BP Complaints

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Paul Zukunft:        Well, good afternoon.  Thank you for joining us.  And again, it’s great to be joined by NOAA, our scientific support coordinator, and also with David who represents academia as we look at this phase of the operation, as we look at what’s below the surface.

And I’m also joined by the captain of the NOAA research vessel Pisces, Jesse Stark.  And it’s great to be pier side before this vessel prepares to set sail this afternoon on a very critical mission integral to this oil spill.

Just to bring you up to date on where we are with the spill, we still have a very active response across the four states and the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  On Wednesday, I was down in Bay Jimmy down in Barataria Bay where we had over 600 workers working off a floating barge responding to oil in that area in a very isolated marshland.

But there’s still removal operations taking place as I speak today.  So we’re still recovering oil, but at the same time, our next area of concern, as it has been from day one, is what is below the surface.

We heard that the well was killed on the 19th of September, and actually we’ve had no oil introduced – no new oil since the 15th of July, and our oil trajectory grid went to a white screen with no recoverable oil since on or about the 1st of August.

So now our challenge is to look at what is on the sea floor, and so the NOAA vessel Pisces is one of several vessels that will participate in that mission.  I have the best of science here surrounding me just as we did, when we did that relief well, which was a feat – quite a feat onto itself to be able to intercept that well from three miles away, a seven-inch casing intercepting a seven-inch casing.

Well, now we need to verify with the best of science what is in that water column, what is in the sea floor, down to depths up to and exceeding 5,000 feet integral to this oil spill response.  So that’s where we’re going in the next phase of this operation.  And I do look forward to seeing the NOAA vessel Pisces get underway for this mission this afternoon.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Janet Baran.

 Janet Baran:          Baran, yes, thank you, Admiral.

So we’re very glad to be here today on the NOAA ship Pisces.  The Pisces has been a very important part of our mission this whole summer.  It’s been out doing acoustic monitoring during the well head integrity tests as well as doing water sampling in the last couple cruises.

We have been working on monitoring the subsurface since early May and continue to do so.  This – our monitoring covers the near shore, the south and the deep water, from the surface to the bottom of the ocean.  And we’re looking to really understand if there is any recoverable oil or if there’s anything else that we can do about it.

We’ve had numerous vessels out.  Currently we have about six vessels who are working in the continental shelf and deep water doing sediment and water sampling, and this vessel will be part of that.  All vessels are coordinated through unified area command, and we even host a call every day between all the chief scientists to talk about what they’re finding so that we can (adaptably) change our missions if there is something we find.

To date, we have collected more than 30,000 samples in the Gulf of Mexico, from the Texas-Louisiana border to the Florida Keys.  Last week we had over six vessels out, mostly doing water sampling.  This week has been the initiation of most of our deeper water sediment sampling.

The Gyre went out this week as well as the Ocean Veritas and now the Pisces.  These three vessels will do all the deeper water sediment sampling.  We have a couple vessels out in the near shore doing sediment and water sampling, that’s up to three nautical miles from the shore, doing a wide sweep to ensure that there is no oil in the sediment.

We find very little amounts of (residue) oil on near shore.  It’s being degraded naturally and recovered where possible.  And we really are committed to ensuring the safety of the Gulf and restoring the Gulf as we move out of this phase of trying to determine how we can fix things – not fix things – how we can stop and recover oil and moving to restoration.

We have teams out, part of the Natural Resources Damage Assessment Team, who will be looking at the long-term impacts and helping restore the Gulf. We do have a couple of resources which may be helpful to you.  We have a live mission log at NOAA.gov where we have blogs from all of our vessels that are out, giving live updates on what they’re finding.  And also, if you would like to see the sampling location data and results, you can go to GeoPlatform.gov.

And with that, I’m going to turn it over to Dr. David Valentine who is our chief scientist on this mission.

 David Valentine:   My name is Dr. David Valentine, I’m a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and I’m here representing academia.  I’m serving currently as chief scientist on the NOAA ship Pisces for this expedition.

Joining me – I have additional academic scientists from a number of institutions, including the U.S. Geological Survey, East Carolina University, California Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

We have four main sampling areas that we’re targeting – or four main sampling devices, I should specify, that allow us to collect sediment, allow us to visualize sediment on the sea floor, allow us to collect and analyze water from the deep waters as well as tools that are available shipboard to visualize natural seepage that may be occurring from the sea floor.

And with that, I’ll turn it back over to Janet.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you for taking my call.  I have a question about seafood testing.  Is it possible to get that answered?

Paul Zukunft:        Go ahead, Nancy.  I’ll answer that.  This is Rear Admiral Zukunft.  I’ll be happy to take that question.

Nancy MacKenzie:     OK, I’ve actually been trying to get this answered for a while.  When the shrimp are seafood tested, sensory and chemical analysis, do you know if that is with the shells on or off?

Paul Zukunft:        That question I do not know.  I do know it goes through a two-stage test, and the more elaborate test is when it goes through a GC-MS test.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right.

Paul Zukunft:        For any presence of hydrocarbon that would, in all likelihood, test the shell and flesh.  But I can’t say …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, I’m interested in that and whether they’re deveined or not.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, best place to answer that would be …

Nancy MacKenzie:     And I’ve really been trying to get that answered for three weeks, so …

Paul Zukunft:        Or with the Food and Drug Administration.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, having difficulty there, so I was hoping that you’d be able to.  But here’s one that you – that you all – probably more up your alley.  If the protocol for reopening fishing areas is the evaluation of oil movement, oil in the water column, sheen on the water and the seafood assessment, why are so many square miles still closed?  Does that mean that the seafood is tainted or there’s oil in the water?

Paul Zukunft:        No, right now we’re waiting to get a representational sample for a number of fish species in those federal waters that remain closed.  We do have a number of vessels that are out there with NOAA observers on there to actually catch those fish and then run those through the laboratory results.  And so that is actually part of the process to get those areas reopened.

But the key part is having a representational sample.  And as you realize, we did have 8,000 square miles that were just reopened on the 21st of September, and then also recreational fishing for red snapper was opened.  There was allowable quota remaining for red snapper, so for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, starting on October 1st for the next eight-week period, that red snapper season will be opened for recreational fishing, not for commercial though.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right, right, OK, well just one last thing as long as we’re talking about it.  On the e-mails that I get, it says that areas remain closed to balance economic and public health concerns, and I’m not sure exactly what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you had broken up through part of that, did you …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Oh, I’m sorry, it’s – the e-mails that I get, you know the by the numbers (sent) from the unified command, says that the areas remain closed due to balance economic and public health concerns.  And I’m not exactly sure what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, yea, those areas were closed when there was oil in those areas, and that was due to the concern for public health if fish were to be caught from there, and should there be polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, found in the fish flesh.  So that’s why there were closed.

And obviously we can close an area quite quickly to go through the requisite sampling protocols to then reopen it.  It is a somewhat time-consuming process.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        So it is a process where we error on the side of caution.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        Anytime – you know the economic indicator there, if that fish is caught and, for whatever reason, it is not found to be in compliance, it could actually have a detrimental effect you know on the economic fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico.

So you probably heard on a number of a blogs – and it is – it is the most-sampled seafood anywhere in the face of the Earth.  But again, if there’s going to be any error in this process, it will be on the side of caution.  But again, I am working extremely closely with the NOAA Marine Fishery Service, who in turn works with the Food and Drug Administration on the sampling protocols that – to continue to reopen those closed areas.  And they are gradually reopening.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you, I appreciate your time.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Laura Parker with AOL News.

Laura Parker:         Yes, I have a – sort of a big-picture question in terms of the total effort involving the – NOAA’s research.  It was announced, I think it was last week, or in the last few days, that NOAA’s now embarking on a larger systematic effort to understand the oil in the water and sort out some of the differences between academic sciences and government scientists with regard to oil on the – on the sea floor and plume and so on.

Can you lay out how and when some of these particular issues may be resolved?  Is this – is there sort of a map that you set out for how you’re going to get to the bottom of some of these things?  Or will these be you know many months away?

Janet Baran:          This is Janet Baran, (inaudible) many months away.  So we already have – there’s two parts of it.  There’s water and sediment.  So the water sampling has been going on all summer.  We have a team in place at unified area command that represents six different agencies that is an operational science advisory team.  And they are analyzing all the data as it’s coming in to make recommendations of when we reach the – reach the end game of the response, not the restoration, not the long-term care of the Gulf.

And so the water sampling is mostly completed.  But the analysis is still ongoing.  The team is in place.  They are looking at the data every day and trying to determine if there are gaps of what we need to infill or if we have completed and have an answer to the American public.

The second part is the sediment.  And, as I said, the Gyre, the Ocean Veritas and the Pisces will be out doing the sediment sampling.  And so it’s expected within the next couple weeks we will have all of the sediment samples, and that same team will be looking at what that tells us and if there needs to be additional sampling.

Much of the near shore sediment sampling is already completed, and the indicators we’re getting from there so far is a lack of presence of oil in the sediment.

Laura Parker:         Have you – I mean, come – have you been able to resolve sort of the issue of the plume, for instance?  We’ve got the – what the Berkeley Labs report versus the Woods Hole report …

Janet Baran:          Sure.

Laura Parker:         Or is there – has there just been a change from the date of the one and the date of the other?

Janet Baran:          Sure, a lot of those were based in samples that were taken in June.  And Dr. Chris Reddy, who was a part of the Woods Hole study, has – was the academic liaison at unified area command the last couple of weeks.  And we have engaged with him and talked about what he found.

Our vessels were out there also, looking at all that.  And those academic data have been included into the response database.  So we’re looking at all of it in total.

Currently what we’re finding is that dilution has occurred.  So over time, more and more water has mixed in.  And also the microbes have continued to decrease the amount of oil that would be in that area.  We’re finding less and less what we could consider (hits) and having to use more and more sophisticated instruments …

Laura Parker:         I’m sorry, you broke up a little bit.  Finding less and less …

Janet Baran:          I would say any kind of – any kind of signal at all in the water column.  And what we’re finding is that the concentrations are now in the parts of a billion.  So we’re having to use more and more sophisticated instruments to even see if there is this dispersed oil cloud and that’s all.

Laura Parker:         And what?

Janet Baran:          That’s all.

Laura Parker:         Oh, and what about the sediment on the sea?  Because I’m sure you’re very well familiar with what Mandy Joye is finding at the University of Georgia, and I think she had something in her blog about it earlier in the month.

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  So Dr. Samuel Walker, who is also part of the subsurface monitoring team, he got in contact with Dr. Joye, and she has shared her locations, and we will be going and revisiting those.  We want to ensure that we’re not just taking observations and doing – we want to make sure we’re doing a full analysis.  And so this is part of why we are going and looking at where she has sampled.

Laura Parker:         So in both of those instances of the plume and the oil on the floor, on the sea floor, you’re taking that – these other analyses into account and looking at them, but you guys have not – you’re not at the stage where you’ve reached any conclusion on either of them.  Is that what you’re saying?

Janet Baran:          I wouldn’t say that exactly.  The sediment sampling we’ve only just initiated, so we have not gone to those sites yet.  And the water sampling we have always been in (agreeance) with our academic partners that there was this layer in the water column.  It still exists, however it is at much lower concentrations and continues to degrade over time.

David Valentine:   This is Dave Valentine.  I think I can follow up a little bit, having been involved in many of these discussions.  With regard to the sediments, that’s really one of the primary targets of this upcoming cruise, and we have two tools that we are using to address this issue of whether or not there’s oil that has fallen into the sediments and is sitting there.  We’re doing extensive coring operations with a sort of corer that preserves that interface very, very well.

Onboard, we have the (mastectrometers) that we need to quantify the amount of oil that may be there on the sediment surface.  We also have a towed camera system that we’ll be deploying.  We can tow it along the sea floor.  It resides about nine to 15 feet above the sea floor and is dragged by the boat.  That takes pictures of the sea floor, about 2,000 images for every five-hour deployment.

And with that, we are hoping to look for the distribution of oil, if there is oil on the sea floor, to help us understand exactly what the patterns of deposition of this oil may be, if it’s there, and we’ll follow up, then, with the coring to quantify how much is there in those areas.

Janet Baran:          And also fingerprint – that’s the key here, too, is that we want to ensure chemically, if we do find oil, we need to check that it is MC252.  There are plenty of natural seeps in the Gulf of Mexico, which can cause oil to be found within sediment.

Laura Parker:         Right.  When is the Pisces coming back?

Janet Baran:          The Pisces will be out until October 4.

Laura Parker:         But you send this – you can send – you’re sending data in every day, is that correct?

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  We have a secure FTP site, and they’re – they will be uploading all of their analysis.  There – some of the – there will be additional work done on samples in labs that take longer than what can be done here.

Laura Parker:         And do you have a target date for when you’ll release your findings from this particular trip?

Janet Baran:          Not at this time.  We will continue to update – as we get results.  Science, unfortunately, takes more time than we care to admit, and we want to make sure that we fully investigate this and have strong conclusions.

Laura Parker:         And are you – in addition to – as things break down, are you looking at all of the things that are in the – in the – you know as they – the breakdown products that result from the breaking down of the oil?  I’m wording that badly.

David Valentine:   I guess I can take that to a certain – this is Dave Valentine.  I can’t …

Laura Parker:         There’s – do you need me to reword it?  Because I’ve worded it badly, but I think you might get my point.

David Valentine:   Yes, I do, and the compounds that are being analyzed for are the standard toxic compounds that are known in oil.  And these include the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as well as other hydrocarbon components within oil.

The issue of breakdown products is a very tricky one, and it moves into the academic realm, which I’m always happy to talk about, because I’m a geochemist, and that’s what I do for a living.  But it’s – you know it’s really insider talk, insider speak.  A lot of it – and the bottom line is that – so the kinds of breakdown products that we’re talking about tend to be fairly low on concentration.  These are intermediates or terminal products.  And they’re not – they’re very difficult things to analyze, and they tend to be at very low concentration.

Personally, we are trying to look for those at very trace levels.  That’s one of the things that my research entails.  But it’s not, to my knowledge, part of the standard plan, because these compounds tend to be very, very low in concentration.

Russell Tippets:     OK, can we get the next caller, please, to ensure everybody gets a question answered timely?

Operator:               OK, and your next question comes from the line of (Laurie Wiegler).

(Laurie Wiegler):    (Laurie Wiegler), thank you.

Hi, thank you very much for taking my call.  If more oil is found, and we know that it will be, I’m curious what the next step is for NOAA.  Is bioremediation a possibility?  Do you just let it continue to disperse?  What’s your game plan?

