429 



Mr. D'Amours. All right. When I say toxic, I mean to the marine 

 environment, not necessarily to human beings. 



Mr. Beller. Yes. 



Mr. D'Amours. It is not toxic to the marine environment nor to 

 human beings? 



Mr. Beller. Moderate amounts have not been shown to be toxic 

 to either species. 



Mr. D'Amours. OK. 



I want to bring this to some kind of a conclusion. But there is 

 still an area I want to explore with you gentlemen. We will get 

 back to Mr. Danenberger. 



On the bottom of page 8 of your testimony, you referred to the 

 various studies that have been performed and planned for deep 

 water, and then you state that: 



The Department remains convinced, however, as has been noted in recent NEPA 

 documents, that there are sufficient controls on drilling operations and that deep 

 water environments would suffer no greater risk of damage than those of shallower 

 areas. 



I have been concerned for some time that the sale 52 leasing was 

 done even before the biological task force reports were published 

 and released. And now you are getting into the deep water tracts 

 and sites even before any real studies have been done as to the pos- 

 sible impacts of deep water drilling, especially the impacts of drill- 

 ing in areas that are deeper than have ever been attempted before. 



Some people think this represents a bit of a cavalier attitude 

 toward the marine protection functions of the Department of the 

 Interior. What would you say to that? 



Mr. Danenberger. Well, I think it is unlikely that one or two 

 deep water wells would have any detectable effect on the environ- 

 ment. Now, there has to be some sort of monitoring program, and 

 there has to be some sort of drilling operation ongoing to effect a 

 meaningful monitoring program, if you intend to monitor the drill- 

 ing. 



I think the important aspects of all this is to tie the results of 

 the monitoring program into the regulatory program such that if 

 the monitoring does show that modifications in the drilling could 

 reduce any effects that were detected, then we could make some 

 modifications in the drilling program. I think the Department re- 

 mains committed to monitoring, but we feel that this can be on- 

 going as the exploratory drilling proceeds, and that we will have 

 even a far better understanding of the potential effects when and if 

 we move into the development and production stage which would 

 be the stage that would more likely create any impacts if there are 

 going to be any. 



So I think the exploratory stage is a good time to do some moni- 

 toring to see if, and when there is, and if there is more drilling ac- 

 tivity, what modifications in the programs will be necessary. 



Mr. D'Amours. You don't think it is important to have all of this 

 information before we begin to explore — given that it is very diffi- 

 cult to distinguish between the exploration stage once it results in 

 a successful discovery? It moves to the production phase almost im- 

 mediately, does it not? 



