 16' of your workers, J-u-h-a. Is that -- 17 A Juha. 18 0 .Juha. Juha Tamminen. I 19 A Right. i 20 Q And Kevin Noack and J. Larsen all are less 21 than 5. 22 A Right. 23 He helped clean up for a few days. That's all. 24 He didn't process anything or work in any length of time. 25 0 Was he a foreign student? O l
7 LARSEN - CROSS 542 1 A Yes. 2 O What nationality, do you know? 3 A Finland. 4 O A Finn, I wondered about the name. 5 So he only helped process for a few days, but 6 you sampled him nevertheless, and he -- 7 A He didn't process. He cleaned up. 8 O I mean, he helped clean up. Excuse me. 9 A Right. 10 0 And he had less than 5, as did everybody else. 11 , At what stage of the clean-up was this, at the Utah 12 facility, June 16th? 13 A Well, just a regular clean-up after a batch. f-) 14 0 Oh, it was a clean-up after a batch. 15 A Right. 16 O And it was not under the Utah suspension order. 17 A No. 18 0 Which came later. 19 A Right. 20 0 Okay. 21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I see two of these in the file 22 here. Is that all there is of this -- 23 MS. HODGDON: I believe that's all there is. 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: One dated June 16th, 1986; 25 the other, 9th of July, 1985. rm L) l l o-
LARSEN - CROSS 543
.b?"
V 1 MS. HODGDON: That's right. I could not say for 2 sure whether that's all there are, but I just went through 3 that, and that's all I recall. 4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, to the extent someone 5 needs to check the record, at least -- (Pause.) 6 /// 7 /// 8 /// 9 /// 10 /// 11 /// 12 /// 13 /// O 14 /// 15 /// 16 /// 17 /// 18 /// 19 /// 20 /// 21 /// 22 /// 23 /// 24 /// 25 /// O
LARSEN - CROSS I ( T-4'MC 1 MS. HODGDON: Yes. It's hard to work with these 2 since they're in no particular order. 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: This occurs in Licensee 4 Exhibit 1. 5 MS. HODGDON: Yes. 6 BY MS. HODGDON: 7 Q The confirmation-of-action letter of December 31, 8 1987, I call your attention to that. There are four items 9 in it. 10 A What date was this, Ann? 11 Q December 31, 1987. That was the one I was just 12 asking you about a minute ago. 13 A Right. (m.
\) No. 1 says, "Immediately cease all activities 14 Q 15 involving depleted uranium." And No. 4 is the one I was 16 interested in.
17 I would read you No. 3, as well. It says, 18 " Collect additional urine samples for urinalysis only from 19 the two individuals identified above, at a frequency of once 20 every three days until such time as the results of two 21 consecutive samples are less than 30 micrograms per liter. 22 All urine samples are to be voided into containers known 23 to be free of uranium contamination, and the date and time 24 of voiding are to be documented." 25 A Um-hm. (Affirmative response.) O 1
LARSEN - CROSS 545 l T C "
~M2 1 Q ...known to be free of uranium" --
2 A And we. thought they were known to be -- 3 Q -- " contamination," it says. 4 A -- received in pharmacy bottles, i 5 Q Even though they had been stored in your Lindon l 6 warehouse. l l 7 A No, no,~these were pharmacy. They were' bought l 8 at the pharmacy. They were new bottles at the pharmacy. 1 9 Q These were new bottles at the pharmacy after the 10 31st. 11 A Plastic bottles, yes, as opposed to my glass 12 bottles, which we did perform a test on. And I believe it 13 was December 8 or something like that. Our results showed p%.) 14 that there was some contamination in those bottles, because 15 we split the sample. 16 Q Oh, I see. So we're talking about three sets of
-17 bottles. We're talking about the Lindon bottles --
18 A Which were glass. 19 Q -- which were glass, the pharmacy bottles, and
- 20. then the ones you got from Energy Lab, which is the third 21 set.
22 A That's right. 23 Q So you thought that these were uncontaminated. 24 All right. 25 A Right.
LARSEN - CROSS 546
'(q/ ,M.3 1 0 .Then it says, 4, " Submit copies of the results of 2 urine sample measurements to this office as you receive 3 them."
4 A Right. 5 Q' But you didn't do that; is that correct? 6 A I didn't think that suspect information was 7 wanted. I wanted to get quick, fast, reliable information. 8 So that's what I thought was wanted. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, you in effect, I 10 take it, were reading in the word " reliable" before " urine". 11 THE WITNESS: Yes, I was. 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Even though the word wasn't p 13 there.
%s 14 THE WITNESS: The word wasn't there. I realize 15 now in retrospect that they want everything known. I 16 realized we've got to do a baseline first. I realize many 17 things that I didn't know before were important.
18 BY MS. HODGDON: 19 Q How did you understand "as you receive them," in-20 any event? Didn't that mean immediately, or soon, or 21 something like that to you? 22 A Yes. 23 Q But you didn't comply with that order, that not 24 withstanding. 25 A Well, because it wasn't reliable.
LARSEN - CROSS 547 l l (_/
~M4 ' I Q Okay.
2 A We learned as we go along. 3 Q Mr. Larsen, I think I've asked you this before. 4 Haven't you been a licensee either of the Nuclear Regulatory 5 Commission or.of the State of Utah since 1979? 6 A Well, we worked under a general license then. 7 In 1983, I believe, is when the specific license began. 8 Q Haven't you been a specific licensee, then, for 9 at least six years? Or six years, approximately six years. 10 A Well, since 1983. December of '83, I believe, 11 was when. 12 O Whatever that is, five and a half years. ( 13 A Haven't been working for two years, by the way. t 14 0 Well, I am just trying to get at the length of 15 time that you've had in order to familiarize yourself with 16 these regulations. 17 A Okay. 18 Q So I note on page 6 of your testimony, the 19 paragraph that began on page 5 -- I'll just ask you about 20 the middle of the sentence there, five lines down, where 21 you said you called the NRC and asked if a company could 22 work under a general license in another state even though 23 the same person had a specific license in his home state. 24 The only question I want to ask about that at this time is 25 whether you asked the State of Utah whether your suspension O
LARSEN - CROSS 548 M5 1 would -- whether the status of your license, I should say, 2 would allow you to work in another state. i 3 A No, I did not. E 4 Q Okay. 5 A Because Utah didn't have anything to say about 6 Wyoming. 7 .Q Well, they might have. 8 A Wyoming is not an agreement state. 9 Q I'm aware of that. 10 A Okay. 11 Q Then you say you chose Wyoming because you felt 12 you would receive more fair treatment under a federal
,esj 13 jurisdiction.
'd\'
14 A Yes. My experience with the federal government 15 was with Jerry Everett. He was very fair and at least 16 helpful in explaining things. So I wanted to go back with 17 him. 18 I believe he has been transferred. I don't know. 19 Q I believe he has retired. No, you're correct, 20 he has transferred. 21 Now, on page 7 you have a statement that you 22 thought "on the whole we were much improved in our work 23 operations." That is, in Evanston over the situation that 24 pertained in Utah. 1 15 A That's right. rm i
l 1 LARSEN - CROSS 549 l \ l rN (-) i M6' I Q Is that the case? 2 A That's right. 3 Q But yet you said in your testimony, on which I 4 cross-examined you yesterday, that some of the specific ; 5 license projections that you had in Utah were not used in 6 Wyoming. 7 A Well, they weren't necessary because we were l 1 8 working under a general license. But we tried to implement 9 much of what was under the specific license in Utah. We 10 didn't do it all, but we did a lot of it, which is an 11 improvement over what was necessary under what I understood 12 was che general license requirements of just record keeping f- 13 and keeping within the possession limits. k_)/ Well, in other words, your statement is not saying 14 Q 15 that your operation was an improvement on the Utah 16 Operation. 17 A No. 18 Q But just that it was an improvement over what you ] 19 thought it might have been if you had had the -- well, I i l 20 don't know. 21 A Okay, I'll just say that we are at the best 12 improvement right now than we've ever been. We have more 23 equipment now, we have more understanding now. 24 Q But where is it? ) 25 A Where is what? O)
\.
\
1 l 1
l. LARSEN - CROSS 550 M7 1 Q Your equipment. 2 A Well, we got a building up, we got five acres of 3 land, we got all of these instruments: alpha scintillator, 4 two Geiger counters, a whole list of things, fluorimeter. 5 We do TLD badges until we're relieved of that responsibility 6 because there is no external radiation hazard to speak of. 7 Q Mr. Larsen, what kind of a building do you have 8 there at Lindon? 9 A Twenty-by-40 Butler building. 10 Q What does it have for a floor? 11 A Concrete. 12 Q Poured concrete? p 13 A Yep.
\') ~ So would you put linoleum down to --
14 Q 15 A Sure. 16 0 Is that the standard practice in your --
.17 A Yes.
18 0 How do you dispose of that in lineoleum, 19 actually? 20 A The regular ways for hazardous material. 21 Q Oh, it's hazardous waste. 22 A Well, if it has spills on it. 23 Q Do you survey it to see what's appropriate? 24 A Sure. 15 Q And you abide by the guidelines, the regulatory O
LARSEN - CROSS 551 O RM8 1 authority with regard to that? 2 A That's right. 3 So what would happen if you spilled onto the Q 4 concrete as you did in Evanston? 5 A We would grind it out like we did in Evanston, 6 until it's within NRC guidelines. 7 MS. HODGDON: I think I have no further questions 8 on that document. Let me just see if I have other 9 questions. 10 I'm sorry, I thought that was the end of it. I 11 have to go to the next page. I have already asked the 12 question about processing in Nevada, so I don't need to ask 13 that. 14 BY MS. HODGDON: 15 Q I note the records of materials received and 16 shipped, on the back. I've already asked questions about 17 that, because Shipments 1987 in Wyoming starts with March. 18 A Right. 19 Q And that material that came from Utah and was 20 processed in Wyoming was actually prior to March; isn't that 21 the case? 22 A Yes. 23 0 Thank you. Okay, now, you have a letter on the 24 next page, which is an attachment, December 38, 1987. 25 A Right. O
I LARSEN - CROSS 552 r (>y 1 M9 1 Q It says, "This letter is to confirm the 2 conversation between myself and Mr. William Fisher, USNRC, 3 Region IV. Last winter I processed six pounds of metal in I 4 Nevada." i 5 I understand what you mean by that now. But, 6 actually, that's a rather misleading statement, isn't it? l 7 A Why ? 8 Q Because you didn't process six pounds of metal. l 9 It was already crystals when you carried it to Nevada, and j 10 it was a one-day operation. 11 A Well, the meaning there was six pounds of metal 12 in its analysis. It was clear to Mr. Fisher what was going 73 on there. It was clear. He didn't have any question about ' 14 what I meant there. 15 Q No, I had some question. But finally having read 16 all these documents, and with your further statement today, 17 I believe I understand what you're trying to say. Okay. 18 MS. HODGDON: Let me see what other questions I 19 have. . 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Let me interject one question 21 related to one that you answered a couple of minutes ago. 22 You mentioned that your current facility that you had your l 23 equipment in was the one in Lindon, Utah, is that correct? 24 THE WITNESS: Yes. 25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Isn't that the same facility
LARSEN - CROSS 553 M10 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Isn't that the same facility 2 that you said you did not anticipate you would be able to 3 use for quite a few years, because of the sewer moratorium? 4 THE WITNESS: Well, we hope it's not quite a few 5 years. We hope that we could get the sewer in or else put 6 a holding tank in. But that's the best place to store it 7 and lock it up. Is that what you mean? 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: No, I was wondering where you 9 were going to -- If you should succeed in getting at least-10 a general license -- 11 THE WITNESS: Where would I set up? 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Where would you set up? fg 13 THE WITNESS: Well, I would set up where I am U 14 welcome and where everybody knows what I am doing, and it's 15 okay, and there are no problems, and everything is 16 acceptable. Now, it could very well be in Wyoming, that 17 that would be the best place for me. 18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I see. My next question was 19 going to be that in Utah, would you not have to actually 20 get permission of the State of Utah even to operate under 21 a general license? 22 THE WITNESS: That's right. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I don't know how Utah's 24 regulations work, But, presumably, you would need a license 25 from Utah rather than from the NRC if you used that Lindon O
Y'. LARSEN - CROSS 554 () s_t Mll. I facility. 2 THE WITNESS: Right. I think Utah doesn't object 3 to storage there. They don't want processing, because the 4 license is still under suspension. 5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: All right, but you're saying -- 6 THE WITNESS: But as long as I keep them informed 7 what's going on there in the way of storage of materials and 8 things, I don't believe there's any problems there. If 9 there is a problem, we'll store them somewhere else. 10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: No, but you're seeking a 11 license to do some processing work, though. 12 THE WITNESS: In Wyoming.
<~ 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, you didn't say where.
14 THE WITNESS: Okay. 15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And I had inferred from your 16 last statement that it would be in Lindon. That's why I was 17 asking the series of questions. 18 THE WITNESS: No. Yes, I would process it 19 anywhere I'm welcome, in Wyoming, Utah or Nevada, whatever. 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. 21 THE WITNESS: Is that what you mean? Am I 22 answering? 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I take it you would not do it 24 in Lindon unless your sewer problems got resolved. 25 THE WITNESS: I couldn't do it there, right. I
LARSEN - CROSS- 555 1 r~s ! Ig M12 I I would be breaking the law if I did. 2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. 3 MS. HODGDON: I just wanted to ask one more 4 question. 5 BY MS. HODGDON: 6 Q I think I saw someplace that the Lindon facility 7 had a gravel floor. You just poured the concrete floor , S recently? 9 A 'Yes. ! 10 Q When did you pour the concrete floor? 11 A Last August, I believe it was, last summer. 12 Q August of '88? s 13 A Yes. N 14 Q Can I ask why you did that? 15 A In anticipation that we would be able to work. 16 Q Didn't Utah indicate to you that they wouldn't 17 let you operate in the facility, where there was no running 18 water -- 19 A Yes. 20 0 -- and no sewage? 21 A But we're starting to -- Well, we were starting 12 to get things put in, you know. We weren't planning to 23 secretly do anything there. We're just improving the 24 property. We wanted to use the building eventually. 25 Q Well, at what point might you decide that Utah O 1
LARSEN - CROSS 556 M13- 1 is not going to let you operate there, and might you decide 2 to sell it or something and find someplace more appropriate?
'3 A Well, I don't know that they've decided that 4 they're not going to. I know that they put our application, 5 our amendments, on hold. They've not been forthcoming as 6 far as -- Well, they also, I think, wanted the results of 7 this hearing first, before they do anything.
8 So we started to prepare the building, for either 9 our use or else selling it. Do you see_what I mean? 10 Q Yes, I do. But haven't they indicated to you that 11 they won't allow this kind of an operation to be conducted 12 in Utah without sewage and running water? 13 A That's right. 14 Q And you think that there's virtually no l 15 possibility of getting the sewage and running water. 16 A No, I didn't say that. 17 Q Very slim. 18 A Mo. They may let us put a holding tank in 19 someday. 20 Q Oh, I said getting sewage and running water. 21 A Well, sewage would be a holding tank. 22 Q That would be sewage. 23 A Yes. Running water would have to -- 24 Q I think there might be some difference of 25 interpretation as to whether that's sewage or not. But in O
LARSEN - CROSS 557 (~T ! v' , M14 1 any event -- l l- 2 A Well, 'here are businesses that have that right 3- now in there. 4 Q I'm not familiar with Utah. What about running 5 water? You put running water in and then put the whole 6 thing in a holding tank. 7 A We'd have to work that one out. We'd have to 8 maybe put it in from the street, which is about 600 yards 9 of pipe. But we'd come to that problem later. We wouldn't 10 do anything before that, nor have we done anything. 11 MS. HODGDON: I have no further questions. 12 Thank you, Mr. Larsen, f 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Let's take a 15-minute break. 14 Then we will resume with Mr. Noack. We may have a few more 15 questions of Mr. Larsen. 16 -(Brief recess.) 17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Back on the record. 18 Mr. Noack, will you identify yourself for the 19 record, so the reporter can put on the record who you are. 20 MR. NOACK: I am Kevin Noack, and I am a lab 21 technician for John Larsen, Orion Chemical and Wrangler 22 Laboratories. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Noack, I will put you under 24 oath. 25 /// ()
558 f3 L) M15 1 Whereupon, 2 KEVIN J. NOACK 3 was called as a witness and, having been first duly sworn, 4 was examined and testified as follows: 5 MR. LARSEN: I'd like to admit to the record, if-l 6 I could, his testimony. 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Show it to him and ask him if i 8 that is his testimony, and did he prepare it, and is it true 9 and correct. i 10 DIRECT EXAMINATION 11 BY MR. LARSEN: 12 O Is this your testimony? 13 A Yes, it is. 14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's a one page document. 15 MR. LARSEN: A one-page document, i 16 BY MR. LARSEN: 17 Q Is it true and correct as you've written it? f 18 A Yes. 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Do you wish to make any 20 corrections? 21 THE WITNESS: To tell you the truth, I haven't j 22 seen it for about three months or since I've written it. 23 But probably not, no. 24 MR. LARSEN: Well, it hasn't changed. Do you want 25 to take a look at it now? I
NOACK - DIRECT 559 i
- M16- 1 THE WITNESS: Yes, let me take a quick look at 2 it.
3 (The witness examined the document.) 4 THE WITNESS: This is okay. This is my testimony. 5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay, now you move to have that 6 admitted as his testimony. 7 MR. LARSEN: I move that this be admitted as his 8 testimony to the record. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Any objections? 10 MS. HODGDON: No objection. 11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Give a copy to the reporter 12 now. This document will be admitted into evidence as r- 13 Mr. Noack's testimony. It will be bound into the record (.)S 14 as if read. 15 (Mr. Noack's direct testimony follows.) 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
L ,' 479 West 1800 North Provo, Utah 84604 February 21, 1989 I have been employed by John Larsen as a lab assistant for about two and one half years on a part' time basis. In that time I have worked in Provo, Utah and also Evanston, Wyoming. My impression of John Larsen is that of a caring and honest person who is in favor of running a safe business for his employees and the public. Mr. Larsen has always cautioned me on the health hazards of the chemicals used and provided the needed safety equipment or precedures to minimize risks. He has made improvements to his production methods that reduce (~} chances of contamination (ie. using microwaves to dry and using fumehoods). He has welcomed any suggestions I had on how to make a safer and cleaner working environment and never jeopardized safety to save time or money. Mr. Larsen has provided a TLD badge, radiation counters, { urinalysis reports, air monitoring equipment, and laboratory ) J safety precedures for all his employees. He is eager to follow ' state and NRC regulations and never, to my knowledge, willfully disregarded any regulations. Mr. Larsen has never asked me to do anything that was illegal or unhealthy and in my personal opinion is a responsible person who will follow NRC regulations. 1 l If there is any more questions as to my knowledge of John ) Larsen or his company I will be happy to comply. I can be reached anytime after 6:00 PM at (801) 377 - 1071. Sjgcrely, oA eufflud Kevin Noack
1 i NOACK - DIRECT 560 ' I' j'~)\ i M17 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Do you have any further 1 2 supplementary questions you wish to ask Mr. Noack before 3 we start' cross-examination? i 4 MR. LARSEN: Yes,'I want to ask him some questions i 5 for his description of the process'and for his 6 qualifications, things like that. Is that correct? 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. 8 BY MR. LARSEN: 9 Q Kevin, would you describe in your own words, as 10 best you can, what it was like working for Mr. Larsen for 11 two and a half years? 12 A Okay, I worked for Mr. Larsen part-time, and I 13 felt that the operation was safe because of the knowledge iO 14 I have. I have been going to the Y [ referring to BYU) for, 15 like, five years. I've had quite a few chemistry classes, 16 and I'm a geologist. I only have about six classes luft, 17 and I'll be graduated. 18 I never felt that I was at any high risk. 19 Mr. Larsen was always willing to help. He advised me on 20 safety equipment. And I always wore a particle mask or an 21 organic filter mask when I worked around the benzene, and 22 there was always plenty of ventilation in there. So I 23 really saw no problem. 24 Q Kevin, when you did the processing, was there any 25 airborne yellow particles of any kind that were blown O i _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ J
NOACK - DIRECT 561
?m N.]
M18- 1 throughout the building or anything like that with 2 ventilation? 3 A Up in Evanston that was pretty well under control. 4' That was never like how I heard somebody describa it, as 5 yellow dust all over the air. There was never anything like 6 that, ever. I mean, I had my mask on, and the only time 7 that possibly could have happened was during drying. That's 8 when everything was la a powder form. That was pretty much 9 in the microwaves. And I never had that problem. 10- JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Noack, you said that was 11 up in Evanston. 12 THE WITNESS: Yes. 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Was that also true when you 14 worked at other places? 15 THE WITNESS: Before the microwaves, which we have 16 been using for probably two -- most of the time I have been 17 working, I have been working with microwaves. Before that, 18 we used stainless steel, five-gallon containers with an 19 electric heater underneath them. And we had to stir and 20 be above them. But it wasn't dusty where I could see dust 21 all over the place. But I assume that there must have been 22 dust because, when you're stirring fine powders, I'm sure 23 something gets in the air. 24 But I was always wearing a particle mask during 25 that process. I never missed, r~
NOACK - DIRECT 562 [b (s
.M19 1 BY MR. LARSEN:
2 Q The fans that were used for the ventilation, were 3 they used continuously for all of the time that you were 4 working? And would that possibly explain why there was some 5 yellow on the grille of the fan, was from prior use before 6 the microwave processing? And because it had been used for 7 10 years' ventilation, the dust could probably be from the 8 earlier contamination as opposed to what we were doing with 9 the microwaves and things like that. 10 A Okay. The fan that they fan contamination on was 11 a fan that was used long before I -- I don't think I even 12 used it. There was other fans which were a lot quieter, 13 so I never even really used that fan. There was probably 14 two of them, two or three others, that were, like, brand 15 new when I first started working, and I've always used 16 those. 17 That one I just had for backup. But I don't know 18 if I even used it. It was missing its grille, for one 19 thing, either the front or the back grille. So I never used 20 it. 21 Q Have we improved the process to the best that 22 we've ever had it in the Evanston facility, and do you feel 23 that the microwaves within a fume hood would be adequate 24 to control every bit of dust? 25 A Well, I believe that there was great progress made y-s 1
NOACK - DIRECT 563
.\-
f~)/ M20 1 in the two and a' half years I was there, for instance, 2 compared to when I first arrived, until we finally shut 3 down. John bought a whole bunch of stainless steel tables 4 so we wouldn't have to worry about contamination. We had 5 wooden tables before that. , 6 And the microwaves reduced. Before, I also had 7 problems with vapors. And after using the microwave, I 8 never had that problem, because they fanned it out and I 9 never felt tired or nothing. And it was a lot quicker. 10 Let me see. And I think it's a lot cleaner. 11 Q Do you feel sick after working with this material 12 for two and a half years? g-) -13 A No, I never have felt sick. V-14 Q As long as there was adequate ventilation, things 15 were taken care of pretty well; is that correct? 16 A Yes. 17 Q Ventilation is extremely important. 18 A That's extremely important. 19 Q Yes, okay. How would you characterize the 20 interview, the Office of Investigation interview with 21 Mr. Griffin and Mr. Spitzberg? What did you feel like when 22 they were asking you questions? 23 A Well, this interview with them -- I guess it's 24 called Exhibit 24 -- took probably close to five hours, and 25 I said a lot of things in there. And it looks like nothing O
L NOACK - DIRECT 564 ( .f~\ Q,] - l iM21 l' was recorded. Nothing of what I thought would be recorded 1-E 2 And I guess there were a few true things in is recorded. 3 there. But I felt I was really cooperative, and I guess 4 they felt I wasn't, because I couldn't pin down shipment 5 dates to the exact date, you know, that happened years ago. 6 I had no schedule, I had no time card, and I had 7 no documentation with me when I took that interview. So 8 I couldn't swear on a stack of bibles or anything that on 9 a certain day I shipped out a certain amount of poundage 10 or stuff like that. 11 I felt intimidated because of Brooks Griffin kept 12 on asking the same question over and over again. I kept 13 on giving the response, and he was just getting very upset (3
=(/
14 that I wouldn't -- I felt he was getting very upset that -- 15 Q You weren't giving him the right answer? 16 A Yes, that I wouldn't give him the right answer, 17 the answer he was looking for. 18 Q That he was looking for. 19 A And I was completely taken by surprise. I thought 20 that this was sort of a fact-finding mission, just to get 21 an idea of what's going on at Larsen Laboratories. And 22 after leaving that interview, I felt more it was like a 23 witch hunt, or a head hunt, or --
'4 i Q An inquisition of sorts.
25 A He didn't seem very friendly, s-
, NOACK - DIRECT 565
'l
(~T i L) M22' 1 MS. HODGDON: Judge Bechhoefer, would you please 2 instruct Mr. Larsen not ask leading questions on direct 3 examination? 4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. To the extent you can, 5 you should just ask the question and let the witness supply 6 the whole answer. Don't suggest to him the answer you'd 7 like to have on the record. 8 MR. LARSEN: I agree, okay. 9 BY MR. LARSEN: 10 0 Kevin, did Mr. Larsen tell you of the hazards of 11 the chemicals that you dealt with in the processing at the 12 time of your hiring? And did he work with you to on-the-job 13 training at the first, to make sure you knew what you were 7-V) 14 doing, rather than just sending you to the lab and saying 15 "do it"? 16 A Yes. I think about the first month I even worked 17 for John Larsen, I didn't even touch the chemicals. And 18 I did housework -- or, I should say, carpentry work at his 19 house. And then I moved into drying the crystals with the 20 father. Yes, but he told me of the risks. 21 And just to verify that, I went up to BYU and I 12 talked to a couple chemistry professors in Eyring Science 23 Center. They told me it was risky, and they told me that 24 I shouldn't take it real lightly, and to make sure I was 25 properly protected from contamination. O l
NOACK - DIRECT 566
-5h1 p -b 1 Q How would you describe 1Mr. Larsen's concern for 2 health and safety?. Was it careless disregard?