Paul Zukunft:        Actually, in terms of the response, that’s – this is Admiral Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator.  You know just bear in mind, right now what we’ve been detecting in that water column is parts per million and parts per billion.  And actually, we had – we’re seeing more and more in the parts per billion, which lends itself to the fact that there is some natural biodegradation taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, which is actually quite common in a body of water that has a significant amount of natural seeps and hydrocarbons occurring naturally, plus the fact that this well is located in relative proximity to the outflow of the Mississippi River, which is also rich in nutrients.

So, again, the key part of this study that’s ongoing is to detect any significant amounts, beyond what we’ve seen so far, but we need to expand the scope of that monitoring effort.  The preponderance of the sampling data right now has been in the water column.  This next phase is very focused upon what’s in that sediment layer as well.

And then, depending on what we find from those – you know from the sampling and analytic data – at that point, we can then consider if in fact there is an appropriate response protocol to address that.  But right now, that’s not one that I would make unilaterally.  We have a regional response team that would actually share that data, and then they would ultimately provide me recommendations whether to use such intervention methods such as bioremediation.

(Laurie Wiegler):    Thank you.  May I just ask one more follow-up to that?  Is Admiral Thad Allen no longer involved in this?  And, would that change if you decided to have another effort there to, say with the bioremediation or for cleaning up any excess oil that’s found?

Paul Zukunft:        Yes, Admiral Allen and I did a press conference yesterday where he announced that he will be retiring a week from today.  I will continue in my role as federal on-scene coordinator, as I have for some time now.  And the regional response team does provide these recommendations to the federal on-scene coordinator.

And at the same time, I also have direct access to all the interagency administrators and will assume that capacity from Admiral Allen as he goes into retirement, which certainly falls within my purview as the federal on-scene coordinator.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, thank you, and I apologize for that.  I was not on the call yesterday.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you’re quite welcome.  Actually, you know this was a local press conference.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK.

Paul Zukunft:        So, no, you did not miss that.

(Laurie Wiegler):    All right.

Paull Zukunft:        But I am the one they call Admiral Z.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, yes, I know who you are.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

END

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Paul Zukunft:        Well, good afternoon.  Thank you for joining us.  And again, it’s great to be joined by NOAA, our scientific support coordinator, and also with David who represents academia as we look at this phase of the operation, as we look at what’s below the surface.

And I’m also joined by the captain of the NOAA research vessel Pisces, Jesse Stark.  And it’s great to be pier side before this vessel prepares to set sail this afternoon on a very critical mission integral to this oil spill.

Just to bring you up to date on where we are with the spill, we still have a very active response across the four states and the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  On Wednesday, I was down in Bay Jimmy down in Barataria Bay where we had over 600 workers working off a floating barge responding to oil in that area in a very isolated marshland.

But there’s still removal operations taking place as I speak today.  So we’re still recovering oil, but at the same time, our next area of concern, as it has been from day one, is what is below the surface.

We heard that the well was killed on the 19th of September, and actually we’ve had no oil introduced – no new oil since the 15th of July, and our oil trajectory grid went to a white screen with no recoverable oil since on or about the 1st of August.

So now our challenge is to look at what is on the sea floor, and so the NOAA vessel Pisces is one of several vessels that will participate in that mission.  I have the best of science here surrounding me just as we did, when we did that relief well, which was a feat – quite a feat onto itself to be able to intercept that well from three miles away, a seven-inch casing intercepting a seven-inch casing.

Well, now we need to verify with the best of science what is in that water column, what is in the sea floor, down to depths up to and exceeding 5,000 feet integral to this oil spill response.  So that’s where we’re going in the next phase of this operation.  And I do look forward to seeing the NOAA vessel Pisces get underway for this mission this afternoon.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Janet Baran.

 Janet Baran:          Baran, yes, thank you, Admiral.

So we’re very glad to be here today on the NOAA ship Pisces.  The Pisces has been a very important part of our mission this whole summer.  It’s been out doing acoustic monitoring during the well head integrity tests as well as doing water sampling in the last couple cruises.

We have been working on monitoring the subsurface since early May and continue to do so.  This – our monitoring covers the near shore, the south and the deep water, from the surface to the bottom of the ocean.  And we’re looking to really understand if there is any recoverable oil or if there’s anything else that we can do about it.

We’ve had numerous vessels out.  Currently we have about six vessels who are working in the continental shelf and deep water doing sediment and water sampling, and this vessel will be part of that.  All vessels are coordinated through unified area command, and we even host a call every day between all the chief scientists to talk about what they’re finding so that we can (adaptably) change our missions if there is something we find.

To date, we have collected more than 30,000 samples in the Gulf of Mexico, from the Texas-Louisiana border to the Florida Keys.  Last week we had over six vessels out, mostly doing water sampling.  This week has been the initiation of most of our deeper water sediment sampling.

The Gyre went out this week as well as the Ocean Veritas and now the Pisces.  These three vessels will do all the deeper water sediment sampling.  We have a couple vessels out in the near shore doing sediment and water sampling, that’s up to three nautical miles from the shore, doing a wide sweep to ensure that there is no oil in the sediment.

We find very little amounts of (residue) oil on near shore.  It’s being degraded naturally and recovered where possible.  And we really are committed to ensuring the safety of the Gulf and restoring the Gulf as we move out of this phase of trying to determine how we can fix things – not fix things – how we can stop and recover oil and moving to restoration.

We have teams out, part of the Natural Resources Damage Assessment Team, who will be looking at the long-term impacts and helping restore the Gulf. We do have a couple of resources which may be helpful to you.  We have a live mission log at NOAA.gov where we have blogs from all of our vessels that are out, giving live updates on what they’re finding.  And also, if you would like to see the sampling location data and results, you can go to GeoPlatform.gov.

And with that, I’m going to turn it over to Dr. David Valentine who is our chief scientist on this mission.

 David Valentine:   My name is Dr. David Valentine, I’m a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and I’m here representing academia.  I’m serving currently as chief scientist on the NOAA ship Pisces for this expedition.

Joining me – I have additional academic scientists from a number of institutions, including the U.S. Geological Survey, East Carolina University, California Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

We have four main sampling areas that we’re targeting – or four main sampling devices, I should specify, that allow us to collect sediment, allow us to visualize sediment on the sea floor, allow us to collect and analyze water from the deep waters as well as tools that are available shipboard to visualize natural seepage that may be occurring from the sea floor.

And with that, I’ll turn it back over to Janet.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you for taking my call.  I have a question about seafood testing.  Is it possible to get that answered?

Paul Zukunft:        Go ahead, Nancy.  I’ll answer that.  This is Rear Admiral Zukunft.  I’ll be happy to take that question.

Nancy MacKenzie:     OK, I’ve actually been trying to get this answered for a while.  When the shrimp are seafood tested, sensory and chemical analysis, do you know if that is with the shells on or off?

Paul Zukunft:        That question I do not know.  I do know it goes through a two-stage test, and the more elaborate test is when it goes through a GC-MS test.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right.

Paul Zukunft:        For any presence of hydrocarbon that would, in all likelihood, test the shell and flesh.  But I can’t say …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, I’m interested in that and whether they’re deveined or not.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, best place to answer that would be …

Nancy MacKenzie:     And I’ve really been trying to get that answered for three weeks, so …

Paul Zukunft:        Or with the Food and Drug Administration.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, having difficulty there, so I was hoping that you’d be able to.  But here’s one that you – that you all – probably more up your alley.  If the protocol for reopening fishing areas is the evaluation of oil movement, oil in the water column, sheen on the water and the seafood assessment, why are so many square miles still closed?  Does that mean that the seafood is tainted or there’s oil in the water?

Paul Zukunft:        No, right now we’re waiting to get a representational sample for a number of fish species in those federal waters that remain closed.  We do have a number of vessels that are out there with NOAA observers on there to actually catch those fish and then run those through the laboratory results.  And so that is actually part of the process to get those areas reopened.

But the key part is having a representational sample.  And as you realize, we did have 8,000 square miles that were just reopened on the 21st of September, and then also recreational fishing for red snapper was opened.  There was allowable quota remaining for red snapper, so for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, starting on October 1st for the next eight-week period, that red snapper season will be opened for recreational fishing, not for commercial though.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right, right, OK, well just one last thing as long as we’re talking about it.  On the e-mails that I get, it says that areas remain closed to balance economic and public health concerns, and I’m not sure exactly what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you had broken up through part of that, did you …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Oh, I’m sorry, it’s – the e-mails that I get, you know the by the numbers (sent) from the unified command, says that the areas remain closed due to balance economic and public health concerns.  And I’m not exactly sure what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, yea, those areas were closed when there was oil in those areas, and that was due to the concern for public health if fish were to be caught from there, and should there be polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, found in the fish flesh.  So that’s why there were closed.

And obviously we can close an area quite quickly to go through the requisite sampling protocols to then reopen it.  It is a somewhat time-consuming process.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        So it is a process where we error on the side of caution.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        Anytime – you know the economic indicator there, if that fish is caught and, for whatever reason, it is not found to be in compliance, it could actually have a detrimental effect you know on the economic fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico.

So you probably heard on a number of a blogs – and it is – it is the most-sampled seafood anywhere in the face of the Earth.  But again, if there’s going to be any error in this process, it will be on the side of caution.  But again, I am working extremely closely with the NOAA Marine Fishery Service, who in turn works with the Food and Drug Administration on the sampling protocols that – to continue to reopen those closed areas.  And they are gradually reopening.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you, I appreciate your time.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Laura Parker with AOL News.

Laura Parker:         Yes, I have a – sort of a big-picture question in terms of the total effort involving the – NOAA’s research.  It was announced, I think it was last week, or in the last few days, that NOAA’s now embarking on a larger systematic effort to understand the oil in the water and sort out some of the differences between academic sciences and government scientists with regard to oil on the – on the sea floor and plume and so on.

Can you lay out how and when some of these particular issues may be resolved?  Is this – is there sort of a map that you set out for how you’re going to get to the bottom of some of these things?  Or will these be you know many months away?

Janet Baran:          This is Janet Baran, (inaudible) many months away.  So we already have – there’s two parts of it.  There’s water and sediment.  So the water sampling has been going on all summer.  We have a team in place at unified area command that represents six different agencies that is an operational science advisory team.  And they are analyzing all the data as it’s coming in to make recommendations of when we reach the – reach the end game of the response, not the restoration, not the long-term care of the Gulf.

And so the water sampling is mostly completed.  But the analysis is still ongoing.  The team is in place.  They are looking at the data every day and trying to determine if there are gaps of what we need to infill or if we have completed and have an answer to the American public.

The second part is the sediment.  And, as I said, the Gyre, the Ocean Veritas and the Pisces will be out doing the sediment sampling.  And so it’s expected within the next couple weeks we will have all of the sediment samples, and that same team will be looking at what that tells us and if there needs to be additional sampling.

Much of the near shore sediment sampling is already completed, and the indicators we’re getting from there so far is a lack of presence of oil in the sediment.

Laura Parker:         Have you – I mean, come – have you been able to resolve sort of the issue of the plume, for instance?  We’ve got the – what the Berkeley Labs report versus the Woods Hole report …

Janet Baran:          Sure.

Laura Parker:         Or is there – has there just been a change from the date of the one and the date of the other?

Janet Baran:          Sure, a lot of those were based in samples that were taken in June.  And Dr. Chris Reddy, who was a part of the Woods Hole study, has – was the academic liaison at unified area command the last couple of weeks.  And we have engaged with him and talked about what he found.

Our vessels were out there also, looking at all that.  And those academic data have been included into the response database.  So we’re looking at all of it in total.

Currently what we’re finding is that dilution has occurred.  So over time, more and more water has mixed in.  And also the microbes have continued to decrease the amount of oil that would be in that area.  We’re finding less and less what we could consider (hits) and having to use more and more sophisticated instruments …

Laura Parker:         I’m sorry, you broke up a little bit.  Finding less and less …

Janet Baran:          I would say any kind of – any kind of signal at all in the water column.  And what we’re finding is that the concentrations are now in the parts of a billion.  So we’re having to use more and more sophisticated instruments to even see if there is this dispersed oil cloud and that’s all.

Laura Parker:         And what?

Janet Baran:          That’s all.

Laura Parker:         Oh, and what about the sediment on the sea?  Because I’m sure you’re very well familiar with what Mandy Joye is finding at the University of Georgia, and I think she had something in her blog about it earlier in the month.

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  So Dr. Samuel Walker, who is also part of the subsurface monitoring team, he got in contact with Dr. Joye, and she has shared her locations, and we will be going and revisiting those.  We want to ensure that we’re not just taking observations and doing – we want to make sure we’re doing a full analysis.  And so this is part of why we are going and looking at where she has sampled.

Laura Parker:         So in both of those instances of the plume and the oil on the floor, on the sea floor, you’re taking that – these other analyses into account and looking at them, but you guys have not – you’re not at the stage where you’ve reached any conclusion on either of them.  Is that what you’re saying?

Janet Baran:          I wouldn’t say that exactly.  The sediment sampling we’ve only just initiated, so we have not gone to those sites yet.  And the water sampling we have always been in (agreeance) with our academic partners that there was this layer in the water column.  It still exists, however it is at much lower concentrations and continues to degrade over time.

David Valentine:   This is Dave Valentine.  I think I can follow up a little bit, having been involved in many of these discussions.  With regard to the sediments, that’s really one of the primary targets of this upcoming cruise, and we have two tools that we are using to address this issue of whether or not there’s oil that has fallen into the sediments and is sitting there.  We’re doing extensive coring operations with a sort of corer that preserves that interface very, very well.

Onboard, we have the (mastectrometers) that we need to quantify the amount of oil that may be there on the sediment surface.  We also have a towed camera system that we’ll be deploying.  We can tow it along the sea floor.  It resides about nine to 15 feet above the sea floor and is dragged by the boat.  That takes pictures of the sea floor, about 2,000 images for every five-hour deployment.

And with that, we are hoping to look for the distribution of oil, if there is oil on the sea floor, to help us understand exactly what the patterns of deposition of this oil may be, if it’s there, and we’ll follow up, then, with the coring to quantify how much is there in those areas.

Janet Baran:          And also fingerprint – that’s the key here, too, is that we want to ensure chemically, if we do find oil, we need to check that it is MC252.  There are plenty of natural seeps in the Gulf of Mexico, which can cause oil to be found within sediment.

Laura Parker:         Right.  When is the Pisces coming back?

