Declassifications Requested by the Technical Steering Panel of Hanford Documents Produced 1944-1960 (PNWD-2024 Hedr)

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Declassifications Requested By the Technical Steering Panel of Hanford letter report prepared for the Technical Steering Panel and the Centers for Disease Control Pacific Northwest Laboratories

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This report was prepared by Battelle as an account of sponsored research activities. Neither Sponsor nor Battelle nor any person acting on behalf of MAKES ANY WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, with repeato the accuracy, compieceness, or usefulness of the information contained in this nport or that the use of any in hati on, apparatus, process, or composition disclosed in this repott may not infringe privatecy owned rights: or Assumes any liabilitieswith respect to the &of, or darnages resulting from the use of,any information, apparatus, process, or composition disclosed in Refuence hemin to any specificcommercial produn process. or service by vadc nunc. trademark. manufactum, or o this e, does not necessariiy cocIstku# or imply endmemst, recommendation, or favoring by Sponsor Printed in the United Statu of Ameria Availrbk to DOE and DOE conmcton from the Office of Scientific and Technical Infomution, P.O. Box 62, Oalr Ridge, TN 37831; A v a i W to the public from the National Technical Infornution Service. US. Dcpumwcrt of C w n c m , 5285 Port Roy4 Rd., Springfield, VA 22161.

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REQUESTED BY THE TECHNICAL STEERING PANEL OF HANFORD DOCUMENTS PRODUCED 1944-1960 Hanford Environmental Dose Letter report prepared for the Technical Steering Panel and the Centers for Disease Control Pacific Northwest Laboratories

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The primary objective o f the Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction (HEDR) Project i s to estimate the radiation doses (with descriptions of the uncertainties inherent in such estimates) that people could have received as a result of emissions since 1944 from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. Panel (TSP) directs the project which is conducted by Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories staff. An independent Technical Steering A secondary objective is to make Hanford-originated documents o f potential interest and use available to the public through the U . S . Government’s National Technical Information Service and the DOE Rich1 and Field Office (RL) Public Reading Room, Richland, Washington. The HEDR Project work is conducted under several technical and administrative tasks, among which is the Information Resources Task. This task identifies, searches for, retrieves, declassifies (if necessary) and makes available t o HEDR staff and the public those documents essential t o meet project needs. Project information needs center around 1 ) information necessary to estimate doses people may have received and 2) information requested by the pub1 ic on operational and radioactive materi a1 re1 eases. This letter report fulfills HEDR Project Milestone 1102A with the original title of Declassified, Prioritized Document List.

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The purpose of this letter report is t o list the actions taken on historical documents that the Technical Steering Panel (TSP) and/or the p u b l ic identified as being o f potential use t o the HEDR Project. addressed herein were generated from 1944 through 1960 at the Hanford Site a n d were still listed as classified documents in 1990. Of nearly 11,000 remaining classified documents produced from 1944 through 1960, 1429 were identified by the public and/or TSP as documents which an appropriately cleared TSP member should review to determine whether they contained useful information. The selection process for declassification was based on public interest (number of requests for a particular document) and HEDR Project needs as determined by.the TSP. Those documents with two or more requests from the public and/or TSP are listed in Appendix A . Those with only one request are listed i n Appendix B. O f the 1429 documents, the TSP reviewed 923 to determine their relevance to the HEDR Project and prioritized them accordingly for declassification. The rest o f the 1429 documents (506) had i n the meantime already been declassified and so were not reviewed. This report lists the 1429 documents and their classification status. documents generated from 1944-1960 have been completed. Of the 1429 documents, 1103 were declassified (492 as a result of TSP/public requests, 506 previously declassified, 105 declassified for other programs). The remaining 326 documents were not declassified because either they were determined by the TSP to be not applicable t o the HEDR Project or because of the reasons given in the appendixes. Of the 1103 declassified documents, 506 have not been reviewed by the TSP for their pertinence to the HEDR Project. provides an overview of the declassification process.

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Nearly 11.000 remaining classilied 419 documents determined not applicable and therefore not designated tor aeclassificatm requested by the c> Total of 1103 documents declassified D Total of 326 documents not decksflied Restricted to these years by DOE at the time this project began FIGURE 1. Declassification Process for Hanford Documents Applicable to HEDR by the public or a requested more than once by the public andor a

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The author would like to acknowledge the efforts of S. D. Cannon, a communications specialist, who worked with the author to present a clear picture of a complex declassification process. design of Figure 1 will help the reader follow the flow of the documents. We hope, especially, that her

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APPENDIX A - DOCUMENTS REQUESTED MORE THAN ONCE BY THE PUBLIC AND/OR A TECHNICAL STEERING PANEL MEMBER ....... APPENDIX B - DOCUMENTS REQUESTED ONLY ONCE BY THE PUBLIC OR A TECHNICAL STEERING PANEL MEMBER .........

