BEFORE THE ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

144

IN THE MATTER OF:

REVISIONS TO RADIUM WATER QUALITY

STANDARDS: PROPOSED NEW 35 ILL. ADM.

CODE 302.307 and AMENDMENTS TO

35 ILL. ADM. CODE 302.207 and 302.525

The Rulemaking Proceedings, before the

Illinois Pollution Control Board, was held

October 22, 2004, at 9:03 a.m. at 100 West Randolph

Street, Room 2-025, Chicago, Illinois, before Amy C.

Antoniolli, Chief Hearing Officer.

145

APPEARANCES:

Illinois Pollution Control Board

100 West Randolph Street

Suite 11-500

Chicago, Illinois 60601

By: Ms. Amy C. Antoniolli, Esq., Hearing

Officer

Illinois Pollution Control Board

Mr. Thomas E. Johnson

Mr. Nicholas J. Melas

Mr. Anand Rao

Ms. Alisa G. Liu

Ms. Kathleen Crowley

Sonnenschein, Nath, & Rosenthal

8000 Sears Tower

233 South Wacker Drive

Chicago, Illinois 60606

By: Mr. Jeffrey C. Fort

Appearing on behalf of WRT Environmental

Gardner, Carton, & Douglas

191 North Wacker Drive

Suite 3700

Chicago, Illinois 60606

By: Mr. Roy M. Harsch

Appearing on behalf of the City of Joliet

Illinois Environmental Protection Agency

1021 North Grand Avenue East

Springfield, Illinois 62794

By: Ms. Deborah J. Williams

Ms. Stefanie N. Diers

Mr. Robert G. Mosher

146

1 APPEARANCES: (Continued)

ALSO PRESENT:

Mr. Dennis Duffield

Dr. Abdul Khalique

Dr. Theodore Adams

Dr. Brian Anderson

Mr. Charles Williams

Mr. Albert Ettinger

Ms. Cynthia Skrukrud

Mr. Douglas Dobmeyer

Mr. Jerry Kuhn

Mr. Jeffrey Hutton

Mr. Blaine Kinsley

147

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Good

morning, everyone, and welcome back. Again,

we're here today on revisions to radium water

quality standards proposed new Illinois

Administrative Code 302.307 and amendments to

35 Illinois Administrative Code 302.207 and

302.525.

Everything that I explained yesterday

regarding the procedural rules applies again

today. If you begin testifying and you

haven't already, I'll stop you and have you

sworn in. If you would like to testify today

and you haven't signed up yet, there's a

sign-up sheet at the back of the room. We'll

try to save room for people who haven't

pre-filed to testify when we finish with the

questions for those who have pre-filed.

At this point I have on the witness

list so far Mr. Abdul Khalique from the

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District who

signed up to testify and may or may not if you

choose to and Mr. Dennis Duffield who signed

up yesterday to testify from the city of

Joliet.

148

At this point, do you have anything

to add this morning?

MEMBER MELAS: Yes. Good morning

everyone. I would just like to add my

comments to what our hearing officer,

Ms. Antoniolli, said and welcome you all here.

Thank you all very much for your

participation and reiterate what obviously was

covered by Ms. Antoniolli yesterday. The

purpose of this is an information gathering

hearing. We're trying to develop a complete

record. And we thank you all very much for

your participation. And we value very much

the information that we are going to glean

from your various comments. And we will then

use all of that in our deliberations and come

up, hopefully, with a rule that will meet the

objectives of the Enviornmental Protection Act

that we all operate under.

Thank you again.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Thank

you, Board Member Melas.

And I'd like to just add for the

record that to the right of Member Melas is

149

Member Johnson. And we also have with us

today from the technical unit Mr. Anand Rao

and Mrs. Alisa Liu.

So with that, we finished yesterday.

The Agency finished up questions for WRT

Environmental witnesses. And with that this

morning, do we have anyone else who would like

to ask questions of WRT Environmental

witnesses?

I know that, Mr. Harsch, we

interrupted your questioning at the end of the

third hearing. If you wish, you can --

MR. HARSCH: Sure. I have some

questions.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: --

continue questioning.

MR. HARSCH: Thank you for the

opportunity. Roy Harsch on behalf of the city

of Joliet.

A lot of my questions have been

addressed in answers at least asked by the

Agency, so I have a lot fewer questions than I

had at the last hearing.

Mr. Williams, what is the radium 226

150

and 228 loading that your system will have

when the media is changed?

MR. WILLIAMS: It's dependent on each

individual system. It depends on what the

chemistry of each individual system is.

Typically, the number would be from a low at a

town like Wynstone of perhaps only 50

picoCuries per gram to a high of perhaps 1500

picoCuries 226 and 228 or 750 picoCuries 226.

MR. HARSCH: So a total of 1500?

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, again, it

depends on each individual system, but I think

1500 is a good representative number for a

high number of what we would anticipate our

media to achieve.

MR. HARSCH: You mentioned that was

for that particular system. What about, say,

for example, Elburn where you're under

contract?

MR. WILLIAMS: Elburn would be lower.

I think we're only using a number of about 750

combined for Elburn which would be about 350

226.

MR. HARSCH: During the August

151

hearing, you had, I think, indicated that you

had yet to file an application with the state.

Have you filed an application with the state

for your system?

MR. WILLIAMS: We have indeed filed

an application with --

MR. FORT: Excuse me. The question

of application to whom? I think they already

have --

MR. HARSCH: Nuclear safety.

MR. FORT: To nuclear safety?

MR. HARSCH: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMS: We have indeed filed

an application with nuclear safety. We

actually have a copy here of what we have

filed.

MR. HARSCH: Would you provide me

with a copy at some point in time?

MR. FORT: Absolutely. In fact, we

were going to make that an exhibit here, so we

certainly will.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Roy, do you want to

move up where we can see you?

MR. HARSCH: It's my understanding in

152

your standard contract that ownership of the

media in your system is required to pass to

the municipality; is that correct?

MR. WILLIAMS: There's several ways

that we're handling it. The radium, which I

think is more to the point, is the under the

ownership of the municipality.

MR. HARSCH: You're not envisioning

then that the media with the radium in it,

while it resides in the vessel at the

municipality, would be owned by the

municipality?

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, actually,

there's two ways we'd like to do our

contracts. It could go either way, but I

think the fundamental issue is the radium is

generated by the pumping of the water as

generated by the utility. We provide the

mechanism for the removal from the water and

the mechanism for the transportation to a safe

load level disposal site.

MR. HARSCH: The municipality then --

you're still not addressing the question.

Does the ownership transfer at any point of

153

the media and the radium to whatever company

it is that is disposing of it?

MR. WILLIAMS: In the end, the radium

is at -- title is actually transferred to the

disposal site.

MR. HARSCH: Is there any -- there

have been discussions with some

representatives of WRT and the city of Joliet

representatives, and these were informal

discussions that the media potentially could

be reused to remove uranium and other radium

nuclides from uranium mines because of the low

level loading from some systems. Is this

going to, in fact, be a practice that you will

follow?

MR. WILLIAMS: No. That's not even

capable. The media that we use for removing

radium is entirely different from the media

that we use for removing uranium. Radium is a

cation. It's a plus two charge. Uranium is

an anion. The media does not absorb uranium.

MR. HARSCH: So there would be no

intention of reusing, for any purpose, the

media?

154

MR. WILLIAMS: The radium, you're

meaning?

MR. HARSCH: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. HARSCH: I'm a little unclear on

the corporate structures. WRT Environmental

of Illinois is one entity, and then there's

Water Remediation Technologies, LLC, a

Colorado company. Can you explain on the

record what the relationship is of these two

companies and how they relate to what you're

proposing with the various municipalities?

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, Water

Remediation -- I'm not sure I even get all the

names right -- is the parent company. It's an

LLC. It has two principal owners. RMD

Services is a company that does the removal

and the transportation or arranges the

transportation.

MR. HARSCH: How does that relate to

WRT Environment of Illinois?

MR. WILLIAMS: WRT of Illinois is our

Illinois group that does the sales and

installation. RMD Services is a group that

155

does the removal and transport.

MR. HARSCH: And they're all

subsidiaries of the parent company Water

Mediation Technology?

MR. WILLIAMS: I believe that's

correct. I could go back and try to find the

statement.

MR. HARSCH: It's my understanding

from the prior hearing that you have not

tested the -- any full scale plant because

you're only dealing with pilot scale plants in

Illinois; is that correct?

MR. WILLIAMS: I think my testimony

was that we have done numerous pilot plants

and are in the process of installing our first

full scale plants.

MR. HARSCH: But you have yet -- so

you're not in operation?

MR. WILLIAMS: That's correct.

MR. HARSCH: What is the longest time

you've run a pilot plant?

MR. WILLIAMS: It would be the city

of Oswego. I'm not sure the exact number, but

roughly 18 months.

156

MR. HARSCH: What was the radium --

what's the current estimated radium loading

for 226 and 228 in that media?

MR. WILLIAMS: What was it in the

pilot plant?

MR. HARSCH: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMS: Or what were we

anticipating it was going to be?

MR. HARSCH: Pilot plant.

MR. WILLIAMS: We went up to

something over 2,000. I understand that we

ran that media beyond what we would normally

run.

MR. HARSCH: If I recall also your

testimony that some of your pilot plant

testing you have shown increases in radon

concentrations, that you believe that was

within the scatter of the atom -- test atom?

MR. WILLIAMS: We had -- we have

conducted radon testing for dischargers from

our plant. The data indicates that there is

no significant increase in radon across our

plant. We have some numbers that are slightly

higher and some numbers that are slightly

157

lower, but it does not indicate that radon

contribution to the water is a problem.

MR. HARSCH: Your pilot plant systems

operate open to the atmosphere; is that

correct?

MR. WILLIAMS: We talked about this

last time. Some operate to the atmosphere

ultimately. Some have some back pressure.

Concurrently we're running a test, I

understand, in Joliet with back pressure.

MR. HARSCH: You're familiar with the

Dow RSV Plain Systems?

MR. WILLIAMS: The Dow system is

another system for absorption media and

disposing of it in a low level site, yes.

MR. HARSCH: Are you aware that they

have acknowledged that there is a radon

increase in the water treated through their

system?

MR. WILLIAMS: Dennis said -- Dennis

Duffield said that they had. I've never

talked to him, so I don't know. I've never

seen any literature.

MR. HARSCH: Your system is not

158

designed to remove existing radon contained in

the raw water, is it?

MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. HARSCH: Are you familiar with

the radon levels one would expect to encounter

in the deep well water that your system is

being marketed to in Illinois?

MR. WILLIAMS: I -- we have data. I

don't have it with me, but yes, we have data

on those.

MR. HARSCH: A range of 100 to 200

picoCuries would be the system with the data?

MR. WILLIAMS: I believe so.

MR. HARSCH: And the current USEPA

standard is 300 picoCuries with drinking

water; is that correct?

MR. WILLIAMS: That's correct. I'm

not sure that that's been enacted yet.

MR. HARSCH: Mr. Williams, do you

know the normal construction practices for

developing farmland in the residential housing

tracts in Illinois?

MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. HARSCH: Have you ever been in a

159

publicly-owned treatment works in Illinois?

MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. HARSCH: Have you ever been in

any publicly-owned treatment works?

MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, yes.

MR. HARSCH: Can you describe your

understanding of how solids are handled in

publicly-owned treatment works?

MR. WILLIAMS: Again, I think I

testified at the last hearing that I'm not an

expert on sewage or sewage treatment, so I

have no knowledge of the handling or

practices -- standard practices of sewage

treatment plant.

MR. HARSCH: Do you have any

knowledge regarding whether publically-owned

treatment works load pile solids or sludge

indoors or outdoors?

MR. WILLIAMS: Again, I'm not a

sewage person. I would assume that some do

with and some do without, but I'm not going to

testify either way.

MR. HARSCH: Do you have any

knowledge as to whether that loading would

160

generate dusty particulate emissions?

MR. WILLIAMS: Again, I'm not a sewage

person.

MR. HARSCH: I think you testified

that with respect to radium 226 and 228

principally -- I think both you and Dr. Adams

made this point -- that the exposure -- and

what you're worried about is really the alpha

particles. And we're talking about through

the skin -- or excuse me -- ingestion through

the mouth and nose; is that correct?

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, radium 226 is

both alpha and gamma. I think the principal

roots of exposure are through the skin and

through ingestion and inhalation, yes.

MR. HARSCH: And since you're not a

UW expert, you don't really have any knowledge

of work or safety requirement of ventilation

requirements?

MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. HARSCH: The exposure that you've

mentioned numerous times in your testimony

from radon by-product, that would be breathing

the radon gas, correct?

161

MR. WILLIAMS: The exposure in radon

is from breathing.

MR. HARSCH: I'd like to switch to

Mr. Adams at this point. Doctor, I may have a

couple of follow-up questions.

I noted on page 13 of your

pre-filed testimony for the August 25th

hearing -- I think that's Exhibit 4 in this

proceeding -- that you cite the ISCORS'

technical report 2003/2004 recommendation that

there's no need for further action when

estimated dosages used in screening

calculations are below ten millirems per year

and that yet in your summary of your

testimony, you did not include that point

For the record, do you agree with

this ISCORS recommendation?

DR. ADAMS: The ISCORS recommendation

was for a screening approach as guidance for

POTWs who were not familiar with and probably

would have no knowledge -- previous knowledge

certainly of the concerns and hazards of being

exposed to radiation. So as a screening, I do

agree with the ten millirem.

162

MR. HARSCH: I'm just trying to point

out why it was in your pre-filed but it wasn't

in the summary. Do you agree with it as a

screening?

DR. ADAMS: As a screening, that's

correct.

MR. HARSCH: Isn't it also correct

that where levels are greater than ten

millirems per year that ISCORS recommends that

the POTW contact the state for guidance on how

to proceed?

DR. ADAMS: It does several things.

It does recommend that the POTW do consult the

state or regulatory agencies for additional

guidance. It also suggests that the POTW take

an active role involving monitoring their

personnel sampling and do any additional work

to understand whether or not they have a

radiation problem.

MR. HARSCH: Thank you.

In Exhibit I that you testified to

yesterday, which is the application I think

for one of the nuclear plants, there are

various values given for the influent and

163

effluent for radium, the radium compounds. If

that's cooling water, wouldn't you expect that

there would be substantial evaporative loss at

that treatment plant -- or excuse me -- across

that power plant?

DR. ADAMS: Cooling water going up an

evaporator tower --

MR. HARSCH: Being evaporated when

it's used for cooling purposes.

DR. ADAMS: I don't know this

particular cooling process. Certainly

evaporation is a process used.

MR. HARSCH: If you had evaporative

loss, would you expect an increase then in the

chemical constituents measured from the

influent to the plant and the effluent to the

plant?

DR. ADAMS: Yes.

MR. HARSCH: Could that explain then

part of the reasons some of the data might

show an increase -- slight increase?

DR. ADAMS: It certainly may, but I

think the point here is that -- and the point

I was trying to make was simply there are

164

other sources of the radium other than

drinking water, water treatment plants.

MR. HARSCH: Do you know the source

of the cooling water for that facility?

DR. ADAMS: No, I do not.

MR. HARSCH: If it was surface water

and that surface water was then returned back

to the stream, wouldn't we be talking about

adding the same chemical constituents back to

the stream?

DR. ADAMS: As going back to the

receiving stream, yes.

MR. HARSCH: What's the normal data

scatter that one would expect when measuring

radium in those concentrations?

DR. ADAMS: I'm not sure I understand

your question. Let me try.

MR. HARSCH: I've had a lot of

municipal clients over the years that

have done a lot of radium tests to try to

determine if they were in compliance to find

out where they are. And they split a lot of

samples. And at those levels, the results

come back -- very seldom do they come back

165

being the same number. Wouldn't that be

consistent with your understanding as well?

DR. ADAMS: Well, I think first we

need to talk about the laboratory and its

analytical process and procedures.

There are some laboratories that, per

the client, will report levels of radium, for

example, at less than 2 -- or 3 picoCuries per

liter. If the process is carried out

correctly, then, as in the case of LaSalle,

we're seeing numbers in the order of total

radium of four radium 226, 226. We have even

some higher that go into the nine ranges. And

those are clearly real numbers. Those are

analytically defensible numbers with a certain

plus or minus 90 percent error?

The outfall of the units 1 and 2

is -- radium is as high as nine, and radium

226 is reported less than .3. It's no

different than any other chemical analytical

data that we reported, whether it be a

chemical or radiological.