Janet Baran:          The Pisces will be out until October 4.

Laura Parker:         But you send this – you can send – you’re sending data in every day, is that correct?

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  We have a secure FTP site, and they’re – they will be uploading all of their analysis.  There – some of the – there will be additional work done on samples in labs that take longer than what can be done here.

Laura Parker:         And do you have a target date for when you’ll release your findings from this particular trip?

Janet Baran:          Not at this time.  We will continue to update – as we get results.  Science, unfortunately, takes more time than we care to admit, and we want to make sure that we fully investigate this and have strong conclusions.

Laura Parker:         And are you – in addition to – as things break down, are you looking at all of the things that are in the – in the – you know as they – the breakdown products that result from the breaking down of the oil?  I’m wording that badly.

David Valentine:   I guess I can take that to a certain – this is Dave Valentine.  I can’t …

Laura Parker:         There’s – do you need me to reword it?  Because I’ve worded it badly, but I think you might get my point.

David Valentine:   Yes, I do, and the compounds that are being analyzed for are the standard toxic compounds that are known in oil.  And these include the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as well as other hydrocarbon components within oil.

The issue of breakdown products is a very tricky one, and it moves into the academic realm, which I’m always happy to talk about, because I’m a geochemist, and that’s what I do for a living.  But it’s – you know it’s really insider talk, insider speak.  A lot of it – and the bottom line is that – so the kinds of breakdown products that we’re talking about tend to be fairly low on concentration.  These are intermediates or terminal products.  And they’re not – they’re very difficult things to analyze, and they tend to be at very low concentration.

Personally, we are trying to look for those at very trace levels.  That’s one of the things that my research entails.  But it’s not, to my knowledge, part of the standard plan, because these compounds tend to be very, very low in concentration.

Russell Tippets:     OK, can we get the next caller, please, to ensure everybody gets a question answered timely?

Operator:               OK, and your next question comes from the line of (Laurie Wiegler).

(Laurie Wiegler):    (Laurie Wiegler), thank you.

Hi, thank you very much for taking my call.  If more oil is found, and we know that it will be, I’m curious what the next step is for NOAA.  Is bioremediation a possibility?  Do you just let it continue to disperse?  What’s your game plan?

Paul Zukunft:        Actually, in terms of the response, that’s – this is Admiral Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator.  You know just bear in mind, right now what we’ve been detecting in that water column is parts per million and parts per billion.  And actually, we had – we’re seeing more and more in the parts per billion, which lends itself to the fact that there is some natural biodegradation taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, which is actually quite common in a body of water that has a significant amount of natural seeps and hydrocarbons occurring naturally, plus the fact that this well is located in relative proximity to the outflow of the Mississippi River, which is also rich in nutrients.

So, again, the key part of this study that’s ongoing is to detect any significant amounts, beyond what we’ve seen so far, but we need to expand the scope of that monitoring effort.  The preponderance of the sampling data right now has been in the water column.  This next phase is very focused upon what’s in that sediment layer as well.

And then, depending on what we find from those – you know from the sampling and analytic data – at that point, we can then consider if in fact there is an appropriate response protocol to address that.  But right now, that’s not one that I would make unilaterally.  We have a regional response team that would actually share that data, and then they would ultimately provide me recommendations whether to use such intervention methods such as bioremediation.

(Laurie Wiegler):    Thank you.  May I just ask one more follow-up to that?  Is Admiral Thad Allen no longer involved in this?  And, would that change if you decided to have another effort there to, say with the bioremediation or for cleaning up any excess oil that’s found?

Paul Zukunft:        Yes, Admiral Allen and I did a press conference yesterday where he announced that he will be retiring a week from today.  I will continue in my role as federal on-scene coordinator, as I have for some time now.  And the regional response team does provide these recommendations to the federal on-scene coordinator.

And at the same time, I also have direct access to all the interagency administrators and will assume that capacity from Admiral Allen as he goes into retirement, which certainly falls within my purview as the federal on-scene coordinator.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, thank you, and I apologize for that.  I was not on the call yesterday.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you’re quite welcome.  Actually, you know this was a local press conference.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK.

Paul Zukunft:        So, no, you did not miss that.

(Laurie Wiegler):    All right.

Paull Zukunft:        But I am the one they call Admiral Z.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, yes, I know who you are.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

END

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Paul Zukunft:        Well, good afternoon.  Thank you for joining us.  And again, it’s great to be joined by NOAA, our scientific support coordinator, and also with David who represents academia as we look at this phase of the operation, as we look at what’s below the surface.

And I’m also joined by the captain of the NOAA research vessel Pisces, Jesse Stark.  And it’s great to be pier side before this vessel prepares to set sail this afternoon on a very critical mission integral to this oil spill.

Just to bring you up to date on where we are with the spill, we still have a very active response across the four states and the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  On Wednesday, I was down in Bay Jimmy down in Barataria Bay where we had over 600 workers working off a floating barge responding to oil in that area in a very isolated marshland.

But there’s still removal operations taking place as I speak today.  So we’re still recovering oil, but at the same time, our next area of concern, as it has been from day one, is what is below the surface.

We heard that the well was killed on the 19th of September, and actually we’ve had no oil introduced – no new oil since the 15th of July, and our oil trajectory grid went to a white screen with no recoverable oil since on or about the 1st of August.

So now our challenge is to look at what is on the sea floor, and so the NOAA vessel Pisces is one of several vessels that will participate in that mission.  I have the best of science here surrounding me just as we did, when we did that relief well, which was a feat – quite a feat onto itself to be able to intercept that well from three miles away, a seven-inch casing intercepting a seven-inch casing.

Well, now we need to verify with the best of science what is in that water column, what is in the sea floor, down to depths up to and exceeding 5,000 feet integral to this oil spill response.  So that’s where we’re going in the next phase of this operation.  And I do look forward to seeing the NOAA vessel Pisces get underway for this mission this afternoon.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Janet Baran.

 Janet Baran:          Baran, yes, thank you, Admiral.

So we’re very glad to be here today on the NOAA ship Pisces.  The Pisces has been a very important part of our mission this whole summer.  It’s been out doing acoustic monitoring during the well head integrity tests as well as doing water sampling in the last couple cruises.

We have been working on monitoring the subsurface since early May and continue to do so.  This – our monitoring covers the near shore, the south and the deep water, from the surface to the bottom of the ocean.  And we’re looking to really understand if there is any recoverable oil or if there’s anything else that we can do about it.

We’ve had numerous vessels out.  Currently we have about six vessels who are working in the continental shelf and deep water doing sediment and water sampling, and this vessel will be part of that.  All vessels are coordinated through unified area command, and we even host a call every day between all the chief scientists to talk about what they’re finding so that we can (adaptably) change our missions if there is something we find.

To date, we have collected more than 30,000 samples in the Gulf of Mexico, from the Texas-Louisiana border to the Florida Keys.  Last week we had over six vessels out, mostly doing water sampling.  This week has been the initiation of most of our deeper water sediment sampling.

The Gyre went out this week as well as the Ocean Veritas and now the Pisces.  These three vessels will do all the deeper water sediment sampling.  We have a couple vessels out in the near shore doing sediment and water sampling, that’s up to three nautical miles from the shore, doing a wide sweep to ensure that there is no oil in the sediment.

We find very little amounts of (residue) oil on near shore.  It’s being degraded naturally and recovered where possible.  And we really are committed to ensuring the safety of the Gulf and restoring the Gulf as we move out of this phase of trying to determine how we can fix things – not fix things – how we can stop and recover oil and moving to restoration.

We have teams out, part of the Natural Resources Damage Assessment Team, who will be looking at the long-term impacts and helping restore the Gulf. We do have a couple of resources which may be helpful to you.  We have a live mission log at NOAA.gov where we have blogs from all of our vessels that are out, giving live updates on what they’re finding.  And also, if you would like to see the sampling location data and results, you can go to GeoPlatform.gov.

And with that, I’m going to turn it over to Dr. David Valentine who is our chief scientist on this mission.

 David Valentine:   My name is Dr. David Valentine, I’m a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and I’m here representing academia.  I’m serving currently as chief scientist on the NOAA ship Pisces for this expedition.

Joining me – I have additional academic scientists from a number of institutions, including the U.S. Geological Survey, East Carolina University, California Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

We have four main sampling areas that we’re targeting – or four main sampling devices, I should specify, that allow us to collect sediment, allow us to visualize sediment on the sea floor, allow us to collect and analyze water from the deep waters as well as tools that are available shipboard to visualize natural seepage that may be occurring from the sea floor.

And with that, I’ll turn it back over to Janet.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you for taking my call.  I have a question about seafood testing.  Is it possible to get that answered?

Paul Zukunft:        Go ahead, Nancy.  I’ll answer that.  This is Rear Admiral Zukunft.  I’ll be happy to take that question.

Nancy MacKenzie:     OK, I’ve actually been trying to get this answered for a while.  When the shrimp are seafood tested, sensory and chemical analysis, do you know if that is with the shells on or off?

Paul Zukunft:        That question I do not know.  I do know it goes through a two-stage test, and the more elaborate test is when it goes through a GC-MS test.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right.

Paul Zukunft:        For any presence of hydrocarbon that would, in all likelihood, test the shell and flesh.  But I can’t say …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, I’m interested in that and whether they’re deveined or not.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, best place to answer that would be …

Nancy MacKenzie:     And I’ve really been trying to get that answered for three weeks, so …

Paul Zukunft:        Or with the Food and Drug Administration.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, having difficulty there, so I was hoping that you’d be able to.  But here’s one that you – that you all – probably more up your alley.  If the protocol for reopening fishing areas is the evaluation of oil movement, oil in the water column, sheen on the water and the seafood assessment, why are so many square miles still closed?  Does that mean that the seafood is tainted or there’s oil in the water?

Paul Zukunft:        No, right now we’re waiting to get a representational sample for a number of fish species in those federal waters that remain closed.  We do have a number of vessels that are out there with NOAA observers on there to actually catch those fish and then run those through the laboratory results.  And so that is actually part of the process to get those areas reopened.

But the key part is having a representational sample.  And as you realize, we did have 8,000 square miles that were just reopened on the 21st of September, and then also recreational fishing for red snapper was opened.  There was allowable quota remaining for red snapper, so for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, starting on October 1st for the next eight-week period, that red snapper season will be opened for recreational fishing, not for commercial though.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right, right, OK, well just one last thing as long as we’re talking about it.  On the e-mails that I get, it says that areas remain closed to balance economic and public health concerns, and I’m not sure exactly what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you had broken up through part of that, did you …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Oh, I’m sorry, it’s – the e-mails that I get, you know the by the numbers (sent) from the unified command, says that the areas remain closed due to balance economic and public health concerns.  And I’m not exactly sure what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, yea, those areas were closed when there was oil in those areas, and that was due to the concern for public health if fish were to be caught from there, and should there be polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, found in the fish flesh.  So that’s why there were closed.

And obviously we can close an area quite quickly to go through the requisite sampling protocols to then reopen it.  It is a somewhat time-consuming process.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        So it is a process where we error on the side of caution.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        Anytime – you know the economic indicator there, if that fish is caught and, for whatever reason, it is not found to be in compliance, it could actually have a detrimental effect you know on the economic fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico.

So you probably heard on a number of a blogs – and it is – it is the most-sampled seafood anywhere in the face of the Earth.  But again, if there’s going to be any error in this process, it will be on the side of caution.  But again, I am working extremely closely with the NOAA Marine Fishery Service, who in turn works with the Food and Drug Administration on the sampling protocols that – to continue to reopen those closed areas.  And they are gradually reopening.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you, I appreciate your time.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Laura Parker with AOL News.

Laura Parker:         Yes, I have a – sort of a big-picture question in terms of the total effort involving the – NOAA’s research.  It was announced, I think it was last week, or in the last few days, that NOAA’s now embarking on a larger systematic effort to understand the oil in the water and sort out some of the differences between academic sciences and government scientists with regard to oil on the – on the sea floor and plume and so on.

Can you lay out how and when some of these particular issues may be resolved?  Is this – is there sort of a map that you set out for how you’re going to get to the bottom of some of these things?  Or will these be you know many months away?

Janet Baran:          This is Janet Baran, (inaudible) many months away.  So we already have – there’s two parts of it.  There’s water and sediment.  So the water sampling has been going on all summer.  We have a team in place at unified area command that represents six different agencies that is an operational science advisory team.  And they are analyzing all the data as it’s coming in to make recommendations of when we reach the – reach the end game of the response, not the restoration, not the long-term care of the Gulf.

And so the water sampling is mostly completed.  But the analysis is still ongoing.  The team is in place.  They are looking at the data every day and trying to determine if there are gaps of what we need to infill or if we have completed and have an answer to the American public.

The second part is the sediment.  And, as I said, the Gyre, the Ocean Veritas and the Pisces will be out doing the sediment sampling.  And so it’s expected within the next couple weeks we will have all of the sediment samples, and that same team will be looking at what that tells us and if there needs to be additional sampling.

Much of the near shore sediment sampling is already completed, and the indicators we’re getting from there so far is a lack of presence of oil in the sediment.

Laura Parker:         Have you – I mean, come – have you been able to resolve sort of the issue of the plume, for instance?  We’ve got the – what the Berkeley Labs report versus the Woods Hole report …

Janet Baran:          Sure.

Laura Parker:         Or is there – has there just been a change from the date of the one and the date of the other?

Janet Baran:          Sure, a lot of those were based in samples that were taken in June.  And Dr. Chris Reddy, who was a part of the Woods Hole study, has – was the academic liaison at unified area command the last couple of weeks.  And we have engaged with him and talked about what he found.

Our vessels were out there also, looking at all that.  And those academic data have been included into the response database.  So we’re looking at all of it in total.

Currently what we’re finding is that dilution has occurred.  So over time, more and more water has mixed in.  And also the microbes have continued to decrease the amount of oil that would be in that area.  We’re finding less and less what we could consider (hits) and having to use more and more sophisticated instruments …

Laura Parker:         I’m sorry, you broke up a little bit.  Finding less and less …

Janet Baran:          I would say any kind of – any kind of signal at all in the water column.  And what we’re finding is that the concentrations are now in the parts of a billion.  So we’re having to use more and more sophisticated instruments to even see if there is this dispersed oil cloud and that’s all.

Laura Parker:         And what?

Janet Baran:          That’s all.

Laura Parker:         Oh, and what about the sediment on the sea?  Because I’m sure you’re very well familiar with what Mandy Joye is finding at the University of Georgia, and I think she had something in her blog about it earlier in the month.

