1 with canyon heads and drilling, environmental mediation, although we 



2 have no mediator, there are some elements of that here. 



3 There are some elements of preparing a technical summary and, last 



4 but not least, if we are lucky there will be a little bit of debate and 



5 that's not bad either. 



5 So, what's our approach? Our approach basically was to try find a 



7 way to stimulate discussion. We thought the most effective way to do 



8 that was to propose a conclusion or a hypothesis that probably would not 



9 be entirely acceptable to some participants, at least, and throw it out 



10 there and let everybody shoot at it. 



11 Hopefully, if you do shoot at it, or for that matter if you do 



12 support it, you will try to provide facts to go along with the comments 



13 that we can then use either to provide these to decision makers for 



14 their consideration, or to plan additional work within the Studies 



15 Program, should that be appropriate. 



16 What we hope to do is allow an open discussion between all of the 



17 participants, but it is not a public meeting. That isn't because we 



18 didn't want the public here, it's because in order to do this 



19 effectively, we felt you had to limit the number of participants, 



20 otherwise you wouldn't get the kind of exchange that we need to have. 



21 There are plenty other forums for open public discussion in the 



22 MMS. So, that's the approach that we have taken. Then, ultimately we 



23 will provide a written record which contains the points of agreement, 



24 points of disagreement, and hopefully recommendations. 



25 Now, recommendations could be either technical or policy, for that 



26 matter, although we expect to focus on only technical ones. We have no 



27 control, nor do we wish to edit what anybody else has to say about this 



28 entire issue. It will all go into the proceedings. 



29 The key to success, though, is to focus largely on the science and 



30 the facts and the mechanisms which are at work to support your 



31 conclusions. If we don't get some information on those things, we will 



32 be hard pressed to figure out what to do with the results. 