MR. HARSCH: You get a number, but I

think, if I heard you right, you said plus or

166

minus 90 percent error.

DR. ADAMS: No. I said within a

90 percent or 95 percent confidence band of

error.

MR. HARSCH: So it hasn't --

DR. ADAMS: I'm confident within

95 percent that 9.0 is the total radium

concentration of picoCuries per liter coming

out of that outfall for units 1 and 2, which

happens to be the rad waste treatment system.

MR. HARSCH: It has not been your

experience if you split samples that those

sample values are going to be -- reported

results are going to vary?

MR. FORT: Object. May we have a

little more specificity on what kind of a

laboratory you're talking about?

MR. HARSCH: Mr. Fort, there are only

a limited number of laboratories that are

capable of doing the analysis.

DR. ADAMS: I disagree.

MR. HARSCH: I'll withdraw the

question.

Mr. Adams, have you ever been in a

167

publicly-owned treatment works in the state of

Illinois?

DR. ADAMS: Not in Illinois, but I

have been in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and

California.

MR. HARSCH: I understand that.

Please describe your understanding of

solids handling in a normal publicly-owned

treatment works.

DR. ADAMS: It varies from operation

to operation. But in general, the influent

comes into a settling unit and/or head works

which reduces or eliminates the heavier

insoluble material like grit. That goes into a

primary secondary. And if the system has a

tertiary system which basically continues to

increase the bio solids loading moving the

material from a liquid phase to a solid phase,

again, depending on the process, the material

may go through a high pressure, high

temperature Zimpro process to take care of the

biological and the toxicological components.

Depending on, again, the process, the

material may be dewatered, put on a filter

168

bed. That material then is a sludge cake.

Sludge cake may be incinerated which results

in an ash, or it may then be directly loaded

to a truck and disposed of.

MR. HARSCH: Are you aware of any --

strike that.

Are you aware of any POTW in

Illinois that incinerates its ash?

DR. ADAMS: You wouldn't incinerate

ash. You would incinerate sludge.

MR. HARSCH: Excuse me. Sludge

resulting in an ash.

DR. ADAMS: I don't recall.

MR. HARSCH: What's the moisture

content a POTW handles its sludge: In a wet

form typically?

DR. ADAMS: I don't recall the soil

or percentage moisture, but it is handled in a

sludge. It's a relatively moist cake or

sludge form, yeah.

MR. HARSCH: If it's handled wet,

does 4 percent sound right?

DR. ADAMS: I'm sorry. I don't -- I

have no...

169

MR. HARSCH: Do you know the moisture

content if the sludge is dried through a

filter press?

DR. ADAMS: It is run through a

filter press, correct.

MR. HARSCH: If it is, do you know

what the moisture content would typically be?

DR. ADAMS: I do not recall.

MR. HARSCH: Do you know what the

solid content is?

DR. ADAMS: I have that information.

I've read it before, but I don't recall.

MR. HARSCH: Are you aware of any

dusty conditions that result from handling of

either wet or dry bio solids or sludge at a

POTW?

DR. ADAMS: Certainly the

incineration process that is a very dusty,

very dirty operation.

MR. HARSCH: Apart from incineration,

just in the physical handling and loading of

either wet or dry municipal bio solids or

sludge, are you aware of any dusty conditions?

DR. ADAMS: Handling the grit can be

170

dusty; and the ash.

MR. HARSCH: Have you ever observed

any dust handling of bio solids either wet or

dry at a POTW?

DR. ADAMS: As ash, yes.

MR. HARSCH: Not as ash. Not from

one that incinerates, but from one that simply

loads out and disposes of the solids in either

a wet or dry form.

DR. ADAMS: If it's on a drying bed,

yes.

MR. HARSCH: You observed --

DR. ADAMS: Yes.

MR. HARSCH: -- dusty conditions?

DR. ADAMS: Yes, in the drying bed.

MR. HARSCH: Do you know if POTWs in

Illinois typically load their sludge or bio

solids indoors or outdoors?

DR. ADAMS: I do not know in

Illinois.

MR. HARSCH: Are the alpha particles

that are emitted from radium 226 and 228

stopped by skin?

DR. ADAMS: From an external

171

exposure, yes.

MR. HARSCH: Are they stopped by

clothing?

DR. ADAMS: Yes.

MR. HARSCH: So if you were worried

about ingestion, then it's either by putting

the solids -- bio solids in your mouth or

breathing in the particles or skin injections

or cuts, if I read your testimony correctly;

is that correct?

DR. ADAMS: When we were dealing with

internal exposure, the alpha particles of

concern would be for ingestion, inhalation,

entering any wounds or cuts. We're also

concerned about the gamma rays from the gamma

machines, as well as the radon.

MR. HARSCH: Are you aware of what

the normal worker clothing requirements are

when dealing with treatment works?

DR. ADAMS: Typically it is an outer

working garment, usually a one-piece zip type,

although an alternative may be what we call a

Tyvek disposable. The others are washable.

Gloves, work boots.

172

MR. HARSCH: All those would minimize

exposure to the alpha particles, correct?

DR. ADAMS: The alpha particles would

have no effect on the gamma rays.

MR. HARSCH: I think you mentioned on

page 5 of your testimony yesterday that there

would be a 5 to 25 percent use of groundwater for

back flushing. What's your source of that range of

number; that number and the range?

DR. ADAMS: Part of the source was

from my discussion with WRT.

MR. HARSCH: You're not a water

treatment expert, are you?

DR. ADAMS: Actually, the Agency

communicated that as a part of the transcript.

MS. WILLIAMS: Can you point to

where?

MR. HARSCH: Actually, that was my

next question.

MR. FORT: No.

MR. HARSCH: And your testimony,

what's the basis for it? Show me what the

basis for it is.

MS. WILLIAMS: I was just asking for

173

clarification, too, because we didn't testify

at the last hearing.

MR. FORT: In the transcript of -- I

think it was the first hearing, that was given

as a range for back flushing. And I think

this witness has testified he's talked to WRT

representatives, and the other is the agencies

and testimony. For a transcript cite, we

didn't bring that part.

MR. HARSCH: Well, I'd like the know

the basis for it, so, Mr. Fort, if you could

provide that for me...

MR. FORT: Okay.

MR. HARSCH: On page 3 you reference

that communities can save hundreds of

thousands of dollars. What's your expertise

that allows you to make that statement?

DR. ADAMS: I just want to make sure

I know where we are. We're looking at

page 3?

MR. HARSCH: Yes.

DR. ADAMS: Again, that was a

discussion with WRT.

MR. HARSCH: You have no independent

174

technical or educational background to allow

you to make that statement?

MR. FORT: I think he was still

answering the question when you jumped in.

DR. ADAMS: What I was going to add

is the cost of the additional effort that

would be required if a -- particular POTWs

that are going to be affected by the discharge

of radium down the sewer is involved in

anything from setting up a radiation

protection program, writing plans and

procedures, taking and doing personnel

monitoring, medical monitoring, the TLD

monitoring. And, you know, that's not cheap.

I'm involved in that personally

right now in Ohio, and that is not something

that should be taken lightly. A POTW is going

to be a licensee, and that's a lot of

liability, a lot of responsibility. That has

cost.

MR. HARSCH: I need to confer with my

client for a second. I'm almost done.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Okay. I

would like to note for the record during the

175

set of questioning, Kathleen Crowley, senior

attorney at the Pollution Control Board, has

joined us. That's just to note for the

record. Thanks.

(Brief pause.)

MR. HARSCH: In attachment B, I don't

know if I'm looking -- I guess it's the one

that was originally filed on the corrected

one, so bear with me. I think it's page 2 of

attachment B; page 2.

DR. ADAMS: Page 2?

MR. HARSCH: Attachment B.

DR. ADAMS: Yes. I'm on the

original.

MR. HARSCH: It's got sample

calculations of water quality used in the BCG

approach. There was a highlighted, in my

version, statement that radiation sediments

will increase due to continued discharge to

the radium in the low-flow and no-flow

streams.

Do you have any data that supports

that in the state of Illinois?

DR. ADAMS: I don't have in the state

176

of Illinois. Looking at the state of Florida,

the state of Florida has information that

clearly describes that.

MR. HARSCH: If I recall, the Florida

situation was lakes that are replenished by

groundwater. Is that correct?

DR. ADAMS: Augmented by groundwater.

MR. HARSCH: In terms of low-flow and

zero-flow streams in the state of Illinois or

low-flow or streams anywhere, do you have any

data?

DR. ADAMS: Data from where?

MR. HARSCH: Do you have any data to

support this statement regarding streams that

sediment would be expected to increase?

DR. ADAMS: From streams, no.

MR. HARSCH: How long has deep well

water with high radium contents been utilized

in Illinois, do you know?

DR. ADAMS: I believe somewhere in

the year order of ten to 15 years.

MR. HARSCH: Switching to

Dr. Anderson, radium is a naturally-occurring

element; is it not?

177

DR. ANDERSON: Correct.

MR. HARSCH: How long do you believe

that deep well water containing levels of

radium in excess of five picoCuries per

liter -- how long has that been used in

drinking water in Illinois?

DR. ANDERSON: I couldn't give you a

precise day, but obviously since the

technology to tap that deep water has been

available.

MR. HARSCH: Would it surprise you if

it stretched back into the 1800s?

DR. ANDERSON: It would not surprise

me.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: I'll

remind you all again to speak up a little bit,

even for those in the back of the room and the

court reporter.

MR. HARSCH: Are you aware of any

Illinois data regarding impact of continued

discharge of an effluent from a POTW that

services a community using deep well water for

their public water supply?

DR. ANDERSON: Am I aware of any --

178

MR. HARSCH: Any data on any impact.

DR. ANDERSON: To the biota?

MR. HARSCH: To the biota.

DR. ANDERSON: No. We're notoriously

pathetic in terms of tracking and researching

those kinds of questions.

MR. HARSCH: You are aware that

publicly-owned treatment works remove a

portion of the radium in the sludge handling

process?

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, and potentially

ion exchange, water softening, those kinds of

things, yes.

MR. HARSCH: Can you summarize what

your understanding is of the typical level of

radium 226 and 228 in the discharge from

publicly-owned treatment works?

DR. ANDERSON: At this point in

time --

MR. FORT: Excuse me. Is that

statewide, a part of the state?

MR. HARSCH: I'm just asking for a

range that use the deep well water for the

source of the water supply.

179

DR. ANDERSON: I've seen percentages

that range anywhere from 20 to 80 percent can

end up in the sludge. It's time variable.

MR. HARSCH: Mr. Williams, if the WRT

system is cost competitive with other

technologies that are being evaluated for the

use to reduce radium levels in drinking water

to a level in conformance with the drinking

water regulations and your system has the

inherent benefits that you and Dr. Adams have

discussed, then why does WRT find it necessary

to go to the lengths you're going through in

this proceeding to, in essence, regulate the

competition out of business?

MR. FORT: Object to that question.

It's argumentative. Go ahead. Answer it.

MR. WILLIAMS: It's a good question.

And why am I here is really what he's asking.

And frankly, I'm here for a couple of reasons.

First of all, Illinois is the first

state in the nation to be actively enforcing

the radio nuclide rules. That puts you guys

out at the forefront.

For over two years we have been

180

attempting to establish a dialogue with

IEPA over these issues. And in all honesty,

we have received: Hey, you guys are just

trouble makers and you're trying to sell your

equipment response. And this is the first

forum we have had to actually get in front of

the public and the decision-makers that radium

is a problem. It is not the radium itself but

the radiation that comes off of it. And it

was our opportunity to put before the public

and the government our views, not just for

Illinois, but for all the states that follow.

Will WRT benefit if you keep the

standard at one? Absolutely. However, I'll

reiterate that in the event that you keep the

standard at one -- and other treatment

processes, they can be modified to do the same

thing. We are not the only company. You

mentioned Layne Christianson. They are

certainly a direct competitor that does

exactly what we do, and yet they're solid on

this issue.

I can understand why Tonka is solid

on this issue because HMO going into the water

181

treatment facility would be detrimental to

their sales. But they do have the ability to

refilter that backwash and keep it out of the

POTW and out of the environment of Illinois.

And I think that's important for everybody to

hear. We weren't getting the message out.

MR. HARSCH: Your system -- we went

through this in some length at the last

hearing, but your system, if it treats the

community water supply down to 4.5 and that is

then sent to the POTW, and that POTW

discharges below from stream, that water, in

all likelihood, would be in excess of one

picoCurie per liter?

THE COURT REPORTER: Can you repeat

that?

MR. HARSCH: I'll start all over

again.

Your system, assuming it is

utilized in a community, produces a finished

water of 4.5 picoCuries per liter in

conformance with the drinking water standard

and that community is serviced by a POTW that

discharges to a zero-flow stream, then it

182

would not likely -- in all likelihood, absent

dilution, that the effluent from the POTW

would not comply with the one picoCurie per

liter standard?

MR. WILLIAMS: There is a possibility

that it would not comply with the one

picoCurie standard. However, there are a lot

of parameters that have to be looked at.

The principal one is how much is

going into the sludge. If over 50 percent,

then probably not. Under 50 percent,

possibly. Again, that's assuming there's no

inflow of surface water, there's no dilution

before it gets to the POTW, and there's no

mixing effluent POTW.

So can I guarantee that I can

get to five and we would not exceed one?

Absolutely not. Do I believe in all

likelihood we would be under one? Absolutely.

MR. HARSCH: That concludes our

questioning of WRT. Thank you very much.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Thank

you. With that, do you have questions?

MR. ETTINGER: We have a few

183

questions, but I've got to rearrange the

furniture slightly.

(Brief pause.)

MR. ETTINGER: We just have a few

clarifying question.

First of all, I do want to apologize

to some of the other participants in the sense

that we have not been able to give this matter

as much attention the earliest we would have

liked to have done. I do hope, however, that

agencies and boards that have their own

resource constraints realize that sometimes we

have to make a pretty quick cut on what's

likely to be critical and what isn't.

Sometimes we make a mistake and later figure

out that something we didn't give as much

attention to in the first place needed more

attention later.

With that introduction, my questions

are primarily to Brian Anderson. And I just

want to try and see how we follow here.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Can you

introduce yourself again one more time?

MR. ETTINGER: I'm Albert Ettinger.

184

I'm here on behalf of the Illinois Chapter of

the Sierra Club. Albert

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: And

also, Ms. Skrukrud, if you'd like to introduce

yourself...

MS. SKRUKRUD: Cindy Skrukrud,

S-k-r-u-k-r-u-d. And I work as the clean

water advocate for the Illinois Chapter of the

Sierra Club.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Thank

you.

MR. ETTINGER: Okay. I just wanted

to try and clarify some things in my own mind.

I understand there's a DOE study that

suggests that for terrestrial life,

terrestrial critter to use the technical term,

that it's been calculated that

.1 rads per day is a proper limit?

DR. ANDERSON: Terrestrial and

riparian. They discriminate between organisms

that are -- mammals is the group of most

concern in riparian area and terrestrial. But

yes, it's .1 for those, essential for mammals.

MR. ETTINGER: For us guys who don't

185

like Latin, give me a few examples of riparian

animals.

DR. ANDERSON: Oh, otters, muskrats.

Some of the small mammals are particularly

water shrews, all -- jumping mice. Some of

them are very specific to riparian areas as

opposed to terrestrial.

MR. ETTINGER: And then terrestrial

are?

DR. ANDERSON: Higher up, farther

away from the stream.

MR. ETTINGER: Okay.

DR. ANDERSON: They may still use the

stream, but they don't predominantly live in

the riparian corridor.

MR. ETTINGER: Okay. I understand

somewhere there's been a calculation in this

record as to how we get from .1 rad today to

something over three or somewhere picoCuries

per liter. Where in the record do we see

that?

DR. ANDERSON: That's in the DOE

standard 1135-2002.

MR. ETTINGER: And is that part of

186

one of these exhibits?

DR. ANDERSON: Yes. That has been

made part of the record.

MR. ETTINGER: Okay. Just for the

boys and girls at home, could you tell me what

page it is in this thing?

DR. ANDERSON: This is actually a

summary. It's a little easier to read.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: And it's

been made Exhibit 15.

MR. ETTINGER: This summary is

Exhibit 15?

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Not the

summary, the actual document from the

Department of Energy.

MR. FORT: Two steps. The procedure

is Exhibit 15. The specific calculation on

radium is part of -- I guess it's Group 14,

attachment B,

page B-5.

MR. ETTINGER: Okay. Great. This is

B-5. Thank you very much.