3 A What was that? 4 O It has~been described as careless disregard. 5 .Would.you describe it as careless disregard? 6 A No. I believe that Mr. Larsen was always 7 . interested in making sure that the health of the employees 8 was more like well looked after. For instance, he always 9 made available air particle masks, gloves,. coveralls, those 10 type of things. And later on we started with urinalysis 11 to help. verify the safety of this process, and we used-12 Geiger counters.to check, and we had discussions on 13 radiation limits and levels and what to look for in case
\
14 of contamination and things like that. 15 Q Would you say, Kevin, that the operation in 16 Evanston was provided with a TLD badge, radiation counters, 17 urinalysis reports, air monitoring equipment, laboratory 18 safety procedures? In other words, it was the best that 19 we've ever had it? What would you say? 20 A Yes. When I first started working, that stuff 21 wasn't used at all, and then probably a year after I 22 started working, then that's when I noticed he started 23 acquiring that equipment and using those things. 24 MR. LARSEN: Okay. I guess that's all I have. 25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Why don't you cross-examine O
' NOACK - CROSS 1 567 d f
1 7 [$ "b ; I at this date. 2 MS.'HODGDON: 'Mr. Romney will conduct the cross-3 examination of Mr. Noack.-- 14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Fine, fine. 5 MS. HODGDON: -- for the Staff. l 6 ' CROSS-EXAMINATION 7 BY MR. ROMNEY: 8 Q Mr. Noack, where are you presently employed?- 9 A~ Oh, Off-gen-Bio-Jets (ph.). They're'a wastewater 10 treatment company that's working on Geneva steel right now. 11 Q And what is your present association'with Mr. 12 or Mrs..Larsen? ,
. . . l' 13 A Well, just friendship, and that's it.
14 0- The document that you filed as your testimony < 15- in this proceeding is dated February 21st, 1989. Did you j i 16 have any assistance in the preparation of that-document? 17 A No. In fact, he called me up a day, maybe two l, 18 days before that, and I was in school, and he called me .l l 19 up twice, saying, "I need you just to, you know, write up i 20 a affidavit telling about what it was like working for ! 21 me and stuff like that." I mean, in fact I know by the -l 22 time he called me up and by-the time I handed it to him, 23- we haven't even -- we talked on the phone about twice, but 24 never even seen each other in-between that time. 25 0 And what were the subjects that you talked about
)
NOACK.- CROSS 568. 'b 1 the two times on the telephone? 2 A- 'I guess'he wanted just me to write -- he'didn't 3 put any of these words in there. They're all totally mine. 4 I wrote it up at the Tech at about 9:00 o' clock at night-5 and finished at.10:00. I mean, this is only like an hour 6 on the computer. He wasn't there. He'didn't tell me what 7 to say. 8 Q I'll come back to that document in a moment. 9- In your direct testimony a few minutes ago, you. 10 mentioned'that you used a particle mask -- 11 A Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 12 0 -- during.the process. Can you describe that 13 particle mask that you used? 14 A Okay. They're a mask that you.can -- the one 15 I used during the drying was a particle mask that you would 16 buy at a sort of like K-Mart or something, you know, they 17 use for an auto-body repair, something on that order. 18 Q And you used it only when you were drying the 19 particle? 20 A Well, then I used an organic vapor mask during 21 the benzene, and then I used fans too and stuff. 22 O What about when you were grinding the particles, 23 when you were grinding the crystals at the last step of 24 the process? 25 A When I was drying? O
NOACK.- CROSS- 569, 1 Q When you were grinding. 2 A .Oh,: grinding. Particle mask. 3' Q' Did you use the mask then? 4 A You do that step before the microwaving'. Yes. 5 Because the crystals are pretty almost dry. I mean'they're 6 fairly dry.- 7- Q So would you say that you've always used'a mask 8 every time you used a step and throughout the process?
~
9 A No, not'.always. There's times when'the stuff.
- 10. has to sit for a long time, and let me see. There's one
- 11. step where -- you know, there's a lot of steps where there's
-12 a lot'of time in-between where you're not really doing much.
- g 13 ~but normal chemistry.
-V 14' Q Where did you put the mask when it was not being 15 used?
'16 A In my car. The vapor's mask was always in my 17 car because see, I was told up at BYU that the benzene --
18 see, I've had a' couple classes in Chemistry up there, and i.
- 19. the guys that I talked-to were really worried more of the 20 benzene than anything, and so I always had an organic mask.
21 And I always kept it in my car because, you know, you never 22 know when you need it. 23 Q Did--you or anyone else ever survey this mask? 24 A. Survey the mask? 25 O The particle mask that you used. LO
e,
' NOACK - CROSS 570 I
60 b 1 A. -Oh, what I'did'is maybe once every six -- well, 2 I can't -- you know, time is -- I. don't know if it's that 1 3 importarit, but maybe once every four to six months I would ! 4 just.ch'ange the filters, just for the heck of it. l
.5 Q- What did you do with the filters? !
6 A Put them in with radioactive garbage. 7 0 But it is your testimony, then, that it was only 8 .once every -- are you suggesting, then, that you never 9 surveyed the mask between use? 10 -A To tell you the truth, I never really heard of 11 .anybody ever doing that because we had those swipes and I 12 stuff like.that'and the air sampler, and I thought that j 13 would be plenty to do that.
~
14 0 Did you ever place the mask on the table or 15 anywhere else in the facility? 16 A Well, I guess I probably have. ; 17 Q Were you ever trained in the use of survey 18 equipment? 19 A The Geiger counters, yes, and then the swipes -- 20 he told me how'to do those. 21 Q Who, being Mr. Larsen? I 22 A Mr. Larsen, yes. 23- Q And what did that instruction' consist of? Can 24 you describe-how you were supposed to do that? 25 A Yes. What he did is he showed me a swipe, and
NOACK CROSS .571 . b 1 he goes, "You find a four square-inch area," and he just 2 'showed me how to do it. And then bring them back to him. 3 And I.did it all over. I mean, I'd do like 20 of-them. 4 0- You stated that there were no airborne 5 radioactivity in the facility. 6 A Well, I'm not capable of determining that, I-mean. 7 Q. So you're not really'sure, then, whether there-8 was airborne radioactivity. 9 A I'm not qualified to' answer that. 10 O So then, you really can't say that there -- 11 A No, I can't say. I'm just a technician. 12 O You also said that there was air-monitoring 13 equipment. Ih) you know whether or not it was operational? 14 A Yes. The -- what do you call it? -- the large-15 volume air sampler, is it called? That worked, and I only 16 used that a couple of times, and I think John and Mike most 17 of the time, or Mr. Larsen and his son did most of that 18 type of work. 19 O Were they operational as the process was ongoing? 20 A Yes.
.21 Q Would that include the grinding of the crystals?
22 A Yes. What we'd do is I would get there. You'd 23 get up to the' Quonset up in Evanston, and John and Mike 24 would turn on that, and we'd run that air sampler, and then 25 after maybe four or five hours when we left or six hours
'O
NOACK -' CROSS- 572 i,. b _ l . 1 or eight hours when we left, then they'd take out the air 2 sampler. 3- .Q You said that the ventilation was adequate in 4 the facility, and how did you know that the. ventilation 5 was in fact adequate?' 6 A How'd I know that the ventilation was -- okay. 7 As of'having any real measurements, I never had no 8 measurements, but the scrubber fan -- I used that.. I'd 9 turn on the. scrubber fan a lot, not always to scrub the 10- NO 2 ,but more because it moved a lot of air. I mean, it was
-11 a.10-inch scroll cage fan that went at 2,000 rpm, and 12 I don't know the exact how many cubic feet per minute 13- it moves out, but I'm sure it's very high, and that's 14 why I put the microwave underneath that, when I did the
~
15 drying, and so that's why I knew I wouldn't have no problems 16 there. With all the fans going, see, I -- the smell 17 of benzene wasn't acute. I mean, you couldn't smell 18 the benzene anymore, or it smelled.like fresh air, and 19- you know, that's all I can base it on. 20 Q When you had the fans on and the scrubber on -- 21 A Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 22 0 -- there were no windows in the facility and 23 the door was open? 24 A No, no. The door was open at the end. It 25 was always -- I mean, that's why people could drive by O
e
' NOACK - CROSS
- 573 i
1
-t ":- bsw -
1 and:see inside there. L 2 O Was there any way that you could have any kind 3 of' cross-ventilation in the facility? r J 4 Pardon me?' A 1
.i 5- 0 Cross-ventilation -- was there any way to have 6- ' cross-ventilation in the facility? q l
7 A What's cross-ventilation? j IL Q So that the air would be moving away from 9 you or from one end to the other? H l 10 A Oh, yes , that was always -- but you see, the l 11 problem with the drying is -- okay, you wouldn't have i i 12 much cross-ventilation because if you did, you'd stir l l 13 up dust. You know, you wouldn't want' blowing dust. So ~j i ! 14 the ventilation was aimed more at my head than at the i 15 project, you know. 16 O So you're really not sure what kind of ventilation 17 you had. 18 A Well, I'm not capable of determining that. 19 All I can say is I felt pretty safe about it, but -- 20 0 But you're not really qualified to say that 21 you did -- 22 A No. 23 0 -- in fact have adequate ventilation. . 24 A No. I can just describe to you what happened, 25 but as of-telling you exactly what the numbers are or O
NOACK - CROSS 574
-(~
bAv] I something, I can't tell you that. 2 Q How much do you have to stir the crystals while 3 you're drying them? 4 A Most of the time -- okay, when I originally 5 started -- it changes as it gets dryer and dryer. Most 6 of the time I leave them in for five mintues, and then 7 I stir them up, which takes probably about 10 seconds. 8 Then I put them in for two minutes, two minutes. Then 9 probably after an hour they dry, or maybe not quite that 1 10 long, maybe 45 minutes. 11 Q Was this done inside of the microwave? 12 A Yes. r~' 13 Q So there was a stirring up of the crystals (>g 14 as they were drying or periodically as they were drying. 15 A Yes. They would dry a lot quicker that way. 16 Q Were there times when you did not have adequate 17 ventilation when working for Mr. Larsen? 18 A Were there times? Let's see. If I did it 19 the way he wanted me to, no, there was never times, but 20 I can't really think of any time really either where 21 -- because, for instance, if there were some dangerous 12 vapors coming off, then I'd be pretty crazy to stick 23 my head in there, you know. 24 Q So there were times, then, when you did not 25 have the fans on. Is that what you're saying?
. NOACK: > CROSS 575 ' b4 6 '-
s LO
.I A No.. I've'always ha'd those fans on.
2 0. How much training did Mr. Larsen give you
.3' regarding working with radioactive chemicals?
4 A How much training did he give'me? 5- 0 Yes. 6 A He showed me some articles. He attended some 7 seminar in Harvard, and he shared all that information 8 with me, and he showed me how to use the Geiger counter, 9 and let me see -- (Pause.) 10 0 Would you describe that training in terms of 11 hours or days? 12 A Oh, how many hours?
-13 'O Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.)
14 A It was on an inconsistent basis. I mean, it 15 wasn't -- we had no real program set up, you know. And 16 so I would say we probably talked about it when he got 17 the Geiger counter because he showed me right away how 18 that worked, and he explained to me what the counts per
.19 minute were and what a rem or millirem is and stuff like 20 that.
21 Q And what are those-things? 22 A And what are those things? 23 Q Right. 24 A Well, I guess it has -- the rem is I guess 25 -- has something to do with beta decay or something on
NOACK:.- CROSS 576 1 that. order. =All I know is he showed me that if you use-2 a Geiger counter and any surface is over background H 3 radiation, which is'normally between 50 and 75 counts 4 per minute that you'd'have to pay special attention to
- 5. ' . clean those areas up.
6 g; Were there any exposure limits? 7 A . Exposure limits? 8 0 Yes, that he established. 9 A '(Pause.) Exposure limits, yes, well, I don't 10 know -- see, I haven't worked with radiation now for 11 over'a year really. We had that down. I had a little 12 card that used to have that on there. I think with his,
- 13 anything over, like I said, natural background radiation, 14 'in that area, I would just have to pay attention to.
15 .I mean, that was about what I did. 16 Q Did he establish any written procedures that 17 would' describe what'the background radiation would be 18 or any kind of action levels? 19 A I don't really know how he determined his because 20 he would just say, you know, natural background radiation 21 should be 50 counts per minute or maybe up to 150 counts 22 per minute, but every time what I would do to determine 23 what natural-background radiation is is I might test 1 24 the air, just put it up, you know, four feet above the 25 air or something, or maybe go outside and walk around O-
m- _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ - - - . _ _ - - _ _ - - - _ - _ _ - _ . .- NOACK -. CROSS. 577 11 the building once and just get the' lowest reading I could
~
2 find. . ;And then inside -- this was like during clean-up. 3 Anything inside that was above that, we would_ pay attention 4 to, that was supposed to be cleaned up. 5 0- And what were those readings? 6 A What were the readings? 7 Q Yes. 8 A Most'the time -- let me see. There was a few 9 - if there was a spill,-it would be well above -- a 10 -spill would be well above 1,000 counts. So it?d be pretty 11 obvious if there was a problem there. And then we would 12 .use paper towels and wipe it up as good as we could and 13 check it again and get it down to as low as possible, 14- which was normally not quite as low as background but: 15 in that ballpark someplace. 16 0 When you took the readings right after the 17 spill, from what distance did you take that reading? 18 A An inch most of the time from the spill. 19 Q Mr. Noack, I'd like to move to your filed 20 testimony. I had some questions on that. 21 A Okay. 22 O You state here that your impression of John 23 Larsen is that of a caring and honest person who is in 24 favor of running a safe business and so on. 25 A Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) O
NOACK - CROSS 578 f'
-b Q )N 1 Q Do you subscribe that to be your testimony 2 here?
3 A Yes. I would say very caring and honest. 4 Q Do you recall in your interview with -- 5 A Yes. 6 Q -- Mr. Brooks Griffin on March 2nd, '88, that 7 you described Mr. Larsen as somewhat lazy and not involved 8 in the process? 9 A Well, I believe that was taken out of context. 10 I would like to see the exact wording that built up to 11 that. 12 Q Well, it's supposed to be your statement that 13 you said that he was not involved in the process. U~ 14 A Well, I have a lot of disagreements of what 15 was put in there. For instance, I believe it was something 16 along the order of who does all the processing, and after 17 that point in time, I'm sure, "Do you believe - ," they 18 kept on asking me over. And then one time one of those 19 guys probably go, "Well, is Mr. Larsen just lazy or 20 something?" and I go, "Well, probably." 21 And I don't believe I -- if you ever had an 22 interview with me, you would never hear me say that. 23 Q Wasn't it true that you stated to Mr. Griffin 24 that initially when you first started working in the 25 processing that John Larsen's father, Paul Larsen,
- ___- _ ____ - _ - ___ _ =_
NOACK - CROSS 579 i (bb 1 instructed you in the initial steps of the process? 2 A Let me see. That was like in '85 or.something, 3 winter of '85? I think -- see, the first time I started 4 working there, they were both-there together, and Paul 5 Larsen showed me the benzene step where he put it into
'6 th'e one-gallon containers. And I think that was the 7 only step he did show me. I think I worked a couple 8 days with John's dad and that was it.
9 0 In your statement you said it was for the first 10 six months. 11- A I worked -- yes. Let me see. How do you read 12 my statement? 13 Q Said approximately for the first six months 14 when you started the learning process, that Paul Larsen 15 instructed you. And so you were working with Paul Larsen. 16 A Okay. Well, what we'd do on the first six 17 ' months, if I can remember right, is we'd meet up at John's 18 house, and he would say, "Well, today why don't you two 19 go and recrystallize" or something, and he'd explain 20 the steps. Then I'd go with his dad. But what I meant 21 was I was doing a lot of that on my own and John's dad 22 was helping me once in a while. 23 Q So you or Paul Larsen were involved in those 24 initial steps. 25 A Yes. I didn't work that much with -- what I O
NOACK - CROSS 580 b52 1 meant by that is his dad would come down from Salt Lake 2 and just go with me, just to have something to do, I 3 guess, you know, 'cause he was like retired. 4 Q You also said in your statement'that you never 5 received much instruction from John Larsen. 6 A Well, yes. That's sort of ambiguous, I guess. 7 What I meant by "not much" is it wasn't like -- I guess 8 I expected to know everything right away, I mean, every 9 tiny detail. I guess I wasn't super comfortable with 10 how much knowledge I did know of, you know, the health 11 hazards of uranium and stuff like that. 12 Q Did you feel comfortable asking questions of 13 Mr. Larsen? 14 A Oh, asking him, yes. 15 0 Is that John Larsen? 16 A Yes, but like it seems like I asked quite a 17 few people that had dealings with uranium, and every 18 ore gave me different answers. It seems like some people 19 thought it was super that, you know, unless you get hit 20 by an atomic bomb you're okay, but other people sitting 21 in front of a TV for five minutes was bad enough or 22 something. You know, I don't know how -- I was really, 23 you know, in sympathy with m, boss. I'm not a hundred 24 per cent trusting of anybody, and so I assumed that he 25 might have had motives to want to tell me -- you know. O
l-NOACK - CROSS 581 m bl ) 1 Q So is it true, then, to say that the questions 2 you asked of John Larsen, you weren't comfortable with 3 the answers that you received? 4 A Was I uncomfortable? I was uncomfortable to 5 the point where I -- like I say, I get all kinds of 6 different answers from everybody, and even up at BYU 7 when I went up there to ask them, a couple of those 1 8 guys thought that the stuff I was working with was not 9 even worth worrying about, where others thought that 10 it was really dangerous. Il Q Is it true, then, that as far as the instructional 12 process is concerned, that Paul Larsen then gave you f- 13 those initial instructions as to how to do the process;
's 14 is that true?
15 A No. I'd have to say it was both of them. 16 0 Okay. With regard to the instruction on the 17 health hazards, is it true, then, that Mr. Larsen did 18 not give you much instruction as to the health hazards 19 of the chemicals you were using? 20 A Well, he told me that the benzene was a 21 carcinogenic, but you know, that's a pretty ambiguous 22 thing to say because who knows, you know, what degree 23 of a carcinogenic is it or what are the limits of exposure. 24 You know, I guess he didn't really know that. And so 25 I was worried in that point. O
NOACK CROSS 582 1 0 So is it true', then, that he did not tell you 2 what-the exposure limits to the b'enzene would be?
.3 A No, I never got the exact exposure limits.
4 0 'When he told you about the benzene and as far 5 as it being carcinogenic, did he tell you that it could 6 lead to leukemia -- 7 A Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 8 0 -
- and that over-exposures could result in-9 dizziness and other health problems?
10 A Well, no, I never heard that.
- 11. O So Mr. Larsen did not tell you those. effects 12 of the benzene?
A Well, it was a carcinogenic. That's about
.13
-14 it, and.that we should always work with'it in a lot of 15 ventilation, you know.
16 Q As far as working with the uranium is concerned, 17 did Mr. Larsen tell you that the process would cause 18 suspension of uranium compounds in the air? Did Mr. 19 Larsen tell you that? 20 A About the uranium compound 3 that are in the 21 air? 22 O Yes. 23 A Yes. That's why we wore the particle mask. 24 0 Did he in describing to you the hazards, did 25 he tell you the effects of inhaling that dust? O l
NOACK,- CROSS 583 1 A Yes. He mentioned that. That's why we had the-urinalysis.. 3 0 When you say he mentioned it, just'what did 4 he say.about that? 5 A You see, it's.really hard to determine what 6 he'said originally, but from what I've known since then 7 -- I can't really recall that, what was ever said there. 6A' 8 O So are you suggesting that he never gave you 9 adequate explanation as to the effects? j 10 .A Well, I was never tested on it, if that -- l 11 you know. 12 O But I didn't ask you -- I said did he explain l
~
i 13 to you the effects. For example, did he tell you that 14 if you inhaled the uranium, that it would go into your 15 blood? 16 A Oh, yes. He explained that the dust was insoluble l I , 17 .in water and that it would pass through me in 12 to 24-l 18 hours probably.or something on that order. And that 19 it was not really much -- well -- (Pause.) 20 0 When you said you were tested,-are you talking 21 about the urine samples that you did? j i 22 A yes, l l 23 Q When you took1those urine samples, did you.take l 24 those samples inside the Evanston facility? 25 A I don't think so. I think most of them were O
- -_ - a
l NOACK 1--CROSS; 584 l
- 'b
- 1. done in Lindon, or I'm*sure I:did a couple up at his 2 . house too. . But they were before I . worl ed , a.. fewc of them, 3 and then after, you know, we'd take uranalysis, a day _
E 4 after or'-- 5 Q: Before.-- P 6 ~A I don't know the exact schedule of how we did. 7 that. It's been a year ago. But maybe -- I= guess in 8 the interview that I did recall in the-interview, I mean, 9 that I.probably would have known then, but it's been' 10 a year. So I haven't did one for a long time. 11 .We hadn't been doing them for that long, you 12 see.- When I; originally started working, we weren't doing 13 urinalysis. 14' O When you did start taking them, were you 15 instructed in the proper way of giving the samples?- 16 A Well, it was like a day after-work, but I don't 17 think we achieved a borderline, you know,-the right way, 18 or we used the correct bottles. I believe that some 19 of the bottles were contaminated because they came out 20 of the lab,.and they had the lids open. 21 O Were you instructed that you should wash your 22 hands before -- 23 A Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 24 0 -- giving a sample? 25 A Yes. Yes, we did that. O u
NOACK. - CROSS' 585 b 1 Q Did you? 2 A Yes. 3 0 You did in fact wash your hands? 4 A yes, 5 Q Was there any survey done on your clothing? 6 A Pardon me? 7 Q Were there any other attempts made to avoid 8 contaminating the bottles before giving the sample? 9 A Well, maybe the last two samples -- when we 10 had the real high counts, especially my brother, Bruce, 11 I could see those high counts com?.ng before they came 12 because he took that bottle out of the lab, and it had 13 no lid on it. I mean, the lid -- he had to grab the 14 lid out of a lid box. And so I knew there was going 15 to be problems there. It was I think towards the last 16 few times I did work for John, we did them correctly, 17 in the fact that the bottles, I believe, were sterilized 18 bottles, and I don't think they had a chance of being 19 contaminated. 20 0 Directing your attention to the samples that 21 were taken around Decmeber 31st, where were the samples 22 taken, the urine samples? 23 A Okay. December 31st of what year? 24 Q Eighty-seven. 25 A Eight-seven. (Pause.) O l l l
NOACK'- CROSS: 586 bk _) I O Were they taken.in the Evanston facility? 2 A I have no records. I don't have no schedule 3 records. I can't tell. I mean, I couldn't answer that 4 truthfully, you know. 5 Q Did anybody handle those sample bottles before 6 you voided the sample into the bottle? 7 A Did anybody handle them? Yes, I'm sure they 8 were -- most of the time John or Mike would come out 9 and hand them to me or to my brother. 10 0 Was your brother working there at that time? II A He went up there and helped me clean up once, 12 a couple times. 13 0 Did he give any urine samples? 14 A Yes, he did. 15 0 You mentioned previously that you could see 16 the contamination coming. Did you tell Mr. Larsen anything 17 about that? 18 A Yes, I told him. 19 0 What did you say to him? 20 A What? 21 Q Exactly what did you say to Mr. Larsen? 22 A What exactly did I say when I seen the 23 contaminated bottle? 24 Q No. You said you saw the contamination coming. 25 A Oh. Okay. For instance, here's a bottle off in U
. NOACK - CROSS 587
;y 1 the top shelf 1 at the lab used as a urine bottle. The 2< bottle's probably been up there for.10 years. I don't 3- know. But :I was just wondering that you know,.when you're
~4 talking only a few micrograms per liter,.that easily
-5 could have been contaminated.
l' 6 g. Was this at the Evanston' facility? 7 A No. It was actually -- when we first started 8 doing urinalysis, we didn't have bottles. We were just 9 using Nelgines (ph.) or whatever or the bucket bottles 10 that most chemical supply places have. . John had a lab 11 in hisl house, and we used those. 12 O Where.was.it taken?' 13- A Pardon me?
.q 14 0 Where was it taken? You didn't answer that 15 question.
16 A Well, my urinalysis -- see, what' happened is 17 I already gave my urinalysis a couple days earlier, and 18 I think Bruce -- my brother Bruce, who lives in Salt 19 Lake -- well, he lives in Orem at'this time -- just 20 happened to be up at the house, and John goes, "We need 21 one for you too, Bruce." And I think Bruce's was taken 22 at his house. 23 0 Where did those bottles come from? 24 A They were in the lab in his house. 25 Q The lab in whose house? O
NOACK CROSS- 588 [yp..
/\J.
1 'A In John's house. 2 0 .The bottles were stroed at John's' house? 3 A No, not my bottle, but the bottle-that they 4 grabbe' d ,.which he does analytical work at'-- (Pause.) 5 O Did you get the results from those? L 6 A Yes, I did, on most of them, I guess, or the
- 7. ones when he got them from the lab up there in Wyoming, 8 I looked,at them, and I felt pretty uncomfortab'.e with 9 the fact that there was a few times they took the urine 10 sample and .where:I: haven' t worked-:for probably two weeks 11 and I just took it just for the day. type thing, and it 12 was higher than times when I worked, other than right 13 after I worked, you know. So I didn' t put much credence 14 in those.
15 Q The' samples you said that were given were right 16 .after-you worked. Would this include the -- 17 A. Well, all they -- I don't know the exact numbers 18 right now, but it seemed like a few times right after 19 I worked, I had like 10 milligram per liter -- or is 20 it microgram? I guess it's microgram -- per liter. And 21' then like I haven't worked for two weeks, and all of 22 the sudden it jumped up to 45 or something, and I don't 23 know what to say because to me it didn't make no sense. 24 0 What about the sample from your brother, Bruce? 25 A Do you remember what his count was, or can ; - _ _ _ - _ - _ _ _ _ - - _ _ _ _ - _ - _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ - ._ _ a
NOACK - CROSS 589 b6 1 you tell me what it was? 2 Q You said the one from the sample where the 3 bottle was in John's house. 4 A Yes. 5 0 Was that sample elevated also? 6 A Pardon me? 7 Q Do you know whether that sample was elevated 8 also? 9 A Yes, it was elevated. At thi s time it was 10 like a baseline type thing where he wasn't even around. 11 He wasn't working with me or nothing, you know. So I -- 12 Q But he was involved in a clean-up also? 13 A He was involved in -- let me see. See, if (~) N._/ 14 you've ever been up to the Evanston, Wyoming facility, 15 underneath the door there's about one-half-inch gap. 16 What happens is it's very windy up in Evanston. It's 17 like 30-mile-an-hour wind every day, and it blows all 18 this dust all over everything, just dirt. And so if 19 I haven't been up there for a month, I'll take him up 20 and just clean off the dirt. I mean, that's something 21 that's never been brought up for sure, but I've had him 22 up there for that. 23 And also there was some wood shelving up there 24 before we moved in that some auto mechanics had there, 25 and he tore that all out. I mean, it was a whole day's O x>
NOACK - CROSS 590-c. L bus 1 ' work just doing'that 'cause it was a whole bunch,:you 2 know. Sk) he did.that. But he never did no chemical
-3 work that I know of.
