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the personnel are well trained, they are exercised and in general 

 they have a contingency plan and the wherewithal to address an 

 oilspill on the OCS. Now although the law says that the discharger 

 will address that spill, if he cannot do so or will not do so or is not 

 doing it the way we think he should then we will declare a Federal 

 response utilizing the 311 fund, commercial cleanup contractors in 

 addition to our own equipment to address the spill. 



Mr. Breaux. What can you tell the committee about the efforts 

 by operators, by industry, I guess, with regard to having equipment 

 and the plan in place to address a potential spill? 



Captain Corbett. I can address that question for the Georges 

 Bank because that has been getting most of my attention recently 

 as far as that is concerned. 



The operators have placed on retainer, as we understand, it a 

 group which is to develop their contingency plan and to develop 

 the wherewithal, identify the equipment, Mr. Chairman, to respond 

 to an oilspill on the Georges Bank utilizing the criteria which we 

 have established and which I described in my testimony. As of 

 yesterday, we have not received such a contingency plan. It is my 

 personal view that it is within the wherewithal of that organiza- 

 tion to develop it yet we still have not received it. I do not know 

 why. If there are any doubts in anyone's mind that we intend to 

 give it a very close look just because we receive it late — if it is 

 delivered late we are not going to rush through it for that reason, 

 we are going to give it our most deliberate attention. 



Mr. Breaux. What about in areas other than Georges Bank, 

 where we have had leasing for years? What about the most recent 

 period of time, does industry have contingency plans in place, with 

 equipment and manpower? 



Captain Corbett. The OCS orders themselves require the contin- 

 gency plan, the equipment, personnel, training, that sort of thing. 

 Quite frankly in other areas the Coast Guard and Department of 

 the Interior have not gotten as close together as we have on the 

 Georges Bank situation. However, we do have regional response 

 teams; the Coast Guard chairs those teams in the coastal regions 

 and Interior is a member of those teams. But we have not had 

 agreement with Interior where we would very specifically review 

 those contingency plans although they are required, and I am sure 

 Interior has reviewed them. 



Mr. Breaux. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Studds. Mr. Carney. 



Mr. Carney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just concerned 

 about the utilization of dispersants. I know that is probably not 

 your responsibility to make that determination, but I was wonder- 

 ing do you have available studies on the use of it as opposed to 

 containing the spills? 



Captain Corbett. We do have quite a large responsibility as far 

 as the necessary studies the Environmental Protection Agency has 

 the responsibility for studying the dispersant issue and has done so 

 for a number of years. It has approved a number of dispersants. 

 May I explain Annex 10 briefly of the National Contingency Plan. 

 The predesignated on-scene coordinator has the authorization to 

 use dispersants if he feels that there is a significant threat to life 

 or property of say a gasoline spill, a light oil spill. He has the 