Is B5 the example, or is there a

specific calculation somewhere?

187

DR. ADAMS: It's just an example.

It's a generic formula to illustrate how DOE

went about this methodology. B-5 is a general

formula. Then B-6 is plugging some values

into the formula just to show you the next

step.

MR. ETTINGER: And so B-6 is where we

actually calculate and get this 3.75

picoCuries per liter number that's been tossed

about for riparian life?

DR. ANDERSON: The 3.75 picoCuries

per liter does not take into account any

contribution of radiation from the sediments.

This example does. So this is much more

conservative than 3.75 picoCuries per liter

radium 226, radium 228 50/50.

MR. ETTINGER: I'm sorry.

Conservative is a dangerous term both in

politics and in this. It's conservative in

the sense that it's too low or that it's too

high? Or what do you mean by conservative?

DR. ANDERSON: 3.75 assumes no

contribution from the sediments, no buildup of

material that generates radiation from the

188

sediment.

MR. ETTINGER: Okay. So that there's

no background level of radiation in the

sediment already?

DR. ANDERSON: Right.

MR. ETTINGER: Just having been

there?

DR. ANDERSON: That's correct.

MR. ETTINGER: Okay. Now, that's --

I'm dealing with my daughter's high school

Algebra now very poorly, but using this

formula then, I gather there's another figure

that goes for aquatic life. And that's 1.0 as

opposed to .1?

DR. ANDERSON: Correct.

MR. ETTINGER: Would it be safe then

to assume that this isn't -- that if I ran the

same set of calculations for 1.0 instead of

.01 -- or .1, I would come out with a figure

here that was ten times as much?

DR. ADAMS: I don't know that I want

to draw that conclusion.

DR. ANDERSON: It would be bigger,

but not necessarily ten times. We'd have to

189

check, do the calculations.

MR. ETTINGER: Have you done the

calculation like here anywhere for aquatic

life?

DR. ANDERSON: Let me tell you why we

didn't.

The question in my mind is

fundamental. Is the requirement to protect

just stuff swimming in the stream or other

wildlife associated drinking the water, eating

the stuff in the stream, et cetera? That

seems to me to be the fundamental issue.

MR. ETTINGER: I'm just trying -- if

all I cared about in the world -- let's say --

if all I cared about in the world was fish and

mussels, would I be going off of this one rad

per day figure?

DR. ANDERSON: Just fish and mussels?

MR. ETTINGER: Right.

DR. ANDERSON: No, but the DOE

standard very specifically, for aquatic

systems, includes consideration of riparian

animals.

MR. ETTINGER: Okay. So just to get

190

it right, though, I'm just saying, what

critters is my 1.0 for as supposed to my .1?

DR. ANDERSON: The things that are

immersed in the water is 1.0. The things that

don't necessarily live in the water all the

time, .1.

MR. ETTINGER: Thank you.

DR. ANDERSON: Sorry.

MR. ETTINGER: Table 6.2, this is

part of Exhibit -- the court reporter would

probably like a number better than just handed

out.

MR. ANDERSON: Table 6.2?

MR. ETTINGER: Right. Could you just

explain what's going on here?

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Where

we're at is in Mr. Adams' pre-filed testimony,

right, that was filed on October 8th for this

hearing. It's in Exhibit C, page M1-38.

MR. ETTINGER: Thanks

I'll put this question to the panel,

so to speak.

Would you explain to us

generally what's going on here?

191

DR. ANDERSON: Obviously we're

dealing with radium in the first column,

radium 226 and 228, several isotopes down in

column 1. The first number is the -- what we

call the bio concentration guide for water.

And in the general formula, what you do is you

take the number of picoCuries per liter,

concentration of radiation for 226 over the

BCG for radium 226, plus the concentration for

228 over the BCG for 228. You add them

together. And if they're greater than one,

they exceed the threshold. Now, that is,

again, not including sediments.

If you want to include sediments,

then you move over to the fourth column and do

the same calculation: The contribution of

radiation from the sediments 226, over the BCG

sediment, plus the concentration of radium

228, over the BCG sediment. And then you add

all four together. And if they're over one,

it exceeds the DOE threshold.

MEMBER JOHNSON: When it exceeds the

threshold, that's when you're indicating you

need to do more studies?

192

DR. ANDERSON: That's right. They

describe the threshold as being indicative of

a number below which no population effects to

organisms have been documented.

MR. ETTINGER: Now, you notice on

these organism responsible for limiting dose

in the water, that's the one that's most

sensitive?

DR. ANDERSON: Correct.

MR. ETTINGER: Okay. Do you have

some understanding as to why it's the aquatic

animal in some cases as to some of these

things and why it's the riparian animal in

others?

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. Let me give you

an example.

The kinds of things they looked

at, when they looked at aquatic animals,

things immersed in water, the limiting factor

that was identified was gametogenesis in fish,

the formulation of eggs and sperm. They can't

reproduce; obviously a population limiting

effect. Okay.

The situation in the riparian

193

animals is different. At .1, you start to

have the same kinds of effect that have you in

humans. It builds up in the skeleton,

radiates other tissues. They didn't

specifically, to my recollection -- I -- it

may be here, but I can't recall specifically

whether it was a gametogenetic effect in the

riparian mammal or whether it was direct

mortality, increased cancers. I just frankly

don't recall. But that's the concept, the

weak link.

MR. ETTINGER: Now, by definition,

the aquatic animals are in the same water all

the time?

DR. ANDERSON: Yes.

MR. ETTINGER: Are there riparian

animals in Illinois that basically have

24-hour-a-day exposures to the same riparian

system?

DR. ANDERSON: There are --

particularly small mammals have very small

home ranges that may never leave the riparian

area. That's what you mean.

MR. ETTINGER: Right. So there are

194

species in Illinois that basically are going

to be riparian in the same stream, more or

less, their whole lives?

DR. ANDERSON: Yes.

MR. ETTINGER: And what kind of

critters are we talking about?

MR. ANDERSON: Oh, everything from

insects to small mammals, the larger mammals,

you know, raccoons. They could. There might

be individuals.

MR. ETTINGER: Would like beavers be

in one stream?

DR. ANDERSON: They would be there

almost all the time. Muskrats all the time.

MR. ETTINGER: Otters?

DR. ANDERSON: Otters. They were

recently taken off the endangered species.

MR. ETTINGER: They were taken off

the endangered species list?

DR. ANDERSON: Either they were made

threatened or they were just recently removed

because they've recovered.

MR. ETTINGER: You may have gone into

this, but why isn't it safe to go from 3.75 to

195

some multiple of 3.75 when we talk about

aquatic life rather than riparian animals?

DR. ANDERSON: The problem with 3.75

is; one, that calculation is based purely on

radiation contributed from radium. There may

be other contributing sources.

The second thing is that it deals

with population level effects. In the case of

things like threatened and endangered species

where the loss of an individual is not only

problematic biologically but illegal, it's not

necessarily protective.

Let's see. Other problems...

DR. ADAMS: It's without sediment

also?

DR. ANDERSON: Yes. It's also

without sediment.

MR. ETTINGER: I'm sorry. I didn't

make my question clear. I was trying to go

from the 3.75 is to protect riparian life. I

think we went over that reasonably well. But

I was just saying if you were focusing on

aquatic life, why is it that we can't just

multiply the number there? Are there other

196

factors that come into play in that?

DR. ANDERSON: The BCGs may not be

the same.

DR. ADAMS: Well, I don't have it in

front of me, but yes, there's different input

parameters and different assumptions that go

along with the terrestrial versus the aquatic.

MR. ETTINGER: I guess what I'm

saying is you pointed to -- just to be a

little more clear here, we've pointed to a

number of forms of Illinois wildlife which

would be affected by going to having a

standard over 3.75; or potentially effected.

I'm just trying to get an idea of the range of

aquatic life that might be affected.

In order to do that, I'm trying to

get some sort of ballpark figure as to what

the aquatic life number is so that I can get

some sort of idea as to when we might be

concerned about effects on endangered mussels

and things like that.

And so I'll just put that to our

panel. Is there some way for me to get some

sort of estimate as to -- using the

197

methodology used here as to what the range

should be to protect mussels and other aquatic

life.

DR. ANDERSON: You can do that

calculation. That is a possibility. And

we'll have to find the BCGs.

The problem that I have, as a

biologist, with that is you're talking about

protecting aquatic organisms and writing off

everything that -- the higher organisms that

live in the riparian zone because there's a

fundamental principle that the BDAC committee

talks about.

Lower life forms are more resistant

to mortality due to radiation. Okay. But the

problem is is that's also where they bio

concentrate. So through bio magnification,

you get bio accumulation into those other

organisms. And either way, it's a double

whammy. You can knock out the system.

MR. ETTINGER: And that's helpful. I

just wanted to assure you, the Sierra Club

doesn't not care about riparian animals. We

are concerned about it. We're just trying to

198

get the full range of what we should be

worried about here.

DR. ANDERSON: Okay.

MR. ETTINGER: And the level of my

screams will be louder if I find out that

you're endangering, you know, federally listed

mussels in addition to recently delisted

otters.

MR. WILLIAMS: Let me use the

specific example of the Florida work.

The pumping from the Florida aquifer

had an average concentration of about 3.6

picoCuries 226. The concentration of the lake

water where the mussels lived had a

concentration of only 1.6 picoCuries per

liter. And yet the concentration in the

mussel flesh was 200 picoCuries per liter,

which, according to their study, gives a rad

reading of 5.5 rad per day, five times the one

that you've been asking about. And that's

only with a 1.6 level in the water.

MR. FORT: For the record, you're

referring to the part of the report that's

part of Mr. Adams' testimony. I think it's

199

attachment D to the supplemental testimony.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Right.

Okay.

MR. FORT: There is a letter in there

and the report from the Florida investigators.

I think that's what you're referring to.

MR. WILLIAMS: That's what I'm

referring to.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Thanks.

MR. ETTINGER: I've heard a lot of

numbers thrown around in two days. One of the

numbers I heard was 1.88 rad per day as being

a significant number.

DR. ANDERSON: The reason is that's,

more or less, half of 3.75. That's just if

you're looking at radium 226.

MR. WILLIAMS: That's picoCuries,

too.

MR. ETTINGER: I'm sorry. 1.88

picoCuries per day -- picoCuries per liter.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Brian, yesterday,

you suggested that there was a

misunderstanding -- and I think you're

right -- with respect to the numbers.

200

Sometimes we look at them and they're just

226. Other times, there's a combination of

226 and 228.

Because I didn't follow you all the

way through that, will you try and clear that

up for me?

MR. ANDERSON: The current standard

is one picoCurie 226. Now, typically you're

going -- if 226 is present, you're going to

have 228 as well. And again, the proportions

can vary in those two radioisotopes.

As a rule of thumb, the numbers that

I've been seeing, it looks like it goes

60/40-ish, either way under the normal

situation.

The MCL for drinking water that's

being proposed is five picoCuries combined 226

and 228. So really, the general standard is

one 226, effectively two 228. So we're

looking at two versus five as opposed to one

versus five.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Okay.

MR. ETTINGER: I think we're done.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: At this

201

point do we have further questions for WRT?

MR. DUFFIELD: I have one question.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Okay.

Mr. Duffield.

MR. DUFFIELD: Dennis Duffield with

the city of Joliet.

Mr. Williams, you testified just a

minute ago about the Florida lake and the bio

accumulation. Now, I wanted to make sure it

was clear to everyone, we're talking about a

lake as opposed to a stream; is that correct?

MR. WILLIAMS: That's correct.

MR. DUFFIELD: A lake that's subject

to high evaporation rates?

MR. WILLIAMS: It's -- I don't know

what the evaporation rate is. The evapo

transpiration rate, if you look at that rate

versus rainfall, rainfall is in excess of

evaporation. The principal problem -- and

this was asked earlier -- that they have to

augment these lakes because they're leaking.

MR. DUFFIELD: So they're on poor

soils; the water goes back into the

groundwater?

202

DR. ANDERSON: That's correct.

MR. DUFFIELD: So they are

essentially circulating the water through

there?

DR. ANDERSON: I don't know if

they're going back to the aquifer they're

pumping from, but...

MR. DUFFIELD: So water goes in, and

there's evaporation water goes out. And all

this water is filtered by the mussels because

that's their biology?

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. The

concentration of the lake is about 1.7.

MR. DUFFIELD: So this is a function

of the biology as opposed to a concentration

of the water?

MR. FORT: Excuse me. Is this a

question or testimony?

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: I think

he's asking a question.

MR. DUFFIELD: I asked it as a

question, counselor.

MR. FORT: I'm just listening.

MR. WILLIAMS: The mussel reflects

203

the environment it lives in. The environment

it lives in, according to the study, not my

personal knowledge, is an environment of 1.6

picoCuries 226. That's the air it breathes,

right.

MR. DUFFIELD: And it's able to

accumulate that at high numbers?

DR. ANDERSON: And it accumulates

that at high numbers.

MR. DUFFIELD: Very good. Thank you.

DR. ANDERSON: Two numbers that are

five and a half times what they are

considering safe for the populations, 5.5 rad

per day versus the 1.0 which is considered

safe for aquatic animals in the lake.

MR. DUFFIELD: But in a lake, water

is essentially --

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Mr.

Duffield, if you wish to testify later, we can

have you sworn in now.

MR. DUFFIELD: I'd be glad to swear

in. I was trying to ask a question.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Oh,

sure. But if you're going to testify later,

204

too, we can have you sworn in now.

(The witness was duly sworn.)

MR. DUFFIELD: In a lake environment,

the same water is essentially available to the

shell fish on a daily basis. It circulates

back around through their system. That's

basically what they do is filter water. And

where in a stream different water comes by

tomorrow than was here today; is that correct?

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, no. That would

be correct if they pumped all the time. They

only pump when they need to.

MR. DUFFIELD: I'm not talking about

circulating the whole lake. I'm talking about

the function of the shell fish which

circulates the water that's around it back

through its own system.

MR. WILLIAMS: Yeah. The shell fish

lives in its environment. It doesn't go into

the lake or river. It's just a shell fish

breathing.

MR. DUFFIELD: So the water with

1.75 -- I believe is close to the number that

you mentioned -- would be circulating through

205

this shell fish?

MR. WILLIAMS: Yeah. I would assume

that that's what it's breathing.

MR. DUFFIELD: Where in a stream the

water concentration is not always the same and

could vary over time?

MR. WILLIAMS: I assume that the

water, especially in a low-flow, no-flow

stream, is going to be fairly consistent in

its radium content. It may go up and down.

And the mussel would be affected by the

average of whatever it sees.

MR. DUFFIELD: And in a zero-flow

stream, would you expect a lot of mussels to

live?

DR. ANDERSON: I would expect them to

only live where there's consistent water.

MR. DUFFIELD: Very good. Thank you.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Thank

you, Mr. Duffield.

At this point, Mr. Ettinger, do you

have another question?

MR. ETTINGER: I just have a

clarifying question. I guess this is, again,

206

mainly for Dr. Anderson from Illinois.

Do we have a lot of streams in

Illinois that are impounded?

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, yes, many.

MR. ETTINGER: And a lot?

DR. ANDERSON: Yes, many.

MR. ETTINGER: And are most of our

rivers impounded in Illinois?

DR. ANDERSON: Most.

MR. ETTINGER: Do --

DR. ANDERSON: Larger, larger. I

mean, when you say rivers, I assumed you mean

big things, yes.

MR. ETTINGER: Right.

For relevant purposes here, do

impounded streams or rivers have some of the

same characteristics of lakes?

DR. ANDERSON: They're more

lacustrine and less palustrine, yes. They're

more analogous to a lake than a free-flowing

stream, yes.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Thank

you.

Now I see that Ms. Williams has some

207

more questions, and so does Mr. Khalique.

Ms. Williams, do you mind if we take

Mr. Khalique and then turn it over to you

again?

MS. WILLIAMS: Sure.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Do you

have a question for the WRT Environmental

witnesses?

DR. KHALIQUE: Yes.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: You can

come up here today again and introduce

yourself again for the Board.

DR. KHALIQUE: My name is Abdul

Khalique. I'm a radiation chemist at the

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of

Chicago, and I have some questions.

My understanding is that based on the

subject effective dose rate USEPA standard for

radium 226 and 228 combined of five picoCuries

per liter?

DR. ANDERSON: I mean, yeah. I mean,

I actually -- I think I was responsive to a

question something like. That has been a

long, ongoing debate, and I'm comfortable with

208

the resolution which is the five picoCuries

MCL personally. I don't know if I speak for

WRT in that regard.