4 Q You also stated in your written testimony that 5 Mr. Larsen made improvements in his production methods. 6 A Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 7 Q And you gave as an example the use of fume
'8' -hoods.
9 A Mna-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 10 Q' Were these fume hoods installed? 11 A The fume hood I'm talking about is you know 12 the' scrubber? -- I had -- see, when we cleaned up that
. 13 facility, there were a few things we took out of there 14 that I used because -- for instance, I had a galvanized 15 steel scrubber or hood-that fit on the scrubber, and 16 they used that. But the fume. hoods that -- I guess that 17 scrubber fits that description, you know.
18 0 So there were no fume hoods? 19 A But as of a real, real, you know, professional-20 fume hood, no, not at that time. But we have like three l 21 or four of them now. 22 0 .But at the time that you worxed in Evanston, 23 the fume hood was not installed; is that what you're 24 saying? o 25 A Well, I think that would qualify the fume hood, (
NOACK - CROSS 591
)
^1 but you know, I mean that's what its purpose was.
2 l JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Do you know if those fume
-3 hoods had'ever beenLused during processing?
4 THE-WITNESS: Those. .Okay, let me think back. 5 -JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, first, the new ones l 6 that he put --
-7 THE WITNESS: The new -- no. He had like aboutL 8 four new ones., They used some fume hoods before. We 9 also'used in crushing the crystals -- we also had a box 10 for crushing so what dust was created wouldn't -- you 11 know, it was enclosed and it had glass and stuff. We 12- had one of those. But fume hoods for doing the benzene 13 -- I used the scrubber for that and then with the fans.
O 14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And where was'that, in Utah-15 'or Wyoming? 16 THE WITNESS: Let me see. I would say, well, 17 the scrubber was never set up down here, and so I just 18 used fans down here. But.the crusher box was used down 19 .here sometimes, but it was used up there too. 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. 21 BY Ma. ROMNEY: 22 Q The scrubber that you described -- I thought 23 you said it was for the nitric oxide. 24 A Well, yes, but you see, if you don't turn 25 on the water, you know, the water? O
NOACK - CROSS 592
+
1 Q. What water? .I thought there was no water, 2 in the-facility. 3- 'A. Well, no. Okay. The scrubber has water 4 sprinklers in it. And when you're doing.the acid step l l. 5 where you have to dissolve the metal, you use the scrubber. 6 Q But there was no scrubber for the drying orf 7- the grinding operation. L 8 A No, no. I only used that for the organic. vapors 9 that came off. There shouldn't have been no dust at
~10 all going through that, if that's what you're getting-11 at, or anything through that scrubber at all.
12 Q So there was no fume hood for the drying 13 operation, just for when you put the -- O.. 14 'A See, what I'm -- 15 0 -- benzene? 16 A - .trying to say, I.put the microwave right 17 underneath the scrubber, and I turned it on without using 18 the water, the sprinklers, and it had that effect. 19 Q Several times you characterized your testimony 20 as "we." Who is "we" you're talking about? 21 A Okay, where's that at? 22 O Your testimony is that "We have three or four 23 new fume hoods." 24 A Well, what I mean "we," I mean I was working 25 for John. I meant the company or whatever, you know. O
I' L NOACK - CROSS 593 m b/,) 1 I'm just a lab technician. I don't have anything 2 to do with the business end of this. 3 Q Where are those fume hoods now? 4 A Oh, in Lindon, if you'd like to see them. 5 They're professional -- 6 Q But they were never installed in Evanston? 7 A We planned on it, but by that time everything 8 was shut down. 9 Q When you were leaving the Wyoming facility 10 at the end of the day, how did you clean yourself or 11 clean up after you left? 12 A I had -- what do you call it? -- there were
<s 13 these paper suits that are supposed to keep you from
() 14 getting contamianted. I had those on. And I had two 15 five-gallon pails of water that I brought up once in 16 a while, you know, of clean water, but I never really 17 had to use them 'cause I really didn't get that dirty. 18 I had gloves on and stuff. And I'd use Geiger counter 19 to -- first of all, I'd scope the whole building most 20 the time with the Geiger counter. And then I would do 21 the bottom of my feet and my hands. 22 Let's see. I'd check my mask once in a while. 23 Never got anything off that. And then I discarded the 24 mask. 25 0 Can you describe how you cleaned up afterwards?
"'s (J
NOACK - CROSS 594. r, = b.Q l .You said you'd blow water out? 2 A How I what? 3 Q How did you clean up? Did you wash your hands? 4 A I was wearing disposable gloves most the time. 5 I mean, you know, if something would have happened where 6 I thought that something would have gotten through, of 7 course I would have washed my hands then. 8 Q So is it true, then, that you did not routinely. 9 wash your hands when you left? 10 A There was times when I did, but not routinely 11 probably. 12 Q Did you eat or drink in the facility? 13 A Let me see. I probably brought a can of pop 14 in once in a while, but when the processing started or 15 before I really started you know, 'cause there's a lot 16 of open space in that building. Most of the time I'd 17 finish the drink, and I'd discard of the can, and then 18 start, you know. 19 Q So you would carry the pop inside the building 20 and you would drink it periodically while you were in 21 there? 22 A No, no, not periodically. Most of the time 23 what I would do is I would -- 'cause I would have to 24 be.in there for a few hours, first I would eat and drink 25 before I even got up there. I guess in the three years O
NOACK - CROSS 595:
. b' .
1 I've been doing this or something, I guess, some place 2 I might'have done that,'but that'wasn't the rules.. 3 Q So occasionally.~you would eat inside the facility? 4 A' Occasionally I would eat? No, I would never-L -5 eat in there. l' 6 Q But you just said that you would carry a soda 7 can in there. 8 A I know what you're getting at, but I probably 9 might have drank something.in there, but it was like 10 I was just finishing off and I was, you know, going up 11 with the pop in my car or something. You know, I mean-12 I was driving up there from the gas station or something.
=
13 But it was a rule not to drink or eat in the laboratory.
'14 Q Whose rule was that?
15 A That was John Larsen's rule. 16 Q Did you see anyone else eat inside the facility? 17 A No.
~
18 Q Did you ever see -- were there any other people 19 that you knew that worked in the facility? 20 A No, because everybody knew that was the rules. 21 Q But that's what the rules were, but did you 22 see anybody else eat inside the facility? 23 A Well, you tend to follow the rules a little 24 bit closer when there are other people watching. But 25 I mean, no, I don't think so. I didn't see Mike or O
. NOACK - CROSS.
1596 ~* y
~1 John-ever: eating or drinking in there..
~
2 O Were there any other workers during-the time 3 period that.you were working for Mr.'Larsen? 4 A. Was ther'e any other what, workers?-
'S O . Workers.
6 A- In Evanston? 7 Q Evanston or Utah. 8 A' Eating or drinking in the laboratory?- Is that 9 what you're -- 10 0 That ate or drank inside the laboratory. 11 A Oh, no, no. But if I did bring something up 12~ .to the lab, I left it'in my car, and I had my car parked 13 outside the lab, 'cause the lab was always.really hot, 14 and it was a uncomfortable place to be. Either'that 15 or it was 20 below zero inside it. 16 Q. Do you know that there was at least one picture 17- that we have of'the lab where there-was a soda.can inside? 18 A Yes. Well, I discarded all kinds of things 19 in that -- you know, I would bring up a soda. I mean, 20 I didn't know you had that picture or nothing, but like 21 I said, I would -- okay, a typical day I would stop at 22 one of the convenience stores on the way up to the -- 23' because I'd be coming out of school. I'd drive 100 miles, i
-24 and I'd be maybe a little hungry or thirsty. But if 25 you've'ever been up to that facility, I mean, it is a O
. NOACK. . CROSS 597 Lb 1 miserable place. I mean, weather-wise, it's really' hot 2 and that. I.mean, you're talking over a hundred degrees 3 inside theLfacility or 20 below'zero. And I've1 worked 4
in-both cases. And my car I find a lot more comfortable 5 place to relax'. 6 But I've cleaned up my car and thrown! stuff 7 in the' waste: receptacle there. 8 0 Would you wash your hands before you leave?- 9 A Well, like I said, what I would do is I would 10 stop at a convenience store first. What I'm trying to ti say is I wouldn't go to eat after I've worked without 12 washing my hands, of course, especially, you know -- 13 I understand cleanliness in laboratories and how LO 14 contamination can get in a person. 15 0 Was this the water that you would carry up 16 there with you to wash? 17 A Yes. It was more of an emergency thing in 18 case.there was a-fire or in case I needed to scrub something 19 down, a spill, who knows. But I don't think I've ever 20 had to really use it for any emergency purposes. 21 Q But did you use it to wash your hands before i 12 you ate the sandwich or drank the soda? 23 A When I get up there, like I said, I would eat 24 or drink before I'd get there. And then in the lab I'd 25 put on my gloves. I always wore gloves. And after I O l
- t. _ _ - _
p - 598
, NOACK.- CROSS l-:
L ;b 1 was done, you know,'if my hands were -- there was no 2 ' contamination. So I~wouldn't.-- you know, I'd use.a 3 . Geiger counter on it, and I never found no contamination. 4 And I could never see no visual contamination either, 5- Q Mr. Noack, you' mentioned that Mr. Larsen was
!' 6- -corcerned for your health and safety.
'7 A Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.)
8 -Q Were you. aware that there was an order'from. 9 Utah that you and Mr. Larsen would get a whole body count? 10 A That what?
'11. O That you would get a whole body count as a 12 result of the work in your Evanston facility?
13 MR. LARSEN: Excuse me. Can I correct on that? 14 MR. ROMNEY: Excuse me. That was as a result 15 of the Utah order suspending the license, that there 16 was an order given to Utah to have a whole body count. 17 THE WITNESS: I didn't know_that. 18 MR. LARSEN: I don't believe I was ever ordered. 19 JUDGE KLINE: It was only Mr. Larsen who had 20 a whole body count. 21 MR. LARSEN: I don't even think I was, Judge. 22 I did it voluntarily, but there was never an order given 23 for a whole body count. 24 MR. ROMNEY: We'll get the order and we'll 25 see. O
NOACK - CROSS 599
.s b
1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I might say, Mr. Larsen, 2 if you were a lawyer and you thought the foundation was 3 incorrect, you'd probably object to the question itself. 4 MR. LARSEN: Yes, okay. 5 (Pause.) 6 MR. ROMNEY: Okay. I have it here. It's the 7 June 10th, '86 order from Utah, and this is the notice 8 of violation and order to show cause issued by the State 9 of Utah, June 10th, 1986. And the order on page 10 -- 10 MS. HODGDON: Excuse me. It's page 6 in the OI. 11 JUDGE KLINE: Yes. 12 MR. ROMNEY: First page of that letter 13 transmitting the order to Larsen Laboratories is June 11, 14 1986. 15 /// 16 /// 17 /// 18 /// < 19 /// 20 /// 21 /// 1 22 /// 23 /// 24 /// 25 /// l I r~T
\~) 1 1
NOACK - CROSS 600 [~h
-()
!T-7'MC 1 BY MR. ROMNEY: 2 Q Mr. Noack, on page 10 of that order there's a 3 Paragraph C, which required the order that a whole-body 4 count -- Okay, let me read it to you. " Pursuant to URC 5 24-080, licensee shall obtain within 30 days after receipt 6 of this~ order an in vivo lung bioassay for uranium in the 7 following individuals," the first being John Larsen, and 8 Kevin Noack, "and shall submit a report of the bioassay 9 results to the Bureau." 10 Did Mr. Larsen arrange for you to have a bioassay? 11 MR. LARSEN: I object. Can I object there? 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: On what basis? r- 13 MR. LARSEN: On the basis that this was not ()) 14 required. This is what the statute, I believe, reads. But 15 Utah never told me to get a lung -- never required me to 16 get a lung bioassay, and it has never cited as a violation 17 that I didn't get a lung bioassay. 18 MR. ROMNEY: Judge Bechhoefer, the document speaks 19 for itself. It is an order from the State of Utah, and it 20 is mailed to, delivered to, Larsen Laboratories, and it was 21 sent by Utah pursuant to their oversight of his specific 22 license. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, if you look at 24 page 8 of that same document, this is all under a lead-in 25 that says "It is hereby ordered that".
NOACK - CROSS 601 \ 6 I V M2 1 MR. LARSEN: It was never my understanding, and 2 they never did mention to me, and this is the first time 3 I have ever seen, that a lung bioassay was required and 4 ordered of me. It was never mentioned. I don't know 5 where -- I see this in the record here, but it was never 6 stated from Utah that that was necessary. 7 Nevertheless, I went and had me done. But for 8 Kevin, I didn't know he was necessary. 9 MR. ROMNEY: The order speaks for itself, Judge 10 Bechhoefer. 11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I recognize that. 12 BY MR. ROMNEY: 13 Q Mr. Noack, did you get that bioassay dont , that
. q(/
14 whole-body count? 15 A I've never had a bioassay. 16 Q So it's true, then, that Mr. Larsen never told 17 you that you had to get one also. 18 A Well, if he didn't know, how could he? No, he l 19 never has. 20 Q Can you answer the question, please, yes or no? 21 Did he tell you that you had to get it? Yes or no? 22 A No. I never had one done. 23 Q Do you know that Mr. Larsen had one done for 24 himself? 25 A Yes, I seem to recall he did. But he says it came
~ NOACK - CROSS 602 r's -
' %s M3. 1 out negative, which is positive.
2 Q- Mr. Noack, did you ever process material in the 3 Lindon facility?. 4 A In the Lindon facility? 5 Q That's correct. 6 A No, I don't think I ever did. 7 Q Do you recall that in your interview with 8 Mr. Griffin and Mr. Spitzberg that you mentioned.that you 9 boiled down at least two buckets of waste crystal? 10 A Is that considered processing? I wouldn't 11 consider that processing. 12 Q But did you recover crystals from that Lindon
,r~s 13 facility?
14 'A I recovered crystals, but I don't call that 15 processing. You know, I don't think you guys understand 16 how this is accomplished. For instance, wastewater is 17 decanted from -- 18 Q I'm not asking about the process. Did you boil 19 down or recover the waste crystals from the Lindon facility? 20 Yes or no? 21 A Yes. I have got quite a few pounds of crystals 22 out there. 23 Q Quite a few times? 24 A Quite a few pounds. 25 Q Quite a few pounds? )
- NOACK - CROSS 603' l
.?~ i
(, M4 1 A Yes. l 2 Q And how much would that be, about 10 pounds, 15 3 pounds? 4 A The total? It's really hard to estimate. Five 5 to ten pounds probably. ! l 6 Q And where did you carry those crystals after you i 7 recovered them? l 8 A I told John about them, and he came out and took 9 a look at them and took them. j 10 Q And when was this done? 11 A I have no schedule. I can't answer that. 12 Q Was it done during the period of time when you 13 knew the Utah license to be in suspension? : (~)g
's_
i 14 A I don't know if I could nail it down to an exact l 15 time. I mean, it's really hard, it's very difficult to give ; 1 l 16 an answer on something like that. l 17 O Can you at least say the number of times you did j 18 it? Was it two times? Was it true that it was about two ;
)
19 times that you did it, on two occasions? l l 20 A At least twice. 21 MR. LARSEN: Judge Bechhoefer, may I interject 12 something? 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Wait until Mr. Romney finishes l l 24 this general line. 25 MR. LARSEN: Okay. (V
NOACK - CROSS 604
)
h5 1 BY MR. ROMNEY: 2 Q Did you carry those crystals which you recovered l 3 fron. Lindon to Wyoming? 4 A Let's see, I probably have on occasion. I don't 5 really know. For instance, it ain't as simple as just 6 grabbing crystals. For instance, you have to -- Sometimes 7 there was crystals, and sometimes there was stuff that 8 looked like crystals. So they would have to be rerun 9 through the benzene stuff again. .; 10 Q And how did you transport those crystals? How 11 did you package those? How did you transport those 12 crystals? 13 A In buckets with lids on them. 14 Q So you packaged them in buckets? 15 A Yes. 16 Q Would they be in compliance with the packaging l 17 requirements by the State of Utah? 18 A I think they passed with packaging, but maybe not 19 the labeling. 20 Q Did you know what the packaging requirements are 21 from the State of Utah? 12 A No, not really. But I have an idea now. 23 0 What is your idea? 24 A Nell, they would have to be in an approved 25 container -- see, I don't know if they'd be in an approved O. l ,
NOACK - CROSS 605
'I l. .M6 1 container -- and then put the proper labeling, and then 2 ' documentation.
3 0 And a bucket would not be an approved container, 4 would it? 5 A I don't have the chart. I couldn't tell you. 6 Q But certainly a bucket is not -- 7 A On a lot of substances it is, though. 8 Q Excuse me? 9 A On a lot of substances a bucket would be -- I 10 mean, if it wouldn't damage the bucket, it would be 11 probably approved. 12 Q But in this case carrying the crystals would not 13 be; is that what you're saying? ( 14 A Well, I would say that it very well likely could 15 be, because I don't see the crystals damaging the bucket 16 or causing a danger of spilling or busting the bucket. 17 0 Who told you that it was okay to transport the 18 crystals that way? 19 A Who said that it was okay? Well, nobody really 20 came right out and said it was okay, but nobody said 21 anything different. 22 O Did Mr. Larsen give you any instruction or 23 direction to do this or how to do this? 24 A No, at this time I didn't know one way or the 25 other if it was okay or if it wasn't. O 1
NOACK - CROSS 606 i
/.
M7 1 Q So then your testimony is that you were not 2 instructed in this, how to do it properly. 3 A Yes, I guess you could say that. 4 Q As far as carrying the waste product from Wyoming 5 to Lindon, Utah, did you receive any instruction as to how 6 to do that properly, how to transport the waste crystals, 7 waste product? 8 A Okay, yeah. Most of the time I would have it 9 in -- we'd have a 5-mil plastic liner. And we would 10 sometimes place the -- 11 The procedure I was supposed to use -- I'll put 12 it this way -- I would put the 5-mil container in, put in. 13 the waste buckets, and then put the lid on top and secure 14 it and bolt it down, and then put it in the back of my 15 pickup and drive it -- or my El Camino, I should call-it -- 16 and bring it to the Lindon facility and unload it, put it 17 in one of the sheds, and lock it up. 18 Q Did you fasten that container in your vehicle? 19 A Yes. 20 Q With what? , 21 A With tie-down straps, because otherwise -- You 12 know, I have quite experience in hauling things. 23 Q Now, you said that that was the way you were 24 supposed to do it. Who told you how you were supposed to 25 do it? ] LO
--_--,--_sa_ --a_---- _ - - - - - _ . - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
NOACK - CROSS 607 rh
' (_)
M8 i A John did. 2 Q Was that in accordance with the transportation 3 requirements from the State of Utah? 4 A- I didn't know at that time. But I'm sure it 5 followed the safety part or end of it. 6 Q You're sure, but you have no basis of saying 7 whether you're sure. 8 A Well, I've taken class on hazardous waste 9 management and transportation of stuff. And I guess the 10 labeling or the documentation, stuff like that, probably 11 wasn't done correctly. But -- 12 Q .Did you have any labeling on it or documentation 13 of these containers? 14 A Yes, " Radioactive Material" was on the side, and l 15 I think on the lid sometimes too, 16 Q Sometimes. 17 A Well, I really can't say because, see, we had 18 five or six emblems up there, and we needed to have them 19 up there too. But I think they all had it on the side, you 20 know, halfway, about in the middle of the barrel. 21 Q You think but you're not sure whether all of them 12 were. 23 A Exactly. I'm not 100-percent sure. 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, did you want to 25 add something there? What did you wish to bring out? O
NOACK - CROSS 608 s {/ s-M9 I MR. LARSEN: Maybe it's inappropriate, Judge. 2 I don't know. 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: You will ha.re a chance for 4 redirect after the cross-examination of Mr. Noack. You can 5 ask him some clarifying questions if you wish, on what has 6 come out. 7 MR. LARSEN: Okay. Well -- 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: But that wouldn't be now. That 9 would be after. 10 MR. LARSEN: Okay, I guess my question is: Going 11 over these things in Utah, such as lung bioassay and that, 12 is that relevant to the Wyoming operation? 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, we'll have to decide 14 that. In terms of the general conduct of the business, 15 maybe it will be. 16 MR. LARSEN: Because I was never cited for 17 failure of that, and I frankly didn't know that it was 18 required, and I don't think they did require it. 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, you can put that as part L of your own redirect, which you will have a chance to do. 20 21 MR. LARSEN: Okay. 22 BY MR. ROMNEY: 23 Q Mr. Noack, I just had a few more questions, just 24 a few. You mentioned in your interview with Brooks Griffin 25 that there was a six- or seven-pound spill in Evanston. O
NOACK - CROSS 609 O 'M10 1 A yes. 2 Q. Was it true that Mr. Larsen was there during'the 3 clean-up of that spill? 4 A No, Mike was there. What happened there is they 5 had an inspection of the facility, and there was 12 pounds 6 of cryctals or 8 pounds of crystals up there. They took 7 the lid off one of the containers, somebody did. They 8 placed it back into the incubator without tightening the 9 lid. So when I came and got it by the lid, it fell over. 10 Q Okay. Now, how did you clean up that spill? 11 A Let me see. Okay, exactly how, I used a piece 12 of paper to act like a dustpan, because it fell on a clean 13 surface. It fell on linoleum. And I got as much as I could 14 there. Then I took a damp paper towel and wiped out what 15 residue was left and put that with that. 16 Q Did it create any dust? Did it raise any dust? 17 A Yes, it did -- not the clean-up, but the spill 18 .did. And it was something that happens in every chemical 19 lab. 20 Q Okay, were you near the spill when it occurred? 21 A Was I near the spill? I was a foot away from the 12 spill when that occurred. 23 Q And were you wearing any kind of protective 24 clothing, or any masks or gloves? 25 A Not at that time, I wasn't. O
NOACK - CROSS 610
't111 1 Q And what about when you cleaned up, when you.were
- ~
l 2 cleaning up the spill?
'3 A Yes, I'm sure I was, because it was a very light 4 particle dust.
5 Q Did you cican your hands before you put the mask 6 on? 7 A Did I what? 8 Q Did you clean, wash your hands before you put the 9 mask on? 10 A Most of the time on the clean-up, no. What I did 11 was I put the gloves on, and it would be really quick. 12 I mean, spills, they should be cleaned up very fast. I mean, I'm sure I put a mask on, because I go through quite
-( 13 14 a few of those, and put it back into the container, put the 15 lid back on the container, and left it in the incubator.
16 Q Did you submit a urine sample after this? 17 A I think I did, probably a day after. And I think 18 that was one of the times when it was high. j 19 Q Did you submit the sample on the day of the spill, 20 or the day of the clean-up? 21 A I'm pretty sure it was right away. But to tell j l 12 you the truth, I can't rememba. e ac.1.y. I hate saying I i 1 23 can't remember, but I would think .cr I did it right away. 24 I mean, not within two minutes, but I mean -- I 1 When you gave the sample, were you in the l 25 0
.. i
l NOACK - CROSS 611 f l . l 't ! (~J R M12 1 facility, the same facility where it spilled? q
)
l 2 A. No. I'll tell you, what I normally do in a 3 situation like that is we take one before and after. Oh, 4 I think that was a lab clean-up, so I might not have in that 5 situation, now that I really think about it. 6 Q So you did not take the sample? 7 A Because we were preparing for an inspection, 8 I think, because there was an inspection, I think, the day 9 that happened. I think. I'm not 100-percent sure. But 10 I think there might have been an inspection on that spill. 11 Q Who was there? Who conducted that inspection? 12 A What's that? 13 Q What inspection was this? 14 A It either was Spitzberg or one of the guys from 15 the State of Wyoming. I mean, I never really met these 16 investigators or these people, you know, on the days. We've 17 had quite a few. 18 Q When did this spill occur? 19 A I think it occurred after the clean-up, after 20 the stuff was all cleaned up. 21 (Interruption due to building power failure, 12 whereupon, the hearing was recessed, to reconvene at 23 1:57 p.m. the same day.) 24 25 O
612 .T-8 MC 1 A_ _F _T _E _R _N _O _O _N _S _E _S _S _I _O _N 2 (1:57 P.M.) 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Back on the record.
-4 We understand that Mr. Noack is going'to return.
5 He is not.here yet, so we will resume with the cross-6 examination or examination, as the case may be, by the Board 7 of Mr. Larsen. 8 Ms. Hodgdon, had you finished all your questions 9 of Mr. Larson? 10 MR. ROMNEY: Yes, I believe I had. 11 Whereupon, 12 JOHN P. LARSEN 13 resumed the stand and, having been previously duly sworn,
.O 14 .was examined and testified further as follows:
15 CROSS-EXAMINATION (Resumed by Board) 16 JUDGE KLINE: Mr. Larsen, the Board wants to 17 follow up a bit on this question the staff raised this 18 morning with Mr. Noack concerning lung bioassay. 19 THE WITNESS: Okay. 20 JUDGE KLINE: I'm wondering, do you recall where 21 you went to get your lung bioassay? 22 THE WITNESS: Where I went? 23 JUDGE KLINE: Yes. 24 THE WITNESS: I can find the results of that. 25 JUDGE KLINE: No, I don't want the results. O l
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 613 13 kJ
.M2 1 I just want to know where you got it.
