Epidemiologic Studies

Rocky Flats Plant Site

Introduction

Planning
In January 1994 History Associates will conduct a pilot project at DOE-Rocky Flats to verify the present Industrial Hygiene (IH) organization's active records inventory and to inventory inactive IH holdings. The end product of the pilot will be a guide to records series of the IH organization. Planning for the pilot project began with HAI's review of the inventory worksheets prepared for active IH records by DOE-RF and EG&G records management staff. HAI also consulted other resources during their review, including a CDC/NIOSH list of Industrial Hygiene topics; the DOE data elements list; and the DOE Record Series of Potential Use for Epidemiologic and Other Health Studies. HAI's search criteria for IH records includes the following topics:

Accident/occurrence reports
Analytic summary log books
Asbestos abatement records
Asbestos hazard files
Audit and safety oversight records
Budget records
Building safety and readiness inspection files
Committee files
Contractor training records
Environmental contamination and public protection files
Environmental contamination measurement records
Environmental measurement records
Facility inventories
Hazard inventory records
Health and safety practices manuals
Input source records
Inventory lists
Investigative files
Medical and health research project case files
Meeting minutes
Monitoring records and procedures
Non-ionizing laser inventories
Personnel exposure to hazardous concentrations of toxic chemicals procedures
Quality assurance plans
Radiation and contamination control procedures
Radiation and contamination control program records
Radiation and contamination surveys
Radiation protection program
Radioactive waste disposal and management records
Safety management records
Survey and inspection files

Methodology
HAI's next step in the planning process was to produce a list of boxes of inactive IH records for HAI staff to review during their onsite work in January 1994. HAI compiled this list by reviewing the Records Transmittal and Receipt forms (SF135) for unclassified records stored at the Denver Federal Record Center. Several thousand forms for records retired by DOE-RF and EG&G were reviewed, flagged, and tabulated. Office administrative files, word processing files, non-record reference copies, schedules of daily activities, time control logs, and routine procurement files were excluded from the list.

HAI's review of the SF135s identified approximately 806 boxes in EG&G's custody and 143 under DOE control whose contents matched, as closely as possible, the list of topics of potential interest for the guide. Time and staffing constraints for the pilot preclude a review of all the boxes, consequently History Associates determined that a representative sample of the boxes should be reviewed. Prior to reaching this conclusion, HAI's archivists reviewed recent archival literature to ascertain that its sampling strategy was appropriate and consistent.

In order to conduct a statistically significant sample, History Associates established sampling guidelines. Accessions were sorted alphabetically by the subject titles listed on the SF135s into preliminary series. The boxes for all accessions within each series were totaled; a percentage of boxes were sampled based on the total volume of the series. The formula used to determine the volume of records sampled is:

A total of 408 boxes, or 43% of the original list, were requested for review at the Denver Federal Records Center.

Accessions were chosen on a generally systematic basis: for the 50% sample every other accession was chosen; 30% it was every third; for 25% every fourth. In a few cases, accessions were substituted, added, or deleted to allow for the proper number of boxes to be reviewed and selected.

Purpose
For the first phase of DOE's Epidemiologic Records Inventory Project, HAI created draft guides to the Rocky Flats Industrial Hygiene Organization records and to records relating to the September 1957 fire. For the second phase, HAI proposes to identify, inventory, and describe the Radiological Health, Medical, and Waste Management records of Rocky Flats.

This proposal began with discussions held at Rocky Flats with EG&G Records Management on March 18, 1994. Both HAI and EG&G staff recognized that the Industrial Hygiene records already reviewed by HAI frequently reflected Radiological Health, Medical, and Waste Management concerns, since Industrial Hygiene, Radiological Health, Medical Health, and Waste Management were linked organizationally during the plant's first years of operation. HAI therefore proposes as the goal or end product of this second phase of the Epidemiologic Records Inventory Project to revise and expand the guide to Industrial Hygiene records to include Radiological Health, Medical, and Waste Management records. The guide will be retitled to reflect its expanded subject content.

Methodology
HAI began planning the second phase by reviewing the active records inventory worksheets compiled by EG&G Records Management. The HAI team also read through NARA Standard Form 135s as well as the Rocky Flats Building 881 Archives Records Storage Receipts. These provided an idea of the types of records which have been created relating to radiological health and waste management issues. In addition, HAI consulted other sources for background information, including ChemRisk's Dose Assessment for Historical Contaminant Releases from Rocky Flats, the DOE Records Series of Potential Use for Epidemiologic and Other Health Studies, Principles of Radiation Protection: A Textbook of Health Physics, and Nuclear Power: Both Sides. Finally, HAI team members drew upon the experience they had acquired while working with the Rocky Flats Industrial Hygiene records.

With these sources, HAI decided to select for review those records which were generated by the various Radiological Health and Waste organizations at Rocky Flats since 1951. These included Environmental Sciences and Waste Control; Health Physics; Radiation Dose Assessment; Radiation Dosimetry; Radiation Protection; Radiological Engineering; Regulated and Sanitary Waste Management; Waste Identification; Waste Management; Waste Minimization; Waste Operations; Waste Programs; and Waste Treatment.

Additionally, HAI composed a list of subject terms, or keywords, to facilitate a systematic search for relevant records listed in the inventory worksheets, Standard Form 135s, and Records Storage Receipts. These were as follows:

Alarm Calibration/Installation
Body Counters
Building 371/374
Dose Equivalents
Dosimeters
Drums
Environmental Analyses
Environmental Contamination Measurement
Film Badges
Hazardous Materials
Incidents/Occurrences
Materials Handling
Medicine, Health, and Safety
Personnel Dose Exposure
Plutonium Recovery
Production
Radiation
Radiation Contamination Surveys
Radiation Protection
Tanks
TLD Badges
Waste
Waste Containment/Storage
Waste Disposal
Waste Processing
Waste Treatment

If the descriptions on the records inventory forms contained any of the above terms, the forms were marked and used to produce a box list of records to review at the Denver Federal Records Center and onsite repositories, including the Rocky Flats Building 881 Archives.

Record types to be included in the inventory are: correspondence and memoranda; committee files; procedures and training manuals; blueprints; logs; quality assurance audit files; and reports. Conversely, office administrative files, word processing files, reading or reference files, schedules of daily activities, time control logs, and routine procurement files will be excluded.

Following the above criteria, HAI selected a total of 514 boxes of Waste Management records and 1162 boxes of Radiological Health records for review. Because of overlapping selection criteria for the earlier Industrial Hygiene records search, many of the targeted records already were inventoried. The numbers were reduced to 203 boxes for Waste Management and 117 boxes for Radiological Health. HAI has identified, through its review of the Building 881 Archives Records Storage Receipts, an additional 188 boxes to be inventoried during the third site visit.

A list of 510 boxes of inactive medical records, including X-rays, injury reports, and general files, currently stored at the Denver Federal Records Center also was compiled. The list includes the boxes to which EG&G had previously denied HAI access because the boxes contain medical information on individual employees. Because information about these records is important to researchers conducting health studies of workers, DOE has determined that descriptions of all series of Rocky Flats medical records will be included in the Industrial Hygiene guide. The inventory process will not result in disclosure of any personal identifiers or information, because only the type of data that is contained in the records will be described in the guide. Also, HAI will ensure that the guide specifies all the restrictions that govern access to these records by anyone other than the individual to whom they pertain.