1 One other thing, I think, is that you can tell from our two 



2 proposed hypotheses that we are really interested in the mechanisms and 



3 the possible reasonable impacts that you might expect in these 



4 environments. 



5 Pat's comments concerning the unique status of canyons and unique 



6 biological resources is certainly something that we can talk about and 



7 that you may, in fact, wish to include into the conclusions, but that, 



8 in and of itself, begs the questions of mechanisms. 



9 That is what we hope to reach consensus on: Whether or not there 



10 are any reasonable impacting mechanisms that we can define and, if so, 



11 what those kinds of impacts would produce in the biological and physical 



12 communities that we are dealing with. We would hope to get more detail 



13 on those kinds of questions than we have been able to put together in 



14 the past. 



15 Finally, I don't think--on the basis of what I heard 



16 yesterday--that it would be a reasonable assumption to assume that it 



17 wouldn't be a useful document to put together. I suspect that one of 



18 the problems that MMS has always had here and in other regions is that 



19 no one can read what we write, except someone who has got the time and 



20 inclination to be into the technical literature. 



21 As a matter of fact, I have been told that by some of our own 



22 staff on occasion, that if we really wanted to be more adept at 



23 communicating scientific results, we would tell all of you that you 



24 cannot send us 300-page reports; you can only send us series of focused 



25 25-page papers that someone can read and understand and we should refuse 



26 to accept anything else. 



27 There is some merit to that argument. We haven't decided exactly 



28 what we are going to do with that but, in fact, there is an element of 



29 that, even in this, and certainly in the debates that we have had in 



30 California. 



31 You cannot digest what we are producing if you are not a technical 



32 reader. I think it is a very important contribution, perhaps, to the 



33 public discussion and certainly to the governmental agencies who are 



34 involved with this if we can take all of this information and distill it 



167 