L ' In Pleasanton, California, whatever 2 THE WITNESS: 3 the outfit is there. 4 JUDGE KLINE: Okay, that's all I wanted to know. 5 Do you recall, when you got the notice of 6 violation from the State of Utah, the original notice, do 7 you recall making a reply; that is to say, exercising your 8 right to reply to the notice of violation? 9 THE WITNESS: I replied to the 17 violations that 10 were listed, yes. 11 JUDGE KLINE: Have you got a copy of that in front 12 of you? 13 THE WITNESS: I'll get one. 14 JUDGE KLINE: It's identified on Orion Chemical 15 Company letterhead, dated July 12, 1986. It's addressed 16 to the Utah Department of Health. I don't have an exhibit 17 number on it. 18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: It is Exhibit 7, isn't it? 19 JUDGE SHON: It is Exhibit 7-2, the report filed 20 by tne Office of Investigation. 21 THE WITNESS: July 12, was it? 22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. That's Staff Exhibit 1, 23 I believa. 24 THE WITNESS: Okay. 25 JUDGE KLINE: Do you have it? l
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 614 L G L) M3 1 JUDGE KLINE: Would you turn to page 5, please. 2 THE WITNESS: Yes. 3 JUDGE KLINE: And you look at the paragraph marked 4 Part C, In Vivo Lung Assay. 5 THE WITNESS: Okay. 6 JUDGE KLINE: Just read the paragraph and see if 7 it refreshes your memory as to the sequence of events. 8 You don't have to read it into the record. I just wonder 9 if it helps you recall what happened. 10 THE WITNESS: This does. 11 JUDGE KLINE: In your reply it appears that you 12 protested or indicated your displeasure at obtaining these 13 lung bioassays; did you not? 14 THE WITNESS: Right. 15 JUDGE KLINE: Do you agree with that? 16 THE WITNESS: Yes. 17 JUDGE KLINE: Okay. 18 THE WITNESS: .Yes, and I believe I got the 19 information from that that the measurement would not be that 20 accurate. I did, I believe, get that information from the 21 State of Utah. They were the ones that gave me that 22 information. There's no other way I could get information 23 like that. 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Is Dr. Lloyd employed by Utah? 25 THE WITNESS: No. Well, the University of Utah, O i
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 615 O d M4 1 I'believe, not the State of Utah that I know of. 2 JUDGE KLINE: Okay. Do you recall, then, what 3 happened subsequently between you and the State of Utah 4 regarding how it was resolved? That is, were you then 5 exempted from getting lung bioassays? 6 THE WITNESS: It was never mentioned again to me 7 that I know of, that I can remember. .And I was never cited 8 for it or anything like that. There was nothing said. 9 I believe that they were the ones that told me, 10 "Well, maybe that's not necessary, because the results won't 11 be that accurate." 12 JUDGE KLINE: So in your memory it sort of dropped 13 out of the picture. 14 THE WITNESS: It entirely dropped out and was-15 never mentioned again, even in the hearing that took place
!6 on 9/5/86.
17 JUDGE KLINE: Okay. Do you also have a copy of 18 the settlement agreement between you and the State of Utah? 19 THE WITNESS: I think so. I have to find it here. 20 JUDGE KLINE: This is again in Staff Exhibit 1, 21 and again I don't have the exhibit number. 22 MS. HODGDON: It seems to be ll. 23 JUUGE KLINE: Okay, 11, yes. And it's the 24 settlement agreement between John P. Larsen and the Utah 25 State Department of Health. O _---_____--___________a _ - _ . . _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 616 I
' MS . 1 THE WITNESS: What date is that?
2 JUDGE KLINE: I have a date written on the top 3 of November 10, '87. 4 JUDGE SHON: I don't think so. 5 THE WITNESS: November 10? 6 JUDGE KLINE: No, the date the document was signed 7 is January 15, 1987, over the signatures. 8 THE WITNESS: I don't have the settlement. But 9 I'm familiar with it if you want to go ahead. 10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: It appears right after the 11 document which is Order Suspending License of Utah, which 12 is Exhibit 10. Right after that in that document. 13 (Discussion held off the record.) 14 JUDGE SHON: It's a matter of record. It's an 15 attachment to Staff Exhibit 1. 16 JUDGE KLINE: Are you familiar with this document 17 now that you see it? 18 THE WITNESS: Yes. 19 JUDGE KLINE: This is the agreement that you were 2 10 relying on, was it? 21 THE WITNESS: Yes, it looks like it is. 22 JUDGE KLINE: As the agreement between you and 29 the State of Utah -- 24 THE WITNESS: I might say this, that I -- 25 JUDGE KLINE: - - that 'mposed the obligations on O
i LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 617 M6 1 you? 2 THE WITNESS: Excuse me. 3 JUDGE KLINE: Yes. I mean this is the agreement 4 that -- 5 THE WITNESS: I think so, yes. 6 JUDGE KLINE: -- imposed the obligations on you 7 to clean up your facility and put things in storage or to 8 dispose of waste and so on. 9 THE WITNESS: That's right. 10 JUDGE KLINE: Would you scan through it and see 11 if you find any reference to the need for lung bioassay. 12 THE WITNESS: I don't see anything. rS. 13 JUDGE KLINE: All right. The settlement agreement U 14 by its own terms resolves the notice of violation and order, 15 does it not? 16 THE WITNESS: Um-hm. (Affirmative response.) 17 JUDGE KLINE: By its own terms in Paragraph 2 on 18 the front page. So was there any subsequent conversation 19 between you and the State of Utah regarding these lung 20 bioassays, or any subsequent documents that you know of that 21 would impose an obligation to obtain such an assay? 22 THE WITNESS: I'll say not. 23 JUDGE KLINE: On you or Mr. Noack? 24 THE WITNESS: Not that I know of. 25 JUDGE KLINE: All right. That's all I have on it.
c LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 618
.f
(- l7 ' 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. I.arsen, you were asked 2 quite a few questions about the written statement that you 3~ made to the Office of Investigation and to Mr. Griffin, and 4 particularly about some of the corrections or sone of the 5 statements in that statement. Some of them, you said that 6 you couldn't remember why you had put them in there. 7 After having thought about it a little longer, 8 do you have any better recollection? 9 THE WITNESS: What specifically? 10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, there were those 11 sentences that were crossed out in various places. 12 THE WITNESS: Ga, yes, in the sworn statement that I 13 I signed. 14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes, that's what I'm referring 15 to. I wonder if after having thought about it for a few 16 more minutes or hours, you might have recollected something 17 :nore about the sentences that you didn't remember. 18 THE WITNESS: Yes, okay. Let's see, where is 19 that? . 20 Well, on page 8, " January 8, Energy Labs informed 21 me that the urine samples had leaked. The subsequent test 22 reports were high." And then I would like to reestablish 23 in there, which has been crossed out, "And I believed from 24 their information they called in to me, the box was broken 25 in shipment and therefore the samples were contaminated." O
LARSEN'- CROSS (Resumed) 619 (M V I Then could I add also, "They asked if I wanted-JM8 2 them tested. I said yes, but would they please send me some 3 of-their sample containers." That would stand in there. 4 "I did not report those results to the NRC 5 because they were inaccurate." That should stand, okay. 6 "I did not send control samples to the lab as 7 requested by the NRC because it was my understanding that 8 the lab supplied its own controls. On January 10, I resumed 9 sampling and subsequently sent the urine samples for Mike 10 and myself." 11 Maybe I could add also there: "The samples _that 12 were collected in the pharmacy jars were thrown out from 13 information about fluorimetry and contamination therein. 14 That is why I asked for clean sample bottles." Is . hat 15 fair, to do that? 16 JUDGE BECH30EFER: Well, we just want your current 17 recollection of what actually happened. 18 THE WITNESS: Okay, that's the best of my 19 understanding. 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The statement will stand the 21 way it is. But we want to find out -- 22 THE WITNESS: To the best of my understanding, 23 that's what I've testified already, and that's how I would 24 testify again. 25 (Pause.) O
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 620 1 O M9 I JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I'm trying to find.some dates. 2 There were two telephone calls between somebody in 3 Region IV -- I think Dr. Spitzberg, but I'm not positive. 4 Onc,.I think, was on February 4. One on February.4'and 5 one on February 8 or 9. I'm trying to track down the dates. 6 MS. HODGDON: February 8 is the call of 7 Dr. Spitzberg, he testified, and there is also documentation 8 of that. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: . Well, I was just looking for ) 10 the documentation. I want to get the dates straight when 11 I ask my question. 12 MS. HODGDON: Oh. I believe -- Well, I know that ! 13 Dr. Spitzberg testified that he didn't talk to him until l 14 February 8. I think he talked to somebody else in the 15 Region on the 4th. That's my best recollection. 16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right, well -- 17 MS. HODGDON: That's not right. Dr. Spitzberg 18 will give you the right dates. ; 19 What are they? 20 DR. SPITZBERG: On February 4th and the 8th, I 21 believe. 12 MS. HODGDON: You talked to him? 23 DR. SPITZBERG: It's in my testimony, starting l 24 with Question 38, 25 MS. HODGDON: I'm sorry, what are the right dates? O
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 621 (D. L/ M10. 1 DR. SPITZBERG: February 4 and February 8. 2 MS. HODGDON: February 4 and February 8, 3 Dr. Spitzberg spoke with Mr. Larsen. 4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: All right, well, those are the 5 calls I wish to refer to. 6 Mr. Larsen, after the call on February 4, what I 7 did you understand that the Staff was asking you to file 8 with Region IV, I believe it is? 9 THE WITNESS: I don't remember what was said to there. Can you refresh my memory what is reported to be 11 said? 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, I can't. I'll have to 13 track it down. i 14 MR. FLACK: Page 18 of Mr. Spitzberg's testimony 15 talks to that, Question 38. 16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: This will help. In 17 Dr. Spitzberg's testimony he mentioned that on February 4 18 he called you, Mr. Larsen, to inquire about the sample 19 results from the bioassay sampling required by the 20 December 31 CAL. 21 THE WITNESS: On February 4. 22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. 23 THE WITNESS: Okay. 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Was that all you were told 25 about? I'm trying to figure out why the February 8 call
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 622
)
Mll I was necessary, why you would not have provided the 2 .information that the February 8 call inquired about. On 3 February 4 were you made aware that -- 4 THE WITNESS: See, by February 4, I had the j 5 results of the January. So all of the-results should have 6 been told on February 4. There was no reason for me to not 7 tell him about January 10th and 13th samples being less than , 8 5 micrograms. 9 It seems to me somewhere that there was a call q 10 before that -- 11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's what I'm inquiring. 12 THE WITNESS: -- that I can't remember. And it's 13 not recorded here that there was a phone call before 14 February 4 where the results of December 31 and that
.15 were in the broken box were told Mr. Spitzberg. But I have 16 no record of what date the phone call was. But on 17 February 4 there was no reason for me to withhold any of 18 that information.
l 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I guess February 4 and 20 February 8 are the dates I had in mind. After the 21 February 4 call were you told that you had to submit all 22 of your samples? I'm wondering why the February 9 call was 23 even necessary. 24 THE WITNESS: I don't understand either, because 25 I thought there was a phone call before the 4th where I told O
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 623 O M12- I him the box was broken and I would report the results when 2 I got them of the-10th and the 13th. I told him when he 3 called that the results were high, and I didn't call it in 4 because they were high. 5 He said, "You should have called them in." 6 I said, "Okay, I will. Ehen I get the results 7 for the 10th and the 13th, I'll call those in too." 8 Does that make sense? 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, I'm trying to figure out-10 why after, I guess, the tirst of the calls, you just didn't 11 send everything in that you had. 12 THE WITNESS: Well, the first call to me -- See,
~
13 I didn't have the results of the 10th and the 13th of 14 January until -- I think they were mailed out the 25th of 15 January. I think that's what it is on the January. And 16 if the phone call was before that time, I wouldn't have had 17 the results of the 10th and the 13th to report him. - fka I 18 would have had those results for him when they came for me. 19 Does that make sense? 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So then you got this call on 21 the 4th. 22 THE bITNESS: On the 4th. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And what were you told to 24 submit at that time? 25 THE WITNESS: He wanted to know what the results O
LARSEN'- CROSS'(Resumed) 624
%)
M13 1 were.- And I said, "I will send them in to jou. Here they 2 are. I just barely got them." And I said what the results 3 were, and they were all less than 5. 4 ' JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So when he inquired at that 5 time -- 6 THE WITNESS: He said, "What are the results?" 7 And I said, "The results are less than 8 5 micrograms per liter." And I had told him before that 9 of the broken box. I hadn't tried to hide that from him. 10 There's no reason to hide it, because it was broken and 11 contaminated. If it was broken and contaminated, that 12 wouldn't be something to hide, because it's obvious that 13 those things would be suspect, in my mind. l 14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So in your conversation on the 15 4th there was no discussion at all about the broken and 16 contaminated box? 17 THE WITNESS: I thought there was a phone call i 18 before that where that was understood. I haven't written 19 down when the phone calls came in and stuff like that. But l 20 as I remember, there was a phone call before that where 21 Mr. Griffin was told that the box was broken and that the I 22 samples were analyzed, and the results were high but were 23 suspect. 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Griffin or Dr. Spitzberg? 25 THE WITNESS: Dr. Spitzberg. O
LARSEN - CROSS (Rerumed) '625 c-If"K
\_/ q M14 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, I'd like you to 2 turn to the attachment to your March 18, '88 letter, the 3 one that's titled at the top Racords of. Materials Received 4 and Shipped.
5 THE WITNESS: What page is that? 6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: It hasn't got a page number. 7 It's an attachment. It's the one that follows page 9. 8 THE WITNESS: Okay. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I was wondering about the 10 16-1/2 pounds which are said to be shipped in 1987 in 11 Uyoming from waste. 12 THE WITNESS: Okay. 13 JUDGE DECHHOEFER: I was wondering, did you have 14 any problems with that 16-1/2 pounds as being greater than 15 the 15 pounds that can be shipped in one shipment? 16 THE WITNESS: I believe those were two 8-pound 17 shipments. I'd have to check my records. 18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Oh, I see. I did see another 19 record. Those are-the same shipments that you had the two 20 8's. 21 THE WITNESS: I believe that was it. 22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay, because I wasn't sure. 23 From this chart it looks like there's one 16-1/2 pound 24 shipment, and I was just wondering why you thought that did 25 not go over the 15. 1
,L LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 626 I. U-~ M15 1 THE WITNESS: Well,'that 16 pounds was UAA, of 2 which 50 percent would be metal. Is that the 6/13/87 3 shipment? Yes, I.think that's what you're referring to. 4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I was really reading it from 5 the bottom. 6 THE WITNESS: Oh, the 12/20? 7 MS. HODGDON: How about the 9/3? 8 THE WITNESS: Well, that's 13. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, 9/3 is perhaps. I think 10 9/3 is where it came from. 11 THE WITNESS: Oh, 16-1/2 pounds from the waste. 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. That's what I was fg 13 trying to figure out, why that in itself would not be V considered a violation as being over 15. 14 15 THE WITNESS: I think if it adds up, I think it 16 was 16-1/2 pounds of the 28 pounds. But I'd have to check 17 on that if you want me to. 18' MS. HODGDON: Actually, I think 6/1 is the one 19 you want, where it shows 16.694, isn't it; 10.5 added 20 crystals from waste? l 21 THE WITNESS: Okay, yes, that's right. And that 22 was from 15 pounds of Wyoming stuff and 10 pounds from -- 23 or 5 pounds of the metal, 10 pounds of UAA, which was added 24 from the waste, from Utah. 25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Oh, I see. This 16 is the O
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 627 M16 1 total of the other. I see. I was reading that as a
~2. September 3 shipment, and I guess that isn't.
3 THE WITNESS: All these crystals from the waste 4 came from Utah. 5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I.see. I wasn't reading it 6 that way, but I see how it comes out. 7 (Pause for Judges to confer.) 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I see my mistake. I was 9 reading the September 3' figure as a shipment of 16-1/2 10 pounds all on that date. I gather from looking at it 11 again -- Or you can correct me, but does that represent a 12 sum of the waste shipments for the three prior occasions? 13 Or does it represent 16-1/2 on one occasion? 14 (There was no response.) 15 MS. HODGDON: Excuse me. Judge Bechhoefer, I 16 don't think that Mr. Larsen understands your question. 17 THE WITNESS: Okay, I've got it here. That 16-1/2 18 is the sum of 10.5, 4.0 and 2.0. 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. Well that's what I 20 was trying to figure out. 21 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry. 22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I was viewing it as a one-time 23 shipment of 16-1/2. 24 THE WITNESS: Yes, I know. That can be confused. 25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I wanted to make sure what it O o_ --- _ -
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 628 M17' 1 was. 2 THE WITNESS: Because 13 times 47 percent would 3 give 28. 4 JUDGE SHON: As I-understand your symbolism here, 5 .the number in parentheses is a number that represents the 6 amount of material in crystals from waste that was included 7 in the corresponding shipment or the sum of shipments. Is 8 that right? 9 THE WITNESS: That's right, from Utah. .j 10 JUDGE SHON: So when it reads a total of 155.834 11 (16.5 crystals from waste), you have then subtracted that < 12 to say that that wasn't to imply, at least, that that wasn't ("g 13 really shipped and shouldn't be counted as part of the
%.)
14 shipment; it was gotten from waste. Is that the idea? 15 THE WITNESS: That's exactly right. 16 JUDGE SHON: Similarly, in the figure on 6/1/87, 17 which is part of this total, you say 16.694, but you add 18 in parentheses that 10-1/2 of this was from crystals from i 19 waste. 20 THE WITNESS: Right. 21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And, you felt, shouldn't be 22 counted as part of that shipment because it was already in 23 your possession, in effect. 24 THE WITNESS: Right. 25 JUDGE SHON: That's what I thought. Its l O i
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 629'
'f M18 1 .symbology, or the code that says parenthesis, has a 2 different meaning than other things. It's not immediately 3 obvious.
4 THE WITNESS: Yes, that's right. 5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's all the questions the 6 Board has right now of you, Mr. Larsen. But you have a 7 chance for redirect testimony. In other words, various 8 things that have been brought out on cross-examination. 'If 9 .you have additional statements to make just about them -- 10 not about anything extraneous, but about those things -- 11 you have an opportunity to do so. Of course, that will be 12 subject to cross-examination. But this is redirect, as the r's 13 Staff did, and you have that right.
- U 14 THE WITNESS: Okay. I think that the statement 15 that I wanted to make about the lung bioassay was cleared 16 up by Judge Kline's question, that it wasn't in the 17 settlement agreement. So I don't have anything that --
18 Nell, let's see. If I say anything about Kevin, 19 he should be here, shouldn't he? 20 JUDGE SHON: Yes. 21 THE WITNESS: Okay. Well, I'll wait, then, for 22 that. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Do you have any idea when 24 Mr. Noack will return? 25 THE WITNESS: He should be here right now.
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed)' 630
.O M19 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We normally would finish up 2 with him right away. I had thought he understood that we 3 were' going to take him right after lunch.
4 MS. HODGDON: Don't we have another round of 5 questioning? May I ask a question about the Board's 6 question? 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Of course, yes. I guess since 8 he has no further redirect, Ms. Hodgdon may ask questions. 9 MS. HODGDON: I didn't mean to interrupt. I-just j i 10 wasn't sure that you had remembered that there was another 11 round. 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. Well, I didn't, and 13 there is.
.s 14 MS. HODGDON: Well, I think I have only one 15 question, and that relates to the question that Judge Kline i
16 asked about the lung bioassay. 17 FURTHER CROSS-EXAMINATION
" 18 BY MS. HODGDON:
I 19 Q Mr. Larsen, Judge Kline asked you a question about l 20 sn order of the State of Utah of June 11, or June 10 maybe, 21 1986, in which the state ordered you -- June 11 is the 22 date of the letter transmitting the order. 23 A- Yes. , l 24 O And the state ordered you to get a lung bioassay I i 25 for yourself and for your employee Kevin Noack. Then you O
I r LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 631 1 l l (~ As) M20 .1 answered that order, as Judge Kline pointed out, with a l 2 letter on July 12, 1986 in which you said -- and I'm l l 3 returning to the paragraph that Judge Kline asked you 4 about - "After calling Dr. Ray Lloyd of the University of 5 Utah Health Physics Radiobiology Labs, and Helgeson Nuclear l 6 Services in Pleasanton, California, we have concluded that 7 there are no services available in the State of Utah for 8 lung bioassays." 9 A Right. 10 Q "The expense of flying personnel for lung 11 bioassays it not reasonable because in addition to the 12 expense, the test measures only gamma rays, which depleted 13 uranium has been depleted of. Threfore, its results are
.O 14 inaccurate."
15 Notwithstanding that information, you did yourself 16 have a lung bioassay on July 29, 1986 that was conducted 17 by the Helgeson Scientific Services whom you've quoted 18 above. 19 A Right. 20 Q After talking to them, you've concluded that it 21 wasn't good for personnel because its results were 22 inadequate. 23 My question is, why did you determine to have it 24 for yourself if you had determined it was too expensive and 25 too inaccurate for your employees? O
(. LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 632
' (v9 .M21 1 A To show that I was going over what was required of 2 me by the state, to show overcompliance.
3 O At that time the state was requiring of you. 4 The settlement came later, as I recall. It was dated 5 January 15, 1987. 6 A The state was the one that told me that 7 information about the inaccuracy of it. So they did not 0 require it of me. 9 Q Dr. Ray.Lloyd you have described as a University 10 -of Utah Health Physics Radiobiology Labs employee. 11 A Okay. 12 Q Would you say again that he represents the State n 13 of Utah? 14 A No. 15 0 Or has anything whatsoever to do -- 16 A No. But the information, I believe, was agreed to 17 by the state. And I believe that they were the ones, 18 although I'm not sure, the ones that told me about 19 Mr. Lloyd. I don't know of Mr. Lloyd. I didn't know of 20 him, and they were the ones that probably1 said go call him. 21 I certainly didn't know him by myself. 22 Q Even though he told you that it was inaccurate and 23 unnecessary, you had it done for yourself in California. 24 A That's right. 25 Q I assun.e you knew that you had been exposed much L
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 633 O H22 1 more than Kevin had been to this operation; isn't that so? L 2 A Say that again, please. 3 0 I suppose you must have known that your exposure, 4 at least during the past few years, has been considerably 5 less than that of Kevin Noack. Is that1 not so? 6 A Well, if you are going to consider who was around 7 it the most from the very first, who developed the process 8 and everything, I was considerably much more exposed to it 9 than Kevin. And I should have had in my lungs a greater 10 deposit, if it was long-term, than Kevin did because I had 11 worked around it at the very first and developed it all 12 these years before Kevin came or whatever and did the ID process and I backed off. Do you understand what I'm 14 saying? 15 Q So when you were informed in a letter from 16 Helgeson Scientific Services dated August 12, 1986-that you 17 had 5.2 depleted uranium milligrams in your lungs -- 18 A Okay, 5.2 plus or minus what? 19 Q Plus or minus 2.1. 20 A Okay. 21 O " Milligrams of depleted uranium." I'm just trying 22 to read this the way it was written. You understood that 23 that was not a heavy lung burden -- j 24 A That's right. That's what they told me. , 1 25 Q -- and that Kevin's was probably less and, , 1 _ _ _ - . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ - _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ . = _ _ - _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - . - - _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ - -
LARSEN - CROSS (Resumed) 634 f) . L./. M211 1 therefore, didn't need to be surveyed or bioassayed. And 2 .you settled the notice of violation against you.in Utah 3 without any requirement that Kevin have his lungs 4 bicassayed. Is that correct? 5 A I would guess that's correct. 6 Q Thank you. 7 A They accepted that. 8 /// 9 10 11 12 ( 'N 13
\
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ( __ __ _ _ _ _ ___________._.__________.________________._____o
.2
^
, S..LARSEN - DIRECT 635
. 9A1 b72/
D l' MS. HODGDON: Thank you. 'I have no further-L 2 questions.- 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, as a witness
<4 you're excused at the moment. You're still here, but.
5 you're excused as a witness. 6 (Whereupon, the Witness was excused.) 7 ' JUDGE BECHHOEFER: At this time I guess the L 8 best way to proceed would be to have you put on your 9 wife as a witness, if you wish to do so. You had expressed 10 that desire, and we will permit that. 11 MR. LARSEN: Okay. So I'd like to call Sally 12 Larsen. 13 -Whereupon, 14- SALLY LARSEN
'15 -was called _as a witness herein, and after being first 16 duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
-17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Why don't you introduce 18 Mrs. Larsen for the record.
19 MR. LARSEN: Okay. I'd like to ask first -- 20 Ann Hodgdon yesterday objected to Sally going on the 21 stand. So in what way is her testimony going to be taken? g 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: It's going to be taken as
.23 long us it's relevant.and material to your case, and it's 24 subject to cross-examination.
II MR. LARSEN: Okay.
;O
S. LARSEN - DIRECT 636 b7 1 DIRECT EXAMINATION 2 BY MR. LARSEN: 3 0 Who are you married to? 4 A I'm married to John Paul Larsen. 5 0 And what is your residence? 6 A I live in Provo, Utah, at 3853 North Sherwood 7 Drive. 8 O Do you feel, Sally Larsen, that your husband 9 is qualified to operate as a small businessman who holds 10 a license to make UAA? 11 MS. HODGDON: Objection in that Mrs. Larsen 12 is not qualified to give an opinion regarding Mr. Larsen's r~T 13 qualifications to make UAA. She's offered as a fact L) 14 witness, I believe. I don't think she should be asked 15 for her expert testimony in this regard. 16 JUDGE SHON: Do you understand Ms. Hodgdon's 17 objection? 18 MR. LARSEN: Yes. 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I think that objection is 20 well taken and will be sustained. 21 MR. LARSEN: Okay. 12 BY MR. LARSEN: 23 Q Ms. Larsen, in your opinion will your husband 24 be willing to obey NRC Regulations in the future providing 25 he is given the opportunity? n i.
i S. LARSEN - DIRECT 637 r b7( 1 MS. HODGDON:' Objection. 2 MR. LARSEN: What's wrong with that? 3 MS. HODGDON: She doesn't know NRC Regulations. 4- Mr. Larsen doesn't know NRC Regulations. There's no 5 showing that Mrs. Larsen knows NRC Regulations. The 6 question is worthless, but I do think that it should 7 not be answered. 8 JUDGE SHON: At the very least it calls for 9 speculation. 10 MS. HODGDON: It certainly calls for speculation. II It's objectionable on many bases. 12 JUDGE SHON: Mr. Larsen, do you understand 13 that in the present circumstance, you can ask your wife 14 questions about specific facts, things like, "Where were 15 you on the night of," and "Did you see this," and that 16 sort of thing. But you wouldn't generally be able to 17 ask her, "Is that a recognized practice," or "Are these 18 regulations obeyed," or anything like that because we 19 don't expect her to know the answer to that kind of 20 question. 21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Why don't you try other 22 questions. 23 BY MR. LARSEN: 24 Q Have you ever worried about your son's safety 25 when he was under the employ of Mr. Larsen's business? O
1
. 'S.-[LARSEN -DIRECT 638 1- MS. HODGDON: That's lacking in-foundation.