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  So Dr. Samuel Walker, who is also part of the subsurface monitoring team, he got in contact with Dr. Joye, and she has shared her locations, and we will be going and revisiting those.  We want to ensure that we’re not just taking observations and doing – we want to make sure we’re doing a full analysis.  And so this is part of why we are going and looking at where she has sampled.

Laura Parker:         So in both of those instances of the plume and the oil on the floor, on the sea floor, you’re taking that – these other analyses into account and looking at them, but you guys have not – you’re not at the stage where you’ve reached any conclusion on either of them.  Is that what you’re saying?

Janet Baran:          I wouldn’t say that exactly.  The sediment sampling we’ve only just initiated, so we have not gone to those sites yet.  And the water sampling we have always been in (agreeance) with our academic partners that there was this layer in the water column.  It still exists, however it is at much lower concentrations and continues to degrade over time.

David Valentine:   This is Dave Valentine.  I think I can follow up a little bit, having been involved in many of these discussions.  With regard to the sediments, that’s really one of the primary targets of this upcoming cruise, and we have two tools that we are using to address this issue of whether or not there’s oil that has fallen into the sediments and is sitting there.  We’re doing extensive coring operations with a sort of corer that preserves that interface very, very well.

Onboard, we have the (mastectrometers) that we need to quantify the amount of oil that may be there on the sediment surface.  We also have a towed camera system that we’ll be deploying.  We can tow it along the sea floor.  It resides about nine to 15 feet above the sea floor and is dragged by the boat.  That takes pictures of the sea floor, about 2,000 images for every five-hour deployment.

And with that, we are hoping to look for the distribution of oil, if there is oil on the sea floor, to help us understand exactly what the patterns of deposition of this oil may be, if it’s there, and we’ll follow up, then, with the coring to quantify how much is there in those areas.

Janet Baran:          And also fingerprint – that’s the key here, too, is that we want to ensure chemically, if we do find oil, we need to check that it is MC252.  There are plenty of natural seeps in the Gulf of Mexico, which can cause oil to be found within sediment.

Laura Parker:         Right.  When is the Pisces coming back?

Janet Baran:          The Pisces will be out until October 4.

Laura Parker:         But you send this – you can send – you’re sending data in every day, is that correct?

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  We have a secure FTP site, and they’re – they will be uploading all of their analysis.  There – some of the – there will be additional work done on samples in labs that take longer than what can be done here.

Laura Parker:         And do you have a target date for when you’ll release your findings from this particular trip?

Janet Baran:          Not at this time.  We will continue to update – as we get results.  Science, unfortunately, takes more time than we care to admit, and we want to make sure that we fully investigate this and have strong conclusions.

Laura Parker:         And are you – in addition to – as things break down, are you looking at all of the things that are in the – in the – you know as they – the breakdown products that result from the breaking down of the oil?  I’m wording that badly.

David Valentine:   I guess I can take that to a certain – this is Dave Valentine.  I can’t …

Laura Parker:         There’s – do you need me to reword it?  Because I’ve worded it badly, but I think you might get my point.

David Valentine:   Yes, I do, and the compounds that are being analyzed for are the standard toxic compounds that are known in oil.  And these include the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as well as other hydrocarbon components within oil.

The issue of breakdown products is a very tricky one, and it moves into the academic realm, which I’m always happy to talk about, because I’m a geochemist, and that’s what I do for a living.  But it’s – you know it’s really insider talk, insider speak.  A lot of it – and the bottom line is that – so the kinds of breakdown products that we’re talking about tend to be fairly low on concentration.  These are intermediates or terminal products.  And they’re not – they’re very difficult things to analyze, and they tend to be at very low concentration.

Personally, we are trying to look for those at very trace levels.  That’s one of the things that my research entails.  But it’s not, to my knowledge, part of the standard plan, because these compounds tend to be very, very low in concentration.

Russell Tippets:     OK, can we get the next caller, please, to ensure everybody gets a question answered timely?

Operator:               OK, and your next question comes from the line of (Laurie Wiegler).

(Laurie Wiegler):    (Laurie Wiegler), thank you.

Hi, thank you very much for taking my call.  If more oil is found, and we know that it will be, I’m curious what the next step is for NOAA.  Is bioremediation a possibility?  Do you just let it continue to disperse?  What’s your game plan?

Paul Zukunft:        Actually, in terms of the response, that’s – this is Admiral Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator.  You know just bear in mind, right now what we’ve been detecting in that water column is parts per million and parts per billion.  And actually, we had – we’re seeing more and more in the parts per billion, which lends itself to the fact that there is some natural biodegradation taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, which is actually quite common in a body of water that has a significant amount of natural seeps and hydrocarbons occurring naturally, plus the fact that this well is located in relative proximity to the outflow of the Mississippi River, which is also rich in nutrients.

So, again, the key part of this study that’s ongoing is to detect any significant amounts, beyond what we’ve seen so far, but we need to expand the scope of that monitoring effort.  The preponderance of the sampling data right now has been in the water column.  This next phase is very focused upon what’s in that sediment layer as well.

And then, depending on what we find from those – you know from the sampling and analytic data – at that point, we can then consider if in fact there is an appropriate response protocol to address that.  But right now, that’s not one that I would make unilaterally.  We have a regional response team that would actually share that data, and then they would ultimately provide me recommendations whether to use such intervention methods such as bioremediation.

(Laurie Wiegler):    Thank you.  May I just ask one more follow-up to that?  Is Admiral Thad Allen no longer involved in this?  And, would that change if you decided to have another effort there to, say with the bioremediation or for cleaning up any excess oil that’s found?

Paul Zukunft:        Yes, Admiral Allen and I did a press conference yesterday where he announced that he will be retiring a week from today.  I will continue in my role as federal on-scene coordinator, as I have for some time now.  And the regional response team does provide these recommendations to the federal on-scene coordinator.

And at the same time, I also have direct access to all the interagency administrators and will assume that capacity from Admiral Allen as he goes into retirement, which certainly falls within my purview as the federal on-scene coordinator.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, thank you, and I apologize for that.  I was not on the call yesterday.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you’re quite welcome.  Actually, you know this was a local press conference.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK.

Paul Zukunft:        So, no, you did not miss that.

(Laurie Wiegler):    All right.

Paull Zukunft:        But I am the one they call Admiral Z.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, yes, I know who you are.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

END

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Paul Zukunft:        Well, good afternoon.  Thank you for joining us.  And again, it’s great to be joined by NOAA, our scientific support coordinator, and also with David who represents academia as we look at this phase of the operation, as we look at what’s below the surface.

And I’m also joined by the captain of the NOAA research vessel Pisces, Jesse Stark.  And it’s great to be pier side before this vessel prepares to set sail this afternoon on a very critical mission integral to this oil spill.

Just to bring you up to date on where we are with the spill, we still have a very active response across the four states and the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  On Wednesday, I was down in Bay Jimmy down in Barataria Bay where we had over 600 workers working off a floating barge responding to oil in that area in a very isolated marshland.

But there’s still removal operations taking place as I speak today.  So we’re still recovering oil, but at the same time, our next area of concern, as it has been from day one, is what is below the surface.

We heard that the well was killed on the 19th of September, and actually we’ve had no oil introduced – no new oil since the 15th of July, and our oil trajectory grid went to a white screen with no recoverable oil since on or about the 1st of August.

So now our challenge is to look at what is on the sea floor, and so the NOAA vessel Pisces is one of several vessels that will participate in that mission.  I have the best of science here surrounding me just as we did, when we did that relief well, which was a feat – quite a feat onto itself to be able to intercept that well from three miles away, a seven-inch casing intercepting a seven-inch casing.

Well, now we need to verify with the best of science what is in that water column, what is in the sea floor, down to depths up to and exceeding 5,000 feet integral to this oil spill response.  So that’s where we’re going in the next phase of this operation.  And I do look forward to seeing the NOAA vessel Pisces get underway for this mission this afternoon.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Janet Baran.

 Janet Baran:          Baran, yes, thank you, Admiral.

So we’re very glad to be here today on the NOAA ship Pisces.  The Pisces has been a very important part of our mission this whole summer.  It’s been out doing acoustic monitoring during the well head integrity tests as well as doing water sampling in the last couple cruises.

We have been working on monitoring the subsurface since early May and continue to do so.  This – our monitoring covers the near shore, the south and the deep water, from the surface to the bottom of the ocean.  And we’re looking to really understand if there is any recoverable oil or if there’s anything else that we can do about it.

We’ve had numerous vessels out.  Currently we have about six vessels who are working in the continental shelf and deep water doing sediment and water sampling, and this vessel will be part of that.  All vessels are coordinated through unified area command, and we even host a call every day between all the chief scientists to talk about what they’re finding so that we can (adaptably) change our missions if there is something we find.

To date, we have collected more than 30,000 samples in the Gulf of Mexico, from the Texas-Louisiana border to the Florida Keys.  Last week we had over six vessels out, mostly doing water sampling.  This week has been the initiation of most of our deeper water sediment sampling.

The Gyre went out this week as well as the Ocean Veritas and now the Pisces.  These three vessels will do all the deeper water sediment sampling.  We have a couple vessels out in the near shore doing sediment and water sampling, that’s up to three nautical miles from the shore, doing a wide sweep to ensure that there is no oil in the sediment.

We find very little amounts of (residue) oil on near shore.  It’s being degraded naturally and recovered where possible.  And we really are committed to ensuring the safety of the Gulf and restoring the Gulf as we move out of this phase of trying to determine how we can fix things – not fix things – how we can stop and recover oil and moving to restoration.

We have teams out, part of the Natural Resources Damage Assessment Team, who will be looking at the long-term impacts and helping restore the Gulf. We do have a couple of resources which may be helpful to you.  We have a live mission log at NOAA.gov where we have blogs from all of our vessels that are out, giving live updates on what they’re finding.  And also, if you would like to see the sampling location data and results, you can go to GeoPlatform.gov.

And with that, I’m going to turn it over to Dr. David Valentine who is our chief scientist on this mission.

 David Valentine:   My name is Dr. David Valentine, I’m a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and I’m here representing academia.  I’m serving currently as chief scientist on the NOAA ship Pisces for this expedition.

Joining me – I have additional academic scientists from a number of institutions, including the U.S. Geological Survey, East Carolina University, California Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

We have four main sampling areas that we’re targeting – or four main sampling devices, I should specify, that allow us to collect sediment, allow us to visualize sediment on the sea floor, allow us to collect and analyze water from the deep waters as well as tools that are available shipboard to visualize natural seepage that may be occurring from the sea floor.

And with that, I’ll turn it back over to Janet.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you for taking my call.  I have a question about seafood testing.  Is it possible to get that answered?

Paul Zukunft:        Go ahead, Nancy.  I’ll answer that.  This is Rear Admiral Zukunft.  I’ll be happy to take that question.

Nancy MacKenzie:     OK, I’ve actually been trying to get this answered for a while.  When the shrimp are seafood tested, sensory and chemical analysis, do you know if that is with the shells on or off?

Paul Zukunft:        That question I do not know.  I do know it goes through a two-stage test, and the more elaborate test is when it goes through a GC-MS test.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right.

Paul Zukunft:        For any presence of hydrocarbon that would, in all likelihood, test the shell and flesh.  But I can’t say …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, I’m interested in that and whether they’re deveined or not.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, best place to answer that would be …

Nancy MacKenzie:     And I’ve really been trying to get that answered for three weeks, so …

Paul Zukunft:        Or with the Food and Drug Administration.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, having difficulty there, so I was hoping that you’d be able to.  But here’s one that you – that you all – probably more up your alley.  If the protocol for reopening fishing areas is the evaluation of oil movement, oil in the water column, sheen on the water and the seafood assessment, why are so many square miles still closed?  Does that mean that the seafood is tainted or there’s oil in the water?

Paul Zukunft:        No, right now we’re waiting to get a representational sample for a number of fish species in those federal waters that remain closed.  We do have a number of vessels that are out there with NOAA observers on there to actually catch those fish and then run those through the laboratory results.  And so that is actually part of the process to get those areas reopened.

But the key part is having a representational sample.  And as you realize, we did have 8,000 square miles that were just reopened on the 21st of September, and then also recreational fishing for red snapper was opened.  There was allowable quota remaining for red snapper, so for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, starting on October 1st for the next eight-week period, that red snapper season will be opened for recreational fishing, not for commercial though.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right, right, OK, well just one last thing as long as we’re talking about it.  On the e-mails that I get, it says that areas remain closed to balance economic and public health concerns, and I’m not sure exactly what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you had broken up through part of that, did you …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Oh, I’m sorry, it’s – the e-mails that I get, you know the by the numbers (sent) from the unified command, says that the areas remain closed due to balance economic and public health concerns.  And I’m not exactly sure what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, yea, those areas were closed when there was oil in those areas, and that was due to the concern for public health if fish were to be caught from there, and should there be polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, found in the fish flesh.  So that’s why there were closed.

And obviously we can close an area quite quickly to go through the requisite sampling protocols to then reopen it.  It is a somewhat time-consuming process.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        So it is a process where we error on the side of caution.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        Anytime – you know the economic indicator there, if that fish is caught and, for whatever reason, it is not found to be in compliance, it could actually have a detrimental effect you know on the economic fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico.

So you probably heard on a number of a blogs – and it is – it is the most-sampled seafood anywhere in the face of the Earth.  But again, if there’s going to be any error in this process, it will be on the side of caution.  But again, I am working extremely closely with the NOAA Marine Fishery Service, who in turn works with the Food and Drug Administration on the sampling protocols that – to continue to reopen those closed areas.  And they are gradually reopening.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you, I appreciate your time.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Laura Parker with AOL News.

Laura Parker:         Yes, I have a – sort of a big-picture question in terms of the total effort involving the – NOAA’s research.  It was announced, I think it was last week, or in the last few days, that NOAA’s now embarking on a larger systematic effort to understand the oil in the water and sort out some of the differences between academic sciences and government scientists with regard to oil on the – on the sea floor and plume and so on.

Can you lay out how and when some of these particular issues may be resolved?  Is this – is there sort of a map that you set out for how you’re going to get to the bottom of some of these things?  Or will these be you know many months away?

Janet Baran:          This is Janet Baran, (inaudible) many months away.  So we already have – there’s two parts of it.  There’s water and sediment.  So the water sampling has been going on all summer.  We have a team in place at unified area command that represents six different agencies that is an operational science advisory team.  And they are analyzing all the data as it’s coming in to make recommendations of when we reach the – reach the end game of the response, not the restoration, not the long-term care of the Gulf.

