1 DR. HECKER: I'm worried with regard to the sessile species. My 



2 instinct is that it is going to be longer term. It may also be further 



3 reaching because of the distribution. 



4 DR. NEFF: It really depends on their recruitment strategy. We 



5 don't even know if the recruiters living there now came from the 



6 population that's living there. They may be from somewhere else. 



7 DR. AYERS: I'm not a biologist, but in the Mid-Atlantic study, 



8 the brittle stars are the ones that--you know, we came back one year 



9 later. We did a pre-drilling study and then one year later. The 



10 brittle stars are the ones that, within 90 meters of the well site, have 



11 not come back. They were still depressed. 



12 The rest of the community is pretty well back to normal, but I 



13 think someone said that they had--one of the biologists said that they 



14 had a 7-year life span or something, and it apparently took them more 



15 time to grow and come back. 



16 DR. HECKER: How many sessile filter feeders did you have there, 



17 you know, for a comparison? 



18 DR. AYERS: I don't know. We had polychaetes, you know. I'm not 



19 talking about in a canyon. I'm talking about a drilling discharge study 



20 we did on a shelf in the Mid-Atlantic. 



21 DR. HECKER: Yes. 



22 DR. NEFF: It could have been a textural [word unclear] brittle 



23 star. They can migrate. 



24 DR. AYERS: I think there is no question you are going to see some 



25 burial effects. There is just a lot of material and most of it settles 



26 out quickly. Most of it--90 percent of it--is going to be in the 



27 immediate vicinity of the well site. You are going to have piles of 



28 these. 



29 DR. HECKER: What I'm talking about here is not just--I guess what 



30 I'm saying, again, as I started, worst case scenario, we are going to 



31 have an impact. 



32 What I am asking largely is the question: If we wipe out a local 



33 population--I am not asking are we going to wipe out the local 



240 