2 But maybe there's enough.in the record so that that needn't : 3 have any, all right? I've waived my objection. 4 THE WITNESS: Does that,mean I answer? 5' -JUDGE SHON: You may answer that one. That 6 .one you.may answer. 7 'THE WITNESS: Well, I have four sons. I assume 8 you're speaking of the oldest son that worked for you; 9 is that correct?
.10 BY MR. LARSEN:
11 Q Yes, Michael. 12 A Michael is a very intelligent boy, and I don't 13 consider that he'd do anything foolish, and I know he 14 has tremendous trust in his father's ability with chemicals,
- 15. 'and I wouldn't think that either one of them would 16 intentionally do anything foolish. So yes, I would trust
-17 . Mike, and-I would also trust John as a supervisor of 18 Mike.
19 MR. LARSEN: Well, I don't know any other 20 questions that Ann wouldn't object to. 21 MS. HODGDON: Mr. Larsen may ask the questions, 22 Judge Boechhoefer. I mean, I'm perfectly capable of 23 objecting, and I mean, there's no reason to preclude 24 his asking the questions just because they're objectionable, 25 at least not in the first instance. O
i S. LARSEN - DIRECT: 639
- a. : .
b760- I ( 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. You can ask questions,. 2 and if there's any objection, Ms. Hodgdon will raise
<3 them..
4 MS. HODGDON: And you'll get a ruling. 5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And you'll get a ruling. 6 So if I were you, I would ask all that you had planned 7: :to ask. 3 MR. LARSEN: Well, the thing is, she's not l 9' a chemist. She's not a health physicist. So -- ) 10 JUDGE SHON: That's true, Mr.-Larsen. She 31 could answer what are called fact questions, you know, ) I 121 like, "Did he leave the door open?" or'"Was there anything
'l l
13 on the floor /" or questions like that, if you feel it's O- 14 limportant to.your case, to present the fact that Mrs.
~
15- Larsen saw some particular item of equipment in use to1 16 substantiateithat you used it or something like that. { i
- 17. That's the sort of thing she can answer.
18 ~ MR. LARSEN: Mmm-hmm. -(Affirmative response.) 19 BY MR. LARSEN: 1 20 Q May I ask you, Ms. Larsen, what was your opinion I 21 of the propriety of the investigation conducted by ] l 22 Mr. Griffin and Mr. Spitzberg, the questions that were i I
- 23. Posed to you?
24 MS. HODGDON: Objection. Dr. Shon has just j 25 exPl ained to Mr. Larsen that Mrs. Larsen is not here O
S. LARSEN - DIRECT' 640 b~r 1 to give opinion testimony but to give fact testimony. 2 So-I -- 3 MR. LARSEN: -But she can answer that. 4 MS. HODGDON: First of all,.there's no foundation. 5 He would have to establish that-Mrs. Larsen was present 6 .during.various times 3n these'---and I-thinkLthis is 7 very. wasteful and -- 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, I had planned to ask 9 Mrs. Larsen about1certain aspects of her interview as 10 ' reported by Mr.-Griffin. So I think as a foundation,
'11 (.I would just ask you --
12 Mrs. Larsen, were you interviewed in the course 13 of an investigation by the NRC Office of Investigation 14 by Mr. Griffin?' 15 THE WITNESS: Was I interviewed? Is that the 16 correct question? 17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. 18 THE WITNESS: By Mr. Spitzberg and Mr. Griffin? 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yen. 20 .THE WITNESS: Yes, I was interviewed by both 21 of the men in my home. 22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: All right. Now if you -- 23 MR. LARSEN: And is she allowed to state what
~
24 she thought of that interview? 25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, you could ask her O-
I S. LARSEN - DIRECT 641 -j I ('
. b7hs
! questions about --
2 MR. LARSEN: Okay. 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- the statement that appeared. 4 BY MR. LARSEN: 5 Q Did you feel -- 6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, there is a statement. 7 You may want to tie your questions -- 8 MR. LARSEN: Yes. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- to the particular statement 20 that's in the record right now. 11 In my copy it appears as Exhibit 26. There's 12 a summary elsewhere, but it appears as Exhibit 26 to r~ 13 Staff Exhibit 1. (>) 14 BY MR. LARSEN: 15 Q The investigator's note in his report says, 16 " Sally Larsen's knowledge of her husband's attempts to 17 comply with the CAL's was general in nature and second 18 hand information provided to her by her husband." 19 Would you agree with that? 20 A Maybe I'm -- am I understanding that question 21 to state that you told me what to say when the interviewers 22 were present with me? 23 0 Yes. 24 A Absolutely not. I mean, why would I want to 25 feed them the same thing that you had? I mean, are we
4
- 6 S . ' LARSEN : - DIRECT 642 5-l' justLtrying to make sure our stories match or what? I.
2 don't;--'of course.r 4 I'm a totally different person 3- than youLare. You du..'t have to tell me what to say. D4- Q Would you say that Mr. Griffin's' interview 5 -- Mr.: Griffin and Mr. Spitzberg's interview was a fact- . 6 finding, objective interview or more of a -- 7- MS. HODGDON: Objection. 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Wait till he finishes his 9 question. 10 MS. HODGDON: Finish the question. Okay. 11 BY MR. LARSEN: 12 .Q -- or more of a search for negative things to report about Mr. Larsen? 13 14 MS. HODGDON: Objection. This is a leading 15 question once again being asked on direct examination. 16 Mr. Larsen may ask Mrs. Larsen only df ect-examination-17 type questions. 18 Mrs. Larsen has just testified ---agreed with 19 Mr. Larsen that Mr. Griffin put words in her mouth. Now 20 Mr. Larsen is putting words in her mouth, and she apparently 21 is consenting. 22 MR. LARSEN: Well, I don't know how to phrase 23 the question, Ann. You tell me how to ask the question, 24 then. 25 (Pause for Judges to confer.) O L__--__-- __.-..mm_. _-.
S. LARSEN - DIRECT 643 (~ . b8hs 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I think it's a proper question, 2 but even if it isn't proper, I think we'll ask it: 3 What was your impression of the objectivity 4 -of your intervie- with Mr. Griffin? 5 THE WITNESS: Excuse me. Now are you saying 6 why do I think he came to my home, what was his purpose? I 7 JUDGE SHON: Could you speak up just a little 8 bit? I think the other microphone is low. 9 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry. 10 Are you saying what was the purpose of Mr. 11 Griffin coming to my 1.Jme? 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: No. We were saying what 13 is your impression of the objectivity of the interview, 14 of the questions asked and that type of thing, and we're 15, trying not to lead you. Your husband's question led 16 you a little bit, and we're trying to make it as neutral 17 as we can. 18 THE WITNESS: I understand. 19 I think Mr. Griffin and Mr. Spitzberg both 20 came to my home to find out information obviously about 21 the past history of my husband conducting his business. 22 As best I can understand, that was their obje. in coming 23 or their purpose in coming to talk with me. ;m I correct? 24 JUDGE SHON: I think you may have confused i 25 two English words, " objective" and " objectivity." That O
__ - _ _ - . - - _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ ____ __ _ ___ - ______= -_ ________ _ S. LARSEN - DIRECT 644 i 1 was their objective, you think. What Judge Bechhoefer 2 had= asked you to evaluate was there, quote, " objectivity," 3 that is,.their willingness to treat this whole matter 4 completely dispassionately and accept any answer and 5 ask any question. How would you rate that, their , 6 objectivity in that sense? 7 THE WITNESS: Thank you. I'm sorry. 8 It was a frightening experience for me because 9 I've never experienced a federal agent questioning me 10 about something before.. So even though it was conducted 11 in my home and in a more releasi environment, it was 12 still frightening, not that they were, you know, mean
.p 13 or unkind or tremendously difficult to talk with. It
^%)
14 was an interrogating and unpleasant experience for me, 15 not necessarily the men, but it was I think the questions 16 because I felt at that time that our business problems 17 would have been cleared up. -You know, as soon.as we 18 finished with that interview, I thought I would be at j l 19 least productive, and obviously, what I.had to say meant
'20 nothing. So I don't know if I'm even answering the question 21 in the way you intended to have it answered. I'm sorry.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We don't intend to have 23 it answered any way. We intend to have you provide what 24 you believe is the best answer, so. 1 25 THE WITNESS: Okay. I hope that's the best i LO
'S. LARSEN:- DIRECT -645 g
. bv...
1 I answer I can give at this point.
-2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen,-you may resume.
3 MR. LARSEN: Can I ask -- 4 JUDGE'BECHHOEFER: Well, you can ask anything. 5 MR. LARSEN: Yes. 6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Whether it'll be objected 7 to we don't know. 8 BY'MR.1LARSEN: 9 Q -Well, I want to ask, do you feel it was biased to or unbiased? 11 JUDGE SHON: I rather thought that's what we'd 12 .ask, but you can try asking.it. 13 MS. HODGDON: Excuse me. I didn't hear the
.O' 14 question. Could I have the question read back by'the-15 Reporter?
16 (Whereupon. the question was read back.)- k 17 THE WITNESS: Biased by.whom, by him or by me? 18 BY MR. LARSEN: 19 Q Did they ask dispassionate l questions, or were 20 they possibly searching for answers-that they wanted 21 to hear? 22 A Well, I think they were searching for answers. 23 I don't know if they were answers that they wanted to 24 hear, but I don't think that -- oh, I don't know. I 25 don't know. lO I
- b. .
tu= - - - - - - - -
r_____ S. LARSEN - DIRECT 646 b8 I Q Did they ask yc.u if you did a lot of traveling? 2 A They asked personal questions like that, yes, 3 which I didn't feel were related to, you know, their 4 purpose in being in our home. 5 0 What do you think they were trying to get at? 6 A Probably the materialistic end of our business. 7 Q Could you explain that? 8 A I just inerely answered them that my husband 9 is a collector and that we do travel, and I didn't explain 10 it, I don't believe, any further than that. I don't 11 know. 12 O What do you think their objective was in asking
,r-) 13 those questions?
m) 14 A Their objective was to see if we were squandering 15 money that was made, I guess, during the time that we 16 operated our business. I don't know. 17 I mean, don't people have a right to travel? 18 Don't they have a right to spend money in the way they 19 want? I don't know if that's anyone's business other 20 than the person -- people involved. 21 0 Did they ask what kind of a car we drove? 22 A They didn't ask me that question, but it was 23 asked, I believe, to Mr. Noack. And we thought that 24 was a bit unrelated to why they had come into our home 25 to ask about our business. I mean, it wasn't a business
S. LARSEN - DIRECT 647 O -bj 1 car. 2 O Were there any other questions that you thought 3 were inappropriate? j 4 A I don't remember. I don't remember now. I 5 don't have the information before me. l 10A 6 MR. LARSEN: Okay, I guess I'm through. 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Ms. Hodgdon? 8 MS. HODGDON: First of all, I'd like to make a 9 statement because Mr. Larsen characterized the Staff as 10 having objected to Mrs. Larsen's appearing as a witness, 11 and that's not in fact on the record because that was 12 done during, I think, a planning session. It was off p 13 the record.
%J 14 And so I should say that in that discussion, 15 the Staff objection -- the Staff didn't formally object 16 to Mrs. Larsen's appearing'as a witness, but merely noted 17 that the Staff thought it was a waste of time, and we 18 were trying to get out of here by 3:00 o' clock. And 19 so that being no longer the case -- I mean, in other 20 words, the Staff never voiced an objection to Mrs. Larsen's 21 appearance as a witness, and such remarks as the Staff 12 did make were made in the context of trying to arrange 23 the rest of the time available so that it could be used 24 most profitably.
25 With that, I will proceed just -- O ___m_--__.m. -__. .-..m_ _ -
S. LARSEN - DIRECT 648 'b8 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The Board understood the 2 Staff's comments to be in that context as well. So -- 3 MS. HODGDON: Besides which they were not on 4 the record, were they? 5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: No. As far as I know, they 6 weren't.. Sometimes I'm not sure, but -- 7 MS. HODGDON: I thought I should clarify 8 Mr. Larsen's comment. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. No, I agree with 10 you. 11 MS. HODGDON: In case someone might be reading 12 this record trying to figure out where to find the Staff's 13 objections.
-O.
14 I have very few questions for Mrs. Larsen, 15 because as I stated through my objections, Mrs. Larsen 16 is Mr. Larsen's wife and is not an expert and doesn't 17 represent herself to be an expert in these matters and 18 seems to have very little knowledge of the facts that 19 are in issue. However, there are a couple of areas that 20 I would like to clear up, and that is also because all 21 we have in this proceeding is the record, and no one 22 reading the record will see either of the two authors 23 of this OI report of Mr. Griffin and Dr. Spitzberg, the 24 persons who conducted the interviews. And so we have 25 only Mrs. Larsen's characterization that she v frightened
i S. LARSEN - DIRECT 649
-b I and intimidated. And I.would just like to draw that-2 out a little bit.
3 CROSS-EXAMINATION 4 BY MS. HODGDON: 5 O This interview was conducted in your hee;e, 6 was it not? 7 A Yes. When I was contacted by them, they asked 8 me where I would like to meet or would I meet at the 9 Excelsior Hotel, and I said I would prefer to meet in 10 my home. 11 Q So in other words, they were accommodating-12 regarding that. 13 A In that way, yes. 14 Q Do you not think that polite young men from 15 Texas might admire your furniture and say, "My, you must 16 have traveled a lot. You have such beautiful things," 17 or something like that? But you thought that that was 18 inappropriate? 19 A I didn't know what their intention was. If 20 they were merely admiring, that's fine. And I -- you 21 know, I feel complimented that they'd be so generous 22 with their statements. But if they were using that as 23 a means of drawing conclusions that possibly we were 24 over-spending, then maybe that might have been a different 25 intention. I don't know. O
S. LARSEN - DIRECT 650 b8 ' 1 Q I think that -- don't you agree that it's quite 2 possible the.t because you were intimidated by the situation 3 of being investigated by the Federal Government that 4 you read a lot into this that was not going on and in 5 fact their only intention was to compliment you on your 6 lovely home? 7 A Possibly that's right, and if that were the 8 case, then I thank them for their generosity and their 9 compliments. 10 0 And then as regards the car, don't you think 11 it appropriate when someone is conducting an investigation 12 into the transport of waste materials between Utah and 13 Wyoming to inquire as to the kind of car that the person 14 transporting that waste drove? 15 A Well, they didn't ask it like that, though. 16 It wasn't connected with the business. I mean, it wasn't 17 a question that was stated, "Is this your business car? 18 Do you use this for your business?" In fact, that question 19 wasn't even mentioned to me, as I stated earlier. That 20 question about the car was asked to Mr. Noack, not me. 21 Q You said they asked Mr. Noack about his car. i 1 22 A No. No, no. They asked Mr. Noack what kind 23 of car Mr. Larsen drives, to my understanding. Now, l j 24 I don't know because I didn't talk with -- I mean, I 25 wasn't in the room when Mr. Noack was interviewed. It's (3 R-) l
S. LARSEN - DIRECT 651 O _bj 1 just what he told us later. I don't know. 2 MS. HODGDON: I-don't Lean to testify, but 3 it's my recollection there's something in the record 4 about Mr. Noack's car and its appropriate use for transport. 5 Mr. Larsen has also testified to conducting his operations. 6 in a truck. 7 BY MS. HODGDON: 8 Q Don't you think it entirely reasonable that 9 they should have asked Kevin Noack and Mr. Larsen himself 10 and perhaps even you about Mr. Larsen's transportation 11 with regard to his use of that car in his business? 12 A Well, that makes sense. But like I say, they r- 13 didn't even mention the word " car" to me. That was not
't -
~14 an issue with me.
15 0 Well, don't you think that's because they didn't 16 care what kind of car you drove because you weren't 17 involved in the business? 18 A I would hope so. I would hope so. 19 Q Don't you think that the conduct of this 20 interview as far as you know about interviews is perfectly 21 consistent with the way people conduct this type of 22 interview all the time, that what they were about was 23 getting at information and they went out as trained 24 investigators? 25 A I'm sure that's what their, you know, intention O s I o , E . . .._ .!
S. LARSEN - DIRECT 652 m b L_)' 1 was. It's just it's always a frightening experience 2 when you're going through something for the first time 3 and the word " federal" is attached to it. 4 MS. HODGDON: Thank you. 5 I have no further questions. 6 JUDGE SHON: Mrs. Larsen, have you read the 7 attached Exhibit 26 to Staff's Exhibit 1 titled, " Report 8 of Interview with Sally Larsen"? 9 THE WITNESS: Yes, I have. 10 JUDGE SHON: Did you see anything mentioned it in there about travel or automobiles? 12 THE WITNESS: See, now, there again it may fx 13 be something that was not put in the record. Maybe that (-) 14 was just offhanded, you know, complimenting,.like she 15 mentioned. I don't know. 16 JUDGE SHON: So then, it appears at least to 17 your knowledge that anything that they might have asked 18 about in that way did not find its way into their report; 19 is that right? 20 THE WITNESS: That's correct. 21 JUDGE SHON: There's one other thing. You 22 naid you were frightened. Ms. Hodgdon used a different 23 term. I think she said " intimidated." Can I ask you 24 whether you also felt intimidated? 25 THE WITNESS: I think, Judge Shon, that that vO
S. LARSEN - DIRECT 653 l
.l b )
'I has to do with the fact that it.was a federal agent coming 2 to interview me, and I just felt like I didn't have any I 3 appropriate information that I could really provide him 4 with. And so it was very intimidating to me, yes.
5 JUDGE SHON: Your intimidation, however, you 6 say did not lie either in the nature of the questions 7 or in the attitude of the two men you were dealing with, 8 is that correct? Is that fair? 9 THE WITNESS: Well, I just have to remember 10 that-feeling from when it happened at the time. Possibly 11 it was just the fact that they were there. I wish I 12 could remember. But I remember one thing about it, and 13 that was that I felt that Mr. Griffin was more interrogating 14 than Mr. Spitzberg. Mr. Spitzberg was quiet. He didn't 15 say much at all. He just sat there. But Mr. Griffin 16 was more interrogating to me. He was the one that I 17 would have been more intimidated by. Maybe it was his 18 title. I just don't know. 19 I don't know if it were the attitude that, 20 you know, that he came with'or whether the title was 21 the thing that was the more frightening. 22 JUDGE SHON: Thank you. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mrs. Larsen, during this 24 interview, there are a number of statements here that 25 I'd like to ask you to elaborate on if you can. O c
3 j h t S. LARSEN -tDIRECT '654-
./
1 Again,'this is Staff Exhibit 1,-Exhibit 26. 2- The report states that you helped your husband relocate L .3 to the Quonset hut in Evanston, Wyoming. Can'you elaborate 4 on that, what~you meant by that? l 5 THE WITNESS: 'When John moved his business 6 to Wyoming, I helped him physically. I took the time 7 away from my work and just helped, you know, carried 8 ~ books and~ carried materials that I thought that we could. 9 put in our car, and when we got there, I was-the go-fer.
- 10 I would go pick the lunch up and bring it back, and we 11 ate in the cars. And I think I just provided -- I just.
12 think I was the support system more than actually physically 13 being involved in the process. ! 14 I've never worked with the chemicala in my l i 15 life. I have no knowledge whatsoever of the chemicals. 16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Did you handle any of the 17 chemicals at that time? ! 18 THE WITNESS: Never have handled any of the -i 19 chemicals. First of all, I have no desire to. l 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: But-in that particular move j 21 you did not do any handling of the chemicals. 22 THE WITNESS: No, no, no. I've never carried
' 23 the-chemicals. l q
24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. In about the fourth ! 25 paragraph you apparently gave a description of Kevin O _m..__.m. _ . - _ _ _ _ ___m
S. LARSEN - DIRECT 655
. ,m .
b ) 1 Noack, and I wondered what you meant by that. 2 THE WITNESS: Are you referring to the word 3 "dosey?" 4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I don't even know how to 5 pronounce the word, "dosey?" 6 THE WITNESS: "Dosey?" 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: "Dosey." 8 THE WITNESS: Well, as you can see by the 9 inconsistency of Kevin being able to keep a schedule, 10 that's just kind of typical of him. He's not -- 11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, that was the next 12 Part. I was going to take official notice of that, but -- 13 THE WITNESS: Kevin is a sweet, dear person. 14 I think the world of him. But as far as him adhering 15 to a schedule, it's just not within his list of important 16 items to do. As far as being dosey, I don't mean sleepy. 17 I don't mean -- 18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's what I was wondering, 19 what you meant by that. 20 THE WITNESS: No. He's -- it was probably 21 a wrong word to use, "dosey." But I kind of feel maybe 22 that was taken a little bit out of context too, because 23 I certainly don't consider him an inferior individual 24 and incapable of carrying on his responsibilities as 25 far as working for us as an employee. O
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4 IMAGE EVALUATION ,9 % o/ t y,j// @' a<!$h* TEST TARGET (MT-3) / /),ji["(gg % ' 7)/ ,y ,,y , W k"p, k? 1 + % l I.0 ba a e a g "2 2 t: c: 1.1 t i:. l'12 == l l.8 l.25 l 1.4 l' 1.6 i 4 150mm > 4 6" > b ,(/ ),x, l 0 ?,y/, A% $f4'*p1 .e .e,pw;' 4 //// .x *g Y R' l*t , S. LARSEN - DIRECT 656 t' ;bSgg) . 1 JUDGE LECHHOEFER: Did you use that word in 2 the interview? 3 THE WITNESS: Possibly. I don't recall. Possibly 4 I did. I remember that we talked a little bit about 5 Kevin as an individual, and I remember, I think I did i 6 say something about the fact that he was a kind of slow, 7 lazy -- not lazy -- slow, laid-back kind of a guy. Maybe 8 he's a little dosey. Ycu know, sometimes you make a 9 statement like that without ever meaning to hurt feelings, 10 because I would never hurt Kevin in the world. And I 11 certainly don't mean that he is not a person that cannot 12 assume his responsibilities. 73 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Going down to the second-to-( ! 14 the-last paragraph, what was your awareness at least 15 of the damage to the bioassay information which the NRC 16 had requested? You said you were aware of it. 17 THE WITNESS: I remember the whole thing fairly 18 well because our son's urine specimen was in that box, 19 and I was concerned because the readings were high and 20 inconsistent, and I was worried because I knew John was 21 just very, very concerned about it. And he felt that 22 he would be personally assaulted by the NRC in that he 23 would be held responsible because the box was broken. 24 He said, "I wonder if they'll think that I didn't package 25 it right?" "I wonder this, I wonder this," and he was g3 Y S. LARSEN - DIRECT 1 657 4 --s . d I very, very worried about it. And so I remember it very , 2 we'll, p 3 I was concerned because of Mike's urinalysis 4 being:-- or urine specimen being there. I was concerned '5 [ because John was.so upset. It was a very, very difficult 6 time.. It was not by any means something that John.would h ~7- have ever allowed, had he had any way of carrying that 8 box and delivering it to the lab, you know, personally. { 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Did you ever have any. 10 discussions with.your husband about informing the NRC 'll of this information that arose from the damaged shipment? 12 lTHE WITNESS: You mean did John and I talk , 13 about the fact that the shipment had had a damaged -- ) ~ 14 ' JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right, and what you should 15 .do about it versus vis-a-vis the NRC, whather you should 16 Or did you ever call the NRC and explain that to them? ) 17 - ' talk about that? I8 THE WITNESS: About whether he should contact : 19 the NRC -- I don't remember saying that "You should call 20 the NRC." I don't remember that I was unaware that 21' he didn't. I didn't know about that. I'm sorry. j 12 JUDGE SECHHOEFER: All right. 1 23 THE WITNESS: May I say something, or is it 24 wrong, at this point? ! l 25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, yes, you may. O , I e S. LARSEN - DIRECT 658 1 THE WITNESS: May I say one thd.ng? And that 2 is that I know for a fact that my husband never ever , 3 l intentionally disobeyed any regulations - . intentionally 1 4 disobeyed any regulations. 'ie may have made mistakes, l 5 and he would admit it, and I would admit it, just from 6 this hearing. But intentionally disregarding -- I know 7 he never did. J 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, you may now 9 ask questions on redirect if you wish, concerning the ! l 10 matters that either Ms. Hodgdon or the Board asked about, ) i 11 if you have further follow-up questions. ; 12 MR. LARSEN: I don't think so. . i 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Ms. Hodgdon, do you have -- 14 MS. HODGDON: I don't have anything. 15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. 16 Ms. Larsen, you're excused. We appreciate 17 your being here. 18 THE WITNESS: Thank you, i 19 (Whereupon, the Witness was excused.) 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Why don't we take a short j l 21 break. Off the record. j 1 22 (Brief recess.) l I 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: On the record. 24 Since Mr. Noack has not showed up again, we 25 propose at this time to permit the Staff to put on its O 1 j JONES - DIRECT 659 t 'b9k I rebuttal witness, and later on after uhe Staff is finished, 2 if Mr. Noack still hasn't showed up, we will -- we have 3 one, I think, clarifying question that we perhaps can 4 ask Mr. Larsen about, and we will just have to accept 5 Mr. Noack's testimony as it stands. l 6 Does any party have any objection to doing 7 it that way? i 8 MR. LARSEN: Was there many more questions 9 that was going to be asked Kevin? 10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We had only a few. I don't j l 11 know about the Staff. And you had the opportunity to 12 ask him redirect questions. But that just can't be if l 13 he isn't here. 14 MR. LARSEN: Yes. I apologize, 15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And I don't think we propose l 16 to come back at a later date to finish. I think that 17 would not be worth the while of either of the parties. 18 I don't think it would add that much to the record. 19 MR. LARSEN: Right. 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So does any party have any 21 objection to doing it that way? 22 MS. HODGDON: No objection. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. At this stage Staff 24 may call its rebuttal witness. 25 MS. HODGDON: The Staff calls Craig Jones, j -JONES - DIRECT 660
- b(]
1 Utah Department of Health, Bureau of Radiation Control. 2 Whereupon, 3 CRAIG JONES 4 was called as a witness herein, and after being first 5 duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows: 6 DIRECT EXAMINATION 7 BY MS. HODGDON: 8 0 Mr. Jones, I have here a document consisting 9 of two pages, curriculum vitae. Does this represent 10 your professional qualifications? 11 A Yes, it does. 12 O Did you prepare it? 13 A Yes, I did. 14 0 And is it true and correct to the best of your 15 knowledge and belief? 16 A Yes, it is. 17 MS. HODGDON: I have here two other pages, 18 one -- well, I won't put them in now. I'll wait until 19 it's explained what they are. May I put the CV in now 20 and have it bound into the record as if read? I so move. 21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. This document will 22 be accepted into the record. 23 (Curriculum vitae of Craig Jones follows.) 24 25 O l 1 l^ l [ ,. .a Mi . CURRICULUM VITAE Craig W. Jones Personal Data k Born: 27 April 1954 ! O Citizenship: U.S.A. l 1 Marital ! tatus: Married; one depenaant cl i' ! f Education I University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah: B.S., Biology, 1976, Cum Laude. ; University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah: M.S.P.H., Industrial Hygiene, j 1987 ,6-i Certification i Radiation Protection Technologist, 1979. i Experience September 1984 to Present-- Bureau of Radiation Control, Division of i Environmental Health, Utah State Department of Health, Health Physicist. I provide' technical support for the control of radioactive materials in an Agreement State program. Specific duties and responsibilities include reviewing ano issuing a license authorizing the possession and use of radioactive material, examination or observation of a licensee to - ; determine compliance with the appropriate regulations, and enforcement of i regulations to protect the public and the environment from hazards l associated with radiation. I also serve as a team mencer for raolological ' emergency response. s August 1977 to September 1984 - Department of Pharmacology, Radiobiology a Division, University of Utah, Senior Research Specialist. I was actively l involved in radiobiological research work. The primary aim of this " research was to study the distribution and toxicity of alpha-emitting, bone-seeking, internally deposited radionuclides in suitable animal models. I conducted experiments to evaluate decorporation therapy for ! ,. actinide and heavy metals poisoning, and to test the application of j raaicactive tracers in biology and medicine. My experience also ini.:1uded t operation of a total-body counter for gamma-ray spectrometric analysis of humans, research animals, and other samples. I was designated as the Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguaros System Representative to the . . . U.S. Department of Energy, Chicago Operations Office for the management of raaloactive materials inventory and waste disposal. I was the Raciation l Safety Officer for the Radiobiology Division. May 1974 to August 1977 - Radiological Health Department, University of Utah, Radioactive Waste Disposal Technician. It was my outy manage all aspects of the University of Utah low level radioactive waste oisposal program. +# - _ - _ __ ,a; - ' i4 h Craig W. . Jones- - Curriculum Vitae Page 2, i i It was also my duty to survey laboratories for the purpose of radiation 5 protection, and my' responsibility to record and document the survey [/ results. In the event of a raciation accioent, I was calleo upon to i- aavise and aid in decontamination procedures. ( I t V e Activities TraineddmberoftheUtahradiologicalemergencyresponseteam. Secretary for the Great Salt Lake Chapter of the Health Physics Society, 1982 to 1984; Executive Council menber 1979 through 1981. Invited speaker at the Utah Conference on Industrial Hygiene Sampling and ' Analysis, Septenber 17-20, 1979 and Septenber 9-11, 1987. 1 i l Menbership in Societies a
- ) Health Physics Society, Plenary Menber,1978.
