1 The one thing we saw that we thought was important initially was 



2 . the amphipod species that are really sort of semi -epifaunal , they sort 



3 of attach and sit on sand grains on the surface of the sediment. There 



4 was a nose dive in their local populations. Again, this is at station 5 



5 right near the platform. 



6 The drilling period occurred right in here and these populations 



7 just basically vanished from the immediate vicinity of the drilling 



8 platform. Then in May, which is cruise number four, there is an 



9 increase again and then the populations went back up, generally. 



10 Then looking on the longer scale, we can see seasonal patterns of 



11 this and it appears in many cases it's what's happening here because 



12 these are animals sitting right near the surface that major winter 



13 storms can redistribute these animals, perhaps wash them from one place 



14 and they set up home in another place. 



15 You get this seasonally, and it turned out that in February of the 



16 first year there was a major winter storm, one of the worst in many 



17 years, and I know many of the people on the cruise will attest to the 



18 fact that it was not a nice period of time out there, so it is quite 



19 possible that some of this or most of this was due to changes in 



20 sediment texture due to winter storm events. 



21 In any event, what all these biological results imply is if there 



22 were any effects directly attributable to drilling fluid discharges in 



23 accumulation of drilling fluid materials on the bottom, that these 



24 effects were very small in scale and were practically indistinguishable 



25 from natural variability in the benthic populations and that any 



26 impacts, again, if they actually did occur as a result of drilling, were 



27 very transitory and basically the natural annual cycles were back to 



28 their normal range almost immediately after drilling stopped. 



29 So, for all intents and purposes there were no impacts on the 



30 benthos that were of any significance beyond the natural variability for 



31 the system. 



32 Thank you. 



33 DR. VALENTINE: Thank you, Jerry. Do we have any questions? 



99 