DR. KHALIQUE: Anyway the

regulation is set by USEPA and it's being

accepted by us as is being imposed now?

DR. ANDERSON: They didn't consult

me, but yes, this seems to be a good thing.

DR. KHALIQUE: What will the

effective dose of radium 226 and 228 combined

on humans: drinking two liters of water per day

for a lifetime?

DR. ADAMS: About four millirems.

DR. KHALIQUE: Four millirems per

year?

DR. ADAMS: About four millirems.

DR. KHALIQUE: Based on one of the

documents by Dr. Adams in his testimony, the

DOE indicates that the available data

indicates that the dose rates below one rad

per day for aquatic animals and terrestrial

plants caused no adverse effects to the

population of the plants and animals?

MS. WILLIAMS: Which document?

209

MR. FORT: He said Exhibit 10. Is

this the document you're referring to?

DR. KHALIQUE: Is that the

memorandum?

DR. ADAMS: Memorandum, yes.

DR. KHALIQUE: On page 21.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: This is

the Department of Energy document that you're

referring to in the first section.

DR. KHALIQUE: Yes.

Page 21 on the DOE Standard: A

Graded Approach for Elevating Radiation Doses

to Aquatic and Terrestrial Biota.

MR. FORT: Excuse me. Module 21

or --

MR. RAO: There's no module 21.

There are only three modules in the document.

MR. FORT: Are you saying module one?

MR. RAO: I think so.

DR. KHALIQUE: Do you want me to show

you what it is?

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Sure.

We have it. This is the memorandum that

prefaces the Department of Energy document.

210

Okay. Thank you.

DR. KHALIQUE: On page 21, Roman XXI.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Roman

numeral XXI. Page Roman numeral XXI begins

scope, purpose, and organization.

DR. KHALIQUE: That's correct.

And the first paragraph, last five

lines, the technical standard assumed a

threshold protection for plants and animals at

the following: For aquatic animals, one rad

per day; for terrestrial plants, one rad per

day; and for terrestrial animals, 0.1 rad per

day.

MR. RAO: Correct.

DR. KHALIQUE: Available data

indicate that dose rates below these limits cause

no measurable adverse effects to the population

of plants and animals.

DR. ANDERSON: However, later in the

document it very clearly points out that

riparian animals, which are in the category

here of terrestrial animals at .1, are part of

the aquatic community. And therefore, the

limiting number that's used for calculations

211

affecting aquatic life is .1 as opposed to

one rad. This gets back to this issue of do

you consider riparian animals part of the

aquatic community. And in this standard, they

clearly do.

DR. KHALIQUE: I think Dr. Adams may

be able to help me on that. To calculate the

effective dose, you have to multiply that by

the quality factor?

DR. ADAMS: Yes, that's correct.

DR. KHALIQUE: For gamma emitting

radionuclides, that factor is one; is that

correct?

DR. ADAMS: Correct.

DR. KHALIQUE: For beta, the factor

is one?

DR. ADAMS: One, correct.

DR. KHALIQUE: For alpha, the factor

is 20?

DR. ADAMS: Correct.

DR. KHALIQUE: One rad per day for aquatic

animals and terrestrial plants -- 0.1 rad per day

for terrestrial animals will cause no adverse effect

to the aquatic plants and animals, correct?

212

DR. ANDERSON: Correct, including

riparian.

DR. KHALIQUE: Yes.

DR. ANDERSON: Yes.

DR. KHALIQUE: If you multiply that

by one for gamma emitting radionuclides, it

will be one rad per day?

DR. ADAMS: Right.

DR. ANDERSON: Correct.

DR. ADAMS: Correct.

DR. KHALIQUE: If you convert that to

millirems per hour, it comes out to be almost

42 millirems per hour, correct?

DR. ADAMS: I will assume your math

is right. Sure.

DR. KHALIQUE: One mrem per hour is one

millirem per day divided by 24, so --

DR. ADAMS: Okay.

DR. KHALIQUE: We talked about

drinking water regulations, and it says four

millirems per year is safe for human beings.

And based on these calculations, 41.7 millirem

per hour for aquatic animals and the difference

of hour and year is safe for the plants and animals.

213

Am I right?

MR. FORT: I'm just going to object

that we're doing a lot of math here. We're

doing it without even a white board to write

it down. You clearly have thought this out,

but I don't know that we can do much else than

say: Sounds right. I don't know where we're

going with this.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: What we

should do now is have you sworn in. So why

don't we do that first?

(The witness was duly sworn.)

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: And we

realize that there are a lot of calculations

going on here, but we do want as much

information as we can on the rulemaking, so if

there's something that you'd like to address

after the hearing, you can do so in writing.

But you can go ahead, Mr. Khalique,

and finish your questions at this time.

DR. KHALIQUE: I was getting to the

point that the four millirems per year for

human being is acceptable by USEPA according

to the regulations. And based on Dr. Adams'

214

testimony, 41.7 millirems per hour causes no

adverse effect to the aquatic animals based on

the calculations.

DR. ADAMS: Let me tell you the

difference, though.

The difference is that in the aquatic

system calculation, one needs to take into

consideration the exposure and impact to

sediment. And in the NCRP 109, they used the

biota -- excuse me -- bio rad model. Those

conversion factors that were used to get from

the picoCurie per liter to the millirem per

day or year did not include the sediment, and

that was a shortcoming. And DOE saw that.

DOE, among other international and

national communities of science, recognized

that. And that's why the DOE went forward

stemming off from that document to develop the

biota dose approach.

MR. RAO: Just for purposes of

clarification of the record, you know, we've

been using different units of radiation and

exposure -- radiation exposure. Can you

please explain what these terms mean just so

215

somebody reading the transcript will know when

you're talking about a rems, millirem, rad,

you know...

DR. ADAMS: We'll start out with the

absorbed dose, which is simply the amount of

energy and radiation that an individual or an

animal receives, let's just say, in the body.

It could be from alpha, it could be from beta,

and it could be from gamma; three types.

That is the absorbed dose, and the

units are rads, r-a-d-s. To equate that type

of exposure to man, we need to go to rem,

roentgen equivalent man, r-e-m, rems.

To do that, as Mr. Abdul said, we

need a correction factor or a quality factor.

And for each type of radiation, there is a

different number. So you take the absorbed

dose of rad. If it is an alpha radiation, we

multiply that number by 20. If it's beta or

gamma, we multiply that rad number by one. So

we go from absorbed dose rad to rem, man

equivalent.

And usually, for example, we

talk about protective standards NRC of 100

216

millirem, one-thousandths of a rem per year.

If you're a radiation worker like myself, we

are allowed up to five rem or 5,000 millirem

per year and so on and so forth.

MR. RAO: Okay. In response to

Mr. Khalique's question, you said how the

drinking water rems are not the same as for

aquatic life because sediments were not

considered. So do you have any information as

to what kind of levels there are in Illinois

stream sediments to emit?

DR. ADAMS: Right now? I don't think

so.

MR. RAO: I thought you may not have

the information, but just based on the

information from the Florida lakes, the levels

that were there, if you use those numbers, how

will these values come out? Like this 42 rems

per hour that Mr. Khalique said, will that,

you know, decrease significantly so that it

will be --

DR. ADAMS: Let me ask my panel to

help me here because there's been a lot of

literature that I have reviewed with the

217

Florida study. But the one -- give me ten

seconds here because I think it's part of my

testimony.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: It is

about right now 10:35. We can take a break

now. Let's say come back at ten to 11:00.

Let's go off the record.

(A recess was taken.)

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Let's go

back on the record. We're about five minutes

to 11:00 right now. And where we ended up

before we broke is a question for Mr. Adams.

And if you'd like to continue with that...

DR. ADAMS: Sure.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Go

ahead.

DR. ADAMS: I think the best way to

answer your question is to look at Exhibit D

of my testimony which includes the work of

Bruce Tuovila and Dr. Teaf, which is the

Florida study on human health risk assessment

which is the August 2000.

If we turn first to page 10 of

their report, we see the concentration of

218

groundwater for levels of radium 226 and 228

for augmenting Round Lake was 3.6 picoCuries

per liter. And for the lake water, radium 226

and 228 Round Lake, they reported two and a

half picoCuries per liter.

On page 11 under sediments,

section 3, down approximately in the middle of

the first paragraph, they document that the

sediment measurements were 12.06 and 12.11

picoCuries per gram. Somewhere about 12.1

picoCuries per gram were the sediments of the

Round Lake.

And then if we move over a

couple pages to page 13, second paragraph, we

have their conclusions. The preliminary

evaluation of ecological risk was based on the

highest total radium content found in fish and

mussels. And it continues: The internal dose

calculations were performed using the method

of sample, et al., 1997, table 9.

Based on those calculations, the

estimate total internal dose to fish from

radium 226 and its short-lived decay products

and tissue and bone is .3 rad per day.

219

The total internal dose to

mussels is five and a half rad per day, which,

if we're looking at the DOE standard, we

exceed those.

So it's quite possible, as

demonstrated here -- not possible. In reality,

based on their study of the Florida ecosystem,

a low concentration in the lake water, 12.1

picoCuries per gram in the sediment, but over

200 picoCuries per gram in the mussels is what

was reported by them, which led to a

calculation of five and a half rad per day.

So based on their study, it would be

definitely possible to exceed the DOE standard

for riparian and aquatic animals.

MR. RAO: I guess, you know, your

response answers a part of my question. I

think I was asking you about how this -- you

know, the results of this study compares with

the USEPA's, you know, calculation of the safe

dose that Mr. Khalique -- Dr. Khalique

mentioned: About four rem per year. Is that

correct?

DR. KHALIQUE: Four millirem per year

220

for drinking water.

MR. RAO: Yes. Is there any way you

can translate this into that unit?

DR. ADAMS: You want to compare the

animal exposure to a human?

MR. RAO: Not compare it; just a

number. I think Dr. Khalique, what he said

was he had this USEPA number for humans, and

then he calculated a number for aquatic life,

which was like -- what was it: 42?

DR. KHALIQUE: I took the data from

the DOE report at one rad per day exposure --

less than one rad per day exposure for aquatic animals

will cause no harmful effect to the aquatic life.

MR. RAO: Yeah.

DR. KHALIQUE: And based on that, I

calculated it.

MR. RAO: It was on the basis of per

hour, right? What was the number?

DR. KHALIQUE: 41.7 millirem per hour

for aquatic animal and 2.1 for the

terrestrial.

MR. RAO: And in response, you said

that for aquatic life, we did not include

221

sediments. So I was asking you if there's a

way to include the sediments and come up with

a number so we can see where those numbers

are.

DR. ADAMS: I don't think we could do

that here today.

MR. RAO: Okay. If it's possible for

you to submit it, it would be helpful.

At the same time, Dr. Khalique, if

you can provide the Board with your

calculations in written form, that would be

helpful, too.

And I will just elaborate a little

bit more as to where I'm coming from.

One of our Board, Dr. Tanner Girard,

asked me to ask both the Agency and you

questions about, you know, what does it mean

with this five picoCuries per liter standard

that we have for drinking water. He wanted me

to ask you whether that would be an acceptable

level for a water quality standard for the

state streams.

And I guess where he was coming from

in your graded approach, you say if you go

222

about this threshold level of one rad per day,

there's a need for a site-specific evaluation.

And so if that's the case, you know, if five

picoCuries per liter was an acceptable level,

would it be more reasonable to, you know, deal

with these POTW issues on a site-specific

basis rather than remove the standard from the

general use center for the state streams?

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. Let's -- okay.

At some point, I'm hoping Dr. Khalique will

continue on his line of reasoning because he's

making a point, and I'm not quite sure what it

is. But with regard to five picoCuries per

liter, it is -- it's over 3.75. So there are

certainly some issues.

I think the Agency has made some --

they've presented testimony that presents

concern that POTWs can meet one picoCurie per

liter. And as I remember or recall, the

numbers of those were -- give a range of up to

maybe 100. And they specifically mentioned a

few right now.

From my perspective, my understanding

of streams in Illinois, it would appear to me

223

that the most problematic situation are POTWs

discharging to low flow and what we refer to

kind of in a silly way as no-flow streams.

And I've already testified that I believe if

you dealt with POTWs separately as a unit,

there may be things, because of the unique

processes involved, that you could do to --

how do I say? Example? That's not a good

word.

MR. FORT: I think site-specific

would work.

MR. ANDERSON: Yes. A site-specific

component that would allow them not to have to

meet the one picoCurie. I think there are

reasonable things you can do.

One of the things that I discussed, a

real problematic issue from the ecological

side is when you take sludge and land apply

it. That's really problematic if you have

solids, if you have precipitated the radium

because in the, IEPA/IDNS cooperative

agreement, the fundamental concept is if you

have higher numbers, you spread it more

widely. If it's radium in solution, that

224

works. But if it's precipitated as particles,

you get the potential for real hot spots and,

you know, earth, wind take a particle that's

real hot.

You could -- if you said we didn't --

if you said a POTW was not going to accept

solids, radium as solids, then you would

significantly decrease the threat to the biota

from land treatment.

On the other end of the spectrum, you

might look at something like moving -- for

POTWs only if they meet some of the

criteria -- and all of the things that have

been referenced today: To protect workers

from sludge. And then maybe look at an

effluent standard instead of making them meet

the general water quality standard. I think

there are reasonable things that could be

explored.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Does

that answer your question?

DR. ANDERSON: Is that responsive to

Dr. Girard's question?

MR. RAO: Yes. I think one of the

225

things he had mentioned to me was about the

five picoCurie per liter standard.

DR. ANDERSON: Right. I've got

problems with that for everybody because there

are other sources. There are -- but for

these -- for a narrow group of POTWs that are

making good faith efforts to protect the biota

in other ways, I think that would seem more

reasonable. But I would leave the standard --

the general standard and then provide a

site-specific exception for POTWs meeting

these special circumstances.

MR. RAO: Does the Agency have

anything to say about that?

MS. WILLIAMS: We might -- we have

some comments I think on that that might be

more easily developed through a line of

redirect.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Okay.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Can I ask since you

brought up site-specific procedure and

obviously they currently have in place that

all POTWs have the ability to now go in and

ask for -- be the proponent in a site-specific

226

rulemaking, I think maybe Mr. Duffield would

be the best one to ask.

Can you estimate how many

site-specific rules would have to be done

statewide if indeed that were to be the manner

in which we chose to proceed?

MR. DUFFIELD: Well, my guess would

be that it's however many communities are

impacted by the radium drinking water

standard, which is, to my knowledge, 100-plus.

Jerry would probably have best information on

the number of communities impacted. They

would each have to investigate whether they

needed site-specific rules. And a good

portion of those would have to go forward.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Okay.

MR. RAO: So, Mr. Duffield, do you

believe that not all of the 100 facilities may

need site-specific relief?

MR. DUFFIELD: Yes. I believe that

that's true. Not all facilities are on low-

or zero low-flow streams. And those that have

adequate dilution will probably not need a

rule change.

227

There's also an issue that comes up.

When you operate a deep well system, when you

first start the well, it's typically pumped to

waste. When we say pumped to waste, it's

discharged out to a local storm sewer or

drainage ditch, which is technically waters of

the state. And just the fact that you pump

raw water into that would create a water

quality violation if you establish a water

quality standard at five because the reason

you're treating the water is because it's

greater than five. And so that issue would

have to be dealt with.

Now, that's an intermittent problem.

It's not a continuous impact on the stream.

We're talking about biological impacts that

would typically be there because, as I

understand, some of these testings, they

assume that the animal was in the stream 24

hours a day, even those riparian animal.

MEMBER JOHNSON: That would be a

problem if we adopted the rule as proposed by

the Agency currently, right, because that's

the --

228

MR. DUFFIELD: No. That problem

would not exist with the Agency's proposal

because the Agency's proposal is to generate

the five standard only at public water supply

intakes and food processing facilities.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Okay.

MR. DUFFIELD: So it would not be a

problem.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Thanks.

MR. MOSHER: I think we need to add

to that statement. If we are looking at

keeping the existing standard, how many --

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Can you

introduce yourself again?

MR. MOSHER: I'm sorry. Bob Mosher

from Illinois EPA.

If we are talking about keeping the

existing standard of one for all waters, it's

not just the communities that are having

trouble meeting the drinking water standard

for radium. There may be communities out

there -- and I would -- Jerry, you can confirm

this, but they might have a well that has four

picoCuries per liter. They're meeting the

229

drinking water standard, but when they send

that through the sewage treatment plant, they

are not going to meet one at the end of the

pipe. If they go to a low-flow stream, which

you should start calling these 7 Q 10

zero-flow streams, then if the Agency were to

regulate, we will write them a permit limit of

one. They wouldn't meet it.