And so the water sampling is mostly completed.  But the analysis is still ongoing.  The team is in place.  They are looking at the data every day and trying to determine if there are gaps of what we need to infill or if we have completed and have an answer to the American public.

The second part is the sediment.  And, as I said, the Gyre, the Ocean Veritas and the Pisces will be out doing the sediment sampling.  And so it’s expected within the next couple weeks we will have all of the sediment samples, and that same team will be looking at what that tells us and if there needs to be additional sampling.

Much of the near shore sediment sampling is already completed, and the indicators we’re getting from there so far is a lack of presence of oil in the sediment.

Laura Parker:         Have you – I mean, come – have you been able to resolve sort of the issue of the plume, for instance?  We’ve got the – what the Berkeley Labs report versus the Woods Hole report …

Janet Baran:          Sure.

Laura Parker:         Or is there – has there just been a change from the date of the one and the date of the other?

Janet Baran:          Sure, a lot of those were based in samples that were taken in June.  And Dr. Chris Reddy, who was a part of the Woods Hole study, has – was the academic liaison at unified area command the last couple of weeks.  And we have engaged with him and talked about what he found.

Our vessels were out there also, looking at all that.  And those academic data have been included into the response database.  So we’re looking at all of it in total.

Currently what we’re finding is that dilution has occurred.  So over time, more and more water has mixed in.  And also the microbes have continued to decrease the amount of oil that would be in that area.  We’re finding less and less what we could consider (hits) and having to use more and more sophisticated instruments …

Laura Parker:         I’m sorry, you broke up a little bit.  Finding less and less …

Janet Baran:          I would say any kind of – any kind of signal at all in the water column.  And what we’re finding is that the concentrations are now in the parts of a billion.  So we’re having to use more and more sophisticated instruments to even see if there is this dispersed oil cloud and that’s all.

Laura Parker:         And what?

Janet Baran:          That’s all.

Laura Parker:         Oh, and what about the sediment on the sea?  Because I’m sure you’re very well familiar with what Mandy Joye is finding at the University of Georgia, and I think she had something in her blog about it earlier in the month.

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  So Dr. Samuel Walker, who is also part of the subsurface monitoring team, he got in contact with Dr. Joye, and she has shared her locations, and we will be going and revisiting those.  We want to ensure that we’re not just taking observations and doing – we want to make sure we’re doing a full analysis.  And so this is part of why we are going and looking at where she has sampled.

Laura Parker:         So in both of those instances of the plume and the oil on the floor, on the sea floor, you’re taking that – these other analyses into account and looking at them, but you guys have not – you’re not at the stage where you’ve reached any conclusion on either of them.  Is that what you’re saying?

Janet Baran:          I wouldn’t say that exactly.  The sediment sampling we’ve only just initiated, so we have not gone to those sites yet.  And the water sampling we have always been in (agreeance) with our academic partners that there was this layer in the water column.  It still exists, however it is at much lower concentrations and continues to degrade over time.

David Valentine:   This is Dave Valentine.  I think I can follow up a little bit, having been involved in many of these discussions.  With regard to the sediments, that’s really one of the primary targets of this upcoming cruise, and we have two tools that we are using to address this issue of whether or not there’s oil that has fallen into the sediments and is sitting there.  We’re doing extensive coring operations with a sort of corer that preserves that interface very, very well.

Onboard, we have the (mastectrometers) that we need to quantify the amount of oil that may be there on the sediment surface.  We also have a towed camera system that we’ll be deploying.  We can tow it along the sea floor.  It resides about nine to 15 feet above the sea floor and is dragged by the boat.  That takes pictures of the sea floor, about 2,000 images for every five-hour deployment.

And with that, we are hoping to look for the distribution of oil, if there is oil on the sea floor, to help us understand exactly what the patterns of deposition of this oil may be, if it’s there, and we’ll follow up, then, with the coring to quantify how much is there in those areas.

Janet Baran:          And also fingerprint – that’s the key here, too, is that we want to ensure chemically, if we do find oil, we need to check that it is MC252.  There are plenty of natural seeps in the Gulf of Mexico, which can cause oil to be found within sediment.

Laura Parker:         Right.  When is the Pisces coming back?

Janet Baran:          The Pisces will be out until October 4.

Laura Parker:         But you send this – you can send – you’re sending data in every day, is that correct?

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  We have a secure FTP site, and they’re – they will be uploading all of their analysis.  There – some of the – there will be additional work done on samples in labs that take longer than what can be done here.

Laura Parker:         And do you have a target date for when you’ll release your findings from this particular trip?

Janet Baran:          Not at this time.  We will continue to update – as we get results.  Science, unfortunately, takes more time than we care to admit, and we want to make sure that we fully investigate this and have strong conclusions.

Laura Parker:         And are you – in addition to – as things break down, are you looking at all of the things that are in the – in the – you know as they – the breakdown products that result from the breaking down of the oil?  I’m wording that badly.

David Valentine:   I guess I can take that to a certain – this is Dave Valentine.  I can’t …

Laura Parker:         There’s – do you need me to reword it?  Because I’ve worded it badly, but I think you might get my point.

David Valentine:   Yes, I do, and the compounds that are being analyzed for are the standard toxic compounds that are known in oil.  And these include the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as well as other hydrocarbon components within oil.

The issue of breakdown products is a very tricky one, and it moves into the academic realm, which I’m always happy to talk about, because I’m a geochemist, and that’s what I do for a living.  But it’s – you know it’s really insider talk, insider speak.  A lot of it – and the bottom line is that – so the kinds of breakdown products that we’re talking about tend to be fairly low on concentration.  These are intermediates or terminal products.  And they’re not – they’re very difficult things to analyze, and they tend to be at very low concentration.

Personally, we are trying to look for those at very trace levels.  That’s one of the things that my research entails.  But it’s not, to my knowledge, part of the standard plan, because these compounds tend to be very, very low in concentration.

Russell Tippets:     OK, can we get the next caller, please, to ensure everybody gets a question answered timely?

Operator:               OK, and your next question comes from the line of (Laurie Wiegler).

(Laurie Wiegler):    (Laurie Wiegler), thank you.

Hi, thank you very much for taking my call.  If more oil is found, and we know that it will be, I’m curious what the next step is for NOAA.  Is bioremediation a possibility?  Do you just let it continue to disperse?  What’s your game plan?

Paul Zukunft:        Actually, in terms of the response, that’s – this is Admiral Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator.  You know just bear in mind, right now what we’ve been detecting in that water column is parts per million and parts per billion.  And actually, we had – we’re seeing more and more in the parts per billion, which lends itself to the fact that there is some natural biodegradation taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, which is actually quite common in a body of water that has a significant amount of natural seeps and hydrocarbons occurring naturally, plus the fact that this well is located in relative proximity to the outflow of the Mississippi River, which is also rich in nutrients.

So, again, the key part of this study that’s ongoing is to detect any significant amounts, beyond what we’ve seen so far, but we need to expand the scope of that monitoring effort.  The preponderance of the sampling data right now has been in the water column.  This next phase is very focused upon what’s in that sediment layer as well.

And then, depending on what we find from those – you know from the sampling and analytic data – at that point, we can then consider if in fact there is an appropriate response protocol to address that.  But right now, that’s not one that I would make unilaterally.  We have a regional response team that would actually share that data, and then they would ultimately provide me recommendations whether to use such intervention methods such as bioremediation.

(Laurie Wiegler):    Thank you.  May I just ask one more follow-up to that?  Is Admiral Thad Allen no longer involved in this?  And, would that change if you decided to have another effort there to, say with the bioremediation or for cleaning up any excess oil that’s found?

Paul Zukunft:        Yes, Admiral Allen and I did a press conference yesterday where he announced that he will be retiring a week from today.  I will continue in my role as federal on-scene coordinator, as I have for some time now.  And the regional response team does provide these recommendations to the federal on-scene coordinator.

And at the same time, I also have direct access to all the interagency administrators and will assume that capacity from Admiral Allen as he goes into retirement, which certainly falls within my purview as the federal on-scene coordinator.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, thank you, and I apologize for that.  I was not on the call yesterday.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you’re quite welcome.  Actually, you know this was a local press conference.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK.

Paul Zukunft:        So, no, you did not miss that.

(Laurie Wiegler):    All right.

Paull Zukunft:        But I am the one they call Admiral Z.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, yes, I know who you are.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

END

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Paul Zukunft:        Well, good afternoon.  Thank you for joining us.  And again, it’s great to be joined by NOAA, our scientific support coordinator, and also with David who represents academia as we look at this phase of the operation, as we look at what’s below the surface.

And I’m also joined by the captain of the NOAA research vessel Pisces, Jesse Stark.  And it’s great to be pier side before this vessel prepares to set sail this afternoon on a very critical mission integral to this oil spill.

Just to bring you up to date on where we are with the spill, we still have a very active response across the four states and the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  On Wednesday, I was down in Bay Jimmy down in Barataria Bay where we had over 600 workers working off a floating barge responding to oil in that area in a very isolated marshland.

But there’s still removal operations taking place as I speak today.  So we’re still recovering oil, but at the same time, our next area of concern, as it has been from day one, is what is below the surface.

We heard that the well was killed on the 19th of September, and actually we’ve had no oil introduced – no new oil since the 15th of July, and our oil trajectory grid went to a white screen with no recoverable oil since on or about the 1st of August.

So now our challenge is to look at what is on the sea floor, and so the NOAA vessel Pisces is one of several vessels that will participate in that mission.  I have the best of science here surrounding me just as we did, when we did that relief well, which was a feat – quite a feat onto itself to be able to intercept that well from three miles away, a seven-inch casing intercepting a seven-inch casing.

Well, now we need to verify with the best of science what is in that water column, what is in the sea floor, down to depths up to and exceeding 5,000 feet integral to this oil spill response.  So that’s where we’re going in the next phase of this operation.  And I do look forward to seeing the NOAA vessel Pisces get underway for this mission this afternoon.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Janet Baran.

 Janet Baran:          Baran, yes, thank you, Admiral.

So we’re very glad to be here today on the NOAA ship Pisces.  The Pisces has been a very important part of our mission this whole summer.  It’s been out doing acoustic monitoring during the well head integrity tests as well as doing water sampling in the last couple cruises.

We have been working on monitoring the subsurface since early May and continue to do so.  This – our monitoring covers the near shore, the south and the deep water, from the surface to the bottom of the ocean.  And we’re looking to really understand if there is any recoverable oil or if there’s anything else that we can do about it.

We’ve had numerous vessels out.  Currently we have about six vessels who are working in the continental shelf and deep water doing sediment and water sampling, and this vessel will be part of that.  All vessels are coordinated through unified area command, and we even host a call every day between all the chief scientists to talk about what they’re finding so that we can (adaptably) change our missions if there is something we find.

To date, we have collected more than 30,000 samples in the Gulf of Mexico, from the Texas-Louisiana border to the Florida Keys.  Last week we had over six vessels out, mostly doing water sampling.  This week has been the initiation of most of our deeper water sediment sampling.

The Gyre went out this week as well as the Ocean Veritas and now the Pisces.  These three vessels will do all the deeper water sediment sampling.  We have a couple vessels out in the near shore doing sediment and water sampling, that’s up to three nautical miles from the shore, doing a wide sweep to ensure that there is no oil in the sediment.

We find very little amounts of (residue) oil on near shore.  It’s being degraded naturally and recovered where possible.  And we really are committed to ensuring the safety of the Gulf and restoring the Gulf as we move out of this phase of trying to determine how we can fix things – not fix things – how we can stop and recover oil and moving to restoration.

We have teams out, part of the Natural Resources Damage Assessment Team, who will be looking at the long-term impacts and helping restore the Gulf. We do have a couple of resources which may be helpful to you.  We have a live mission log at NOAA.gov where we have blogs from all of our vessels that are out, giving live updates on what they’re finding.  And also, if you would like to see the sampling location data and results, you can go to GeoPlatform.gov.

And with that, I’m going to turn it over to Dr. David Valentine who is our chief scientist on this mission.

 David Valentine:   My name is Dr. David Valentine, I’m a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and I’m here representing academia.  I’m serving currently as chief scientist on the NOAA ship Pisces for this expedition.

Joining me – I have additional academic scientists from a number of institutions, including the U.S. Geological Survey, East Carolina University, California Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

We have four main sampling areas that we’re targeting – or four main sampling devices, I should specify, that allow us to collect sediment, allow us to visualize sediment on the sea floor, allow us to collect and analyze water from the deep waters as well as tools that are available shipboard to visualize natural seepage that may be occurring from the sea floor.

And with that, I’ll turn it back over to Janet.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you for taking my call.  I have a question about seafood testing.  Is it possible to get that answered?

Paul Zukunft:        Go ahead, Nancy.  I’ll answer that.  This is Rear Admiral Zukunft.  I’ll be happy to take that question.

Nancy MacKenzie:     OK, I’ve actually been trying to get this answered for a while.  When the shrimp are seafood tested, sensory and chemical analysis, do you know if that is with the shells on or off?

Paul Zukunft:        That question I do not know.  I do know it goes through a two-stage test, and the more elaborate test is when it goes through a GC-MS test.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right.

Paul Zukunft:        For any presence of hydrocarbon that would, in all likelihood, test the shell and flesh.  But I can’t say …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, I’m interested in that and whether they’re deveined or not.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, best place to answer that would be …

Nancy MacKenzie:     And I’ve really been trying to get that answered for three weeks, so …

Paul Zukunft:        Or with the Food and Drug Administration.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, having difficulty there, so I was hoping that you’d be able to.  But here’s one that you – that you all – probably more up your alley.  If the protocol for reopening fishing areas is the evaluation of oil movement, oil in the water column, sheen on the water and the seafood assessment, why are so many square miles still closed?  Does that mean that the seafood is tainted or there’s oil in the water?

Paul Zukunft:        No, right now we’re waiting to get a representational sample for a number of fish species in those federal waters that remain closed.  We do have a number of vessels that are out there with NOAA observers on there to actually catch those fish and then run those through the laboratory results.  And so that is actually part of the process to get those areas reopened.

