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1. INTRODUCTION
In October 2004, Congress amended the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) with Part E which provides compensation and medical benefits for Department of Energy (DOE) contractor and subcontractor employees whose illnesses were caused by exposure to toxic substances while working at a DOE facility, uranium mine, uranium mill, uranium ore-buying station or performing uranium ore transport.
The Site Exposure Matrices (SEM) website contains information about the use of toxic substances at these sites.
Using unclassified information made available by the DOE, DOE workers, and from publicly available resources, the SEM identifies toxic substances used at each site, labor categories, work processes and locations.
Information in SEM is based on data as it existed on March 29, 2010 and has been reviewed and approved for public release by the DOE.
Users should be aware that complete documentation of toxic substance use at each site is not available to DOL, and may not exist in some cases.
As additional information is learned and reviewed by DOE, it will be added to SEM.
The SEM contains two general categories of information: chemical profiles and site-specific information.
For a selected toxic substance, its chemical profile includes the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) number that identifies the chemical, aliases or synonyms for the substance name, and chemical and physical properties.
The SEM includes occupational health effects as defined by the National Institutes of Health Haz-Map database.
SEM includes information only on toxic-disease causal relationships.
Although aggravation of an existing disease or health effect is covered by Part E, such relationships are evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
2. CONFIGURING YOUR BROWSER
The SEM Website is designed for use with Internet Explorer version 5 or later. Though other browsers may be used, they may have unpredictable behavior. Make sure that “cookies” and “active scripting“ (JavaScript) are enabled.
3. SEM HOME PAGE
The SEM home page (www.sem.dol.gov) presents links to available search options.
Links to each search option are also presented in the horizontal menu at the bottom of the page.
In this Help Guide, the term “site” is used to refer generally to: a DOE facility; a uranium mine; a uranium mill; a uranium ore-buying station; or a uranium ore transport operation.
The following section provides information on how to use SEM, starting from the SEM home page, to conduct various site searches.
To focus on a specific site, then you must first indicate the type of site (DOE facility, uranium mine, uranium mill, uranium ore-buying station, or uranium ore transport) using the type selection buttons (bulls eye) on the bottom of the SEM home page (Figure 1).
Next, indicate the particular site by selecting it on the Site selector drop-down menu and clicking the Select button.
| |  | | Figure 1: Detail of expanded interface home page after a site is selected |
For uranium mines a state must be selected; a county must be selected; the mine can then be selected from a list of mines in the selected state and county.
Similarly, for uranium mills and ore-buying stations, a state must be selected before a particular facility can be selected.
Once a site has been selected, the returned page shows a list of all the chemicals known to have been used at the site.
A chemical on the list may have been used at many areas or only one small area of the site.
The returned page also contains a link to expanded data for the site.
Clicking on the spyglass labeled "View expanded SEM data for the selected facility:" provides a page ("Detailed SEM Data Home Page") with information on buildings, labor categories, work processes and incidents at the site.
Not all categories of information apply to all sites.
If a category of information does not apply to the site selected, then a link to that information will not be displayed on the Detailed SEM Data Home Page.
For example, if SEM contains no information about incidents at a site, then the Incidents category will not be displayed on the Detailed SEM Data Home Page.
4. FOCUS PAGES FOR TOXIC SUBSTANCES, DISEASES, AREAS, FACILITIES, BUILDINGS, PROCESSES, LABOR CATEGORIES, AND INCIDENTS
The Detailed SEM Data Home Page presents links to pages that focus on different topics of interest: toxic substances, diseases (health effects), areas, facilities, buildings, processes, labor categories, and incidents for the selected site (e.g., Alba Craft).
After selecting one of these topics, the returned focus page (e.g., "Toxic substance information") presents a drop-down menu for selecting an item of interest (e.g., ammonium phosphate, monbasic) and a button to submit your request (Figure 2).
| |  | | Figure 2: Detail of toxic substance focus page after a selection has been made |
The returned page displays information about use of the selected item of interest at the site (e.g., ammonium phosphate, monobasic was used in four buildings, one process site revegetation, by remediation workers).
More advanced uses of the information are available but are beyond the scope of this Users Guide.
A user seeking advanced instruction for a particular search should submit a request using the "Submit Site-Related Information form accessible from the SEM home page.
4.1 SECONDARY FILTERS
The returned page for the selected item of interest (e.g., ammonium phosphate, monobasic) provides options for secondary filtering of the lists of related items.
The secondary filters are located at the top of the page and only one secondary filter can be applied at a time.