So beyond 100 and some communities,

it could be much more --

MR. KUHN: We've had communities up

to 200 -- up to 200 communities that have

detections of radium in their water source.

MR. RAO: Bob, you're talking about

if we keep the standard at the current one

picoCurie per liter?

MR. MOSHER: Yes.

MR. RAO: Would that change if the

standard were five picoCuries per liter

combined?

MR. MOSHER: Well, my addition to the

problem would immediately go away because

they're meeting drinking water coming from the

ground. They're not going to add anything

230

through their sewage treatment plant, so they

would meet five.

I don't know that we've analyzed how

many we think have greater than five

picoCuries in their sewage effluent and go to

zero 7 Q 10 flow streams. Some. I don't know

how many.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Okay. I

think, Dr. Anderson, you had something to add?

DR. ANDERSON: If they're pumping

four and delivering four for drinking water,

it goes to a sewage treatment plant. We've

had testimony from several places that talk

about some of that moving into the sludge,

typically a number of 50 percent. It comes

out at two. That's two combined. You're at

the standard. So I'm having trouble with the

math.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Do you

have anything to add?

MR. MOSHER: Well, what I thought

that was -- he was saying is if they're

removing 80 percent in the sludge, then that

bumps up higher the amount they could have in

231

that raw water and still meet one at the end

of the pipe. That's something that's unique

to the sewage treatment plant is how much it's

removing in the sludge. They're probably all

a little different. Different methodologies

of sewage treatment are going to be greater or

lesser removers in the sludge.

It's hard to put an exact

number on the number of facilities affected

under all these scenarios. I don't think,

Jerry, we've ever attempted to do so.

MR. KUHN: No, no, we haven't. And

actually, the number could be up to 5.4. So

anybody up to 5.4 would not necessarily be out

of compliance.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Any

further questions?

MR. RAO: Yes. I have some. Alisa,

do you have some, too?

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Before

we start with new questions, let's let

Mr. Khalique finish, I think, with your

questions.

DR. KHALIQUE: I will go back to

232

Dr. Adams' testimony. He made a reference of

one of the NCRP report, number 109: Effects

of Ionizing Radiations on Aquatic Organisms.

MS. WILLIAMS: It's Exhibit 10, if

that helps anybody.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Yes.

DR. KHALIQUE: Chapter number 7,

page 15. It says: Dose to aquatic organisms

and man from environmental radioactivity.

I'll just read some of the paragraphs on this.

Radiation protection standards have

been expressly developed for the protection of

human health. However, it has been generally

accepted and adopted by those involved in

radiation -- with radiation standards that by

protecting humans, we are protecting

environment. I just want to correlate the

limits from drinking water to the aquatic

life.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Okay.

DR. KHALIQUE: It says protecting

human -- protecting humans, we are protecting

the environment. If we have four millirems

per year for drinking water, aren't we

233

protecting the environment?

It further says: A statement for

general acceptance of this philosophy was

found in the 1972 BEIR report: Biological

Effects of Ion Radiation. It says: Evidence

to date indicates that probably no other

living organism of radium much more sensitive

than man, so that if man as an individual is

protected, then other organism as population

would be most likely -- most unlikely to

suffer harm. Based on this report from

BEIR, that's the biological effect of ionizing

radiation. If the human beings are protected,

then most unlikely that it will be harmful to

other living organisms.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: So your

question then for the panel is whether they

agree?

DR. KHALIQUE: Yes.

DR. ANDERSON: No. Well, first of

all, you know, these are general statements

about radiation. It's not specific to radium.

The reference report was in the '70s.

The BDAC assessment is so much more detailed

234

looking at the entire ecology, different

species, representations, the various

metabolic activities where radioisotopes are

involved.

But I still am missing this. What it

appears that what you're saying is we only

allow four millirems per year to protect

humans. Are you proposing, therefore, that we

should reduce the exposure to four millirems

per year for aquatic life, or do you want to

go the other way?

DR. KHALIQUE: I am saying that

whatever IEPA is proposing I am for it.

DR. ANDERSON: Well, the other thing

to consider is this disparity in number. I

mean, I suppose if you want to be so stringent

as to only allow four millirems per year

exposure to aquatic life, I'm for that. But

the reality is that would probably not be

practical because, because that exposure --

the human exposure is based on protecting

individuals. We're talking about a one in

10,000 reduction in cancers, whereas we're --

for the aquatic biota, the numbers we're

235

talking about are population level effects.

They would impact not just individual organism

but population of organisms. That's why those

numbers are much higher.

MR. WILLIAMS: Can I say something

here?

Four millirems per year, just so

everybody is clear, is many, many, many times

fewer than even we are proposing. The number

that we are proposing, if you use the one rad

per day, would be something like 700,000

millirem a year.

So if he wants to say let's keep

animals down to four millirems a year also,

then your radium standard to do that is going

to have to be .000 something picoCuries.

DR. KHALIQUE: I'm not asking for

that. What I'm saying is that four picoCuries

per liter combined radium 226 and 228 is only

four millirems. I should take it back. It's

not millirem. It's beta and gamma. Four

millirems, but it includes radium 226 and 228.

MR. WILLIAMS: May I ask you a

question? And I'm trying to clarify, not be

236

problematic here.

The exposure -- the danger to a

person is from exposure to radiation, right?

If there's five picoCuries of combined radium

in the drinking water, that leads to an

exposure on an annual basis of four millirem

per year. Is that correct?

DR. KHALIQUE: (Nodding head.)

MEMBER MELAS: Millirem or milligram?

MR. WILLIAMS: Millirem. Millirem.

Now, the exposure to a human is

because he only drinks however many liters per

day. So the exposure is small based on five.

The exposure to an organism like a

mussel from living in the water, we're saying

is -- should be limited to one rad per day.

And let's just consider a rad and a rem

effectively the same. One rad per day

transferred into millirems per day would be

1,000 millirem per day. So that mussel is

getting 1,000 times every day what a person is

getting in a year; is that correct?

DR. KHALIQUE: (Nodding head.)

MR. WILLIAMS: We're saying that's

237

okay. But be very careful about trying to say

five picoCuries to a human in water is the

same as five picoCuries to a mussel. It's

different. We drink it. They live in it.

Their exposure is many, many, many times

higher than it is to a person. And we're

saying that's okay. One rad is probably

right. One rad is probably right. That's

what the scientific literature says. But five

picoCuries per liter does not equate to an

exposure dose to animals. Am I clear?

MR. RAO: I think you explained that

clearly. So if the mussel was drinking two

liters per day, then you could compare?

MR. WILLIAMS: You could compare.

You could say five to five. But the real

number is exposure. It's not what is in the

water. It's exposure of the animal. And we

would never presume to say that your exposure

to an animal should be the same as the

exposure to the human because if you did, it

would just be an unpractical low level of

exposure.

Now, there is a danger, however, when

238

you look at endangered species because it's

exactly what we say in endangered species. We

say that we should expose endangered species

at the individual level like we do at the

people level. And if you look at that, then

even one picoCurie into the environment is too

much.

MR. RAO: Okay. Going with what you

said and looking at Mr. Adams' calculation, in

the example that you have, if we add up all

the components here that you have on the

numerator side on the left-hand side, it adds

up to about 4.74 picoCuries per liter which

equates to about, you know, approximately

one rad. So my question is if the --

MR. WILLIAMS: That's including the

sediments.

MR. RAO: Yes. So if the sediment

contribution is around what you have in your

example, then this 4.74 picoCuries per liter

would be considered safe under the DOE

document?

MS. WILLIAMS: Could I just clarify?

It's .1 rad, though, that that's based on, not

239

the one rad, correct?

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Let me

just clarify, too. This is the example on

page B-5, and there's also an example on

page B-6. So the one Anand is looking at

right now is the example on page B-6 of

Mr. Adams' pre-filed testimony for this

hearing. So I just wanted to identify which

page we're looking at, which equation.

DR. ADAMS: You're on page B-6,

right?

MR. RAO: Right.

DR. ADAMS: It's still 3.75.

MR. WILLIAMS: If you check the math,

I think it's 3.75 is what it adds up to.

MR. RAO: That's three times six.

And then there's one -- you have the sediment

contribution which is equal to about one.

MR. WILLIAMS: No. I think that's

.01, correct?

MR. RAO: No. It's the plus -- you

have --

MS. WILLIAMS: Can I ask one

clarifying question to him that might maybe

240

elicit it?

MR. RAO: Go ahead.

MS. WILLIAMS: You use the default

values for this, correct, from the DOE model,

right?

DR. ADAMS: Yes.

MS. WILLIAMS: And these were based

on the most -- what that saw as the most

sensitive, which was the riparian animals?

DR. ADAMS: Correct.

MS. WILLIAMS: So you were looking at

exposure of .1 rad per day in these

calculations, correct?

DR. ADAMS: Correct.

MS. WILLIAMS: And would you be able

to do for us an exposure or -- it would be

possible then for you to take the defaults and

do a one rad per day exposure, correct? You

could probably do that if you wanted to,

right, rerun the calculations with one rad

default?

DR. ADAMS: That's not how --

MS. WILLIAMS: I'm not questioning

whether, you know -- but it would be possible

241

to do that if we wanted to see that

information?

MR. WILLIAMS: If you want to do it,

then do it.

MS. WILLIAMS: No. I believe I'm

not -- I don't believe that our folks or the

Board or anyone has the technical capability

to take the default assumptions that are in

that model and redo the calculations with the

one rad per day. I think you are the only one

in this room that can do that. I believe

that. I mean, I'm trying to be sincere here.

And I think it would be very helpful to

everybody that -- I think that Albert's

questions were getting at that and some of

Anand's. We would like to see what the 3.75

number would look like if you were looking at

the one rad per day exposure rate. Does that

make -- am I making it worse?

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: That's

fine. Thank you for your comment. And I

think Dr. Anderson had a response possibly.

MR. FORT: I think there's some

clarifications here. I'm not sure we've got

242

the math right on the number here.

Can you go back through your

calculations on the range -- it was in your

testimony -- about considering sediments,

don't consider sediments, and what this

procedure using the concentration factors that

would use? I don't think it's 4.74.

DR. ADAMS: Are you asking me to go

through the B-5, B-6 and --

MR. FORT: Yes. That would be one

way to do it, yes.

DR. ADAMS: On B-6 -- B-5 was simply

an example of a typical calculation that the

Biota Dose Assessment Committee -- the

calculator actually does. I'm just simply

putting it on the page to grab the concept.

B-6 is a calculation that was used

simply to demonstrate what level, what

concentration in water would exceed one.

MR. RAO: I misspoke. When I

completed the rad, I actually used a ratio --

DR. ADAMS: It's not a one rad.

Maybe there's some misconception there. It's

simply one. And it's a very simple

243

comparison. If it's above one, then

additional site-specific information needs to

be done.

What it is saying is that you've

exceeded the established limits of the .1, or

in the terrestrial it would be -- excuse me.

In the aquatic it would be one, and the

terrestrial/riparian animal, it would be .1.

This one is just a ratio number, that's

correct.

MR. RAO: Okay.

DR. ADAMS: So all I did in B-6 was

simply demonstrate just the impact of meeting

or exceeding the DOE limits based on the

concentration in the water.

So just so everyone is following, the

4.08 and the 3.4, those come off of the table.

These are round off numbers. 3.4 and 4.08 is

four. All right. And simply taking half of

those BCGs and, for the most part, the radium

226 and the radium 228 that at half a

picoCurie per gram, we just put there just to

show you that just with the water alone, half

and half contribution, you exceed the one.

244

That means you've got to go off and do

additional site-specific.

So my one statement there if radium

226 plus radium 228 in water is greater than

3.75 picoCuries per liter without sediment,

you would exceed, and it would be required to

do additional work. That's really what that

is trying to say.

MR. RAO: That helps.

DR. ANDERSON: I think I can go back

now and clarify your question about can we do

a calculation based on an exposure of one rad

per aquatic animals versus .1 because of the

presence of -- because of the riparian animal

being the limiting factor even in the aquatic

system.

In consulting the standard, they

don't give a BCG for the aquatic animal

because it's not limiting because -- they do

for other radio isotopes that aren't bio

accumulating. Because radium is bio

accumulating, they only calculate BCG for

radium based on the limiting dose in water for

riparian animals.

245

So actually, there is no way to do

that calculation given the standard

methodology.

MR. RAO: Okay. I have a question

for Mr. Adams based on what you're talking

about the site-specific evaluation.

Have you been involved with any of

the site-specific evaluations that the BDAC

document talks about?

DR. ADAMS: I have been involved at a

DOE facility in western New York where the bio

dose assessment methodology was applied. It

went through step one, which was the basic

evaluation that they failed. In other words,

they exceeded the one and went into the second

step which was to gather site-specific

information on the aquatic and riparian

animals. And after getting the site-specific

information, sediments, the water, in that

particular case, they did meet criteria that

was not specific for radium. But the answer

is yes, I have.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Just to apply, just

to use this BDAC damage formula, you're going

246

to do have to do some minimal site-specific

work anyway, right?

DR. ADAMS: That's correct.

MEMBER JOHNSON: So you're talking

about step two?

DR. ADAMS: Correct.

MR. RAO: Do you have any general

estimates of the costs of that kind of an

evaluation?

MR. ADAMS: To go out and actually do

a methodology study step one, it's available

on the Internet, and it's very user friendly.

It's very simple. When I say simple in that

it is a step-by-step --

MR. RAO: Not the initial screening

step. If you want to do a site-specific

evaluation for a facility to go gather the

information and...

DR. ADAMS: Well, it would be a day

to a week, depending on your site, but you'd

be collecting sediment samples. That usually

can be done in a day unless you want to go off

and do an annual -- quarterly, annual type of

sampling for the specific region. You would

247

look at water.

a POTW or a particular discharge or what the

So it would be no different than what

EPA, assuming they want the programs, would do

in a normal case.

The results of the samples would

then go to an analytical lab to be analyzed.

Then the rest of it is a matter of number

crunching on the computer.

So, I mean, it's a technician or two

to go out and collect samples. Depending on

the frequency -- my experience, we did it over

a year to get good, solid data. But that's

dependent on the discharge point and then the

cost to do the analysis and then the

evaluation and the report.

MR. RAO: Thank you.

MS. LIU: Does any of that analysis

involve also taking samples of the biota

indigenous to that particular water body?

DR. ADAMS: For example, the fish or

the mussels, yes.

MS. LIU: So in addition to the

sediment and water samples, there would be --

248

DR. ADAMS: Thank you. That's

correct. You want to try to be complete.

You're looking at a complete ecosystem. Thank

you.

MS. LIU: Okay.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Would you

characterize the figures you used in your

example that came up with the number 1.01 as

low numbers? I mean, the .5 you're using for

the sediments, is that a typical number? Is

that a -- I guess what I'm trying to get at,

is this something that practically is going to

nearly always be at point -- or at 1.0 or

higher?

DR. ADAMS: I think that's going to

be the case. I mean, if you let me use

Florida, for example, you can see there where

they clearly seek a half a picoCurie per gram

on the order of 12.

MR. WILLIAMS: I believe the intent

of that was to minimize any impact on the

calculations from the sediment. Certainly it

could -- we could have plugged in 12 or even

20 because we see one lake in Florida with 20.

249

What we chose to do there was plug in a very

low number so that you're only looking at the

water instead of sediment.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Which says to me

that really what you're going to do is say

move on immediately to step 2 because nearly

every place you're going to take samples from

is going to exceed the one that says to go

ahead and study further.

MR. WILLIAMS: I think it really

comes back to a simple question. If you

discharge radium into the river, over,

frankly, what your current standard is of one

226, if you're very high above that at all,

you're going to have to go into the

site-specific studies. That's what BDAC

ultimately says because if you have one of

226, you've probably got one of 228. You've

probably got some sediment contribution. And

so your chances of ending up over one are

pretty doggone good, unfortunately. So you

have to go to site-specific studies.

The danger with setting a water

quality limit above the 3.75 is that you --

250

without doing those scientific studies -- and

I'll respond to your question about the

cost -- studies are never cheap. I promise

you studies are never cheap.

If you ignore and go to what the

Agency has asked for, which is no standard,

let's recognize the rulemaking before the

Board is that we eliminate any standard. And

we're also saying we know we're going to be

above a screening level, in most cases, if you

discharge to the POTW then. I think we have

not protected the environment. That's my read

on it.