!j Radiation'Research Society, Member, 1983. *
- j. Great Salt Lake Chapter of the Health Physics Society, 1978.
Publications Articles-18, Abstracts-7, Technical Reports-14, Available upon request 4 !~ C t 3 4 4 JONES - DIRECT 661 bQ-o I BY MS. HODGDON: 2 Q To start out with, Mr. Jones, Mr. Larsen attached 3 to his testimony a letter to you from Scott W. Carter, 4 Detective, dated May 12, 1986. I asked him a question 5 or two about it, and he said that he thought that it 6 was the cause of his problems. Have you anything further 7 on that? 8 A I will state that the letter provided by Scott 9 W. Carter would have been his own opinion. It was not 10 used by me or other colleagues to determine the outcome II of our inspection. Attached to this letter was a Sheriff 12 Deputy Officer's report. The report was requested by I3 me to provide information regarding a burglary at the 14 storage unit owned or leased by Mr. Larejn. This would 15 be the Gold Key Storage Unit No. 3. 16 Q May I ask about the picture? I 17 A On the day that the officer arrived at the 18 scene to respond to the burglary, he took a photograph. 19 The photograph was a Polaroid picture, and he submitted 20 it as information to indicate what the state of affairs II were in this storage unit at the time of his response 22 to the burglary. 23 0 You have the original of the picture. Have 24 you visited this facility? D A Yes, I have visited this facility. My visit O JONES - DIRECT 662 p bl.) 1 occurred approximately one week after the break-in. My 2 visit occurred on May 7th. 3 Q Can you describe what the picture shows? 4 A The picture shows in the foreground the hood 5 which Mr. Larsen has previously described in his testimony. 6 That's on the right-hand side of the picture in the 7 foreground. 8 In the center of the picture in the foreground 9 there is a plastic child's swimming pool; within that 10 swimming pool, some process equipmer.t. There appears 11 to be a stainless steel bucket, a cinder block, and some 12 other materials that I'm not able to describe. 13 In the background is a second swimming pool. 14 This one apparently contains a number of plastic buckets. 15 On the right-hand side of the picture there is a square 16 box. I do not know what that box was used for. On the 17 left-hand side of the picture there is a fan, and in 18 the background there are buckets of radioactive waste 19 and other materials held in a cabinet of sorts. 20 0 Thank you. And you state that you visited i 21 the facility on what date in May of 19867 12 A May 7th. l 23 Q May 7th. 24 A Nineteen-eighty-six. 15 0 And this report continuation narrative states O JONES - DIRECT 663 b9 1 that, " Officer Grant Ferre informed regarding radioactive 2 contamination on May 1st," is that correct? -So you were 3 there a week later. 4 A That's correct. 5 0 You've read this report, is that correct? 6 A Yes, it is. 7 Q Were conditions more or less the same as described 8 in the report when you arrived there? 9 A At the time of my arrival with another colleague 10 with the Bureau of Radiation Control, the conditions 11 had changed from those represented by this photograph. 12 Employees or individuals performing work for Mr. Larsen ,q 13 had been involved in cleaning up after the burglary event, %) 14 and the materials indicated in this photograph were in 15 a much better state of organization on the day of my 16 visit. 17 Q In the account, the report continuation, it 18 says that "When the officer arrived at the storage sheds, 19 there were two men there cleaning up. The men were wearing 20 plastic rubber gloves and no other protective equipment l 21 as he recalled. He said one man was heavy-set and stated 22 he attended BYU. The other was about 21 and could not 23 speak English very well." . 1 24 Have you identified those two persons, Mr. Jones? 25 A No, not positively. t () JONES - DIRECT 664 blGQ s ,f' 1 O It' states that "The police officer questioned 2 the man from BYU. He said they were using spent fuel 3 rods containing uranium and other chemicals, sulfuric 4 acid, to develop materials to be used to make cluster 5 bombs for the military." 6 Is there any explanation for that? I mean, 7 are you aware that -- you didn't find any spent fuel 8 rods there, or did you? 9 A No, we did not find any spent fuel rods. If 10 in fact the information provided by the employee to Deputy 11 Dennis Harris is factual, then it indicates that the 12 employee did not have an adequate understanding as to ~ 13 what type of materials he was handling. 14 O Do you know what in fact he was doing, or was 15 there evidernce of materials there other than spent fuel 16 rods when you visited the place? 17 A My understanding is that the individuals working 18 in the facility were cleaning up after the burglary. 19 They had been -- at least one of the individuals was 20 familiar with Mr. Larsen's process. I assume it was 21 an employee of Mr. Larsen's actively involved in the 22 processing of depleted uranium to UAA, and could therefore 23 provide information about the product. 24 MS. HODGDON: I at this time would like to 25 put these two pages in the record to complete this O - - - - _ . _ __. __ __.-__._____-___-______._______-___--___________-_____.__-m___.-_______-__________.____.2 ___.____m_ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .m_. . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . - . - JONES - DIRECT 665 b1() I attachment to Mr. Larsen's -- have it bound in to complete 2 this info?;mation, this one-page letter that Mr. Larsen 3 provided with his testimony from the Detective Carter 4 to Craig Jones, for I believe that it contexts that cover 5 letter. 6 JUDGE SHON: Ms. Hodgdon, this single page 7 -- it troubles me a little bit. It's signed, " Deputy 8 Dennis Harris," and evidently that's the first person 9 in this page, is that right, the person who says "I did 10 this" was Deputy Harris? 11 THE WITNESS: That's my understanding. 12 MS. HODGDON: Yes, "-- informed me that another 13 officer - " -- well, yes, of course. Are you saying 14 it's hearsay? Of course it's hearsay. 15 JUDGE SHON: I know that we're allowed to accept 16 hearsay, but this is rather distant hearsay, and one 17 of the things that as I understand it, you're introducing 18 it to show is the foundation for Mr. Jones's belief 19 that the people working with this material didn't know 20 very much about it. But it might also well be in a case 21 like this that it was simply Mr. Harris who didn't 22 understand. Someone said, " Depleted uranium, you know, 23 like the fuel in reactors," and he thought that meant 24 spent fuel rods. 25 It's not clear to me that the lack of knowledge O L___.___--____-_____-___-_-_____-_-_-________________-___-_____-_--_-_____-____________-______-___-__-_--_-_-___--__- JONES - DIRECT 666 bl _ I was on the part of the employee. It may well have been 2 on-the part of Mr. Harris, unless Mr. Jones has further 3 personal knowledge that he can bring ~to bear on this. 4 Do you see what I'm saying? 5 MS. HODGDON: Judge Shon, I am not introducing 6 it for that purpose of showing that the student had no 7 knowledge. I am using it to complete the record on what 8 Mr. Larsen introduced with the cover letter, which also 9 does not show a great knowledge of activities nuclear. 10 And I think it's entirely possible, given the hearsay 11 nature of this, that it was the detective himself who 12 misunderstood and that it was not what the student said. 13 I'm using this as a bridge to Mr. Jones because it was 14 this that occasioned him to visit it and that anything 15 he has to say about the facility, this is where it started. 16 JUDGE SHON: All right. 17 MS. HODGDON: And so this is the front page 18 of his conduct of this investigation. And so that is 19 what it's being used for. It's not being used as proof. 20 I do not expect that I will get anybody to say that these 21 were in fact spent fuel rods or that anybody who knows 22 anything about spent fuel rods would seriously -- 23 JUDGE SHON: In other words, as I understand 24 it, you're not introducing it for the truth of the matter 25 today, then. O .s JONES - DIRECT 667-bl03 I) b 1 MS. IIODGDON: No, I'm not. 2 JUDGE SHON: Fine. That troubles me much less. 3- MS. HODGDON: No, I'm not. Nor do-I think 4 that Mr. Larsen introduced the cover letter for the truth. 5 In fact, I think he introduced it for something like 6 the opposite. He used it to show that Utah didn't like 7 him, and I was using it, the remainder of it to show 8 that Mr. Jones investigated this matter, and I just wanted 9 the full thing in, and that's.where we stand now. And ! 10 I think at this time I will just make Mr. Jones available 11 for your questions. 12 JUDGE SHON: You didn't have any questions ( 13 you wanted to ask Mr. Jones? ()x I have a few questions for Mr. 14 MS. HODGDON: 15 Jones, but I know that the Board has questions for him, 16 and my questions are very scattered in that they relate 17 to various things. So I would really prefer the Board 18 to ask its questions first, if it doesn't mind. 19 (Narrative report by Deputy Dennes Harris and 20 related photograph follows.) 21 22 23 24 25 O l s 4 pant 1 or 1 REPORT CONTINU ATION - N ARR ATIVE CASE NO.- 5 47493 Lt. Gary Clayton informd me on 5/1/86 that Officer Grant Ferre cme to him regarding sme possible radia-tion contamination that he my have received while investigating a call at the storage sheds at appruxistely 1600 lbrth and 2100 West. I called Grant Ferre and he infonni m that he investigated the storage steds 1 L at shed #3 involving chanicals. Grant said that the pmple who wem them said that they were using sme radio active neterial in their wrk. l l 1 I arrived at the sthage sheds at about 2000 hours and met with tm nen wto were in the process of clean-ing to by popping the floors. The tm non were wearirg plastic, rWber gloves ard to other protective equip-iient as I mcall. The one mn was a little heavy set ard stated that he was attadiry BYU, ard it appedred the other person was atxut 21 ard could rot speak English very well. I questioned the mn frun BYU as to what they were cbing, ard he said they were using processed (spent) fuel rods containing sme uraniun ard other chanicals (sulfuric acid) to develop sterials to be used to make Ociusterbo+sforthemiittery. i esked if it m uid de 0.x. if i ente m d tne sned ere took se e redioioaicei ! readings ard they agreed. I checked sme orange / yellow powder sWstance in the northeast section of the shed 1 ard fomd madings of 10n/ Roentgen's an hour. I also checked sme plastic swimning pools that wem in the shal with the orange powder sWstance ard fomd basically the sme measurements. I checked across the road 1 (just west of the storage shed) on the grotnd ard mceived a mading of W UR/hr. The BYU student approached J ne ard asked ne if I would nonitor sme of the orange / yellow sWstance that they had dtmped across the road. I observed tre substance to be the sme chanical that I had observed in tre storage shed. It was drped along side the road in basically the sme ama and received readings of 5 nR/hr+. On the 8th of fty,1986, I returmd to the location of the storage sheds ard observed dead areas of l grass west of the storage shed and took madings in tiose areas which mre abrut 10t mR/hr. This particular ama was in the sane gereral ama where the readings mm taken on the 1st of fty,1986. Deputy Dmnis Harris #1J27 m q l m .} - ,;: 5 ' J.. - . . x ,g,.t. - s - .. 0 .;:q , ' ' i n l,. # v. 6 s_; 5,2 , : 4 I').h' i 70 !' I.,' A l . 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I \ i 4 O, . <- \ ; g *1, - s P g' 6 s, m k JONES - DIRECT 668 O LT-11 MC 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: ' Mr. Jones, are you aware of 2 the matter which was discussed. earlier today, about the Utah 3 requirement that there be -- I want to use the right word 4 here -- the lung bioassays for two persons, Mr. Larsen and 5 Mr. Noack? 6 THE WITNESS: Yes, I'm aware of that requirement. 7 It was the subject of a notice of violation, order, and 8 order to show cause dated the 10th day of June, 1986 and 9 signed by the executive director of the health department, 10 the state health department. 11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Now, Mr. Larsen has testified 12 that he had either an agreement or an understanding with 13 the State of Utah -- and I'm not quite sure, I think it 14 evolved from a telephone conversation if I understood it 15 correctly -- that because of difficulties in obtaining the 16 bioassays and because of the alleged inaccuracy of those 17 bioassays, he was permitted to close out the requirement ; 18 without having those bioassays done. 19 Now, can you elaborate? Are you aware of any 20 arrangements between Utah and Mr. Larsen concerning that? 21 THE WITNESS: Well, let me provide you with the 22 information to thc best of my ability. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. 24 THE WITNESS: When this order was delivered to 25 Mr. Larsen and he had an opportunity to read it, I recall O JONES - DIRECT 669 r I~T LJ . M2 I that he had some questions on where he might obtain an 2 appropriate bioassay. At that time I provided Mr. Larsen 3 with the names of two consulting firms of which I was aware, 4 that could provide this type of in vivo lung bioassay. One 5 consultant is named Dr. Ray Lloyd. This is an individual 6 with which I have personal acquaintance 3 I worked with 7 Dr. Lloyd for a period of seven years. I worked in the 8 laboratory where this total body counter is located. ! 9 I informed Mr. Larsen that a total body counter was j 10 available in Salt Lake City and that he should contact 11 Dr. Lloyd to see if Dr. Lloyd could perform this type of 12 bioassay. 13 I also informed Mr. Larsen that a health ! ( 14 physicist, a consulting health physicist by the name of 15 Mr. Helgeson -- Lou Helgeson, I believe -- offered similar 16 services. And I seem to recall providing Mr. Larsen with l 1 17 the telephone number whereby he could reach Helgeson Nuclear ' 18 Services. ; 19 My understanding is that Mr. Larsen contacted ] 20 Dr. Lloyd and discussed with Dr. Lloyd the possibility of 21 obtaining Dr. Lloyd's assistance in the completion of a lung 22 bioassay. My understanding is that the radiation detection , l 23 instruments that Dr. Lloyd uses were not capable of assaying 24 for depleted uranium. 25 I am aware that Dr. Lloyd has provided in vivo 1 O JONES - DIRECT 670 M3 1 lung bioassays for uranium miners and millers, individuals 2 working with natural uranium. I am aware that his process 3 of assaying for natural uranium makes use of the natural l 4 abundance of uranium-235, a photon-emitting radionuclides; 5 and that since depleted uranium is depleted, has a lower 6 abundance of this uranium-235, he could not provide a 7 reliable estimate or quantification of the amount of 8 dep.Teted uranium. 9 At the time I terminated my employment with the 10 University of Utah, I was aware that they did not yet have 11 instrumentation suitable for detecting depleted uranium. 12 My termination would have been in September of 1984. I 13 knew that pl ans were underway to obtain instrumentation that O 14 could quantify depleted uranium. I was not yet aware that 15 they had or had not obtained that instrumentation. l 16 Apparently, Dr. Lloyd had not yet acquired the suitable i 17 detecting equipment, and therefore could not provide the 18 test. 19 The statement provided by Mr. Larsen in response 20 to this notice cd violation, to the effect that Dr. Lloyd's 21 work would result in something _nat was inaccurate, would 22 be based upon use of present equipment trying to assay 23 uranium-235, 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: To carry that on farther, to 25 the best of your knowlege at least, was Mr. Larsen advised O JONES - DIRECT 671-O pg 1 by the State of Utah that he did not-hnve to fulfill that 2 particular requirement of the show-cause order? 3 THE WITNESS: No, it is not my understanding that 4 he was advised that he did not have to comply with this 5 portion'of the order. Mr. Larsen offered in testimony 6 -yesterday that he spoke with one of my colleagues, a 7 Mr. Dane Frinerfrok, and represented that Mr. Frinerfrok 8 of the Bureau of Radiation Control suggested that Mr. Larsen 9 obtain the in vivo lung bioassay. So to the best of my 10 knowledge, this requirement stated in the order was not 11 rescinded. 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. Now, what about the ,rs 13 settlement agreement? Would that by its operation have 14 rescinded it? The settlement offer seems to say that: Your 15 obligations are all fulfilled, and therefore you're off the 16 hook on this. 17 THE WITNESS: This notice of violation order and 18 order to show cause again is dated the 10th day of June 19 1986. My records indicate that Mr. Larsen personally 20 obtained the in vivo lung bioassay on himself on July 29, 21 1986. So he fulfilled this portion of the order to have 22 a bioassay performed on himself. However, the requirement 23 for Mr. Noack was not met. 24 This information was used by the Bureau of 25 Radiation Control to result in a notice of informal hearing O JONES - DIRECT 672 ' M5 1 and a propose civil penalty. Mr. Larsen's response, he 2 requested an informal hearing. A response from the Bureau 3 of Radiation Control to his written statement regarding the 4 notice of violation order and order to show cause was not 5 provided. The Bureau's decision was to continue this 6 discussion during an informal hearing. 7 Now let's go to your question as to whether or 8 not the settlement agreement would have resolved the 9 requirement for Mr. Noack to receive an in vivo lung 10 bioassay. And my understanding is that, yes, that 11 statement in the second paragraph of the settlement 12 agreement would have resolved that requirement for Mr. Noack 13 to receive an in vivo lung bioassay. 14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So as of the present time, as 15 far as we're concerned, he would be meeting the State of i' 16 Utah's current requirements of him, in that respect at 17 least. I'm not talking about other things. 18 THE WITNESS: In that respect, yes. That's my 19 understanding. 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Because there are several other 21 items that are not fulfilled as of now, apparently. 22 THE WITNESS: That's correct. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Now, we've also had testimony , i 24 to the effect that Utah has stopped processing Mr. Larsen's 25 request for -- I don't know whether it's a new license or O I JONES - DIRECT 673 M6L 1 a reinstatement of his old license. I noticed that his old 2 license has-probably. expired by its terms. But whatever 3 that form is, he is advised that Utah has stopped processing 4 his application, whatever that might be. Are-you aware of j 5 that? 6 THE WITNESS: Yes. Mr. Larsen was notified that 7 the Bureau of Radiation Control had placed on hold its 8 -review of his amendment to demonstrate that he had 9 facilities to properly use his depleted uranium and process i 10 the depleted uranium to UAA. 11' JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And do you know why that action l 12 took place? 13 THE WITNESS: Mr. Larsen's amendment request was O 14 received August 26 of 1988. And on September 6 of 1988, 15 the Bureau of Radiation Control received the revocation 16 order which was written by the Nuclear Regulatory 17 Commission. This is the revocation order of August 15, 18 1988. 19 Based upon information in the revocation order, 20 it appeared that Mr. Larsen may have been in violation of 21 the order suspending his license and order imposing civil j 1 22 monetary penalties which was dated November 5 of 1986. 23 JUDGE SHON: So you stopped processing his j l 24 amendment because you thought he was in violation of that 25 order; is that correct? O 674 .) iM7. 1 TH2 WITNESS: That is correct. 2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Will our resolution of this 3 proceeding, however we come out, have an effect on whether 4 Utah resumes processing of his application, Mr. Larsen's 5 application? l 6 THE WITNESS: The processing of his application 7 will resume. I cannot answer as to what effect the outcome 8 of this hearing will have on the action taken on the 9 processing of his application, because I do not know what 10 the outcome will be. 11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes, well, that will depend 12 in part, I presume, on what we hold. But be that as it may, 13 as soon as our decision comes out, whichever way it goes, 14 Utah will then resume its processing; is that correct? 15 THE WITNESS: That's correct. 16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Of course, our decision will 17 be subject to appeal at several levels. That's the way NRC 18 does things. But be that as it nay. 19 JUDGE SHON: May I ask this? Can you give us some 20 notion of in exactly what respects the NRC order led you 21 to believe that he might be in violation of your order? 1 According to the NRC order 22 THE WITNESS: Yes. 23 and statements by Mr. Larsen, it would appear that sometime 24 after November 5 of 1986 and prior to January 15 of 1987, 25 Mr. Larsen processed depleted uranium or transferred O l l 1 l I ___ -__ _-- - __ __ _____ _ ___ JONES - DIRECT 675 M8 1 materials from Utah to a location in Nevada. And that would 2 have not met the requirements of the suspension order, 3 whereby he immediately transfer those mtterials to an 4 authorized recipient or place them into locked storage. 5 JUDGE SHON: Transfer the materials where or place 6 them in locked storage? I missed what you'said. 7 THE WITNESS: Let me refer to the order. I'm 8 looking on page 3 of the order suspending Mr. Larsen's 9 license, j 10 "It is hereby ordered that, effective 11 immediately, the licensee shall not receive or use 12 source material except as permitted in Condition B. 13 below." 14 " Condition B. Effective immediately, the 15 licensee shall place all source material in its 16 Possession in locked storage or transfer such 17 material to a person authorized to receive such 18 material." 19 The intent of this condition was to allow 20 Mr. Larsen to transfer his finished product, his UAA, to 21 his customer, and that other materials shall be placed in 22 locked storage. 23 JUDGE SHON: Now, suppose Mr. Larsen interpreted 24 Paragraph B here to mean that he could transfer such 25 material to Urangler Laboratories in Wyoming, who was a JONES - DIRECT 676-i. M9- 1 general licensee in his view. Admittedly, it was also his 2 company. But how exactly did the statement that you've read 3 us preclude'his doing this? He told us earlier today he 4 moved the material because you told him to get it out of 5 his plant. And he. moved it out of state, out of your 6 jurisdiction. How is it made clear here that that's not 7 ! acceptable, that a person in Wyoming authorized under a 8 general license to receive such material was not fair game 9 for this? Let me put it that way. .j 10 THE WITNESS: Until the point of the settlement 11 agreement, such a transfer would not have been authorized 12 by virtue of this order suspending his license. After the 13 date of the settlemer., agreement, I would have to obtain 14 an interpretation from our assistant attorney general as 15 to whether or not it was in faithful compliance with the 16 order or whether or not the order was rescinded, that 17 provision of the order was rescinded. 18 JUDGE SHON: Thank you. 19 We have looked earlier today at the original Utah , 20 license issued to Mr. Larsen. And on the page of that 21 license -- I can't tell you the exact number, but it seems 22 to be the third page. It's dated April 1984. It is headed 23 " Utah Bureau of Radiation Control, Radioactive Material 24 License," the page is. And it has such data as the name 25 of the licensee, the license number, and the expiration 0 JONES - DIRECT 677 t l . TM10 1 date. 2 THE WITNESS: Yes. 3 JUDGE SHON: At the bottom of that page it says, 4 "The licensee may transport licensed material or' deliver 5 licensed material to a carrier for transport in accordance 6 with the provision of URC 19-500 ' Transportation.'" 7 Now, I'm not familiar with Utah state regulations. 8 I presume, of course, that they track NRC regulations, but 9 I don't have a copy of the NRC transportation regulation 10 with me either. Could you give us some notion of what that 11 meant? We've heard that he did transport some materials l 12 at various times, even after you had shut him down, indeed, l 13 to Wyoming. Can you give us some idea of what the 14 requirements may be? 15 THE WITNESS: Yes. 16 JUDGE SHON: Were they the same as the 17 requirements for shipment, to begin with? 18 THE WITNESS: As a specific licensee of the State 19 of Utah, transportation of radioactive materials is only 20 authorized when permitted by a license condition. The 21 license condition permitting Mr. Larsen to transfer or 22 transport licensed material is properly identified in 23 Condition 13 of the radioactive materials license. This 24 authorization requires Mr. Larsen to transport radioactive i 1 25 materials in accordance with the regulations promulgated O JONES - DIRECT 678 I i l Mll' I by the United States Department of Transportation. That j i 2 would be Title 49 of the Code of rederal Regulations. l l 3 So as the holder of a specific license, he must l ) 4 determine whether or not he is going to ship his materials ! i 1 5 as a Type A quantity, or as a limited quantity material, ) i 6 or low specific activity, within the requirements ! l 7 stipulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation. ) 1 8 JUDGE SHON: I see. Do you know offhand whether ) 9 such things as labeling requirements must be complied with 10 when you are shipping under conditions such as exclusive 11 use of vehicle and accompanied by an employee? 12 THE WITNESS: If Mr. Larsen were shipping 13 materials as an exempt -- under the limited quantity 14 provisions, then labeling of a vehicle for exclusive use ; 15 would not be required. The requirements for limited 16 quantities stipulate the particular package requirements, 17 essentially that it be a strong-type package; they stipulate 18 dose rate parameters on the surface of the package, and 19 notices contained in or on the package that it is 20 radioactive material. 21 JUDGE SHON: And do you have any idea how much 22 a limited quantity of depleted uranium is? 23 THE WITNESS: I don't recall that specific number, 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, when we come back 25 to you later, you can put that quantity in if you wish. O ) JONES - DIRECT 679 CE)- M12 1 Mr. Jones, does Utah have any sort of a provision 2 which allows general license operations? And if so, does 3 it parallel the NRC Section 40.22? 4 THE WITNESS: Yes. Chapter 23 of the Utah 5 Radiation Control rules is essentially a verbatim repeat -j 1 6 of 10 CFR 40.22. 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I see. 8 THE WITNESS: There are provisions for a general 9 license, and there are requirements on receipt, possession, 10 use, and transfer of source material. 11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. Now, if Mr. Larren were 12 to receive permission to use his proposed Lindon, Utah 13 facility, which he says is held up by plumbing problems, l 14 but if he were able to use that, would he be authorized to l 15 conduct operations there under Utah's general license j 16 authority? 17 THE WITNESS: I believe that the Bureau of 18 Radiation Control Control's position would be that the only ] 19 use by Mr. Larsen for processing depleted uranium would be i I 20 under a specific license. I 21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I see. And is that the 22 specific license for which he has already applied, or 23 applied to have reinstated? 24 THE WITNESS: Which remains in suspension at this j 25 time. l l l l -680-N M13 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Ms. Hodgdon, you had some 2 further questions? We finished the subjects we wanted to 3 cover. You said'you had some scattered questions. 