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compensation which was raised by several of the members of the 

 scientific panel and that is, as a fish moves deeper in the water col- 

 umn, it, in essence, compensates hydrostatically for supersaturated 

 gas levels. The equation is roughly 3 percent a foot. Therefore, if 

 a fish is 10 feet below the surface, rather than being at 120 per- 

 cent, they are effectively at 110 percent saturation, which is a safe 

 level. Knowing that fish do not migrate solely in the top one foot 

 of the water column, we were very comfortable in moving to a rec- 

 ommendation for 115 percent. 



Senator Kempthorne. Let me ask you, Mr. Stelle, what peer re- 

 view or public review and comment process did you go through be- 

 fore making the policy decision to go ahead with the 1994 spill? 



Mr. Stelle. With last year's spill program, Senator? 



Senator Kempthorne. 1995, excuse me. 



Mr. Stelle. There were several processes. First, at the direction 

 of the court, we engaged in a lengthy discussion with the parties 

 to the Marsh litigation as it is so called, to discuss how the earlier 

 plan of operations could be adjusted to better improve fish survival. 

 During those discussions, the States of Oregon, Washington, and 

 Idaho, and some of the environmental parties recommended spill as 

 one of the recovery measures. 



At the same time, we developed a written draft biological opinion 

 which we circulated to all of the parties and sought comments from 

 them, both written comments and we had a number of meetings 

 with them, and it was based on those meetings and those com- 

 ments that we made a final decision that was reflected on the spill 

 program per se. It was reflected in the March 2 Biological Opinion. 



At the same time but separately, our Science Center was review- 

 ing the data from the 1994 spill program and had convened twice 

 an expert gas panel to look at that spill program and to develop 

 recommendations both on how to design a spill program and to de- 

 sign an effective, reliable monitoring program. That as a peer-re- 

 viewed — it wasn't a peer-reviewed exercise but it was basically a 

 special panel of gas experts that helped us assemble that. So there 

 was both the scientific side of it and then the policy side of it, and 

 there was substantial participation from both. 



Senator KEMPTHORNE. In light of the previous panel's testimony, 

 did you plan from the outset of this year's spill program to look for 

 internal signs of gas bubble trauma in fish by looking for bubbles 

 forming within the gills or did the National Marine Fisheries Serv- 

 ice do so only after independent review of your proposal forced the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service to do so? 



Mr. Stelle. I believe the answer is the latter but again, let me 

 defer to Dr. Schiewe if I may. 



Senator Kempthorne. Dr. Schiewe. 



Dr. Schiewe. The examination of gill filaments or gill lamellae 

 was indeed one of the components of the monitoring program rec- 

 ommended by the peer panel. After the two peer panels, the Na- 

 tional Msirine Fisheries Service, in conjunction with the Environ- 

 mental Protection Agency, convened a panel of regional scientists 

 that have dealt with this issue for many years and they basicallv 

 scrubbed the growing monitoring program that had been drafted. 

 There was great discussion over whether to include this internal 