Now, we think that the best solution

is don't put the stuff in the sewer so you

don't put it in the river. If you don't put

it in the sewer, you don't have to worry about

what's going into the stream even if you're

five in your water. If you're above it,

you're just barely above it.

So once you take it out of the

drinking water, don't put it back in the

environment.

MR. FORT: Do you want to specify

251

don't put it down the sewer actually is what

you're referring to?

MR. WILLIAMS: Don't put the

residuals from removing radium from the

drinking water back in the sewer. If you

don't put it back in the sewer, you're not

endangering the POTW worker. You don't have

to do the studies. You don't have to do the

monitoring. You don't have to monitor what

goes out in the field. You don't have to do

the worries about is radium going to end up in

people's basements. You don't have to worry

about what goes into the river. And you don't

have to worry about the biota impact.

We have an opportunity here, by

taking the radium out of the drinking water,

to get rid of it. We can do that. Other

technology can do that. The rule change that

is being proposed is only being proposed,

according to their testimony, to make sure

that those who put it down the sewer don't

violate another rule.

MEMBER JOHNSON: Which is the service

your company provides. We're bound to look at

252

economic feasibility with respect to all these

suggestions. So -- and I'll be the first to

admit I've got three of these folders now, and

eventually everything gets read. I don't

recall coming across any testimony from you --

or maybe you haven't been asked for it. Maybe

it's something that you even want to provide,

but with respect to the cost of doing that to

the local --

MR. WILLIAMS: We have. And I will

reiterate it for you just briefly.

We have two companies -- or two

cities under contract. Both of those cities

have, in the press, said by choosing us,

they're saving in excess of $2 million over

the next 20 years. One of those is Oswego. I

think the press article is actually entered in

the record. The other one was Elburn, and the

press was entered into the record also.

MEMBER JOHNSON: I did read that, for

the record. I guess what I -- do you have --

would you put contracts with these entities

into the record, or is that something you're

not prepared to do?

253

MR. FORT: Let us take that under

advisement because the problem is that all of

these bids are supposed to be confidential.

MEMBER JOHNSON: I understand that.

MR. FORT: So you -- and we have

competitors. We're glad to give you economic

information, and maybe there's some way of

synthesizing the economics of different

approaches so that you can consider that on a

larger scale.

MR. HARSCH: Mr. Johnson, all those

contracts with municipalities are public

documents in the state of Illinois.

MR. FORT: That's true. So I didn't

say we wouldn't do it, Roy. I just said let

me think about it.

MR. HARSCH: I'd be happy to.

MR. WILLIAMS: And we're not -- I

want to keep reiterating even though we are

the only people here who are protesting the

rule change, the only people from industry

protesting the rule change, Layne Christianson

markets the media very similar to ours, which

would be disposed in a low level site.

254

They're active in all of the U.S. They have

operating facilities. I know of one in

Colorado, Red Mountain, that's been running

for at least five years. And they take the

material before it ever sees the sewer, and

they send it to a low level radioactive waste

site.

HMO, which is the preferred

method by Joliet, the only thing that stops

them from putting it down the sewer is they

have to add a clarifier or a filter of some

type. And yes, that will add cost. I don't

know what those costs are. I'm sure Dennis

could calculate for us. He's got the

expertise. And then the cost of disposal.

The request before the Board is not

to raise the limit to five. I mean, that's a

misconception, I think, because -- if I could

confirm that your testimony where you have the

map of the streams that will actually have no

limit?

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Is that

map A or E from your pre-filed testimony?

MR. WILLIAMS: It's A.

255

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Okay.

This is Mr. Adams' pre-filed testimony, which

is Exhibit 14.

MR. FORT: It's actually map A in the

corrected attachments.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Okay.

MR. WILLIAMS: If you look at this

map, the black dots are, from the IEPA

testimony, that these are where water is taken

out of the river. And in those points, the

drinking water standard is five. The red dots

are the points of communities that have

drinking water radium over five. And the

proposal before the Board is that all of the

yellow; in other words, hundreds of miles of

Illinois streams would have no water quality

standard; I mean, radium -- water quality

standard for radium. I think that's the

proposal before the Board.

DR. KHALIQUE: Based on that, can I

ask a question?

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Go

ahead.

MS. WILLIAMS: I can respond.

256

MEMBER JOHNSON: Is it correct?

MS. WILLIAMS: It's correct that the

proposal before the Board proposes to remove

the general use water quality standard and

replace it with a public and food processing

standard of five picoCuries per liter because

we were unable to find any evidence of any

other use impacted besides drinking. I think

the Agency has been open to looking at more

information that would give us some guidelines

for a different number if it's out there.

MR. WILLIAMS: And we would be glad

to work with the Agency to try and come up

with some solution that protects the

environment and help set -- give our input to

setting that number. That's why we're here is

to give our input.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: I see

comments from also Dr. Khalique and also

Mr. Harsch.

MR. HARSCH: I would really like to

get on with the questioning by the

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.

These folks want to have an opportunity to

257

hear from the Agency after lunch. It's

quarter to 12:00 already.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: We'll do

that. Then I'll turn it over to Dr. Khalique

again. Do you have further questions -- or a

comment first?

DR. KHALIQUE: How would you dispose

of the radioactive waste from the water

communities?

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, there are

currently three or four sites that accept low

level radioactive waste. We, in order to keep

the cost down, have gone out and established

40-year contracts for disposal with two of

those. One is Hanford, Washington. One is

Grandview, Idaho. We're currently working

with another group in Texas to be able to

dispose there. And it gives you a fixed price

adjusted by an index EPI so that the

communities know what their disposal costs are

going to be for the next 20 years.

DR. KHALIQUE: Do you have any idea

how much is the disposal cost?

MR. WILLIAMS: I know exactly how

258

much the disposal cost is. It's quite -- the

cost that we have worked out, you know, is

confidential, but the list price would be in

the ordinary basis of $80 per cubic foot of

media.

Now, we are able to remove the radium

from the water and put in the equipment and

monitor the equipment and manage the equipment

and ship it and get it to the disposal site

and pay for the disposal for virtually the

same price as running -- actually less than

the same price of running an ion exchange

system.

DR. KHALIQUE: Public water

communities, I don't know. I'm just guessing.

How much waste will it generate in a year and

the $80 per square foot? I don't know how

much it will cost them to dispose of the low

level radioactive waste in addition to

whatever else they have for the treatment of

the water. I just want to make...

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: A

comment. Okay. Thanks. And do you have

further questions?

259

DR. KHALIQUE: Yes. I would like to

continue with this report.

The first thing is that let me

clarify, we are talking about radium 226 plus

radium 228, five picoCuries per liter, and

that we are talking about four millirems per

year. Four millirems per year as far as beta

rate and alpha in radium 226, I'll define four

millirem. Am I right?

DR. ADAMS: Just repeat the last part

of your statement.

DR. KHALIQUE: Radium 226 emit alpha

and gamma.

DR. ADAMS: Alpha and gamma?

DR. KHALIQUE: Yes. And beta --

radium 228 beta rate. So in those four

millirems per year radium 226, the alpha will

not be accounted for in the four millirem per

year figure, or is it --

DR. ADAMS: I'm still trying to

understand your question, but you're saying is

in the four millirem per year --

DR. KHALIQUE: Radium 226 is included

or not, I am not sure.

260

DR. ADAMS: I thought it was included

DR. KHALIQUE: Included. Okay.

So five picoCuries per liter in

drinking water, that's what the drinking water

standards are. And if we keep those

standards, the aquatic life have -- should

have, based on the calculation I presented

from the DOE document, be very less than what

you are suggesting?

DR. ADAMS: Well, I have a response,

but go ahead.

DR. ANDERSON: I'm still confused. I

thought in your calculation it was ten times

higher. It was 41 versus four.

DR. KHALIQUE: So we are exposed to

only four millirem per year?

DR. ANDERSON: Yes. And based on the

five MCL, yes. But the 3.7, the biota is

sustaining an exposure ten times higher;

actually, many more times because it's daily,

hourly; thousands times higher. I'm just --

okay.

DR. KHALIQUE: What I'm getting at is

that we are just -- for the drinking water

261

standards 5 picoCuries which comes to four

millirems per year?

MR. WILLIAMS: Right.

DR. KHALIQUE: Per human. As

compared to 41.7 millirems per hour for

aquatic life.

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. There's a huge

disparity. I acknowledge that. And as an

environmentalist, that makes me a little

uncomfortable, but I'm willing to live with

the experts at the DOE and the BDAC.

DR. KHALIQUE: I just wanted to make

a point.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Okay.

DR. KHALIQUE: Based on

Dr. Anderson's comment on this report, which

is from 1972, on the same page number 15, they

have a footnote, and it says on

page 15, footnote: More recently the ICRP has

modified the statement on the subject as

follows: The commission believes that the

standard of environmental control needed to

protect man to the degree currently thought

desirable reassures that other species are not

262

put at risk. Occasionally individual member

of non-human species might be harmed but not

to the extent of endangering the whole species

or creating imbalance between the species.

And this statement is dated 1991.

DR. ANDERSON: Correct.

MR. WILLIAMS: Does that refer to the

exposure?

DR. KHALIQUE: That refers to the man

is safe from the ionized radiation and the

animal species.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Thank

you.

DR. KHALIQUE: Thanks.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Thank

you. Thanks for your comments and questions.

Right now, it looks like it's about

five minutes to 12:00. Let's go off the

record for a minute.

(Discussion had off the record.)

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Let's go

back on the record.

MS. WILLIAMS: I just wanted to ask

Mr. Adams one question. I had two questions.

263

One I was able to ask earlier to clarify being

that we're not able to understand exactly how

the calculations are done and so if you would

able to replicate the model using an aquatic

life focus. But I guess it's your testimony

that you cannot?

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. Actually, I

think I responded to that.

MS. WILLIAMS: I know you did.

DR. ANDERSON: I looked it up in here

in the standard, and they don't give the BCG

for radium for the aquatic systems for

anything but the riparian animal because, in

their view, that's limiting because -- it

looks to me like it's because of bio

concentration. They have it for some of the

other isotopes which aren't so notoriously bio

concentrated. So I don't think you can do

what you asked us to do based on the DOE

standard.

MS. WILLIAMS: Is that what you were

going to say?

DR. ADAMS: I would agree, using that

methodology.

264

MR. RAO: Are you saying just by

using the table you cannot do it, but is there

some way you can determine the BCG for aquatic

life and...

DR. ANDERSON: You'd be going back

and changing the assumptions on how to

calculation a BCG theoretically. But boy, I'd

like to have that whole committee do it rather

than me or Ted.

MS. LIU: Aren't the procedures,

though, actually in those modules in the DOE

document for how to calculate individual BCGs

when you need to do further

site-specification?

MR. ANDERSON: I'd have to look at it

further to see if that is something --

DR. ADAMS: Well, there are general

equations, formulas on how to calculate

internal, external dose to terrestrial and to

aquatic.

The difficulty, as Dr. Anderson

said, is the output is the limiting organism,

and that is where the tables constrain you to.

So that's the reason. There are other

265

approaches. You can certainly -- you can take

other formulas in other documents. This is

not the only approach. And you can do a

calculation. But for this particular

methodology, it's most difficult.

MS. LIU: Is the Agency more

interested in the aquatic life rather than the

interference from the riparian side? Is that

why you were asking him to make that

calculation?

MS. WILLIAMS: Well, I have some

questions maybe about the assumptions built

into using the riparian, so if we would have

the aquatic to compare it to, it might provide

more useful information. Bob can talk about

that.

My question was very quick. That

was not it. Exhibit I: Can we talk about

Exhibit I a little bit: The LaSalle station

documents? I just had one quick question I

wanted to ask you that came out when I was

listening to your earlier responses. Did you

locate that?

DR. ADAMS: The NPDES?

266

MS. WILLIAMS: Yes. If you go -- the

first few pages are permits. Then they have

the sampling information.

DR. ADAMS: The reported results?

MS. WILLIAMS: Yes.

DR. ADAMS: Yes.

MS. WILLIAMS: And I'm looking at the

first page, and it talks about a radium value

total radium of nine picoCuries per liter; is

that correct?

DR. ADAMS: Correct.

MS. WILLIAMS: And a radium 226 value

of less than .3 picoCuries per liter?

DR. ADAMS: Right.

MS. WILLIAMS: Is that consistent

with your experience of the ratio of radium

226 to total radium?

DR. ADAMS: It varies. My experience

would be it's not inconsistent, but the ratio

of radium 226 to 228 is very dependent on the

system, whether there's any particular

affinity for any type of cleanup system.

Certainly a man-made system could change. And

in nature, you know, being natural, you have

267

different ratios.

MS. WILLIAMS: So this ratio does not

cause you to question the validity of the data

received here: 9.0 to .3?

DR. ADAMS: Well, that's a different

question. That's a different question.

Whenever I see a less than sign, I always ask

a question about how good is that number; in

other words, what is the analytical validity.

MS. WILLIAMS: What's the detection

limit? Do you know what the detection limit

is?

DR. ADAMS: Yes. The ability --

MS. WILLIAMS: I'm sorry. Not a

definition, but for radium, do you know what

it is?

DR. ADAMS: Actually, it is quite

low, less than one picoCurie per -- I don't

know if it's liter or gram, but down into the

less than one picoCurie point.

MS. WILLIAMS: So this doesn't --

well, okay. Did you answer the question about

whether this ratio causes you to have concerns

about the validity of the measurement?

268

DR. ADAMS: The validity -- it just

raises my interest. I don't know that it's a

concern. It's just I would -- I'd probably --

if this data came in front of me and I didn't

know anything about the laboratory, I would go

back and I would ask them please explain to me

what their level of detection is for that

particular analytical procedure. And they

would either demonstrate that to me and I

would accept it, or I would have to go back

and redo it.

MS. WILLIAMS: Let's go then from

that page to --

MR. WILLIAMS: May I say something?

Just a quick comment. The nine --

MS. WILLIAMS: Can I get to the page

first because I was in the middle of

describing what page I wanted to flip to? I

think we will get confused because they're not

numbered, right?

MR. WILLIAMS: I was going to stay on

the same page. You asked if the 9 to the .3

is out of ratio. If you look at the alpha and

the beta, remember the alpha comes from 226;

269

the beta comes from 228. They're in the same

type ratio. So at least the alpha and beta

analysis confirmed the 226 total analysis.

Does that make sense to you?

MS. WILLIAMS: Yep.

Let's flip three pages beyond that to

the page -- it's the next to last page of my

copy.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Of

Exhibit I of Mr. Adams' testimony, right?

MS. WILLIAMS: Yes.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Okay.

MS. WILLIAMS: Did you look at the

same figures total output, total beta, total

radium, total radium 226? Explain the same --

explain what the ratio is and whether that

seems correct to you.

DR. ADAMS: Well, I mean, the ratio,

total radium is made up of 226 and 228 and

so --

MS. WILLIAMS: What is the number on

that page of total radium?

DR. ADAMS: 2.2. I'm sorry.

MS. WILLIAMS: And what's the number

270

for radium 226?

DR. ADAMS: 226, 2.6.

MS. WILLIAMS: So the number for

radium 226 is higher than the number for total

radium?

DR. ADAMS: As reported, that's

correct.

MS. WILLIAMS: Can you explain why

that might be?

DR. ADAMS: Well, as -- I can't

explain it without additional information.

What I would -- again, what I would do is;

one, get better information from the

discharger so I understand the process; and

two, I'd go back and look at the laboratory.

What is not reported here is -- is a standard

of error.

MS. WILLIAMS: Is it possible for

both numbers to be accurate? Is it physically

possible for the total radium to be less than

radium 226?

DR. ADAMS: Well, in Reportingg

analytical data, yes, it can be.

DR. ANDERSON: They could have

271

different standards of error.

MS. WILLIAMS: In nature is it

possible I guess is the question. I don't

think it was a confusing question, but...

DR. ADAMS: I think we're into

theoretical stuff here.

MS. WILLIAMS: That's all. I just

wanted to take a look at those and have you

explain.

So in nature is it possible for total

radium to be less than radium 226?

DR. ADAMS: If the analytical issues

are set aside, no.

MS. WILLIAMS: Okay. Thank you.

MR. FORT: I have a question. Did

the Agency question that data and go back and

look at the data and what was the result of

it, because if your point here is if the data

is wrong, well, did you do anything to check

to follow up? Do you know if they followed up

on it?