4 MS. HODGDON: No, the Board asked a number of 5 questions, and the Staff's interest in these matters is 6 somewhat limited. About the five sites, the Board asked 7 the Staff for information about the five sites. Mr. Jones 8 is the person who provided the information regarding that. 9 The Staff's interest in it is -- It's not an essential part 10 of the Staff's case. So I wouldn't pursue it unless the 11 Board is interested in it. Mr. Jones is the right witness 12 for that. We provided that information in our June 9 13 letter. 14 (Pause for Judges to confer.) 15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I don't think we have to pursue 16 that matter further. I thought it was covered by the 17 settlement agreement. It seems to have been. Our Board's 18 questions seem to have been satisfied by that. 19 MS. HODGDON: Okay. 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Did you have other matters you l 21 wished to ask him about? Because he's your witness, and 22 we're through with our questions at the moment. 23 MS. HODGDON: No, I think it's Mr. Larsen's turn, 24 then. One second, if I may. (Pause.) No, the Staff 25 doesn't have any further questions for Mr. Jones. O L .__ . _ - _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 681 1 (~ . % )i i M14 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larson, it's your turn. l l 2 CROSS-EXAMINATION , 1 3 BY MR. LARSEN: 4 Q You mentioned, Mr. Jones, that -- Well, let me i 5 ask you first. Does this picture show anything about how 6 dirty it was? Can you tell much from that picture? 7 A Are you referring to the picture taken by the 8 sherrif's deputy? 9 Q Yes. j 10 A There is a suggestion to this picture that there 11 is a yellow substance on the floor and -- 12 Q Where does it show that? (- 13 A I happen to have a color photograph in front of 14 me. Your photograph -- 15 MS. HODGDON: You can show that to Mr. Larsen if 16 you would. 17 (Mr. Larsen was shown the color photograph.) 18 MR. LARSEN: That's the yellow linoleum. 19 BY MR. LARSEN: 20 Q Let me ask you this, Mr. Jones. How do you know 21 it had changed if you hadn't seen it before you had come 22 the next day? 23 A Will you repeat the question? 24 Q Well, this apparently was taken the night before, 25 or sometime before, by the officer that was inspecting it. JONES - CROSS 682 p V M15 1 And then you came and said that it had changed from what 2 the officer saw. How do you know it had changed? You can't 1 3 tell from that picture. 4 A My understanding is that this picture was taken 5 on May 1, when the officer responded to the burglary. My 6 first visit to your facility was on May 7, one week later. 7 My recollection of that first visit is that things had been 8 cleaned and were organized in a fashic better than -- in 9 a manner different from what they are represented in thin 10 picture. 11 Q But that picture doesn't show anything very well. 12 And certainly this black-and-white doesn't show anything 13 as far as contamination or anything. It shows an old dryer 14 on the left there. Maybe it isn't the state-of-the-art 15 dryer by any means; it cost me five dollars. But that isn't 16 pollution, that's old. 17 A I don't understand your question. Is there a 18 question? 19 MS. HODGDON: Yes, Mr. Larsen has not asked a 20 question, Judge Bechhoefer. 21 BY MR. LARSEN: 22 Q Okay, the question is, how do you know that the 23 unit had changed in contamination? 24 A (There was no response.) 25 0 I mean, how do you know that it was contaminated O JONES - CROSS 683 O M16 1 before in this picture? 2 A I do not know that it was contaminated before in 3 this picture. 4 Q Okay. 5 A And I did not represent.that it was contaminated 6 before in this picture. 7 Q Okay, just so that is understood. But this 8 picture makes it look like it's not so great. And it's not 9 new stuff. But, anyway, what I'm saying is that we are much 10 improved from this now, in that we have stainless steel, 11 better fume hoods -- And, anyway, we try to keep as clean 12 as possible. 13 May I ask you, Mr. Jones, about why you 14 characterized our sites as abandoned? 15 A I did not characterize your rites as abandoned. 16 Those are not my words, Mr. Larsen? 17 Q Whose words are they? Ic A I do not know whose words those are. 19 Q Well, they were certainly damaging in the federal 20 report, Federal Register, describing our operation as having 21 abandoned five sites. 22 A I was not the author of any report submitted to 23 the Federal Register. 24 Q Well, somebo&J has got to take responsibility for 25 that, I think. What do you think? O JONES - CROSS 684 e^ . /^\ 1s/ M17 1 A Would you ask the question again? 2 Q Who in the State of Utah said that? 3 A I do not know that anyone in the State of Utah 4 said that the sites were abandoned. Those are not my words. 5 0 Does nobody take responsibility, then, at the 6 State of Utah for the word " abandoned"? 7 MS. HODGDON: Asked and answered. 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. Mr. Jones said he didn't 9 know. 10 MR. LARSEN: By the way, I would like to state 11 that limited quantity for UAA, 11 pounds I believe is the 12 maximum that can be in a large box and still read r~s 13 1/2 millirem at the external surface and still be under the \j 14 category of limited quantity. Now, these 11 pounds, if you 15 keep the per-box quantity to less than Il pounds, you're-16 okay. So that's for the court's information. 17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. 19 MR. LARSEN: We do ship under limited quantity 19 amounts. 20 BY MR. LARSEN: 21 Q Would you say that these childs' pools would be 22 good catch basins? 23 A No, I would not. 24 Q They wouldn't catch the material? 25 A I would say that they would not be good catch O JONES - CROSS 685 M18 1 basins because they are subject to combustion. And being 2 subject to combustion, they would not contain a spill. 3 0 You mean if the spill were on fire? 4 A That's correct. 5 0 You're probably right in that regard. But if 6 there was no fire, it would be good, right? 7 A I do not know. .T-12 8 MR. LARSEN: I don't quite know how to proceed 9 on pinning somebody down for the responsibility of 10 " abandonment"-describing how Mr. Larsen left his sites. 11 I would very much like to know who said that. And I 12 understood Ann to say that it was Craig Jones from the State 13 of Utah, in her description previous to my cross-( examination. 14 15 And I believe there is a reference letter dated 16 May 11, 1988, which states that the NRC received that. We 17 took objection to that word. And the NRC urote us back and 18 said, "We stand by that word. It was given to us by the 19 State of Utah." 20 MS. HODGDON: Could we ask that Mr. Larsen 21 identify the document to which he's making reference? 22 MR. LARSEN: Yes. May 11, 1988, 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFE' Uhere is that filed? i 24 MS. HODGDON: I don't know what it is. 25 MR. LARSEN: Excuse me. O JONES - CROSS 686 ' M19 - 1 MS. HODGDON: The date I heard. 2 MR. LARSEN: I may be wrong on that. Let me try 3 again. Here's the letter, okay, June 3, 1988. Excuse me. 4 MS. HODGDON: A letter from whom to whom? 5 MR. LARSEN: From William Fisher to'Mrs. Sally H. 6 Larsen. 7 MS. HODGDON: I don't believe I've seen that -8 letter. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Where is that in the record? 10 Can you refer us to the document it's attached to, or is 11 it in the record? 12 MR. LARSEN: It probably is not in the record, 13 I guess. 14 MS. HODGDON: I have a file index in my bag. I 15 believe it's not in the record. 16 MR. LARSEN: So does that mean I can't refer to 17 it? 18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, you may have to put it 19 in the record. 20 MR. LARSEN: I may put it in? 21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, let's see. Let's see 22 what it is. 23 MR. LARSEN: Okay. 24 JUDGE SHON: You may have to give the reporter 25 a copy and mark it Licensee Exhibit whatever-number. JONES - CROSS 687 i M20, I (Pause.) 2 MS. HODGDON: Has Mr. Larsen found a copy of this 3 letter? 4 MR. LARSEN: Yes, right here. 5 MS. HODGDON: Mr. Jones also has a copy of this 6 letter. 7 (Discussion held off the record.) 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: It's apparently Exhibit 18 of 9 the OI report. ] 10 MS. EODGDON: Oh. 11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I was just told that. 12 MS. HODGDON: I was unaware of that. Okay. 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So was I. 14 MR. LARSEN: Well, I think that if you talk to 15 Mr. Fisher, at least my understanding of it is he says he 16 got that from Utah. 17 MS. HODGDON: Exhibit 18? That's not right. 18 MR. LARSEN: He quotes. 19 JUDGE KLINE: I have here Exhibit 18 to Staff 20 Exhibit 1, and it's a memo to Donald Driskill, Director of 21 Investigations, Field Office, Region IV, from Robert Martin, 22 Regional Administrator, Region IV. And on page 2, the 23 second full paragraph, there begins a discussion which 24 includes a sentence that says, "In all, the state found five 25 contaminated facilities that Mr. Larsen had abandoned." O s JONES - CROSS 688 ,i . . \ M21 1 So I think that's the document. That is in the record. 2 MS. HODGDON: That appears to be the-document 3 that's referenced. The document that Mr. Larsen has is a 4 letter from Mr. Fisher of Region IV to Sally Larsen, in 5 answer to her letter. 6 MR. LARSEN: Yes. 7 MS. HODGDON: It's that long. It's a paragraph. '8 MR. LARSEN: Rigil t . _ Uell, I refer, then, to 9 the -- what was it, Exhibit No. 18? 10 JUDGE KLINE: No. 18. 11 MR. LARSEN: Apparently that's what this letter 12 refers to. 13 JUDGE KLINE: Well, all I did was point out where iO 14 it exists. I don't know where you're going to go with it. 15 MR. LARSEN: Yes, okay. 16 BY MR. LARSEN: 17 Q May I ask who in that document is the author of 18 the word " abandoned"? 19 MS. HODGDON: Mr. Larsen seems to be asking for 20 Mr. Jones' interpretation of a letter from Mr. Fisher, in 21 NRC Region IV, to Mrs. Larsen. 22 MR. LARSEN: Right. 23 MS. HODGDON: And Mr. Jones can answer the 24 question, as far as I'm concerned, if he cares to. I don't 25 know that he represents himself as an authority on those O JONES - CROSS 689 M22 1 matters. 2 BY MR. LARSEN: 3 Q Well, is Mr. Martin quoting somebody? 4 A I will read the letter that I have in front of 5 me. This is dated June 3, 1988, to Mrs. Sally H. Larsen 6 at 3853 North Sherwood Drive, Provo. It's signed by 7' William L. Fisher, Chief, Nuclear Materials and Emergency 8 Preparedness Branch. 9 I'll begin with the second sentence. It reads: 10 "As we understand it, the Utah Bureau of Radiation 13 Control found uranium contamination at every 12 facility that Mr. Larsen had vacated or, as we 13 chose to state it, 'had abandoned.' To our 14 knowledge this is a truthful statement. The 15 remainder of the paragraph is fact." 16 I will reiterate my statement for the record that 17 I do not know who "we" refers to in this letter. I do not 18 know if it refers to Mr. Fisher or other Nuclear Regulatory 19 Commission staff. 20 I will reiterate again that the words " abandoned" 21 were not mine. 22 MS. HODGDON: Martin, Regional Administrator, 23 Region IV. 24 BY MR. LARSEN: 25 0 Okay, and in this document there Mr. Martin O l JONES - CROSS 690 l l . (-} V M23 1 states -- 2 MR. LARSEN: Page 5, is it? 3 MS. HODGDON: Yes. 4 BY MR. LARSEN: 5 Q "On April 11, 1986, NRC received an allegation 6 on improper activities underway at Larsen Labs. 7 The allegation was transferred to the Stat-e of Utah, 8 who performed inspections and who found numerous 9 violations. In all, the ctate found five 10 contaminated facilities that Mr. Larsen had 11 abandoned. At one of these facilities contaminated 12 liquids were leaking from drums." 13 What were the five facilities of the allegation? 14 Mr. Jones, do you know? 15 A Yes. 16 Q It "was transferred to the State of Utah...that 17 Larsen had abandoned." 18 A I will identify five locations inspected by myself 19 and other staff members of the Bureau of Radiation Control, 20 past locations where Mr. Larsen had worked or currently 21 stored radioactive materials. The first is 958 North 22 Industrial Park Road, Orem, Utah. To the best of my 23 knowledge, this is a location where Mr. Larsen processed 24 depleted uranium until mid-1982. Mr. Larsen would have been 25 processing depleted uranium at this facility or at this O JONES - CROSS 691 i M24 1 location while under terms of a general license from the 2 Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 3 Q Was there contamination identified there? 4 A May I continue with the other four sites? q 5 0 Okay. 6 A Site No. 2 is located at 1485 West 400 South, 7 Unit No. 6. I do not know the time period in which 8 Mr. Larsen occupied this facility. It's possibly 1982 to 9 1983, but I cannot confirm that. .j 10 JUDGE KLINE: Is that the site that's also known 11 as Gold Key? 12 THE WITNESS: No. 13 The next site is 47 North 1265 West, Orem, Utah, sO This site was previously identified by the Unit No. 16. 14 15 Nuclear Regulatory Commission on their specific radioactive 16 materials license SUB-1436. 17 The next site is 2000 South 450 West, Orem, Utah. 18 That is the Gold Key Storage. Unit No. 3. 19 The fifth site is Parrish Chemical Company 20 facility, their storage compound. Now, the Parrish.Chemicql 21 Company, I do not have the exact address. It is located 22 in Orem, in very close proxinity to a steel manufacturing 23 mill. 24 BY MR. LARSEN: 25 Q Okay. Did you find contamination at these sites? 1 1 JONES - CROSS 692 G .V. ..M25 1 A Yes, contamination was found at each one of these 2 sites. 3 Q Were they over NRC guidelines? 4 A Yes, they were. They were over NRC guidelines 5 at-the Gold Key Storage Unit No. 3 and at the Parrish 6 Chemical Company. 7 Contamination was found at the other three 8 locations. However, they did not exceed the requirements 9 for unrestricted release. 10 I would note that at 958 North Industrial Park 11 Road there was a heater, a natural gas fired heater, located 12 some eight feet off the surface of the floor. This was a 13 suspended heater. My observations were that radiation 14 contamination was present in the base of this heater, 15 indicating that there was an airborne particulate that 16 settled into the base of this natural gas fired heater. 17 Q Were they cleaned up, these three units? Were 18 they cleaned up below NRC guidelines? 19 A These three units, yes, they were. 20 Q Then why do you say they were abandoned? 21 A I'm sorry, I did not state that these units were 12 abandoned. 23 Q Why did the State of Utah say they were abandoned? 24 A I believe I've already answered that question for I 25 the record. l l l l JONES - CROSS 693 l 2 M26 1 MS. HODGDON: Objection, Judge Bechhoefer. 2 Mr. Jones has stated repeatedly that it was not Utah that 3 stated that the sites were abandoned. 4 MR. LARSEN: Somebody maligned - 5 MS. HODGDON: That it was Region IV. And he read 6 into the record a letter that -- 7 THE WITNESS: But Region IV got it from the State 8 of Utah? 9 MS. HODGDON: No, Region IV disclaimed it. They 10 said that Utah had said -- and excuse my answering the 11 question -- that Utah had said, the letter said, whatever 12 the word was -- What was the word? Some other word, not 13 " abandoned". 14 JUDGE SHON: " Vacated". 15 MS. HODGDON: " Vacated", Utah said " vacated". 16 MR. LARSEN: Does that mean abandoned? Does 17 " vacated" mean " abandoned" to the NRC? 18 MS. HODGDON: Are you asking Mr. Jones for his 19 opinion of whether the NRC believes that " vacated" and 20 " abandoned" -- 21 MR. LARSEN: Is the connotation of " abandoned" 22 different than -- 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: You'll have to go to the 24 witness for that. 25 /// O .____--__________________-____-___------_.-_-__Q JONES - CROSS 694 1 O EM27 1 BY MR. LARSEN: I 2 Q Mr. Jones, you as a health physicist or as a 3 representative of the State of Utah, does the connotation 4 for " vacated" mean the same as the connotation for l 5 " abandoned"? 6 A (There was no response.) 7 Q What is the meaning, semantic meanings, of those 8 two words? Are they the same to you? 9 A I do not know to what degree the Region IV office 10 of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission chose to use the word 11 " abandoned". And for semantic purposes, I cannot answer 12 whether or not they determined the words to be equivalent. 13 MR. LARSEN: I think it's incredible that 14 everybody backs off from this now, after the damage has been 15 published in the Federal Register, in all of the papers, 16 all of this other stuff. And nobody will take credit for 17 it now. 18 MS. HODGDON: I object, Judge Bechhoefer. This 19 line has gone on long enough. Would you please instruct -- 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, I don't think 21 Mr. Jones can answer your questions on this. I think we've 22 had some discussion previously with the Region IV people 23 about that. I think earlier in the proceeding, in the 24 hearing, we did discuss this a little bit. You raised the 25 issue before. And I believe the Staff witnesses did answer O JONES - CROSS 695 f\ M28 I some questions on that, and there was some question whether-2 they should have used " vacated" rather than " abandoned". 3 And this is all on the record of this proceeding, which we 4 can look at. 5 MR. LARSEN: I'm sorry, Judge. 6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So we're not stuck with the 7 word " abandoned". There was a significant discussion on 8 the record about whether it should be " abandoned" or 9 " vacated", because I know I asked some questions on that. 10 MR. LARSEN: I'm sorry, I hve forgotten what that 11 discussion was about and what was the decision on that. 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I don't remember all aspects 13 of it. I know you had an objection to the word " abandoned", 14 and I know we asked some questions about whether or not it 15 should be " vacated" instead. And we will have enough in 16 the record to recognize your concerns in this respect. When 17 we evaluate all this, we will have that in front of us. 18 JUDGE KLINE: That's the point, I think. 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. 20 JUDGE KLINE: I know you wish to feel vindicated 21 for what may have happened outside of this hearing or for 22 uhat words may have been used. But the way the matter 23 stands now, the issue, the dispute over that word, has been 24 thoroughly ventilated. There is no decision on it yet. 25 MR. LARSEN: Oh, okay. O - - - - - - _ - - - - - _ - - - _____--__---_-----_---_--_____.-_-_x--_._-as_um 1. l JONES - CROSS 696 1 1 ( : M29 1 JUDGE KLINE: We're going to go home and think 2 about it after we hear or get your-proposed findings. 3 There is no decision on it, but the issue has been 4 ventilated in the record. In other words, we understand 5 you object to it, and your reasons for it, and we understand 6 how it was used. 7 MR. LARSEN: Okay. 8 JUDGE KLINE: So that's really all that's needed 9 at this point. 10 JUDGE SHON: I might also mention, Mr. Larsen, 11 that you can mention this in your proposed findings if you 12 think it is important, you know. 13 MR. LARSEN: In my proposed findings? 14 JUDGE SHON: Yes. 15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: For all the parties, we will 16 explain this. 17 JUDGE SHON: I thought we explained that last 18 time. 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. The parties file proposed 20 findings. The Staff will file first, then you will file 21 your responsive findings, and the Staff gets a third crack, 22 an opportunity to respond to anything neu that you put in. 23 MR. LARSEN: When does this -- 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: This is following this hearing. 25 MR. LARSEN: Is this after a decision? O JONES - CROSS 697 I M30 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: No, this is before a decision, i 2 This leads to a decision. This-tells us what parts of the 3 . record to look at to reach a decision. 4 MR. LARSEN: Oh. Oh, okay. 5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And usually, the Staff is 6 probably going to get a month to file its, maybe more. 7 We will discuss dates. After we get done with the 8 evidentiary part, we'll discuss dates for filing. And you 9 will get a period of time beyond what the Staff needs. 10 Then they will get another short period to respond to you. 11 We will work out the dates for filing. 12 And it's a lot of work to make up these filings. r- 13 But it's you telling the Board what you want us to find, k 14 based on the information in the record, and you'll cite that 15 information. So that's how the process works. 16 MR. LARSEN: Okay. 17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's what we have to go 18 through to render our decision. After we get all the final 19 positions of the parties based on the evidence in the 20 record, then we'll rule. 21 JUDGE SHON: It's a very important part of the 22 procedure, Mr. Larsen, an important part for you to pay full 23 attention to, because it's where you get a chance to show 24 that the record justifies a finding in your favor. Do you 25 see what I mean? O ' JONES - CROSS 698 .A M31 1 MR. LARSEN: Um-hm. (Affirmative response.) 2 JUDGE SHON: That's the crux of the whole thing. 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Anyway, I don't think Mr. Jones 4 is appropriate for this kind of question, any further at 5 least. 6 MR. LARSEN: Yes. I'd just like to say, if I 7 could, that Mr. Jones has been very helpful to ne with the 8 State of Utah, and I consider him a good health physicist 9 and a good public servant too, I guess, because he's very 10 helpful. And he's not adversarial, I don't think, as some 11 are. 12 So, anyway, that's just what I wanted to add. 13 And I'm through. 14 JUDGE KLINE: I wanted to ask one question. 15 Mr. Jones, it appears that the question of a 16 burglary drew you into this case, at Icast to the Gold Key 17 Storage facility. And at the time you made your inspection, 18 I guess it was May 7. 19 THE WITNESS: That's correct. 20 JUDGE KLINE: Shortly after the burglary. Did 21 you inquire as to whether any licensed material was stolen 22 in the burglary, or attempt to ascertain? i 23 THE WITNESS: I seem to recall that I did ask 24 Mr. Larsen if there had been a thef t of licensed material 25 or if there had been a thef t of valuable property. And I O l l l JONES - CROSS 699 1 . l O V l M32 1 don't recall that licensed material had been stolen or 2 process equipment of value had been stolen. l 3 JUDGE KLINE: Was it your conclusion that none 1 4 had been? 5 THE WITNESS: Yes. 6 JUDGE KLINE: Mr. Larsen, did you specifically l 7 examine whether any licensed material was stolen? 8 MR. LARSEN: I don't believe any material was. 9' There was a box gone that was locked, and I presume they 10 may have thought there was something valuable in it, but 11 there was just papers. 12 JUDGE KLINE: Okay. That's all. (~T 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. Ms. Hodgdon, do you have V 14 some redirect? 15 MS. HODGDON: Yes. I wanted to follow up on the 16 five sites, since they were brought in. 17 REDIRECT EXAMINATION 18 BY MS. HODGDON: , I i 19 Q Mr. Jones, did Mr. Larsen inform the State of Utah 20 that he was using these five sites for licensed purposes? 21 A I cannot speak to the sites prior to 1984. I have 22 no personal knowledge of that. I can tell you that the site 23 identified on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license 24 that's 47 North 1265 West, the Bureau of Radiation Control l 25 found to be vacated at the time we initially tried to JONES - REDIRECT 700 ^) U M33 1 contact Mr. Larsen. We were not advised by the submission l 2 of a license amendment as to where Mr. Larsen was 3 continuing his operations. It was only after follow-up work 4 by one of my colleagues that the Gold Key Storage unit was l 5 determined to be the location at which he was processing 6 depleted uranium. 7 Next, after the inspection of May 7 and 12 of 8 1986, and the subsequent notice of violation, order, and 9 order to show cause, Mr. Larsen left the Gold Key Storage 10 Unit No. 3. He moved his process equipment to a storage 11 facility located on his property in Lindon, Utah. The 12 storage facility I'll describe as being two plywood A-frame 13 type sheds, a storage shed of plywood construction. That 14 occurred sometime prior to October of 1986. And again 15 I don't recall that the Bureau of Radiation Control was 16 notified that Mr. Larsen was leaving the Gold Key Storage 17 unit and was moving his process equipment to these storage 18 sheds. 19 The Gold Key Storage unit at the time we tried 20 to inspect it was locked. It was locked without 21 Mr. Larsen's key. The lock on the storage unit was not 12 owned by Mr. Larsen. It was no longer in his control. It 23 was under the control of the landlord. And based upon my 24 observations and our inspection, the landlord's lock was 25 on the door, and there was radioactive material in excess O - __ _-.._______.______-____________-_____m___ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ . . . _ _ . _ _ _ . . _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _______u - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ - - - - _ _ _ _ _ - _ - _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ JONES - REDIRECT 701 .( 8,s . M34 1 of the limits for. unrestricted use remaining in the 2 facility. 3 That was determined by inserting a radiation 4 survey instrument along the side of the doorjamb. We did 5 not have full access to the facility. But to the extent 6 we did have access, we could confirm that the contamination 7 remaining was in excess of the limits for unrestricted use. 8 Q Were any or all of the five sites surveyed by the 9 State of Utah prior to Mr. Larsen's leaving them? 10 A Not to my knowledge. 11 Q When Mr. Larsen left these sites, did he violate 12 his State of Utah license in so doing? 13 A For the site identified as 47 North 1265 West .O and the Gold Key Storage unit, yes. The-radioactive 14 15 materials license issued by the State of Utah specifically 16 states a use location. And subsequent locations of use were 17 not identified to the Bureau of Radiation Control. 18 .MS. HODGDON: I'd like to ask one more question 19 if I may, although it's not strictly a follow-up, and that 20 regards something that Mr. Larsen said yesterday regarding 21 his consultant Mr. Decker's having gone up to Salt Lake City 22 and not come back. I believe that Mr. Jones might have 23 knowledge of that. 24 BY MS. HODGDON: 25 Q Mr. Jones, do you know Mr. Decker? O JONES - REDIRECT 702 O. M35 1 A Yes, I do know Mr. Decker. I can provide 2 information on that subject. 3 Mr. Decker made an appointment with myself and 4 Mr. Dane Frinerfrok and asked for information regarding 5 Mr. Larsen's operation. What my colleague Mr. Prinerfrok 6 and I did was provide to Mr. Decker the Utah radioactive 7 materials license file. We outlined for Mr. Decker the 8 notice of violation, order, and order to show cause, the 9 subsequent proposed civil penalty, and the order suspending 10 Mr. Larsen's license. We allowed Mr. Decker an hour or more 11 to review the files and ask questions of us. 12 It is my summary that Mr. Decker decided he did 13 not want to do business for Mr. Larsen. He stated his 14 displeasure in that he had provided consulting services to 15 Mr. Larsen previously, consulting services which resulted 16 in Mr. Larsen obtaining a radioactive materials license from 17 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Mr. Decker stated that 18 he was distressed or upset that the procedures which he 19 outlined had not been followed by Mr. Larsen, and that end 20 he did not want to continue consulting for Mr. Larsen if 21 it appeared that his work was not going to be used. 22 MS. HODGDON: Thank you. I have no further 23 questions. 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen, do you want to 25 follow up on that last question or two? You have a right O C _ - _ - l- 703 l i J .k M36- I to do that. 2 RECROSS-EXAMINATION
- 3 BY MR. LARSEN