But the key part is having a representational sample.  And as you realize, we did have 8,000 square miles that were just reopened on the 21st of September, and then also recreational fishing for red snapper was opened.  There was allowable quota remaining for red snapper, so for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, starting on October 1st for the next eight-week period, that red snapper season will be opened for recreational fishing, not for commercial though.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right, right, OK, well just one last thing as long as we’re talking about it.  On the e-mails that I get, it says that areas remain closed to balance economic and public health concerns, and I’m not sure exactly what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you had broken up through part of that, did you …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Oh, I’m sorry, it’s – the e-mails that I get, you know the by the numbers (sent) from the unified command, says that the areas remain closed due to balance economic and public health concerns.  And I’m not exactly sure what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, yea, those areas were closed when there was oil in those areas, and that was due to the concern for public health if fish were to be caught from there, and should there be polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, found in the fish flesh.  So that’s why there were closed.

And obviously we can close an area quite quickly to go through the requisite sampling protocols to then reopen it.  It is a somewhat time-consuming process.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        So it is a process where we error on the side of caution.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        Anytime – you know the economic indicator there, if that fish is caught and, for whatever reason, it is not found to be in compliance, it could actually have a detrimental effect you know on the economic fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico.

So you probably heard on a number of a blogs – and it is – it is the most-sampled seafood anywhere in the face of the Earth.  But again, if there’s going to be any error in this process, it will be on the side of caution.  But again, I am working extremely closely with the NOAA Marine Fishery Service, who in turn works with the Food and Drug Administration on the sampling protocols that – to continue to reopen those closed areas.  And they are gradually reopening.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you, I appreciate your time.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Laura Parker with AOL News.

Laura Parker:         Yes, I have a – sort of a big-picture question in terms of the total effort involving the – NOAA’s research.  It was announced, I think it was last week, or in the last few days, that NOAA’s now embarking on a larger systematic effort to understand the oil in the water and sort out some of the differences between academic sciences and government scientists with regard to oil on the – on the sea floor and plume and so on.

Can you lay out how and when some of these particular issues may be resolved?  Is this – is there sort of a map that you set out for how you’re going to get to the bottom of some of these things?  Or will these be you know many months away?

Janet Baran:          This is Janet Baran, (inaudible) many months away.  So we already have – there’s two parts of it.  There’s water and sediment.  So the water sampling has been going on all summer.  We have a team in place at unified area command that represents six different agencies that is an operational science advisory team.  And they are analyzing all the data as it’s coming in to make recommendations of when we reach the – reach the end game of the response, not the restoration, not the long-term care of the Gulf.

And so the water sampling is mostly completed.  But the analysis is still ongoing.  The team is in place.  They are looking at the data every day and trying to determine if there are gaps of what we need to infill or if we have completed and have an answer to the American public.

The second part is the sediment.  And, as I said, the Gyre, the Ocean Veritas and the Pisces will be out doing the sediment sampling.  And so it’s expected within the next couple weeks we will have all of the sediment samples, and that same team will be looking at what that tells us and if there needs to be additional sampling.

Much of the near shore sediment sampling is already completed, and the indicators we’re getting from there so far is a lack of presence of oil in the sediment.

Laura Parker:         Have you – I mean, come – have you been able to resolve sort of the issue of the plume, for instance?  We’ve got the – what the Berkeley Labs report versus the Woods Hole report …

Janet Baran:          Sure.

Laura Parker:         Or is there – has there just been a change from the date of the one and the date of the other?

Janet Baran:          Sure, a lot of those were based in samples that were taken in June.  And Dr. Chris Reddy, who was a part of the Woods Hole study, has – was the academic liaison at unified area command the last couple of weeks.  And we have engaged with him and talked about what he found.

Our vessels were out there also, looking at all that.  And those academic data have been included into the response database.  So we’re looking at all of it in total.

Currently what we’re finding is that dilution has occurred.  So over time, more and more water has mixed in.  And also the microbes have continued to decrease the amount of oil that would be in that area.  We’re finding less and less what we could consider (hits) and having to use more and more sophisticated instruments …

Laura Parker:         I’m sorry, you broke up a little bit.  Finding less and less …

Janet Baran:          I would say any kind of – any kind of signal at all in the water column.  And what we’re finding is that the concentrations are now in the parts of a billion.  So we’re having to use more and more sophisticated instruments to even see if there is this dispersed oil cloud and that’s all.

Laura Parker:         And what?

Janet Baran:          That’s all.

Laura Parker:         Oh, and what about the sediment on the sea?  Because I’m sure you’re very well familiar with what Mandy Joye is finding at the University of Georgia, and I think she had something in her blog about it earlier in the month.

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  So Dr. Samuel Walker, who is also part of the subsurface monitoring team, he got in contact with Dr. Joye, and she has shared her locations, and we will be going and revisiting those.  We want to ensure that we’re not just taking observations and doing – we want to make sure we’re doing a full analysis.  And so this is part of why we are going and looking at where she has sampled.

Laura Parker:         So in both of those instances of the plume and the oil on the floor, on the sea floor, you’re taking that – these other analyses into account and looking at them, but you guys have not – you’re not at the stage where you’ve reached any conclusion on either of them.  Is that what you’re saying?

Janet Baran:          I wouldn’t say that exactly.  The sediment sampling we’ve only just initiated, so we have not gone to those sites yet.  And the water sampling we have always been in (agreeance) with our academic partners that there was this layer in the water column.  It still exists, however it is at much lower concentrations and continues to degrade over time.

David Valentine:   This is Dave Valentine.  I think I can follow up a little bit, having been involved in many of these discussions.  With regard to the sediments, that’s really one of the primary targets of this upcoming cruise, and we have two tools that we are using to address this issue of whether or not there’s oil that has fallen into the sediments and is sitting there.  We’re doing extensive coring operations with a sort of corer that preserves that interface very, very well.

Onboard, we have the (mastectrometers) that we need to quantify the amount of oil that may be there on the sediment surface.  We also have a towed camera system that we’ll be deploying.  We can tow it along the sea floor.  It resides about nine to 15 feet above the sea floor and is dragged by the boat.  That takes pictures of the sea floor, about 2,000 images for every five-hour deployment.

And with that, we are hoping to look for the distribution of oil, if there is oil on the sea floor, to help us understand exactly what the patterns of deposition of this oil may be, if it’s there, and we’ll follow up, then, with the coring to quantify how much is there in those areas.

Janet Baran:          And also fingerprint – that’s the key here, too, is that we want to ensure chemically, if we do find oil, we need to check that it is MC252.  There are plenty of natural seeps in the Gulf of Mexico, which can cause oil to be found within sediment.

Laura Parker:         Right.  When is the Pisces coming back?

Janet Baran:          The Pisces will be out until October 4.

Laura Parker:         But you send this – you can send – you’re sending data in every day, is that correct?

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  We have a secure FTP site, and they’re – they will be uploading all of their analysis.  There – some of the – there will be additional work done on samples in labs that take longer than what can be done here.

Laura Parker:         And do you have a target date for when you’ll release your findings from this particular trip?

Janet Baran:          Not at this time.  We will continue to update – as we get results.  Science, unfortunately, takes more time than we care to admit, and we want to make sure that we fully investigate this and have strong conclusions.

Laura Parker:         And are you – in addition to – as things break down, are you looking at all of the things that are in the – in the – you know as they – the breakdown products that result from the breaking down of the oil?  I’m wording that badly.

David Valentine:   I guess I can take that to a certain – this is Dave Valentine.  I can’t …

Laura Parker:         There’s – do you need me to reword it?  Because I’ve worded it badly, but I think you might get my point.

David Valentine:   Yes, I do, and the compounds that are being analyzed for are the standard toxic compounds that are known in oil.  And these include the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as well as other hydrocarbon components within oil.

The issue of breakdown products is a very tricky one, and it moves into the academic realm, which I’m always happy to talk about, because I’m a geochemist, and that’s what I do for a living.  But it’s – you know it’s really insider talk, insider speak.  A lot of it – and the bottom line is that – so the kinds of breakdown products that we’re talking about tend to be fairly low on concentration.  These are intermediates or terminal products.  And they’re not – they’re very difficult things to analyze, and they tend to be at very low concentration.

Personally, we are trying to look for those at very trace levels.  That’s one of the things that my research entails.  But it’s not, to my knowledge, part of the standard plan, because these compounds tend to be very, very low in concentration.

Russell Tippets:     OK, can we get the next caller, please, to ensure everybody gets a question answered timely?

Operator:               OK, and your next question comes from the line of (Laurie Wiegler).

(Laurie Wiegler):    (Laurie Wiegler), thank you.

Hi, thank you very much for taking my call.  If more oil is found, and we know that it will be, I’m curious what the next step is for NOAA.  Is bioremediation a possibility?  Do you just let it continue to disperse?  What’s your game plan?

Paul Zukunft:        Actually, in terms of the response, that’s – this is Admiral Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator.  You know just bear in mind, right now what we’ve been detecting in that water column is parts per million and parts per billion.  And actually, we had – we’re seeing more and more in the parts per billion, which lends itself to the fact that there is some natural biodegradation taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, which is actually quite common in a body of water that has a significant amount of natural seeps and hydrocarbons occurring naturally, plus the fact that this well is located in relative proximity to the outflow of the Mississippi River, which is also rich in nutrients.

So, again, the key part of this study that’s ongoing is to detect any significant amounts, beyond what we’ve seen so far, but we need to expand the scope of that monitoring effort.  The preponderance of the sampling data right now has been in the water column.  This next phase is very focused upon what’s in that sediment layer as well.

And then, depending on what we find from those – you know from the sampling and analytic data – at that point, we can then consider if in fact there is an appropriate response protocol to address that.  But right now, that’s not one that I would make unilaterally.  We have a regional response team that would actually share that data, and then they would ultimately provide me recommendations whether to use such intervention methods such as bioremediation.

(Laurie Wiegler):    Thank you.  May I just ask one more follow-up to that?  Is Admiral Thad Allen no longer involved in this?  And, would that change if you decided to have another effort there to, say with the bioremediation or for cleaning up any excess oil that’s found?

Paul Zukunft:        Yes, Admiral Allen and I did a press conference yesterday where he announced that he will be retiring a week from today.  I will continue in my role as federal on-scene coordinator, as I have for some time now.  And the regional response team does provide these recommendations to the federal on-scene coordinator.

And at the same time, I also have direct access to all the interagency administrators and will assume that capacity from Admiral Allen as he goes into retirement, which certainly falls within my purview as the federal on-scene coordinator.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, thank you, and I apologize for that.  I was not on the call yesterday.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you’re quite welcome.  Actually, you know this was a local press conference.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK.

Paul Zukunft:        So, no, you did not miss that.

(Laurie Wiegler):    All right.

Paull Zukunft:        But I am the one they call Admiral Z.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, yes, I know who you are.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

END

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Paul Zukunft:        Well, good afternoon.  Thank you for joining us.  And again, it’s great to be joined by NOAA, our scientific support coordinator, and also with David who represents academia as we look at this phase of the operation, as we look at what’s below the surface.

And I’m also joined by the captain of the NOAA research vessel Pisces, Jesse Stark.  And it’s great to be pier side before this vessel prepares to set sail this afternoon on a very critical mission integral to this oil spill.

Just to bring you up to date on where we are with the spill, we still have a very active response across the four states and the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  On Wednesday, I was down in Bay Jimmy down in Barataria Bay where we had over 600 workers working off a floating barge responding to oil in that area in a very isolated marshland.

But there’s still removal operations taking place as I speak today.  So we’re still recovering oil, but at the same time, our next area of concern, as it has been from day one, is what is below the surface.

We heard that the well was killed on the 19th of September, and actually we’ve had no oil introduced – no new oil since the 15th of July, and our oil trajectory grid went to a white screen with no recoverable oil since on or about the 1st of August.

So now our challenge is to look at what is on the sea floor, and so the NOAA vessel Pisces is one of several vessels that will participate in that mission.  I have the best of science here surrounding me just as we did, when we did that relief well, which was a feat – quite a feat onto itself to be able to intercept that well from three miles away, a seven-inch casing intercepting a seven-inch casing.

Well, now we need to verify with the best of science what is in that water column, what is in the sea floor, down to depths up to and exceeding 5,000 feet integral to this oil spill response.  So that’s where we’re going in the next phase of this operation.  And I do look forward to seeing the NOAA vessel Pisces get underway for this mission this afternoon.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Janet Baran.

 Janet Baran:          Baran, yes, thank you, Admiral.

So we’re very glad to be here today on the NOAA ship Pisces.  The Pisces has been a very important part of our mission this whole summer.  It’s been out doing acoustic monitoring during the well head integrity tests as well as doing water sampling in the last couple cruises.

We have been working on monitoring the subsurface since early May and continue to do so.  This – our monitoring covers the near shore, the south and the deep water, from the surface to the bottom of the ocean.  And we’re looking to really understand if there is any recoverable oil or if there’s anything else that we can do about it.

We’ve had numerous vessels out.  Currently we have about six vessels who are working in the continental shelf and deep water doing sediment and water sampling, and this vessel will be part of that.  All vessels are coordinated through unified area command, and we even host a call every day between all the chief scientists to talk about what they’re finding so that we can (adaptably) change our missions if there is something we find.

To date, we have collected more than 30,000 samples in the Gulf of Mexico, from the Texas-Louisiana border to the Florida Keys.  Last week we had over six vessels out, mostly doing water sampling.  This week has been the initiation of most of our deeper water sediment sampling.

The Gyre went out this week as well as the Ocean Veritas and now the Pisces.  These three vessels will do all the deeper water sediment sampling.  We have a couple vessels out in the near shore doing sediment and water sampling, that’s up to three nautical miles from the shore, doing a wide sweep to ensure that there is no oil in the sediment.

We find very little amounts of (residue) oil on near shore.  It’s being degraded naturally and recovered where possible.  And we really are committed to ensuring the safety of the Gulf and restoring the Gulf as we move out of this phase of trying to determine how we can fix things – not fix things – how we can stop and recover oil and moving to restoration.

We have teams out, part of the Natural Resources Damage Assessment Team, who will be looking at the long-term impacts and helping restore the Gulf. We do have a couple of resources which may be helpful to you.  We have a live mission log at NOAA.gov where we have blogs from all of our vessels that are out, giving live updates on what they’re finding.  And also, if you would like to see the sampling location data and results, you can go to GeoPlatform.gov.

And with that, I’m going to turn it over to Dr. David Valentine who is our chief scientist on this mission.

 David Valentine:   My name is Dr. David Valentine, I’m a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and I’m here representing academia.  I’m serving currently as chief scientist on the NOAA ship Pisces for this expedition.

Joining me – I have additional academic scientists from a number of institutions, including the U.S. Geological Survey, East Carolina University, California Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

We have four main sampling areas that we’re targeting – or four main sampling devices, I should specify, that allow us to collect sediment, allow us to visualize sediment on the sea floor, allow us to collect and analyze water from the deep waters as well as tools that are available shipboard to visualize natural seepage that may be occurring from the sea floor.

