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review of the lease operator's oil spill contingency plan and advises the USGS on 

 the adequacy of spill response, cleeinup equipment and procedures. An MOU be- 

 tween USGS and the Coast Guard that will formalize this arrangement is under 

 development. Of course, if the discharger fails to take adequate action the Coast 

 Guard would declare a Federal action and initiate a response. It is our opinion that 

 the industry has had a good record over the past seven to ten years. 



Question 7. What role does the Coast Guard play in blowout clean-ups, what is the 

 procedure, and how many times has the Coast Guard been involved in clean-up 

 activity relating to U.S. OCS oil and gas activity over the past year? Please be 

 sj)ecific. 



Answer. In accordance with National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution 

 Contingency Plan, the Coast Guard provides the On Scene Coordination (OSC), and 

 would chair the Regional and National Response Teams. The OCS would engage 

 those commercial and federal capabilities he judges necessary to address the dis- 

 charge. This would occur only if the Coast Guard determined that the response 

 action by the discharger was inadequate. 



In 1978, the Coast Guard was involved in 52 oil discharges from OCS offshore 

 production facilities and no oil discharges from offshore pipelines. These amounted 

 to 0.4 percent of the total number of oil spills in the U.S. that year. 



In 1979, the statistics are 21 oil discharges, and one oil discharge from the same 

 respective categories, amounting to 0.2 percent of the total numter of oil spills in 

 the U.S. 



None of these spills required significant Coast Guard response activity. 



Question 8. In your judgment, should there be or is there anything startling about 

 your statement concerning your inability to perform clean-up operations in greater 

 than ten foot waves or 20-knot winds? 



Answer. In our judgment, there is nothing startling about the inability to perform 

 clean-up operations in greater than ten foot seas and 20 foot winds. As stated in the 

 testimony, significant natural dispersion of oil takes place in 8-10 foot seas and in 

 such conditions surface recovery operations may not be feasible, one reason being 

 that people cannot fully or safely perform under such circumstances. 



Question 9. Does industry have any advantage over the Coast Guard in their 

 ability to respond to, handle, or to control oil spills resulting from blowouts? 



Answer. Industry contingency planning is developed to respond to a known threat 

 and of a narrow range of products at a specific location. The equipment can be 

 maintained near the threatened area and logistics can be well planned ahead of 

 time. The Coast Guard, on the other hand, is required to respond to spills over a 

 wide area with uncertain volumes of a large range of products. In consequence. 

 Coast Guard equipment is generally more portable, being transported in lightweight 

 modules, covers a larger spectrum on oil and hazardous substances and is usable in 

 a wider range of sea or environmental conditions. Transport delays can be exp)ected 

 and there may be times when, due to the multi purpose nature of the equipment, 

 site specific hardware would be more effective. 



Question 10. How many clean-up operations have actually been conducted by the 

 Coast Guard since 1970 resulting from blowouts by U.S. OCS operators? 



Question 11. How many clean-up operations of oil spills resulting from U.S. OCS 

 blowouts has the Coast Guard been involved with in any capacity, and what was 

 that capacity? 



Answer. Our records indicate that there have been 23 offshore blowouts reported 

 to the Coast Guard since 1973. The role of the Coast Guard has been to monitor the 

 cleanup and mitigation activities performed by the parties responsible for the dis- 

 charge. 



Question 12. How many clean-up operations resulting from tanker spills has the 

 Coast Guard been involved with since 1970? Please be specific and include products 

 involved. 



Answer. Coast Guard tanker spill data for 1973-1979 is provided in Enclosure (2). 



Question 13. During clean-up operations, isn't it a fact that high winds and rough 

 seas are a benefit in cleaning up a spill (such as occurred during the Bay of 

 Campeche cleanup operations)? Isn't it also a fact that crude oil that mixes with the 

 water column is actually broken down because of the natural events that occur 

 when crude oil mixes with sea water? 



Answer. High winds and rough seas will always hamper an operation at sea. A 

 storm will decrease the efficiency of the operation and increase the risk to person- 

 nel. On the other hand such weather can, if carrying the oil away from an environ- 

 mentally or economically sensitive area, improve the overall situation by reducing 

 or eliminating the impact and subsequent stress of spilled oil on those areas. 



Oil when released to the environment begins a biodegradation process. Some oil 

 mixes with the water right away, but most remains as a part of the slick. It is true 