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1De classification Process for Hanford Documents Applicable 1 Number o f Documents Requested More than Once by the Public 2 Number o f Documents Requested Only Once by the Public or a

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Originally most Hanford documents were classified.In order to meet Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction (HEDR) Project goals and in form the public, those classified documents pertaining to HEDR needed t o be declassified. Beginning April 1990, Bat tell e Pacific Northwest Laboratories staff compiled and then submitted tothe Technical Steering Panel (TSP) nearly 11,000 remaining classified Hanford document titles generated from 1944 those produced from 1944 through 1960. process. Obviously all 11,000 documents could not be declassified pertinent to the HEDR Project and o f most interest to the public were designated t o be declassified first.Interest to the public was based on the number of requests by the public and/or TSP members per document. This first selection step resulted in two lists. The 367 documents i n Appendix Awere those requested more than once by the public and/or a TSP member. documents i n Appendix B were those requested only once. This document listing was limited by a DOE memorandum(a) t o Declassifying a document is a slow A priority system was set up whereby those documents most For the second selection step, the TSP members with classified - document clearances reviewed these two lists of documents t o determine those o f most value to the HEDR Project and there by those which should be declassified first. They reviewed 65% (923) of the total 1429 documents on the two lists Useful " columns i n Appendixes A and B denotes the TSP de classification determination for each document. An "XI' is useful. An "xx" is very useful. The other 506 documents were not reviewed because they had already been declassified under a separate de classification process. Figure1 shows an overview of the de classification process for Hanford historical documents. Once prioritized,the HEDR document de classification process began. The result is 1103 declassified documents as shown on the two listings in Appendixes A and B. It should be noted that12 documents designated by the

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TSP to be declassified were not declassified. These particular documents are identified i n Appendixes A and B by a double asterisk (**) following the document number. The reasons for not declassifying are given in the column, “Classification Action.” A l s o , some documents designated as not useful by the TSP were declassified anyway because they were extremely short and therefore could be quickly declassified. denoted w i t h a “ T ” in the “Decl” column and without an “x” or “xx“ in either The 506 documents not reviewed by the TSP are Tables 1 and 2 present a numerical breakdown of the actions taken on the Those actions which could be performed by Battelle staff have The declassified documents identified as useful to the HEDR Project are publicly available in the RL Public Reading Room in Richland, Washington. addition, the documents have been sent to the DOE Office o f Scientific a n d Technical Information (OSTI) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which in turn abstracts, indexes, and converts the documents’ bibliographic information into databases that can be electronically searched on several commercial systems. The documents may a l s o be purchased in microfiche or hard copy form from: National Technical Information Service 5285 Port Royal Road TABLE 1. Number o f Documents Requested More than Once by the Public and/or a Total number of documents on list 367 Number of documents decl assi f i ed Number of documents not declassified Number o f documents deemed NOT useful by TSP 367 Number of documents not reviewed by TSP because 12 they were previously declassified

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TABLE 2. Number of Documents Requested Only Once by the Public or a TSP Total number o f documents on list 1062 Number of documents declassified Number o f documents not declassified Number of documents deemed useful by TSP Number o f documents deemed NOT useful by TSP Number of documents not reviewed by TSP because they were previously declassified

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documents generated from 1944-1960 have been completed. The declassification action listings in this report may be used by the TSP as a basis for deciding whether additional documents need to be examined by cleared TSP staff or whether these completed actions are sufficient. that resulted bec not pertaining to decl ass i f i cat ions in this report identify only the 1103 declassifications use o f their relevance to the HEDR Project. Other documents HEDR have been declassified as well. The HEDR 1103 are over one fifth of the total of 4913 declassifications o f documents made by Battelle staff between March 1987 a n d

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DOCUMENTS REOUESTED MORE THAN ONCE BY THE PUBLIC AND/OR A TECHNICAL STEERING PANEL MEMBER (Note : Total Appendix A pages are 46) Anonymous, author not identified in database from which bibliographic information was Document location, generally in the Records Holding Area. Building 712. Richland Classification level. either Secret or Confidential Confidential. a classification level Custodian, corporate entity having custodial responsibi 1 ity for the document Declassified document either with o r without deletions Deletions, when following a document number indicates some deletions have been made by False or No Hard copy, full-size paper copy Microfilm copy, either 4-in. x 6-in. microfiche or 16-mn strip film Multiple request, requested by two o r wore members of the TSP and/or public True or Yes Westinghouse Hanford Company Document usefulness designation by TSP to determine need for declassification -- useful Document usefulness designation by TSP to determine need for declassification -- very Building number and area for the Hanford Technical Library Documents f o r which Battelle staff do not have declassification authority or those which contain currently classified information