And with that, I’ll turn it back over to Janet.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you for taking my call.  I have a question about seafood testing.  Is it possible to get that answered?

Paul Zukunft:        Go ahead, Nancy.  I’ll answer that.  This is Rear Admiral Zukunft.  I’ll be happy to take that question.

Nancy MacKenzie:     OK, I’ve actually been trying to get this answered for a while.  When the shrimp are seafood tested, sensory and chemical analysis, do you know if that is with the shells on or off?

Paul Zukunft:        That question I do not know.  I do know it goes through a two-stage test, and the more elaborate test is when it goes through a GC-MS test.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right.

Paul Zukunft:        For any presence of hydrocarbon that would, in all likelihood, test the shell and flesh.  But I can’t say …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, I’m interested in that and whether they’re deveined or not.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, best place to answer that would be …

Nancy MacKenzie:     And I’ve really been trying to get that answered for three weeks, so …

Paul Zukunft:        Or with the Food and Drug Administration.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Yes, having difficulty there, so I was hoping that you’d be able to.  But here’s one that you – that you all – probably more up your alley.  If the protocol for reopening fishing areas is the evaluation of oil movement, oil in the water column, sheen on the water and the seafood assessment, why are so many square miles still closed?  Does that mean that the seafood is tainted or there’s oil in the water?

Paul Zukunft:        No, right now we’re waiting to get a representational sample for a number of fish species in those federal waters that remain closed.  We do have a number of vessels that are out there with NOAA observers on there to actually catch those fish and then run those through the laboratory results.  And so that is actually part of the process to get those areas reopened.

But the key part is having a representational sample.  And as you realize, we did have 8,000 square miles that were just reopened on the 21st of September, and then also recreational fishing for red snapper was opened.  There was allowable quota remaining for red snapper, so for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, starting on October 1st for the next eight-week period, that red snapper season will be opened for recreational fishing, not for commercial though.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Right, right, OK, well just one last thing as long as we’re talking about it.  On the e-mails that I get, it says that areas remain closed to balance economic and public health concerns, and I’m not sure exactly what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you had broken up through part of that, did you …

Nancy MacKenzie:     Oh, I’m sorry, it’s – the e-mails that I get, you know the by the numbers (sent) from the unified command, says that the areas remain closed due to balance economic and public health concerns.  And I’m not exactly sure what that means.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, yea, those areas were closed when there was oil in those areas, and that was due to the concern for public health if fish were to be caught from there, and should there be polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, found in the fish flesh.  So that’s why there were closed.

And obviously we can close an area quite quickly to go through the requisite sampling protocols to then reopen it.  It is a somewhat time-consuming process.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        So it is a process where we error on the side of caution.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Sure.

Paul Zukunft:        Anytime – you know the economic indicator there, if that fish is caught and, for whatever reason, it is not found to be in compliance, it could actually have a detrimental effect you know on the economic fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico.

So you probably heard on a number of a blogs – and it is – it is the most-sampled seafood anywhere in the face of the Earth.  But again, if there’s going to be any error in this process, it will be on the side of caution.  But again, I am working extremely closely with the NOAA Marine Fishery Service, who in turn works with the Food and Drug Administration on the sampling protocols that – to continue to reopen those closed areas.  And they are gradually reopening.

Nancy MacKenzie:     Thank you, I appreciate your time.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Laura Parker with AOL News.

Laura Parker:         Yes, I have a – sort of a big-picture question in terms of the total effort involving the – NOAA’s research.  It was announced, I think it was last week, or in the last few days, that NOAA’s now embarking on a larger systematic effort to understand the oil in the water and sort out some of the differences between academic sciences and government scientists with regard to oil on the – on the sea floor and plume and so on.

Can you lay out how and when some of these particular issues may be resolved?  Is this – is there sort of a map that you set out for how you’re going to get to the bottom of some of these things?  Or will these be you know many months away?

Janet Baran:          This is Janet Baran, (inaudible) many months away.  So we already have – there’s two parts of it.  There’s water and sediment.  So the water sampling has been going on all summer.  We have a team in place at unified area command that represents six different agencies that is an operational science advisory team.  And they are analyzing all the data as it’s coming in to make recommendations of when we reach the – reach the end game of the response, not the restoration, not the long-term care of the Gulf.

And so the water sampling is mostly completed.  But the analysis is still ongoing.  The team is in place.  They are looking at the data every day and trying to determine if there are gaps of what we need to infill or if we have completed and have an answer to the American public.

The second part is the sediment.  And, as I said, the Gyre, the Ocean Veritas and the Pisces will be out doing the sediment sampling.  And so it’s expected within the next couple weeks we will have all of the sediment samples, and that same team will be looking at what that tells us and if there needs to be additional sampling.

Much of the near shore sediment sampling is already completed, and the indicators we’re getting from there so far is a lack of presence of oil in the sediment.

Laura Parker:         Have you – I mean, come – have you been able to resolve sort of the issue of the plume, for instance?  We’ve got the – what the Berkeley Labs report versus the Woods Hole report …

Janet Baran:          Sure.

Laura Parker:         Or is there – has there just been a change from the date of the one and the date of the other?

Janet Baran:          Sure, a lot of those were based in samples that were taken in June.  And Dr. Chris Reddy, who was a part of the Woods Hole study, has – was the academic liaison at unified area command the last couple of weeks.  And we have engaged with him and talked about what he found.

Our vessels were out there also, looking at all that.  And those academic data have been included into the response database.  So we’re looking at all of it in total.

Currently what we’re finding is that dilution has occurred.  So over time, more and more water has mixed in.  And also the microbes have continued to decrease the amount of oil that would be in that area.  We’re finding less and less what we could consider (hits) and having to use more and more sophisticated instruments …

Laura Parker:         I’m sorry, you broke up a little bit.  Finding less and less …

Janet Baran:          I would say any kind of – any kind of signal at all in the water column.  And what we’re finding is that the concentrations are now in the parts of a billion.  So we’re having to use more and more sophisticated instruments to even see if there is this dispersed oil cloud and that’s all.

Laura Parker:         And what?

Janet Baran:          That’s all.

Laura Parker:         Oh, and what about the sediment on the sea?  Because I’m sure you’re very well familiar with what Mandy Joye is finding at the University of Georgia, and I think she had something in her blog about it earlier in the month.

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  So Dr. Samuel Walker, who is also part of the subsurface monitoring team, he got in contact with Dr. Joye, and she has shared her locations, and we will be going and revisiting those.  We want to ensure that we’re not just taking observations and doing – we want to make sure we’re doing a full analysis.  And so this is part of why we are going and looking at where she has sampled.

Laura Parker:         So in both of those instances of the plume and the oil on the floor, on the sea floor, you’re taking that – these other analyses into account and looking at them, but you guys have not – you’re not at the stage where you’ve reached any conclusion on either of them.  Is that what you’re saying?

Janet Baran:          I wouldn’t say that exactly.  The sediment sampling we’ve only just initiated, so we have not gone to those sites yet.  And the water sampling we have always been in (agreeance) with our academic partners that there was this layer in the water column.  It still exists, however it is at much lower concentrations and continues to degrade over time.

David Valentine:   This is Dave Valentine.  I think I can follow up a little bit, having been involved in many of these discussions.  With regard to the sediments, that’s really one of the primary targets of this upcoming cruise, and we have two tools that we are using to address this issue of whether or not there’s oil that has fallen into the sediments and is sitting there.  We’re doing extensive coring operations with a sort of corer that preserves that interface very, very well.

Onboard, we have the (mastectrometers) that we need to quantify the amount of oil that may be there on the sediment surface.  We also have a towed camera system that we’ll be deploying.  We can tow it along the sea floor.  It resides about nine to 15 feet above the sea floor and is dragged by the boat.  That takes pictures of the sea floor, about 2,000 images for every five-hour deployment.

And with that, we are hoping to look for the distribution of oil, if there is oil on the sea floor, to help us understand exactly what the patterns of deposition of this oil may be, if it’s there, and we’ll follow up, then, with the coring to quantify how much is there in those areas.

Janet Baran:          And also fingerprint – that’s the key here, too, is that we want to ensure chemically, if we do find oil, we need to check that it is MC252.  There are plenty of natural seeps in the Gulf of Mexico, which can cause oil to be found within sediment.

Laura Parker:         Right.  When is the Pisces coming back?

Janet Baran:          The Pisces will be out until October 4.

Laura Parker:         But you send this – you can send – you’re sending data in every day, is that correct?

Janet Baran:          That is correct.  We have a secure FTP site, and they’re – they will be uploading all of their analysis.  There – some of the – there will be additional work done on samples in labs that take longer than what can be done here.

Laura Parker:         And do you have a target date for when you’ll release your findings from this particular trip?

Janet Baran:          Not at this time.  We will continue to update – as we get results.  Science, unfortunately, takes more time than we care to admit, and we want to make sure that we fully investigate this and have strong conclusions.

Laura Parker:         And are you – in addition to – as things break down, are you looking at all of the things that are in the – in the – you know as they – the breakdown products that result from the breaking down of the oil?  I’m wording that badly.

David Valentine:   I guess I can take that to a certain – this is Dave Valentine.  I can’t …

Laura Parker:         There’s – do you need me to reword it?  Because I’ve worded it badly, but I think you might get my point.

David Valentine:   Yes, I do, and the compounds that are being analyzed for are the standard toxic compounds that are known in oil.  And these include the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as well as other hydrocarbon components within oil.

The issue of breakdown products is a very tricky one, and it moves into the academic realm, which I’m always happy to talk about, because I’m a geochemist, and that’s what I do for a living.  But it’s – you know it’s really insider talk, insider speak.  A lot of it – and the bottom line is that – so the kinds of breakdown products that we’re talking about tend to be fairly low on concentration.  These are intermediates or terminal products.  And they’re not – they’re very difficult things to analyze, and they tend to be at very low concentration.

Personally, we are trying to look for those at very trace levels.  That’s one of the things that my research entails.  But it’s not, to my knowledge, part of the standard plan, because these compounds tend to be very, very low in concentration.

Russell Tippets:     OK, can we get the next caller, please, to ensure everybody gets a question answered timely?

Operator:               OK, and your next question comes from the line of (Laurie Wiegler).

(Laurie Wiegler):    (Laurie Wiegler), thank you.

Hi, thank you very much for taking my call.  If more oil is found, and we know that it will be, I’m curious what the next step is for NOAA.  Is bioremediation a possibility?  Do you just let it continue to disperse?  What’s your game plan?

Paul Zukunft:        Actually, in terms of the response, that’s – this is Admiral Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator.  You know just bear in mind, right now what we’ve been detecting in that water column is parts per million and parts per billion.  And actually, we had – we’re seeing more and more in the parts per billion, which lends itself to the fact that there is some natural biodegradation taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, which is actually quite common in a body of water that has a significant amount of natural seeps and hydrocarbons occurring naturally, plus the fact that this well is located in relative proximity to the outflow of the Mississippi River, which is also rich in nutrients.

So, again, the key part of this study that’s ongoing is to detect any significant amounts, beyond what we’ve seen so far, but we need to expand the scope of that monitoring effort.  The preponderance of the sampling data right now has been in the water column.  This next phase is very focused upon what’s in that sediment layer as well.

And then, depending on what we find from those – you know from the sampling and analytic data – at that point, we can then consider if in fact there is an appropriate response protocol to address that.  But right now, that’s not one that I would make unilaterally.  We have a regional response team that would actually share that data, and then they would ultimately provide me recommendations whether to use such intervention methods such as bioremediation.

(Laurie Wiegler):    Thank you.  May I just ask one more follow-up to that?  Is Admiral Thad Allen no longer involved in this?  And, would that change if you decided to have another effort there to, say with the bioremediation or for cleaning up any excess oil that’s found?

Paul Zukunft:        Yes, Admiral Allen and I did a press conference yesterday where he announced that he will be retiring a week from today.  I will continue in my role as federal on-scene coordinator, as I have for some time now.  And the regional response team does provide these recommendations to the federal on-scene coordinator.

And at the same time, I also have direct access to all the interagency administrators and will assume that capacity from Admiral Allen as he goes into retirement, which certainly falls within my purview as the federal on-scene coordinator.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, thank you, and I apologize for that.  I was not on the call yesterday.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, you’re quite welcome.  Actually, you know this was a local press conference.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK.

Paul Zukunft:        So, no, you did not miss that.

(Laurie Wiegler):    All right.

Paull Zukunft:        But I am the one they call Admiral Z.

(Laurie Wiegler):    OK, yes, I know who you are.  Thank you.

Paul Zukunft:        OK, thank you.

END

CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO

Paul Zukunft:        OK, good afternoon everybody.  This is Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft, Federal on-scene coordinator and I’ve down here for over 3-1/2 months now and I’ve been overseeing the response aspect of this operation. 

In my operation and in Admiral Allen’s, we’re split between surface and subsurface.  Admiral focused primarily on controlling the source of the spill whereas I was dealing with the recovery of oil and then removing it from the shorelines as well. 

So where we are today, I just returned from Bay Jimmy where we have one of our divisions working under the Venice branch which is in Plaquemines Parish.  This is one of eight locations in these marsh areas where we still have residual oil which is a very labor intensive effort but we’re able to get into some of these areas using some of the technology that actually was – came to surface.

We used a Schafer skimming system by Mr. Schafer from Plaquemines Parish that invented this vaccum device where we can get adjacent to that marsh, remove oil.  But we have about 600 people just working at this site alone today down at Bay Jimmy.

Those folks live out in the floating barge, a flotell as we call it, but so there was concern earlier now that the well is dead, where do we go forward.  We haven’t any oil released since the 15th of July.  We continue to respond to these pockets of oil.  They are basically job sites now where we still have residual oil and 600 miles of coast line that is still affected.

When people think coastline, you normally think the straight coastline of a Florida panhandle.  When you get over here in Louisiana, its back in marshes and estuaries and very remote locations so logistics is our challenge but again there is still plenty of work remaining.

They have about 23,000 people in this response effort as I speak today.  What we did earlier this week was we consolidated our headquarters function and we consolidated the headquarters functions in Houma, in Mobile combine them in with the Unified Area Command in New Orleans.

What that did was it drew down about 1,800 people that work in a headquarters oversight capacity to minimize our footprint.  It has also streamlined our internal communications and that’s moving ahead quite smoothly.  

