457 



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 innovative monitoring techniques must occur in order to offset 



rising costs, larger lease areas, smaller budgets, and above all. 



Interior's dangerous prevailing attitude: concurrent monitoring 



and leasing, coupled with the trend toward inventory leasing. 



C. MONITORING IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FISHERY 



Finally, I would like to touch briefly on the implications 

 of monitoring for the Georges Bank fishery. The first year of 

 monitoring data provides no basis for concluding that oil and 

 gas exploration does not harm the fishery. Three years of 

 accumulated data is the minimum necessary for a credible 

 baseline study. And it is important to note that the Georges 

 Bank monitoring program is primarily a long-term study. It is 

 designed to assess the effects of oil and gas over the 40 year 

 life of the field. It is certainly possible that many significant 

 effects will become apparent only in retrospect. (This, by the 

 way, is an important argument for ensured, long-term funding for 

 the monitoring program. I wonder about Interior's scientific 

 funding enthusiasm once all the leases have been sold. Will 

 the monitoring program be terminated shortly thereafter, once its 

 utility as a shield from environmental attack has passed?) 



Scientists agree that long-term chronic damage may be 

 difficult to distinguish from natural variability. Georges 

 Bank, for instance, is distinguished by occasional strong 

 "year classes" — fish that are the predominant support of 

 the fishery for numerous years. If one of these crucial year 

 classes is lost to an oil spill or to chronic discharge, we may 

 simply never know of its destruction. Only in twenty years, 

 when the next strong year-class is long overdue, will we 

 finally learn of the serious harm the fishery has suffered. 



Any decision to lease Georges Bank for oil and gas activity 