l. 4 Q On this Gold Key facility that was locked up, are 5 you implying that that was abandoned, Mr. Jones? 6 A I will state that you vacated that facility in 7 a state that was contaminated in an amount above the limits 8 for unrestricted use. You did not identify to the Bureau 9 of Radiation Control where you had moved your process 10 equipment. 11 So to the extent that you vacated that facility 12 and the lock was no longer yours, then I would say yes, it 13 was abandoned. 14 Q Okay. Is it true that Mr. Harmon, the owner of 15 the facility, put the lock on the No. 3 unit? 16 A I believe that it was the landlord's lock on 17 Unit No. 3. 18 Q So how could I have access to it to clean it up? 19 A My understanding is that there was a dispute 20 between you and the landlord over a payment of fees for the 21 leasing of that facility. So I would assume that if you 22 resolved your commitment with the landlord to pay for the 23 fees, you would have had access to the Gold Key Storage 24 unit. 25 Q The dispute was that he wanted to press charges O JONES - RECROSS 704 1 M37' I with his lawyer and that he was not going to allow me to 2 clean it up. I paid him his fees, but he still would not 3 let me have access to clean it up until, I believe, around' 4 January. And I told this to the state. The state was aware 5 of what the situation was, and they contacted Mr. Harmon 6 and asked him that I could clean up the unit. And he still 7 refused you guys, as I understar.d. 8 It escapes me how I got access to it, but 9 finally I did get access to it. And we cleaned up the 10 facility at No. 3, Gold Key, and it was inspected by the 11 State of Utah, and I received a letter that released it for 12 unrestricted use; is that correct? 13 A That facility has since been cleaned and (~ s 14 certified by the Bureau of Radiation Control that it is 15 appropriate for unrestricted use. 16 Q Then why would you characterize it as abandoned, 17 when I had no way of getting into it to clean it up? 18 A Our feelings were that prior to leaving that 19 facility and moving to another location, it would be 20 incumbent on you to confirm that it was left in a state free 21 of contamination or where the contamination was within the 12 guidelines for unrestricted use. You apparently chose not 23 to do that. 24 Q I chose to abandon the place, and I chose to have 25 Mr. Harmon put the key on there? Is that what you're O 1 - - - - - - - l. JONES - RECROSS 705 lM38 l' saying? l 2 A (There was no response.) 3 Q What are you saying? 4 MS. HODGDON: Objection. 5 BY MR. LARSEN: 6 Q Where did I intentionally abandon anything? 7 MS. HODGDON: Objection. The witness has already 8 answered the question. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I believe that's accurate. 10 The witness has stated what his view is. 11 JUDGE SHON: I think his view was, Mr. Larsen -- 12 if I'm not putting words in your mouth, Mr. Jones -- that 13 you'should have cleaned the place up when you moved your 14 equipment out. 15 THE WITNESS: That is correct. 16 JUDGE SHON: Is that a fair way of putting it? 17 THE WITNESS: That's a succinct statement. 18 MR. LARSEN: May I say that we took our equipment 19 out so that we could clean it. And it were prevented from 20 cleaning it by Mr. Harmon. So I hope that " abandon" does 21 not mean irresponsible in that situation. 22 BY MR. LARSEN: 23 0 Would you say there was any connotation of 24 irresponsibility, Mr. Jones? 25 A I believe that there is a period of time after O JONES - RECROSS 706 'M39 1 you removed your equipment, as you so stated, and a point 2 at which the landlord placed his lock on the door, in which 3 you would have had opportunity to decontaminate the 4 facility. 5 Q Well, what is that period of time? Can you state 6 that? 7 A I do not know hat the period of time was. 8 Q Then how do you know there was irresponsibility? 9 Because I'll state to you that we didn't have a chance to 10 cican it up. There was no time. He put his lock on it and 11 refused to take it off. 12 MS. HODGDON: Judge Bechhoefer, I believe this 13 line of questioning should be brought to a conclusion. 14 Mr. Larsen is badgering the witness. He has already 15 answered the question. 16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I think that's right. I think 17 the witness has testified everything. I mean, he has said 18 everything he is going to say. You can take issue with that 19 in your proposed findings, and you can argue that we should 20 not call it abandoned, and the Staff can argue that we 21 should consider it to be abandoned. 22 MR. LARSEN: Okay. 23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We're going to have to decide. 24 But I don't think the witness can help much more on this. 25 I think his views are very clear. l l .\ 707 O v 'M40 1 MR. LARSEN: Okay, then I'm through. 2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Jones, I believe you're 3 excused. We appreciate your being here for perhaps somewhat 4 more extensive questioning than you may have expected. But 5 you have been a big help, and we thank you. 6 (Whereupon, the witness was excused.) 7 JUDGE BECHHOETER: With this, Mr. Noack still has 8 not returned. I had just one question that I would have 9 asked Mr. Noack, which I think I can ask Mr. Larsen about j 10 and perhaps get a satisfactory resolution, gg It concerns the shipment of some materials to Wyoming from your Utah facility. I think you testified that 12 l 13 the material was in drums, and Mr. Noack said it was in 14 buckets. I wondered if that's consistent or whether a 15 difference was intended. 1 1 16 MR. LARSEN: It may have been the buckets in the 17 drums. That's how I understood that. There was a drum, ! i i 13 and the bucket was put in that drum to make sure that there ; i 19 was no accident that could happen. 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I see, Uell, that's what I l 23 would have asked Mr. Noack too. So I think that satisfies : 22 me. I 23 Do you have any follow-up on that? l l 24 MS. HODGDON: Yes, I could ask Mr. Larsen if he ! i 25 ever in fact himsc3f transported the stuff with buckets (:) ; i l 708 p . C MC41 1 inside drums. 2 MR. LARSEN: No, I didn't. Kevin had the car with 3 the bed that could handle the drums. Mine was mostly small 4 things like masks, and gloves and stuff like that, i 5 instuments. 6 MS. HODGDON: How do you know, then, that Kevin 7 transported -- 8 MR. LARSEN: Because I told him to do it that way. 9 MS. HODGDON: But you don't know that he did it 10 that way. l 11 MR. LARSEN: I know he did it that way, yes. j 12 MS. HODGDON: Because you told him to do it that l 13 way. 14 MR. LARSEN: Yes, j 15 MS. HODGDON: Thank you. I have no further 16 questions. 17 /// 18 19 l 20 21 22 23 24 25 O , l l I 1 J l .. 709 - 13A 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Then that's the end of our 2 evidentiary questions. 3 Before we adjourn, we ought to set a schedule 4 for -- 5 MS. HODGDON: Excuse me. Judge Bechhoefer. 6 I wanted to call Blair Spitzberg as a rebuttal witness. 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I 8 wasn't clear on that, and yes, you're certainly welcome 9 to do that. 10 MS. HODGDON: And it will take about five minutes. 11 May I do that now? 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes, right now. 13 MS. HODGDON: Before we get into housekeeping 14 matters. 15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes, that's all we were 16 going to get into. 17 MS. HODGDON: Yes. 18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So I had forgotten about 19 that. 20 MS. HODGDON: All right. 21 I need a moment. 22 (Pause.) 23 /// 24 /// , - 25 /// L____.____._______________________._._._____ SPITZBERG - DIRECT. p-h1 wJ 1 Whereupon, . 2 D. BLAIR SPITZBERG 3 having been previously duly sworn, was recalled as a 4 rebuttal witness herein, and was examined and testified 5 further as follows: 6 DIRECT EXAMINATION 7 BY MS. HODGDON: 8 Q Dr. Spitzberg, yesterday in testimony, Mr. Larsen 9 clarified his prefiled testimony to say that you when ; 10 you came to investigate his facility in Evanston made 11 a statement that "We have the power to destroy you." 12 Do you recall your visit to -- your inspection at 13 Mr. Larsen's Evanston facility? 14 A Yes, I do. 15 0 When did that take place? 16 A That took place on November 4th, 1987. 17 Q What time of the day was that? 18 A That was early afternoon. 19 0 Were you alone when you went there? 20 A No, I was accompanied by Mr. Julius Haes from 21 the State of Wyoming. 22 O Could you give me an account of what happened 1 23 there? ; 1 24 A Yes. I recall that we visited Mr. Larsen's 1 I 25 facility and met with Mr. Larsen. We described to him ( l SPITZBERG - DIRECT 711 l ,m .. b1() I what the purpose of our inspection was and the type of 2 information that we were going to try and gather during 3 the course of the inspection. The inspection, as I recall, 4 was very cordial on the part of all parties. We went 5 about conducting the inspection, as I have documented 6 in NRC Inspection Report -- I believe it was 87.04, the 7 facts of which I stand behind to this day. 8 I did not make any threatening statements 9 to Mr. Larsen. I did not say to Mr. Larsen that I have 10 the power to destroy him or that wi have the power to 11 destroy him, and I said nothing to Mr. Larsen which could 12 be construed to infer that. ; 13 Q Had you ever met Mr. Larsen before? } 14 A I had never met Mr. Larsen before, and prior 15 to my visit to Evanston, Wyoming, I knew very little l l 16 of Mr. Larsen's history, i j 17 0 Had you ever spoken with him before? 18 A I had spoken with him on the telephone the 19 week prior to my visit. 20 Q And this was an announced visit. 21 A That's correct. 22 Q And so Mr. Larsen was expecting you. 23 And so it's your statement that you never said , 24 to Mr. Larsen that you had the power to destroy him or 25 anything that even remotely resembles that; is that correct? O SPITZBERG - DIRECT, CROSS 712 'bl I A No, I did not. - 2 MS. HODGDON: That's all I have. Thank you. 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Larsen. 4 MR. LARSEN: I can say that that's an out and 5 out lie, couldn't I? 6 MS. HODGDON: Mr. Larsen, you may ask questions. 7 I mean -- excuse me, Judge Bechhoefer. 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. 9 MS. HODGDON: Would you please instruct Mr. 10 Larsen that he may ask questions but not give testimony 11 at this time. 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Usually you should ask 33 questions. 14 MR. LARSEN: Okay. Let me ask questions. 15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Your testimony is already 16 that. 17 CROSS-EXAMINATION 18 BY MR. LARSEN: 19 0 Mr. Spitzberg, are you the author of saying 20 that Mr. Larsen was state-hopping? 21 A No, I am not. 22 Do you know anybody that was the author of O 23 that at the NRC? 24 A If you could direct me to the NRC document 25 where that appears -- O SPITZBERG - CROSS 713 b1( .% )\ . 1 Q No. Do you know.of anybody that said that? 2 Was that opinion at the NRC? Did anybody have that opinion? 3 A I can't speak for the other individuals of 4 the NRC, Mr. Larsen. 5 Q But you can speak for what you know. Do you 6 know of anybody that had that opinion? 7 A There were observations made within the NRC 8 that you had conducted your business in a number of 9 different states. 10 Q And was that construed to be state-hopping? 11 A If you could define " state-hopping"? 12 O Running from responsibility to another state. 13 A You have stated, I believe, in your testimony, 14 Mr. Larsen, that you have gone from one state to another 15 in order that you could operate in locations where you 16 had been shut down by the state. 17 Q Are there reasons other than running from 18 responsibility that one would go to another state, such 19 as trying to obey the law and still make a living? 20 A I'm not sure I can respond to the motive behind 21 your going from one state to another. 12 Q But did you assume that the state-hopping l l 23 means irresponsible running to another state? 24 MS. HODGDON: Objection, Judge Bechhoefer. 25 Dr. Spitzberg has disclaimed any knowledge of the term, O SPITZBERG - CROSS 714 bli 1 " state-hopping," and therefore, Mr. Larsen should not 2 be allowed to. continue to cross-examine on this line. 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Since the Witness has said 4 he does not have any knowledge of that term used in 5 conjunction with yourself, so I think that's his answer, 6 I mean. 7 MR. LARSEN: Mmm-hmm. (Affirmative response.) 8 I guess I have nothing else. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I have one more or less 10 follow-up question. Il Dr. Spitzberg, when you started your inspection, 12 did you begin with a formalistic type phrase such as, ) 13 "You should answer all questions truthfully and failure 14 to answer truthfully could be used against you," or 15 anything like that, some formalistic type warning that i 16 might have been construed -- l 17 THE WITNESS: No, I did not. In fact, I have 18 thought quite a bit about Mr. Larsen's assertion. 19 Initially I was not sure who he was directed this accusation 20 toward. When we found out yesterday that it was directed l 1 1 21 toward me, then I started to go over what had taken place 22 during my inspection. I have conducted hundreds of 23 inspections for the NRC, and this is the first occasion 24 where anybody has called into question my professionalism 25 or the manner in which I conducted the inspection. A U SPITZBERG - CROSS 715' l i bl[ , I The inspection was cordial throughout. My 2 recollection -- in fact, my early thought on the matter 3 was that perhaps toward the end of the inspection when 4 it'is customary for the inspector to discuss the NRC's 5 enforcement policy, we go over the various enforcement 6 options that are available to the NRC where we discuss 7 notices of violations, escalated enforcement orders, 8 revocations, and my thinking initially was that perhaps 9 he construed this into some kind of a threat. But yesterday 10 Mr. Larsen testified that I made this statement at the 11 outset of the inspection, and I am here to' deny that 12 that is true. 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: All right. Well, that's 14 why'I asked you if you routinely began your inspections 15 advising.the subjects that -- 16 THE WITNESS: No. I begin my inspections by 17 identifying who I am, what my position is, and what my 18 business there is. 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Nothing like, "Anything 20 you say could be used against you," or -- 21 THE WITNESS: No. , i I 22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- that kind of thing? 23 THE WITNESS: No. In fact, I've been told 24 before that I'm relatively disarming during an inspection. 25 JUEGE BECHHOEFER: Well, that's all we have. l O ; SPITZBERG - CROSS 716 blf L 1 Do you have any follow-up questions? 2 MS. HODGDON: No, I don't. i 3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So.you're excused. 4 (Whereupon, the Witness was excused.) l 5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I guess now we are at the i 6 stage when we should determine about proposed findings. 7 Technically, proposed findings appear in 10 8 CFR 2.754, and we're allowed to alter the dates recommended 9 at least. Normally it says that the party which has the 10 burden of proof, which is the Staff, would have 30 days. 11 Other parties, according to the rules, are given only l 12 an additional 10. That's not fair in a proceeding like 13 this. So is 30 days each enough, or do we need a little 14 more? I think lenghthier periods are used on occasion. 15 One last week I think everybody got 45 days, h 16 and we want to make sure that the parties do a good job 17 on these things. So it's important to get a complete 18 statement. 19 Now, I would say for Mr. Larsen, you would 20 have an option. The Staff will file a full set of proposed 21 findings, but that will include a lot of formal material 22 such at "The proceedings started on X date," and "The 23 hearing was held on a given - ." You don't have to do 24 all that. I mean, not going to the merits, various 25 procedural type findings. If you wish on your own findings, O 1 l 717 bl 1 you can elect either to file them in your own form, or 2 you can file them by stating whether you agree or disagree 3 with what the Staff has said. And if you disagree, you 4 have to tell us why and where the record supports your -- 5 MR. LARSEN: Is this kind of like a response 6 to an order? I mean, you -- 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, it's a little bit 8 like that. 9 MR. LARSEN: Okay. 10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: But it has to be based on 11 evidence of record. 12 MR. LARSEN: All right. 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: You have to point to what [] %J 14 you're relying on, either your testimony or your cross-15 examination or anything else on the record, the documents. 16 You will see when the Staff files its that it'll be a 17 fairly complete and lengthy document, I assume. 18 So then your option is to either write your 19 own or else to just answer theirs. And when you answer 20 theirs, you can put in things that you think the Staff 21 should have stressed and didn't. So there are a number 22 of ways of organizing it, but it's a big job, and you 23 should probably start looking through the record even 24 before you get the Staff's findings to highlight things 25 you want or to identify matters you wish to highlight, A l I 718 bil I because it's a pretty difficult job. I think the -- 2 well, I'm sure the record will be at least 500 or 600, 3 plus all the inserts. So that's -- 4 MR. LARSEN: Does this have to be done? 5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, if you want your side 6 of the case presented, it does, yes. 7 MR. LARSEN: I mean, you can't decide without 8 the findings, I guess. 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, it's very difficult. 10 The findings will let us know. There's an awful lot 11 in the record going to both sides, and -- 12 MR. LARSEN: Because I didn't know about this 13 part of the trial. (~) V 14 (Pause for Judges to confer.) 15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We have the discretion to 16 do away with them. I'm not sure that's a good idea in 17 terms of our -- well, I think any party who's the subject 18 of an order such as you are, has a right to file them, 19 if you wish. 20 MR. LARSEN: But it is absolutely overwhelming 21 to me just about, I mean, being a single person. I'm 22 not a lawyer, and I have to make a living, and I just 23 don't know if I can spare the time to do all that. 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: If we do it, it's going 25 to take us a little longer than if we had the proposed (~]\ V-l t __________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ______ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _________-_____-_________-__-___A t 719-I bil4' I findings of both parties, in which case we could more 2 or less decide which of the proposed findings we wish. 3 to use and use -- pick and choose. If we have~no proposed 4 findings, we can't do that. 5 MR. LARSEN: Well, I'm of the opinion that 6 whatever your decision is is fine. I'll accept it. That's 7 that. I don't want to appeal. I don't want to do anything, 8 just decide it. Let's get it over with one way or the 9 other. 10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Off the record for a minute. 11 (Discussion held off the record.) 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Back on the record. 13 The Board is not going to order anyone to file 14 proposed findings. We are going to permit parties to 15 do so, and'we'll put a date, and then to the extent -- 16 I assume, unless the Staff wants to waive its right to 17 file proposed findings, but we would permit the Staff 18 to file. We would permit Mr. Larsen to answer, if he 19 wishes. We will not hold it against him if he doesn't. 20 We'll search the record, but you may see something in 21 the Staff's proposed findings that you think you have 22 to answer, and we certainly want to give you that 23 opportunity Even if you don't file a full set of proposed 24 findings, you may see something that you just think can't 25 get by without your comments. And you should have ) } i l 720 bil5 I that' opportunity. 2 Ms. Hodgdon, what do you think of that kind 3 of proposal? Or would you prefer to have it waived and 4 just let us muddle through the record and decide what -- 5 MS. HODGDON: Well, as I read 2.754, it-says, 6 "Any party may, or if directed by the presiding officer, 7 shall. . . ." 8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. Well, we're not 9 going to direct anybody. 10 MS. HODGDON: It says, "except as otherwise 11 order," but I think that goes only to the time for filing. 12 So I think we have a right to file findings. 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes, and we're going to ) 14 give you that right, but I don't think we're going to 15 hold it against Mr. Larsen if he wishes not -- we're 16 not going to hold him in default because he doesn't file. 17 MS. HODGDON: Well, unless he's directed to 18 do so -- l 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We're not going to direct 20 him to do so. 21 MS. HODGDON: Under regulations, he has -- 22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes, and then there's a l 23 case law involving that, actually, which says that if 24 a party isn't directed, then you can't dismiss him for 25 default. And we're not going to direct him, but we're Q 721. b116 /% b 1 going to permit the parties, and we're going to set a 2 schedule for that, and that will permit Mr. Larsen to 3 file anything he wishes to file. He may not want to 4 answer more than one or two paragraphs of yours, but 5 if he wishes to do that, he's got to have the opportunity 6 to do it. So we thought we would set a schedule of that 7 sort. 8 MS. HODGDON: That's fine. The Staff will i l 9 D '.e findings. j i 10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: You will. 11 MS. HODGDON: The Staff will file findings, i 12 yes. i 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And what time frame are j 14 you likely to need? j 15 MS. HODGDON: I think we need more than the 16 30 days because I think this case is very difficult, j 17 and there are a number of issues. So I think we need 18 until the end of July, 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Which is -- 20 (Pause for Judges to confer.) 21 MS. HODGDON: Tuesday through Thursday. 22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Staff has a preference for i' 23 filing between Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'll take official 24 notice of that. I've done it in other cases. 25 (Pause for Judges to confer.) O L - - - - - - _ - - _ _ - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ?! r E 722 1l JUDGE SHON: July 31st is a Monday. 2 .MS. HODGDON: How about the 1st of August,. then? 3 = JUDGE SHON: What? 4 MS. HODGDON: How about the 1st of August, then? '5. JUDGE SHON: First of August is a Tuesday.
- 6. MS. HODGDON: A Tuesday is. good. Tuesday is a 7 good day.
8 JUDGE-BECHHOEFER: For what it's worth, on th e 2nd 9 of August, I'm going off to Hawaii for a week, but -- 10 MS. HODGDON: Maybe you can take them with you. 11 JUDGE BECKHOEFER: Well, I wouldn't bet on that. 12 MS.-HODGDON: I said "maybe." 13 (Pause for Judges to confer.) '(} 14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: If the Staff were to file on-15 . Tuesday, August ist, and Mr. Larsen to the extent he wished 16 to do so, could file a response by Friday, September 1st, 17 that should give you enough time to look throughout it and 18 decide of any parts of it you wish to answer, and then after 19 that -- 20 What about, will you need a responsive period or 21 what? You normally get a period to respond. If he files on 22 Friday -- 23 MS. HODGDON: I will only file a reply if Mr. 24 Larsen files a response. 25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Of course, of course, O My 723 l -) 1 We're not making it mandatory, but your response 2 would be due on September 1st-or to be'filod. That means. 13 mailed on September lat. 4 And on this one, you should be'sure to mail 5 separate copies to the Board and to Ms. Hodgdon because I 6 may not be around that week, either, although I guess the 7 other Board members can -- 8 MS. HODGDON: You were going to tell me when the 9 reply findings would be due if due. 10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. What do you need? If I 11 say Tuesday _the.12th, is that -- 12 MS. HODGDON: That sounds fine. 13 Mr. Larsen is filing on the what? (} 14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: First. I'm not sure - 15 MS. HODGDON: But I won't get it by mail until -- 16 the 12th is not good. Give me the 20th. 17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The 19th is a Tuesday. 18 MS. HODGDON: Okay, Tuesday the 19th is fine. 19 -JUDGE BECHHOEFER: But we won't hold that date 20 open if we don't get a response. 21 MS. HODGDON: Sure. 22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That'll be official. The Staff 23 will file on August ist. That means drop it in the mail. 24 The Licensee will file on September 1st. Again that's if 25 you wish to file, that'll be September lat. And Tuesday, O + 724 .p (,)l l' ' September 19th, the Staff will have an opportunity to file a. 2 reply only if you file a response. If not,.we'll start [ 3 working on the decision then. ~ -4 It' takes'a litt1'e while. It's fairly complicated, 5 a lot of. facts involved. So it'll take us some time after 6 that. 7 (Pause for Judges to confer.) 8' JUDGE BECHHOEFER: If Mr. Larsen receives'your 9 proposed findings, the Staff's, and before September 1st 10 decides not to file anything, you may wish to write a letter 11 to us and to the. Staff so ws could then start working-on the 12 decisions right off, if,you definitely decide there's 13' nothing in it that.you want to answer. If there is, you ' 14 have until September 1st to answer. But you could tell'us J 15 if you decide not to. 16 MR. LARSEN: How long does it generally take for a 17 decision; do you know? 18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, on a complicated case 19 like that, it can take quite some time, and we're going to 20 have to search the record and decide on a lot of -- each one 21 if a relatively small point, but collectively they're quite 22 large. 23 MR. LARSEN: Just as a guess. 24 (Pause for Judges to confer.) 25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I would say it's likely to be 725 li one or two months after.we get all the papers. But,-again, ~ ~2. I can't tell. I don't know what'our conflicting schedules,. 3 are'or a lot of other things. '4 Is'there anything'further before we adjourn? Does '5 any party want to raise anything before-we~ adjourn?: 6 MS..HODGDON: No, I have nothing. 7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: .Anything further? '8 (There was.no response.) 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: If not, the proceeding is 10 adjourned. 11 (Whereupon, at 5:40 p.m., proceedings in the' 12 above-entitled matter adjourned.) l 13 14 15 ' 16. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I ' .. 1 CERTIFICATE-2' 3 .This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the 4 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter 5 of 6 Names' Wrangler Laboratories, Larsen Laboratories, Orion Chemical 7 Company, and John Larsen 8 Docket Number: 9999004 9 Place: Provo, Utah 10 Date:- June 15, 19 89 11 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 12 transcript thereof for the file of the United States' Nuclear 13' Regulatory Commission taken stenographically by me and, 14 thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the 15 direction of the court reporting company, aild that the 16 transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing. 17 proceedings. 18 /s/ o h- tukt! d 19 (Signature typed:} Mark D. Handy 20 Official Reporter 21 Heritage Reporting Corporation 22 l 23 24 25 0 Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 - _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _}}