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and containment equipment, that the so-called best available tech- 

 nology was used if there was to be an oilspill, and that this equip- 

 ment be located offshore, which is a situation that was different in 

 the North Atlantic than it has been in any other OCS area. 



The Coast Guard requires a 6-hour response time once a spill has 

 occurred. And the onshore station facilities for the Georges Bank 

 drilling is Davisville, R.I. — easily more than 6 hours away, should 

 there ever be a spill that occurred. 



So to answer your question, the States were involved in making 

 sure that there were trained personnel and the most up-to-date 

 equipment. 



I will pass commenting on the equipment, but we did work with 

 two Federal agencies in assuring that there were adequate safe- 

 guards, or as adequate as could be independent of drilling technol- 

 ogy available before there was drilling on Georges Bank. 



Mr. D'Amours. Are you satisfied currently, Miss Hughes, that 

 the techology is sufficiently ready and close at hand to deal with 

 an eventual oil spill? 



Ms. Hughes. The Department of the Interior did hold two inde- 

 pendent and unannounced responses. One was purely and simply a 

 communications response. They radioed a rig that there was a spill 

 that had occurred hypothetically in order to test how quickly the 

 offshore rig personnel could contact the onshore people. The appro- 

 priate Federal agencies were contacted. That happened really in 

 less than an hour, and everyone was quite pleased with the short- 

 ness of time involved. 



Then in addition, there was a spill — excuse me — there was a 

 drill, again unannounced — well, it was planned for, but somewhat 

 unannounced, to test the rig personnel, trained rig personnel in the 

 deployment of the skimming barrier, the primary piece of equip- 

 ment that is required to be kept offshore and deployed in the case 

 of a spill. And all reports were that that was a very satisfactory 

 drill as well, that the personnel were well-trained and were well- 

 coordinated in getting the equipment into the water. 



Mr. D'Amours. Do you see any need — to get to the second part of 

 my question — for the Biological Task Force to get into this area? 



Ms. Hughes. I don't only in the sense there is a regional re- 

 sponse team that is a part of the Coast Guard's responsibilities. To 

 date the Coast Guard, the regional response team, made up of the 

 State and other Federal agencies, and the Department of the Inte- 

 rior, have been able to cooperate quite well to date, and the people 

 who are on the regional response team have familiarity with oil 

 spill clean-up containment equipment, chemical disbursements. In 

 other words, they have the technical know-how to do a good job. 



I think the task force has a little bit different makeup for obvi- 

 ous reasons. 



Mr. D'Amours. So your answer is no, you don't see any reason 

 for the task force to get into this? 



Ms. Hughes. No. 



Mr. D'Amours. How about you, Mr. Colgan, in terms of these 

 questions? 



Mr. Colgan. With regard to the first question about the States' 

 involvement, I would only amplify what Pat said on one point. In 

 the initial review of exploration plans that we did back in 1981, 



