1 For some reason, some produced waters have very high concentrations of 



2 barium, 100s of parts per million, presumably because there is not 



3 enough sulfide. 



4 MR. LANE: I take it the hypersaline conditions are diluted so 



5 rapidly, that that is not considered a major issue? 



6 DR. NEFF: To my knowledge, except in coastal wetlands, there has 



7 never been a measurable increase in salinity, even within a couple of 



8 meters of a discharge. I know we looked for it in the Gulf of Mexico in 



9 9 feet of water, and we couldn't see any. 



10 DR. COOPER: Jerry, there are active squid and swordfish fisheries 



11 in the water columns, especially in these canyonhead areas. Has your 



12 experience in the past ever related to the water column type fisheries 



13 and the waters and the slight amounts of hydrocarbons that may come off, 



14 in terms of any interaction there? 



15 DR. NEFF: I have never seen, and I don't know if anything has 



16 ever been done on the water column. Hydrocarbon concentration — there 



17 actually are other compounds in produced water, other organic, but we 



18 don't know exactly what they are. They appear to be long chain fatty 



19 acids and things like this. 



20 DR. AYERS: The water solubles, yes. 



21 DR. NEFF: We've just finished some studies and they are not 



22 toxic. 



23 DR. COOPER: Would you expect, a kilometer or two or three 



24 downstream from the rig, that the typical water medium is so diluted 



25 that-- 



26 DR. NEFF: Basically, let's take a worst case scenario. In the 



27 Gulf of Mexico, in one place 9 feet of water and the other place, 30 



28 feet of water, so things can get down to the sediments quickly. 



29 In 35 feet of water, we saw hydrocarbons in the sediment out to 



30 about 20 meters and, at 100 meters, we barely could see any signal. 



31 These were platforms that had been discharging produced water for 10s of 



32 years. 



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