MS. WILLIAMS: Well, I mean, I don't

think we followed up on this data because we

don't regulate these facilities, but we can

272

talk about some follow ups we've done on

what -- where it could come from, yeah.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Any

further questions for the WRT Environmental

witnesses?

(No audible response.)

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Not at

this time.

MS. LIU: If I could explore this

document a little bit more, I'm not an expert

and enjoy hearing you talk about it, but as I

was listening to the discussion that the

Agency brought up about calculating BCG

specifically for aquatic life, I noticed on

module 3, page 22, there is a paragraph that

begins water BCGs for aquatic animals followed

by an equation. And I was wondering if it was

possible to do that calculation.

MR. FORT: Which page are you looking

at?

MS. LIU: 322 and 23.

DR. ADAMS: I found it. Go ahead.

Please repeat your question.

MS. LIU: Would you be able to use

273

this portion in the module to calculate a

water BCG specifically for aquatic life versus

riparian?

DR. ADAMS: I certainly could use

either this formula or an equivalent formula

to do just what you've asked. But I caution

you that what DOE said was it's not the

aquatic organisms -- organism that are -- or

is the limiting organism. It's the riparian.

So you can do the calculation and come up with

a number, but that's not what the standard is

going to hold you to.

MR. ANDERSON: It would appear to me

that what you're getting to, the really

germane issue is whether the water quality

standards have an obligation to protect

riparian life uses as part of aquatic life

uses. That's what you're really going to.

And, you know, I actually asked an

attorney -- it might have even been this

one -- and I got the impression that the

obligation is to protect the fish and wildlife

in the state of Illinois, whether it's a fish

or whether it's some small mammal in the

274

riparian zone.

So it -- it's an interesting

exercise, but I'm not sure it's a useful one

unless the Board decides that the objectives

here are only to protect things that swim

full-time water.

MS. LIU: I was just interested in

helping the Agency to obtain the information

they were asking for, and I'm not sure of the

underlying reason, but I wanted to make sure

if that calculation could be performed and if

you asked for it that we might be able to do

that.

DR. ADAMS: And everything is

available on the web site.

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. They could do

it, if they choose.

MS. LIU: Ms. Williams indicated that

you were probably the best ones to do that, so

I didn't want to --

DR. ANDERSON: Could we testify to

the contrary? Maybe we think they are.

MS. LIU: Did we resolve anything?

MEMBER MELAS: I just want to follow

275

up.

Mr. Ettinger is gone now, but I

thought that I wanted to follow up. So,

Ms. Williams, when the Agency submitted that

testimony at the prior hearing with the list

of questions, question number one, does the

Agency believe that radium is harmful to

aquatic life at some level. And they keep

talking on all their questions using the term

aquatic life.

From what Dr. Anderson just said now,

it's not just the standard of the aquatic life

that you've got to worry about. It's the

riparian. I mean, that's the -- that's the

gist that I'm getting now. And I just

wondered if you have some further comment on

that.

MS. WILLIAMS: Well, one comment I'd

like to make is that we were responding --

those were terms used by the questioner, but I

think that Bob might want to respond somewhat

on this issue of protecting riparian life.

MEMBER MELAS: Right. Because that

seems to be where the difference is coming in

276

now. Obviously, Mr. Ettinger, like myself and

many others, are just using general terms and

not the specific terms that the two gentlemen

have used.

Bob, do you have any comments?

MR. MOSHER: I don't agree with that

table on very much, but I agree with them on

that point that it does appear that we should

look at the riparian mammals as the most

sensitive group of organisms. I think I'm

going to say more this afternoon in our

organized way, if I could.

MEMBER MELAS: Yes.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Sure.

MEMBER MELAS: I just had just one

other little curiosity question a few moments

ago. We were talking about how long have

Illinois communities been using water --

drinking water from these deep aquifers. And

Mr. Harsh said probably back into the 1800s.

It just goes against common sense. The

technology existed where some of the earlier

settlers here in the earlier communities have

been using this water for over 150, 200 years?

277

I'm sure -- you're a biologist. You're not an

expert on deep well --

DR. ANDERSON: Drilling.

MEMBER MELAS: -- drilling. Bob, do

you have any idea?

MR. MOSHER: I'm going to defer to

Jerry on that.

MEMBER MELAS: Mr. Duffield, maybe

you can answer.

MR. DUFFIELD: What they call

percussion drilling methods have been around

for years.

MEMBER MELAS: Decades?

MR. DUFFIELD: Before the turn of the

century. And I'm not talking about 2000. I'm

talking about 1900.

Basically table tool drilling or

percussion drilling, you have a long cable

with what's essentially a hammer on the bottom

of it. And you just keep dropping it on the

rock and penetrating the sandstone. And then

you go down with a tool that cleans that rock

up. It's got a little flap on the bottom that

gathers up the rocks. The flap closes. You

278

pull them to the surface. It's a slow, slow

method of drilling. Still in use today in

some places.

Rotary drilling is more modern.

It's much quicker. We can drill a well in

under 30 days. But percussion methods have

been around for a very long time.

MEMBER MELAS: Joliet has been using

this water for how long?

MR. DUFFIELD: The Des Plaines Street

well I believe was drilled in 1912. Now,

there's records at the Illinois State Water

Survey of the age of wells in Illinois. And

this is easily found.

MEMBER MELAS: So it's over 100

years?

MR. DUFFIELD: It's over 100 years.

I've got a lot of wells that are in the 50 to

75 range.

MEMBER MELAS: So we have people that

have been drinking this water for several

generations?

MR. DUFFIELD: Yes, sir.

MEMBER MELAS: Thank you.

279

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Let's

break for lunch now. Let's go off the record.

(Discussion had off the record.)

(A lunch recess was taken.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: We're back

on the record, and it is about 20 after 1:00.

Where we ended up before we broke for lunch

was a question by Member Melas and we had a

response by Mr. Duffield. And from there, I

think we're going to turn it over to the

Agency now.

MS. WILLIAMS: Okay. Yes. I think

it might be the most sufficient use of time

for us to go through a few questions that

we've seen that might elicit some additional

testimony that would clarify and then open it

up for anybody else. And I can start with Bob

Mosher.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Please

do.

MR. FORT: This is further things

coming out of additional testimony we filed?

That's the focus? Or is it broader than that?

280

MS. WILLIAMS: I guess I don't

understand.

MR. FORT: I guess I'm just trying to

get my mind around what issues I need to be

thinking about.

MS. WILLIAMS: I think it's primarily

expansions on their testimony and the result

of questions raised in your testimony, if that

makes sense.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: At the

last hearing.

MS. WILLIAMS: At the last hearing

because we haven't presented any testimony

since -- no one was here when we presented any

testimony basically. I think some of it might

be summarizing some things that are already

in, but no one here really was there except

for some of the Board. But, I mean, I don't

think it's going to take very long. If you

have objections, feel free to make them to the

questions.

MR. FORT: Just if you would have had

something that was going to be prepared to be

delivered today, it would have been nice to

281

have it to read and look at and help formulate

questions, but go at it.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: And I

think that's why Ms. Williams is saying that

it's more in response to some of the testimony

that was already -- I guess that came out at

the third hearing, as well as this hearing

today and yesterday.

MS. WILLIAMS: I think that's right.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Go

ahead.

MS. WILLIAMS: Bob, I'd like to

refresh your memory about a statement that you

made in your initial testimony. You stated

that the Illinois EPA conducted a literature

search for radium impacts to aquatic life and

found no scientific papers or other

information on the subject. Do you still

stand by that statement?

MR. MOSHER: Yes, I do. And I'd like

to take -- go through a little history on just

what we do and how we do it.

In 1986 USEPA came out with a

guidance document that is still in use today

282

and is a methodology for deriving water

quality standards from aquatic life toxicity

data. These would be fish and other aquatic

organisms.

A few years later USEPA came out with

a methodology for deriving water quality

standards that would protect wildlife. And,

of course, this is two of the groups of

organisms that we're talking about today.

The data prescribed by these

methodologies are studies that are controlled

experiments. These studies are usually done

in a laboratory setting. By controlled, we

mean that these studies are limited to one

variable that is controlled in that

laboratory. These are repeatable studies

which means that somebody in another

laboratory could duplicate what the first

laboratory did and see if they agree with it

or not.

These studies are almost always

published in peer reviewed journals, and so

there is a process of other scientists looking

at that work before it's published to see if

283

they think it was done right. The

methodologies themselves are peer reviewed,

exhaustive USEPA public notices so that the

aquatic life methodology and the wildlife

methodology gets well discussed in the

community before it's adopted by USEPA.

The Board took each of those

methodologies and adopted them as part of

their regulations. The aquatic life are found

in subpart F of part 302 water quality

standards. The wildlife standards are also in

subpart F, as well as an updated version of

each of those are in the Lake Michigan water

quality standards.

So when we set out looking for

studies, that's what we're looking for. I

don't think it matters whether the toxicity is

from the metal itself or from the radioactive

nature of the metal. You can still do

controlled experiments on those substances

like radium. There just aren't any that we

found in the literature that meet the

requirements that we normally use. And we've

been using those -- that methodology and those

284

requirements for the past almost 20 years now.

I hear from WRT witness Dr. Anderson

that on one hand, he knows of controlled

experimental studies that are relevant. I

don't see them submitted. I haven't been able

to look at them. I don't know the names of

them.

But on the other hand, Dr. Anderson

says: Well, no one would do a study like that

on radium because it's too dangerous to do

that in a lab because of the radon gas, which

I don't agree with that statement.

I think you could do a study like that. I

just believe that no one has done a study like

that.

So I stand behind our data searching

that Clark Olson and I did. And again, if

people know, anybody, WRT or anybody else,

knows of these studies, we would just like to

see them.

MS. WILLIAMS: Bob, have you at the

same time then still taken a look at these

studies that have been cited to you in the

testimony?

285

MR. MOSHER: Yes. These are studies

that we have been talking about all day. We

have the copies. They are either studies that

are observational studies such as the Florida

study where somebody looked in a lake, found

some mussels, did some analysis. It's not an

experiment. It's observations.

We've also got studies that are

models, and to various degrees there is some

data backing up those models. But again, it's

not real apparent what data that is because

it's not provided.

The first study provided by WRT

we -- is Exhibit 10. And when Clark Olson was

still with the Agency, he looked into that.

He found a reference in that study that dealt

with radium, and that reference was really to

sort of a model. It's not the same model that

we ended this morning's discussion about. It

was another kind of model to predict what

aquatic life tolerance would be for radium

based on its radioactive properties.

Clark derived a number based on that

model from that reference. WRT has never

286

provided any number that they thought

corresponded to what that document was trying

to say, but Clark did and he came up with

22,000 picoCuries per liter radium would be

somewhere around the threshold of harmful

effects to aquatic life.

I stated a while ago that I don't

believe that aquatic life is the most

sensitive type of organism. I agreed with WRT

that it is the mammals that live in or near

the water that are most sensitive. So okay,

they provided that. We looked at it. That's

our interpretation of it. That's a real high

number.

MS. WILLIAMS: Would you ever suggest

to the Board to use a number that high for a

standard?

MR. MOSHER: No. It's been our

position all along that you only need a

standard where you have actual environmental

conditions in our state that would be somewhat

near this threshold. If your threshold is way

higher than what you have present in the

environment, then why have a standard?

287

I can give lots of examples of other

elements that we don't have standards for.

For example, tungsten is an element. It's a

metal. We don't have a water quality standard

for tungsten. And my theory of why we don't

is that the toxic threshold tungsten in the

environment doesn't come anywhere near the

actual levels of tungsten that we have, and so

it's not an issue for anyone. No one bothers

to do the studies that would be necessary to

establish the standard. We don't talk much

about it. We don't do much with tungsten.

And there's lots of other things like that as

well.

An analogy that I thought up late

last night -- it might not be a real good

analogy, but I'll give it to you anyway -- is

that some city somewhere might have a bicycle

path and they're worried about what the speed

limit should be for bicycles. And they might

do some research into, you know, what other

traffic is going to be on that bicycle path or

whatever, and they come up with well, the

bicycle speed limit should be 40 miles an

288

hour.

And then someone says: Well, how

fast do bicycles go? Bicycles only go 20

miles an hour at their maximum. Do we need

that speed limit of 40 miles an hour for

bicycles? Well, no. As fast as bicycles can

go is a safe level.

That may be not a perfect

analogy, but I think it's what we're getting

at when we say we don't think we need a radium

standard in general use waters that aren't

being used for public water supply.

MS. WILLIAMS: Bob, did you also try

and look into the Department of Energy model

that was presented at the last hearing?

MR. MOSHER: Yes, I did. My angle

for investigating that was to talk to the

experts at the Department of Energy and

elsewhere who put that model together. In

other words, instead of using my limited time

to read all of the articles about that, I

chose to call these people up on the telephone

and talk to them.

I talked to three individuals for

289

about an hour each, had other communications

with them, and had communications with other

people also. But the three people I talked to

were Dr. Steven Domotor from Department of

Energy. I think we've heard his name before

today. I talked to Dan Jones who formerly

worked for Oak Ridge National Laboratory and

is I think what they term an environmental

radiation biologist. It's kind of a very rare

breed out there that is this kind of

scientist. Dan Jones now works for a private

consulting firm.

I also talked to a Dr. Wicker from

Colorado State University.

I talked with all three of these

individuals about this model. All three

individuals were instrumental in putting this

model together from a slightly even larger

group of people.

MR. FORT: Excuse me. Are you going

to be testifying about what they said to you

or what you heard them say to you?

MR. MOSHER: Yes.

MR. FORT: You don't have any writing

290

from them, no e-mails, nothing to corroborate

what you're going to say they said?

MR. MOSHER: I have some writing.

MS. WILLIAMS: Obviously if you want

to make an objection, we can talk about --

MR. FORT: Obviously it's hearsay,

and it's what this witness heard and

remembered, not necessarily what they said.

And I don't want to take everyone's time going

through the usual things that you would ask

about anything allowed to be done as hearsay

like what did you say, what time it was, all

those sort of things. We'll be here for a lot

longer. So I'll object to it.

MS. WILLIAMS: You will or you won't?

MR. FORT: I'm objecting to the

hearsay testimony.

MS. WILLIAMS: I mean, we'll just be

frank. We've tried to be frank with

everything that we've done in this rulemaking.

I don't think we're going to disagree that for

Bob to testify about what other experts told

him is hearsay by the strict rules of Civil

Procedure. We all know that the Board has the

291

ability to let in information that would

otherwise under the law be hearsay. I think

it's in the Board's interest to listen to the

research that Bob did even if the format in

which he did the research would be hearsay. I

think it's information that the Board would

want to hear.

If the Board wants to determine

that -- you know, they can give it the weight

that they think it deserves based on that.

So...

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Well, I

think what we can do and Mr. Mosher being an

expert, I think you are giving us a foundation

of where you got -- what kind of research you

did and where you found the information. And

we'll take into consideration what you talk

about as far as conversations you had with

somebody else. But we know that you can

gather your own conclusions and form your own

opinions. As an expert we'll hear your

explanation of those conversations.

MR. MOSHER: Okay. And I might add,

the Board's technical members or the Board

292

members themselves, call these people up and

talk to them yourself and see if what I'm

saying isn't right. Is that fair enough?

MEMBER MELAS: Sure.

MR. FORT: I'm going to object to the

process you're suggesting given the context

here.

I would just make one other

suggestion here is that Mr. Mosher is clearly

invested in the proposal here, and I don't

think that

Mr. Mosher liked this approach that we came up

with, so I would just ask that -- he is not an

independent expert here. He is somebody who

is very involved in this proceeding. But I

don't want to get into an argument. You made

your ruling, so I just want to make that

clear.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: And I

note your objection.

MS. WILLIAMS: We all allowed the

testimony from Mr. Adams about his

conversation with Mr. Domotor, so I'm not

really sure how at this point --

293

MR. FORT: It's different because you

asked him, so you opened it up.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Well, I

note your objection. And that's a valid point

that you make noting everybody's positions

here. I think we're aware of the Agency's

position as experts. You can go ahead and

continue.

MR. MOSHER: Okay. The common theme

that I got from talking to these experts was

that this model was not created to establish

state water quality standards. It was

established to evaluate DOE cleanup sites.

These are sites where nuclear weapons dumps

from the -- weapons program of the country,

nuclear power programs dumps. These were all

sites that were terrible -- I wouldn't call

them accidents, but carelessness on the part

of what people did with nuclear materials.

And the angle that this model was created for

was from that clean up perspective rather than

from developing protective state water quality

standards perspective.