So besides the oil that’s on the, in the marshes and on the beaches of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi our other area of focus is what’s below the surface.  I have Dr. Sam Walker with NOAA and they’ve been an integral part of this operation from day one as has the scientific community.

Just as it was science that came up with the solution to shut in this well and deem it effectively dead it’s also science we have called upon here as we look at what is in that water column.  What’s in those deep sea sediments and does it oppose a risk to sea food safety and for the safety of the United States.  So I’ve asked Sam Walker to provide an oversight of our subsea monitoring program and then at that point I would be happy to entertain any questions.

Sam Walker:          Thank you Admiral.  This is Sam Walker with NOAA and I’m just going to run down a couple of the key points in terms of our status with our subsurface monitoring.  We’ve been conducting this since late April as a matter of fact and monitoring the sub surface with respect to dispersant use there.  But subsequent to the well being capped we’ve continued to do that work both in the deep water but also on the shelf, on the Continental shelf and then in the near shore areas.

And so that’s a very comprehensive expanse all the way from the shoreline into the deep water.  And what we are trying to get a handle on is you know what is the form of oil if any that remains and can we take action against that oil.  And so we are doing that with a series of different technologies.  We are using surface vessels that monitor down through the water column.  We’re using ocean gliders that help to check presence of hydrocarbons in the water column.

We’re also taking sediment cores on the sea floor itself and having those analyzed so we’re looking at things comprehensively.  And as the Admiral has pointed out on numerous occasions as has NOAA’s administrator Dr. Lubchenco you know there are in fact places where oil still resides particularly in the near shore area where it’s being entrained in sediments, and so we’re very aware of those.  We are also trying to look a little bit more comprehensively in the deep water based on some reports from academic vessels here in recent weeks.

And so we are responding to that we’re in contact with those University researchers and making sure that we’re going back and revisiting the same places.  One thing to keep in mind is that the time line upon which these samples can be returned from a lab in order to render a result about the source of that oil is a little bit longer than what we can do on a daily basis.

So sometimes it takes a week or more to return those data sets but what we can do is on a daily basis talk about the number of samples that have been taken the number of vessels that are deployed in order to take these samples and then also return back a presence or absence of oil at those locations.  But what we can’t do on a daily basis is immediately turn around a result for the source of that oil.

But what we can say is that over the past couple of months since the well has been capped we’ve been seeing a very clear trend of diminished concentrations particularly in the water column.  We are down into the parts per billion range now which is not actionable for this source oil but we are continuing to track that and that’s a natural transition into the Natural Resources Damage Assessment phase of this incident which is different than the response.

And so we’re working very closely with our colleagues in that part of the phase to indicate to them where we’re seeing these traces so they can continue their work for ecosystem assessment over the long term and that’s a really critical point in terms of transitioning in this incident.  The other thing that we’ve been doing is continuing to actively engage the academic community particularly here in the Gulf. 

We’ve been working with researchers from states all across the Gulf including those at USF and Texas A&M, at LSU, Southern Mississippi; these are academic institutions that are well respected.

And bring tremendous expertise to the table, just for example right now we have the chief scientists on the NOAA ship Pisces, that have been involves they’re from Texas A&M.  That’s David Valentine, he was actually in the press here the other day talking about his missions.

So we’re bringing that expertise on board as we have all summer to help guide some of our sampling.  The other technologies that I mentioned briefly are really autonomist vessels and so we’re using ocean gliders some of you have had exposure to those technologies before.

But they allow us to work in sort of a sentinel mode where as the surface vessels are doing very explicit sampling through the water column.  And so ocean gliders tend to be used up on the continental shelf and they would look for presence or absences of hydrocarbons.

We’ve been doing that all summer long, but the particular focus on the West Florida shelf is there’s concerns about oil being entrained there in the loop current.  And also on the shelf along the northern Gulf Coast, we’ve had very little indication of cross-shelf transport.

So that’s a key message because that’s what we’re looking for is that concern about transport from deeper water into the near-shore environment, where humans could come in contact with it.

And the last point I’ll make before I turn it back over to the Admiral or take questions, is we’re also working closely and continue to work closely with the fisheries community.  Both, the Seafood Safety Component and the Fisheries Closures group as well within the national fishery service.

And so we’re making sure there are data in the subsurface monitoring is shared with those groups to help inform their decision making.  So I’ll be happy to take any questions along with the Admiral.

Operator:               At this time if you would like to ask a question press star one on your telephone key pad.  We’ll pause for a moment to compile the Q&A roster.

Your first question comes from the line of (Tom Fowler) with the Houston Chronicle.

(Tom Fowler):       (Taking my question), this is a question about dispersant, my understanding was as I remember it – was remembering it that the dispersement stops – stop the use of it of weeks ago.

But I keep reading online a couple different news sources that are using antidotal reports from some boat owners and so forth saying that they’re spotting people still out there doing, doing – using dispersant and given in certain sites, maybe not on the aerial sparing and so forth.

But, just wanted to get a clarification on the use of dispersants, and if it’s still being used in limited cases or what the status is of that.

Paul Zukunft:        Thank you obviously happy to take that question, the last time we used dispersants were on July 19th on that day we used 200 gallons of dispersant out at the well site.  Because we had a high POC levels, but that’s the last time we’ve used dispersant.

Certainly in the public awareness has been peaked throughout this spill, and we’re very wary of that as well.  They’re also been several fish kills due to hypoxia which is a natural recurrence, this time of year where there’s low oxygen levels.

But again the last time that we used dispersants coincident with this spill was on the 19th of July.

(Tom Fowler):       And that’s for – including as far as you know that BP and other contractors as well as the Coast Guard and the other vessels of opportunity that were involved.

Paul Zukunft:        Yes as the federal on-scene coordinator all of those applications of dispersant, each and every one, whether it’s subsea or surface, whether it’s from an airplane or a vessel are approved by me in consultation with the EPA and so the vessels of opportunity do not have the autonomy to use dispersant and really there is no one out there in the field right because we have not had any recoverable oil and sheening since on or about the first of August.

Male:                     OK, thank you. 

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Mark Chediak with Bloomberg News.  Mark your line is open.

Mark Chediak:      Yes, I’m speaking hello can you hear me?  Hello?

Paul Zukunft:        Yes Mark we can hear you. 

Mark Chediak:      OK, yes I was trying to get the spelling of Sam Walker’s name last name and his title. 

Sam Walker:          Yes, I can take that, this is Sam Walker, the last name is spelled W-A-L-K-E-R.

Mark Chediak:      OK and your title?

Sam Walker:          Well I’m here within area command, I’m coordinating the subsurface monitoring unit. 

Mark Chediak:      OK thank you, that’s all I had.

Operator:               Your next question is from the line of Bettina Boxall with Los Angeles Time.

Bettina Boxall:      Hi, thank you Sam could talk a little bit more about what is being found in the sediments and how you think they became – the oil became bound up in the sediments and what quantities we’re talking about and exactly where you’re finding that.

Sam Walker:          Yes, I’m happy to take that question so maybe I’ll take it from the how it gets there is probably the most natural place to start.  So there are a couple different ways oil can be entrained in sediments certainly in the near-shore environment that’s driven largely by the natural energy of waves and the tides. 

So if you’re in a place where you have sandy sediments this is the most likely place you would find oil entrained.  And we – you know we have good sense of where those are just based upon soil mapping you know in the near shore environment.  So in particular you’re seeing – you’re seeing like sandy beaches and trop areas and things like that. 

But typically the way that oil is entrained is two primary functions.  One is it gets captured on sediment, like I was just describing or it has a particular molecular construct that makes it heavier and makes it you know it’s natural buoyancy is then impaired so it would – it would actually sink in the water column. 

That tends to be a very small fraction of most hydrocarbons.  And this particular source oil, it’s something on the order of about one percent of the total volume of this source oil would have those sorts of properties, but because dispersant was used in the subsurface you know that’s probably somewhat less. 

And so those are typically the two ways that you would find it in sediments.  And then you know one thing to keep in mind as well is that as Admiral pointed out even when you find oil it has to be actionable in a way that’s not damaging to – further damaging to the environment so there has to be a balance in the net environment impact before you could actually take action.

And so we evaluate those things when those opportunities arise.  And that’s very important so thinking about you know what it would take to remove oil at 5,000 feet is not an insignificant equation. 

Bettina Boxall:      And so this oil bound in the sediment is near shore though in shallower waters I take it?

Sam Walker:          Well so I mean you know we are definitely finding oil there, we have been throughout this incident right and so what we’re trying to do is narrow that search target so that we can – we are moving along the shore in a very systematic manner right now using a couple of different methodologies.

So for example we’re using absorbent pads where we’re actually pressed down into the sediment in the near source environment, we’re using snorkeling teams that are actually visually looking, we’re using something called *fluorometry*, which is you know an instrument that measures hydrocarbon presence in the water column. 

And we’re also using the Snare Sentinel Program which you know uses almost like a pom-pom looking device to indicate the presence and absence of oil.  So we’re being very systematic in the near shore environment so that we can narrow down our search window and then we can make tactical decisions and the Coast Guard can make tactical decisions about where to deploy resources to help clean up that oil.

But that’s a very different environment than in the deepwater.  And in the deepwater you know you can’t send out a snorkeling team at 5,000 feet to look for oil.  So we have to use different technologies and so we’re using high resolution cameras on ROVs.  We’re using what is a classic tool in oceanography which is a sediment coring device at depth and then bringing those samples to the surface where they’re visually inspected.

They’re also run through the gas chromatograph, mass spectrometer, which is you know which is a way to analyze data, chemically analyze data very quickly.  So that we have a screening process that’s right there on the ships to indicate presence, absence and concentration.  But I think a really important point to take away here is that in order to establish the source of that oil we have to do additional chemical analysis.

And so just because we’re finding oil you know the responsible thing to do here on the scientific side but also in terms of response is to ensure the source of the oil.  And so we’re doing a couple of other things to meet that need.  We’re mapping – continuing to map and characterize from a chemical standpoint a lot of the natural seeps that are in the source area within about a 30 kilometer ring. 

We’re working with a number of federal agencies, NOAA working with a number of other federal agencies like the USGS to map those out using acoustics and then actually capturing samples from those natural seeps so that we can help distinguish between the different sources in the primary area of interest. 

Bettina Boxall:      Thank you.

Operator:               Your next question is from the line of Dan Vergano with USA Today.

Dan Vergano:        Thanks very much, I was wondering if Sam could say anything about the deep sea plume reports from some academic researchers a few weeks ago, I think they were in the parts per million they said for June when the one plume was sized.  I wondered does anything you found say anything about that?

Sam Walker:          Dan can you be a little bit more specific about which reports because you know. 

Dan Vergano:        There was a report in Science Magazine that said sort of the size of a plume from the spill…

Sam Walker:          Right.

Dan Vergano:        (Inaudible).

Sam Walker:          I don’t want to speak for you but you’re most likely referring to the Woods Hole study that…

Dan Vergano:        Yes that’s right.

Sam Walker:         Got that right?  OK.  So you know certainly NOAA’s position long standing position on academic research is to respect the independence of it.  We worked very closely with Chris Reddy who is one of the primary authors on that report.  In fact he was just here at area command as our academic liaison that’s a position that we’ve established here for quite some time. 

And you know so we respect the results of their study, went through the peer review process.  The thing to really keep in mind is that that report was published in Science about two months after the date it was actually captured.  And it was actually published you know subsequent to the well being capped.  And so the results of what they you know what they found were actually relevant to a timeframe that was several months prior.

And you know (Chris) and (Rich Commily) who were the primary authors there made that very clear in their press conferences and so the evidence that they had was supported by a lot of other vessels sampling at the same time.  What we can say is that in subsequent weeks, months really since they’ve been out there we are continuing to find lower and lower and lower concentrations. 

And so we’re going back and revisiting a lot of the areas where these early cruises were done and we are not finding the concentrations that they found.  The sub surface oil that’s indicated there is much more dispersed and so – I mean I think they’re work is perfectly valid. 

You know we support their work and others of independent research but it really needs to be kept in mind this is an incredibly dynamic environment that we’re talking in the Gulf.  And the 5,000 feet of water column you have a lot of currents moving around, you have a lot of different processes that are taking place on both the chemical side and the biological side that change that equation on a – you know even a minute-by-minute basis.  So that’s why …

Male:                     So there’s no sign of that kind of cloudy concentration of plume currently that’s all gone according to what – now.

Paul Zukunft:        Well it is – yes, the concentrations that they were reporting from June are not indicated in any of our sampling here over the past couple of months certainly, since the well has been capped.

Male:                     Very good thank you.

Operator:               At this time, we will only take two more questions.  Your next question comes from the line of Paula Dittrick with Oil &Gas Journal.

Paula Dittrick:       This is a question for Sam I was wondering if the oil ever got in the loop current there have been some concern early on about that and then it sort of dropped by the way side.

Sam Walker:          Well certainly you know the surface expression that was shown early on you know I tend to focus my work in sub surface so I’ll just speak to you know what is certainly available in the public realm.  But surface trajectories that we shown is the official maps to the response you know did indicate some entrainment in the loop current but that tends to be a surface express type phenomenon so. 

 Oil that makes it to the surface and maintains that buoyancy would not at all be expected to get back into the sub surface and find its way down into the sediments or something like that.  I’m not sure if that’s speaking directly to your question. 

What I can tell you is that we’ve had a number of very explicit cruises that came up from the floor to straits that worked along both the continental shelf and also into the deeper water where the loop current in fact is down. 

And you know they reported to the unified command on a daily basis and throughout those two cruises that were done in August we had no indication from those vessels that they were finding oil in the sub surface.

Paula Dittrick:       Thank you.

Operator:               Your next question is a follow-up from the line of Mark Chediak with Bloomberg News.

Mark Chediak:      Hi, can you hear me?  Hello.

Sam Walker:          Yes, we can hear you.

Mark Chediak:      OK, yes, just a follow-up question regarding the consolidation of headquarters.  Where are the headquarters being consolidated?  And didn’t I hear that 1,800 people were – had left the scene of the result of that, is that correct.

Paul Zukunft:        That is correct we located on 1250 Poydras Street.  So we consolidated two headquarters functions where we started to see redundancy in our purchasing functions or logistics functions so we were able to cut back a number of people that way.  And then also we centralized our joint information center so for those that are looking for updates there really is a one-stop shop for you.

Mark Chediak:      And that’s at New Orleans, is that correct?

Paul Zukunft:        That’s in New Orleans that’s correct.

Mark Chediak:      OK thank you.

END