31 



tion of how we want to balance transportation with in-river move- 

 ment of fish for the years to come. 



Senator Kempthorne. Mr. Stelle, would you like to comment? 



Mr. Stelle. Yes. I think, Senator, if I understand the thrust of 

 your questions, it goes to the gas levels. 



Senator Kempthorne. Well, no, it goes to what the previous 

 panel had stated, the number of scientists who said they lust felt 

 that their scientific recommendations were ignored and that if it 

 was contrary to the policy direction the National Marine Fisheries 

 Service was going to take, there was a disconnect. 



Mr. Stelle. Senator, I think that is wrong, I think it's com- 

 pletely wrong. Again, I'd defer to Dr. Schiewe in part because he 

 ran those panels. I believe those panels were conducted in a credi- 

 ble and scientifically sound manner and I believe that we listened 

 and learned from it. 



There are a couple of specific issues that were raised this morn- 

 ing and without getting into too much detail, there is a question 

 of access to the monitoring program. Six weeks ago or so when the 

 incident in Ice Harbor occurred, there was all sorts of what I would 

 call a media frenzy on that subject and that frenzy ran the risk of 

 substantially undercutting the quality of the monitoring effort. We 

 couldn't have people and cameras crawling all over our monitoring 

 boats looking over the people doing the monitoring and the re- 

 search. Therefore, in order to avoid that and in order to protect the 

 integrity of the monitoring program and to protect the safety of the 

 people conducting the monitoring effort, we stipulated that any- 

 body, any member of the public who wanted access to the monitor- 

 ing effort need only call us and we would make arrangements for 

 that access, but it had to be done in an orderly way both to protect 

 the integrity of the monitoring program and the people doing it. 



There were some specific issues as well. Clearly not every rec- 

 ommendation of every member of that panel was necessarily adopt- 

 ed either by the overall panel or by the National Marine Fishenes 

 Service. I think what we heard this morning was some of that. 



Senator KEMPTHORNE. Mr. Stelle, last year's testimony also 

 talked about the National Marine Fisheries Service Spill Panel 

 that was convened in the last few days of the 1994 spills. They rec- 

 ommended that the river be managed to confine total dissolved gas 

 levels to the existing 110 percent standard if we intend to protect 

 fish from harm. Can you tell me if the National Marine Fisheries 

 Service accepted that recommendation from the panel? 



Dr. Schiewe. 



Dr. Schiewe. We considered that as the basic cornerstone from 

 where we would go with that entire adaptive management ap- 

 proach to spill. The existing standards which were built upon the 

 National Academy of Sciences' recommendations of 110 percent of 

 saturation in the early 1970's have been adopted by all the States 

 as well as the Federal Government. The panel's statement was 

 very specifically that it was probably a good standard; going below 

 that might afford greater protection; going above that would move 

 in the direction of harm. 



We also evaluated the current literature that has been developed 

 in the scientific arena since those early reports of the National 

 Academy of Science and we looked very hard at the issue of depth 



