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[Dr. Janet Baran]
I?m Dr. Janet Baran and I?m with NOAA. I?m a scientist with the sub-surface monitoring
unit and I?m a Deepwater Horizon oil spill responder. From day 1 the Deepwater Horizon
oil spill response has been guided by science. In the early days of this response, science
told us where to deploy boom to protect wetlands and rookeries. How to best position skimmers
to fight oil offshore, and when to act in the best interest of public health by announcing
the opening and closing of beaches and fisheries.
Now that the well is dead, science will continue to help us answer the questions in the minds
of everyone in the gulf: Where is the remaining oil? While it may take years to fully understand
the impacts of this spill, we do have a good understanding of where the remaining oil is.
We know that some of it ended up on beaches and in the wetlands and cleanup operations
continue in those areas. We also know that some of the oil that was in the water has
been removed, either through the hard work of oil spill responders, or the equally hard
work of Mother Nature herself.
We have been monitoring dispersed oil in the water since the beginning of the response,
and we continue to do so. The Unified Area Command has been working closely with independent
researchers to help ensure the safety of the Gulf. This has been the most exhaustive testing
of Gulf waters in history and we?re still continuing to test. Since the spill began,
scientists and responders have collected more than 30,000 samples in Gulf waters, from the
Texas-Louisiana border to the Florida Keyes, from the water surface to the sea floor and
as far as 300 miles offshore.
What science tells us right now is that there is less and less oil left in the water. Some
of what is left is in the deeper ocean as a diffused cloud of microscopic oil droplets.
Those droplets, in parts-per-billion, are so small that they cannot be removed, and
our continuous monitoring has shown that the oil is being degraded rather rapidly and is
becoming harder and harder to find. ?Diffused? does not mean there won?t be any long-term
impacts to the ecosystem, but this oil is not visible. We continue to work with the
Natural Resources Damage Assessment Program and have implemented an extensive sediment
sampling program, especially in shallower areas where oil may have mixed with sand and
been dragged to the bottom.
[RA Paul Zukunft]
Hello I?m Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft, I?m the Federal On-scene Coordinator for the Deepwater
Horizon spill. This is an integral part of the response, going forward. We actually have
tens of thousands of data points where we?ve been doing sediment sampling nearshore and
we?ve also been sampling in the deepwater down to 5,000 feet. To-date what we?re finding,
is?first it was parts-per-million, but we?re seeing right now, parts-per-billion concentrations
of oil in the water column.
[Janet Baran]
We have done very extensive sampling to ensure that if there is a location that shows any
kind of oil or anomaly, that we?ll go back and expand that sampling.