For example, applying the building filter "Alba Craft Laboratory" and pressing the Submit button limits the search results to that building.
4.2 SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE TOXIC SUBSTANCE FOCUS PAGE
The toxic substance focus page for each substance has a link to the National Library of Medicine Haz-Map website.
(Note: If a toxic substance focus page does not have a link to Haz-Map, then Haz-Map does not have information on the substance.)
The Haz-Map site contains expanded information about the selected substance.
5. CONSTRUCTION
Evaluating potential construction worker exposures to toxic substances requires a multi-step process.
Construction worker exposures are separated into two categories: exposures due to toxic substances inherent to the construction craft, and exposures to toxic substances caused by performing the construction work on a DOE site.
The following steps should be used to identify potential construction worker exposures:
| Step 1. Identify the toxic substances and hazards inherent to the construction craft.
These are exposure hazards typical of general craft work activities and are independent of the site where the work is being performed. |
| 1. | Go to the SEM home page.
Select "Show DOE Facilities" at the bottom of the page.
On the returned page, select Construction (all sites) from the drop down Facility menu. |
| 2. | Select the Labor category information link.
From the drop-down menu, select the title of the construction labor category of interest, e.g., “Electrician, construction”. |
| 3. | The list of substances returned are those typically used by a worker in the construction labor category selected. |
| Step 2. Identify the additional toxic substance exposures caused by performing construction work on a DOE site. |
| 1. | Go to the SEM home page.
Select "Show DOE Facilities" at the bottom of the page.
Select the DOE site where construction work of interest was performed from the drop down Facility menu. |
| 2. | Select the Labor category information link.
From the drop-down menu, select Construction worker.
Note: Individual construction craft titles are NOT listed in this list of labor categories. |
| 3. | Select the location where construction work was performed from the Area, Facility, or Building drop-down menus.
The results are filtered to show only those substances used in the selected location. |
| 4. | The list of substances returned are all those used in the selected location (area, facility or building).
This does not mean the construction worker was exposed to all these substances.
It is highly unlikely that any construction worker would be exposed to all the toxic substances used in operating processes in a given location. |
| Step 3. Combine the results from Step 1 and Step 2.
The resulting list defines the maximum potential exposures that a construction worker at a DOE site could have experienced. |
6. SEARCH PAGES
Because you may not always be able to identify toxic substances, health effects, areas, facilities, buildings, process (activities), and labor categories (jobs) the way they are formally listed in the SEM database, several text searches are provided to help you find the item of interest.
These searches can be accessed on the Detailed SEM Data Home Page by clicking on the applicable link:
- Toxic substance by alias or property
- Disease or health effect by alias
- Building by alias
- Process by alias
- Labor category by alias
6.1 GUIDELINES FOR TEXT SEARCHES
Attempts have been made to anticipate the different ways that names and aliases might be entered in SEM.
Nevertheless, when searching for an item which is, or could be, expressed in a multi-word or hyphenated form, it is suggested that the search be performed for one word at a time.
For example, when searching for the formal toxic substance name for “yellow cake” you may get better results by searching for “yellow” and “cake” separately, to ensure that all possible toxic substances are found which may be of interest.
It is important to keep in mind that searching for partial words may return non-relevant items.
For example, searching for “LEU” in the toxic substance alias search will return both uranium (via the abbreviation for low-enriched uranium) and petroleum.
7. TOXIC SUBSTANCE EXPOSURE AND DISEASE RELATIONSHIPS
DOL uses established relationships between toxic substance exposures and occupational diseases as reported by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) on its Haz-Map website (http://hazmap.nlm.nih.gov/).
The NLM toxic substance exposure/disease relationships acknowledged by DOL are those reported in Haz-Map.
For a selected chemical, SEM displays the link(s) shown in Haz-Map in the row labeled “Diseases”.
Haz-Map contains additional information in its “Comments” and “Exposure Assessment” sections.
However, NLM does not consider the information in the "Comments" and "Exposure Assessment" sections to be scientifically established and therefore they are not shown in SEM.
Additionally, SEM is not the sole resource for determining causation under Part E, but rather represents only one avenue by which causal links can be established.
Evidence presented in support of a particular claim is evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
8. OTHER
The SEM home page has “Submit” buttons that can be used to submit information to the DOL.
This feature can be used if you:
- need assistance accessing the site or using the database,
- have comments or suggestions for improving the website, or
- wish to submit information for consideration for inclusion in SEM.
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