When these people were aware that

294

Illinois was considering the use of this model

for development of water quality standards, I

received cautions. The cautions were that

this is an extremely conservative approach and

that it's a screening value. What the

proposal here for the four picoCurie per liter

radium standard is using that screening

approach, the default first cut screening

approach value.

They cautioned me that if we were to

proceed with this model -- and they like their

model and they think this model could be

useful handled in the right way for our

purposes. But I was given information from

these experts that an order of magnitude or

two orders of magnitude might be the end

result of this model once some Illinois

site-specific information was plugged into

that model. So instead of four picoCuries per

liter to protect mammals that live along

streams, it could be 40 or 400.

Now, when I explored what all that

meant, it was explained to me that the default

model that results in this four picoCuries per

295

liter level, when you look at the default

assumptions, you are looking at your species

of mammal, your raccoon or your mink or

whatever that species is. Raccoon seems to be

the most popular example to use given their

habits, their food preferences, and so forth.

So the raccoon has to live in the

midst of this stream in Northern Illinois that

receives this radium discharge for its entire

life. That's the assumption. The raccoon

doesn't go raid a garbage can somewhere. The

raccoon doesn't climb a tree and sleep in the

tree. It doesn't go to the cornfield and eat

corn or persimmons or something else. It

lives in that stream 24 hours a day on top of

that stream on top of the sediment. It eats

everything out of that stream for its diet.

And probably most importantly, the

concentration in that stream that it's exposed

to is, if you choose ten picoCuries per liter

as the likely occurrence in an Illinois

7 Q 10 zero stream receiving one of these

sewage plant discharge, then the assumption is

that it's ten all the time. And at some point

296

here I want to explore that because I think

that's a very important assumption that is

very, very overly protective in this model.

I used this example when I was

talking to Dr. Domotor. I said if I

understand this correctly, to use a different

venue, if we were in Florida and we were

interested in protecting manatees from radium

and a manatee is a wholly aquatic mammal,

manatees can't get up on the land and go

anywhere. They always stay in the water. And

if they always stayed in the one water body

that you are concerned about, then that's a

correct use of that default equation. The

manatee is there its whole life. It never

goes anywhere else. We don't have any mammals

like that in Illinois. So you'd automatically

want to change that model to express that

difference.

I said: Am I understanding that

right. And he said: Yeah; that's a good

example of the default, one of the aspects of

the default model.

So from what I gather, using the

297

default is inappropriate for what we're doing

today. Almost certainly that model correctly

applied for Illinois conditions in streams is

going to give us a much higher value. And

that value, I believe, would be higher than

any realistic case we could ever have due to

the source of high radium groundwater in

Northern Illinois.

MS. WILLIAMS: Can you get into a

little bit why, assuming a 7 Q 10 stream,

7 Q 10 zero flow stream?

MR. MOSHER: Yes. The Illinois state

water survey has calculated 7 Q 10 stream flow

for all the streams in Illinois. And 7 Q 10

stream flow is the average low stream flow

suspected in a seven-day period with a

ten-year recurrence interval. That is a very

rare stream flow event. So if I say I have a

stream with a 7 Q 10 value of one CFS, that

stream experiences seven days continuously

averaging one CFS once every ten years.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Can you

explain what a CFS is?

MR. MOSHER: Cubic foot per second.

298

It's a very rare drought event. When

we say we have a 7 Q 10 of zero in a stream,

that means a variety of conditions. In the

larger 7 Q 10 zero streams, it means that only

for one week about every ten years does it get

to zero flow, no flow.

As we go up in the water shed to

smaller and smaller streams, smaller and

smaller water sheds, that period that that

stream is at zero flow is longer and longer.

Some very, very small drainage ditches with

very small water shed, maybe like a square

mile of water shed are zero for maybe three or

four months out of the year. They just don't

have all the inputs of water that bigger

streams have. So to say a stream is

7 Q 10 zero means a real wide variety. But

every once in a while, under extreme drought,

at least, they're all going to be no flow.

This is a concept built into the

Board's regulations that drives lots of things

that the Agency does. We set mixing zones

based on 7 Q ten flow. It's a worst case

condition that we use in establishing permit

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limits. If it's a zero flow stream that

receives an effluent, there can be no mixing

zone, so you must regulate at the water

quality standard because some of the time the

water in that stream will be only effluent and

you'd have to eliminate the water quality

standard.

If we think about exposure to radium

to mammals using the streams in Northern

Illinois, it is only going to be pure effluent

in that stream some of the time. In some of

those zero flow streams, it's going to be

extremely small portion of the time that it's

a full dose of what the effluent had in it,

whether that be ten picoCuries per liter or

something else. We're on record as saying

that we think the worst case in Illinois in a

sewage plant discharge is going to be about

ten picoCuries per liter of radium.

If that's 15, okay. We're estimating

based on what the groundwater had in it to

start with. And that treatment removes some

of that and so forth.

So in the very worst case, that

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raccoon in that stream in Northern Illinois is

just going to receive the dosage we're talking

about for a small period of the year. That's

an extremely big factor in that DOE model

we've been talking about. The DOE model could

be talking about manatees in Florida when

they're always in that stream or lake or

estuary or whatever they're in, and the radium

might always be at a high level there. But in

Northern Illinois, that is far from what's

going to happen and far from the exposure that

our organisms get.

MS. WILLIAMS: So if you were going

to try and use this model for setting a water

quality standard in Illinois, can you explain

how you would go about doing that, or if

you're going to use it, at least to give some

guidance on where we should go?

MR. MOSHER: Well, I'm convinced that

given our conditions in Illinois, we don't

have to go any further; that knowing this

about this model, we know that it's going to

be an order of magnitude or two orders of

magnitude over that default level. And I

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don't see a need to go any further and gather

site-specific data to plug into that model.

If you wanted to go with that model

and plug in that data, you'd have to go

collect it first. You'd have to collect

sediment sample from the stream. You'd have

to collect water samples from that stream, do

flesh analysis from fish, crayfish, mussels

that live in that stream. And you'd have lots

of site-specific data for Northern Illinois.

I'm not implying that it has to be done in

every single stream we're interested in, but

you do it for Northern Illinois. You make it

site-specific for that region.

There's another interesting, I think,

facet of all this is the sediment exposure

facet. We've been given an example from a

lake in Florida where radium comes into the

system and radium doesn't go out of the system

because that lake is a sink without a drain in

it. It's like a big filter. Every bit of

radium they pump into that lake stays in that

lake either in organisms or in the sediment.

MS. WILLIAMS: Bob, are you referring

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to the study on Round Lake in Florida that was

submitted with the testimony?

MR. MOSHER: Yes, I am.

Illinois streams don't behave like

that. They're not lakes. We don't have

dischargers into lakes in Northern Illinois.

Sediment in those streams mixes. It flushes

out. It goes along with the water.

When that zero flow stream is at zero

flow, yes, there's sediment deposition in the

bottom of that stream. When that zero flow

stream is at 100 CFS of flow when it rains a

lot, then that sediment that used to be there

is going downstream and is no longer part of

the exposure equation to those raccoons or

whatever mammals we're talking about.

MS. WILLIAMS: Can you explain more

what you said? You said kind of off the cuff

we don't have dischargers to lakes in Northern

Illinois. Can you maybe flesh that out a

little bit more?

MR. MOSHER: Sewage treatment plant

effluents are discouraged in lakes. We don't

want that situation to happen where whatever

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is in that effluent builds up, whether that's

nutrients or radium or ammonia or anything

else that might be in that sewage treatment

plant effluent.

I don't know one of these effluents

that goes to a lake. I doubt that any of them

do. I believe they're all to streams of

various sizes.

And, of course, we keep talking about

zero flow streams because if these effluents

go to larger streams, then dilution dilutes

that radium, mixing dilutes that radium

immediately, and it's no longer of a level of

concern.

MS. WILLIAMS: I believe there was

some discussion about the possibility of

being -- there being other sources of radium

in Illinois beyond the use of the groundwater.

Did you look at all into the example presented

by WRT of the LaSalle power station as far as

the source of the water they use?

MR. MOSHER: Right. LaSalle -- I

spoke to an individual at LaSalle power

station. I asked him where the makeup water

304

for the power plant comes from. He said

groundwater.

LaSalle is located in the Illinois

radium belt. And while he didn't give me

details on the depth of his wells or whatever,

it's very likely that he's getting water from

the same places all these communities are

getting water, and that's where the radium is

showing up.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: And the

LaSalle County station you're referring to is

Exhibit I of Ted Adams' testimony, Exhibit 14?

MS. WILLIAMS: That's correct.

I think yesterday we had a questions

from Board Member Girard about other states,

and I think there probably have been some --

lots of different places in the record we've

talked about other states. Maybe you can

summarize some of that for us or tell us about

other states that you've looked at since the

initial testimony was filed.

MR. MOSHER: One of the important

proofs that we look to when we're establishing

water quality standards is what other states

305

are doing. Of course, all the other states

are subject to USEPA oversight, guidance,

research. And we've already established that

USEPA is silent on the matter of radium

impacting aquatic life or riparian mammals.

The other states that I contacted --

and I imagine that is about 15 or so at this

point -- none of them had radium water quality

standards for any other reason than to protect

human drinking water. In every case, these

were standards adopted in the '70s.

We mentioned that Oklahoma has

exactly the standard that we would propose the

Board change, and that is five picoCuries per

liter at the point of intake for public or

food processing water supply. There is no

standard that exists elsewhere in Oklahoma

waters.

Iowa is a state I recently contacted.

I chose to contact Iowa, Missouri, and

Wisconsin because they are also part of this

radium groundwater belt. I thought that would

be interesting to see specifically what they

were doing.

306

Iowa has the exact same standard as

Oklahoma, the exact same standard that we

would like to propose. I asked my counterpart

in Iowa what are you doing to address the

groundwater problems communities are having.

She said well, she's aware of that, but

there's no specific way that they are dealing

with that. They're not regulating there like

Illinois has been. They're not putting permit

limits on the sewage treatment plants.

I asked my counterpart in Missouri

the same question, and in Missouri the

standard is five picoCuries per liter in all

waters of the state, the reason being if the

theory in the '70s that we've gone over if

you're protecting humans, you're protecting

everything, so Missouri gets its statewide

radium standard from that; again, back in the

1970s.

Wisconsin, I talked to one of my

counterparts in their water quality standards

unit. He wasn't aware of what their radium

standard was. That's fairly common in that

this just doesn't come up very often. And

307

he's where I was four years ago. I would have

had to go and look it up and tell him, if he

asked me that four years ago, what our radium

standard was.

He referred me to someone in their

groundwater unit. I haven't been able to

contact that person yet, but we can report on

that later.

MS. WILLIAMS: And maybe you can

explain what format you're thinking of.

MR. MOSHER: We can summarize what we

found from the other states on a spreadsheet

like Dr. Girard suggested.

I think our hesitation, when he asked

for that, was that surveying all 50 states was

going to be quite a job, and we didn't know if

we were prepared to do that yet, but we will

summarize the states we have surveyed.

MS. WILLIAMS: And it will be all the

states that you talked to, right, not just

states that agree with our proposal, right?

We will not leave any out?

MR. MOSHER: The first time I did the

survey, I specifically asked: Do you have a

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radium water quality standard that

specifically addresses anything but human

health from drinking water concerns. None of

them did.

MS. WILLIAMS: Do you know, Bob, if

we have a standard for gross beta?

MR. MOSHER: Yes, we do. It's in

part 302. It's, if I'm remembering right, 100

picoCuries per liter. That's correct.

MS. WILLIAMS: Do you agree with the

conclusion in the testimony yesterday that the

Board adopted the one picoCurie per liter

standard as a representation of background

levels?

MR. MOSHER: No, I don't. We

researched that as best we could. That

appears in our original testimony. No

offense, but I think the Board made a mistake

back in 1972, and they twisted some

information that they got from documents

available at that time. I don't think

background had anything to do with why they

adopted one picoCurie per liter.

MS. WILLIAMS: And was that the basis

309

for formulating this proposal? Can you

explain what you see as the reason we came

forward with this proposal at this time to the

Board?

MR. MOSHER: We have a general use

water quality standard right now that I think

is inappropriately overly stringent. Because

of the existence of that standard, many

dischargers who are obligated to use a

groundwater source for drinking water are put

in a position of not meeting that

inappropriate standard.

MS. WILLIAMS: I think that's all I

have for Bob. If you'd like us to -- there's

something else. Is there anything else you'd

like to add, Bob? Oh, I'm sorry. I think Bob

has suggested that maybe we should explain a

little bit again for everyone about the

outreach that we conducted as a part of this

rulemaking development. We usually do talk

about it. I think we talked about it at the

first hearing.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: That was

in your statement of reasons?

310

MS. WILLIAMS: I think it was like a

paragraph in the statement of reasons. Do you

want to maybe expand upon that at all?

MR. MOSHER: Yes. We do an outreach.

We call it stakeholders' outreach. We invite

everyone we can think of to Springfield who

might be a stakeholder in the water quality

standard rulemaking. Usually it's the same

group of people.

In the case of radium, we

invited Illinois Department of Natural

Resources. We invited environmental groups

like the Sierra Club, Prairie Rivers Network.

We invited Municipal Water Supply Association.

I'm probably giving you the wrong name, but

people we know are going to be interested in

the rulemaking.

We do this before we file with the

Board. We've done this for other rulemakings

also. We mail them a draft of our

justification. In this case, it was identical

to what we submitted to the Board. And we put

a cover letter and said: Would you please

meet with us in Springfield on such and such a

311

date; we'd like to discuss what we're planning

to do; we'd like to know if you have any

comments, suggestions.

We had that meeting. Illinois

Department of Natural Resources didn't show

up. The environmental group representatives

didn't show up.

(Brief pause.)

MR. MOSHER: I'm told Beth Wentzel

from Prairie Rivers did show up. I have a

sign-up sheet. We can provide that to the

Board, and you can see who showed up if we're

wrong here.

But in any case, Illinois Department

of Natural Resources didn't show up, and we

take that to mean that they had little

interest in this matter.

We also outreach, so to speak, to

USEPA. By the Clean Water Act, USEPA has to

approve any water quality standards that the

Board adopts. That puts the Agency in an

awkward position. We have to propose

something to the Board. The Board has to

adopt it, and then USEPA has to approve it.

312

The Board can change whatever we propose, but

we do the best we can.

When we're ready to go to a filing

with the Board, we provide the justification

packet, the proposed rulemaking to USEPA. My

standards coordinator here in Chicago, USEPA

region five is Dave Pfeiffer.

Dave and his staff look through that

package for the purposes of giving me a verbal

go ahead. In other words, they look at it and

say: Well, Bob we don't know what the Board

might do to it; we'll have to look at this in

detail after the Board adopts it. Of course,

that's a year from now, more or less. But

from what we see right now, we either don't

like what you're doing, or we think it's okay.

If they don't like what we're doing,

we negotiate. We sit down. We ask them:

Why; what's wrong; how can we make it better;

we need your federal approval. We don't ever

want to go to the Board with something that

you can't approve.

In this case, his response to me was:

It's okay with us; go ahead. So that's a very

313

important type of outreach to get: What our

USEPA counterparts think of one of our

proposals.

MS. WILLIAMS: We have three other

staff, each of whom maybe there's just one or

two questions that would probably just take

maybe ten minutes at the most to go through.

So if that's okay with you, we can do that

real quick, too.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: I just

think Mr. Fort might have some questions for

Mr. Mosher. And if that -- would you --

MS. WILLIAMS: I guess my suggestion,

if it's okay with you, maybe do a panel type

of thing and then let them all go real quick,

and then whichever question goes to which

person

MEMBER MELAS: There is a question in

the back of the room.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI:

Mr. Dobmeyer.

MR. DOBMEYER: Don Dobmeyer. I have

a couple questions of Mosher. And also, I

have some comments that I want to make. So

314

when they're done, I'd like to be able to do

that.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Okay.

Very good. We can hear your comments then.

MEMBER MELAS: You can ask them when

they have the panel up.

MR. HARSCH: I'm sorry, but I'd like

to conclude with the Agency witnesses and then

have testimony of Mr. Duffield and, if there's

time, have provisions for additional comments

if we have time.

MEMBER MELAS: We'll make time.

MR. HARSCH: I hope Mr. Duffield will

be able to testify.

HEARING OFFICER ANTONIOLLI: Sure.

We'll have time. I think he has a question

specifically for the Agency, but we'll be able

to address each in turn.

So you can go ahead with your