Now, I can’t promise folks here in Theodore or across the Gulf¹ Coast that the oil will be cleaned up overnight.  It will not be.  It's going to take time for things to return to normal.  There's going to be a harmful effect on many local businesses and it's going to be painful for a lot of folks.  Folks are going to be frustrated² and some folks are going to be angry.  But I promise you this:  that things are going to return to normal.  This region that's known a lot of hardship will bounce back（迅速回复活力，反弹） , just like it's bounced back before.  We are going to do everything we can, 24/7, to make sure that communities get back on their feet.  And in the end, I am confident that we're going to be able to leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before. 
 
So, Governor Riley, I appreciate all your efforts.  To all the local officials here who've been working so hard, we appreciate what you do each and every day.
 
And let me just make one last comment about our Coast Guard and about our National Incident Coordinator³, Thad Allen.  Thad Allen was about to retire and he has answered the call on behalf of this country and is working as hard as anybody in this country right now to help deal with this crisis.  Members of the Coast Guard have been doing outstanding work each and every day, and so I just want to say to all of them that the country is proud of you, grateful to you.  Keep up the good work.
 
All right.  Thank you very much, everybody.  (Applause.)
 
Q    (Inaudible.)
 
THE PRESIDENT:  I want to take this one question because there's been some reports in the news.  I'm going to be meeting with the BP chairman and a number of officials on Wednesday.  We have begun preliminary conversations about how do we structure a mechanism⁴ so that the legitimate⁵（合法的，正当的） claims that are going to be presented not just tomorrow, not just next week, but over the coming months, are dealt with justly, fairly, promptly⁶. 
 
So far, we've had a constructive⁷ conversation and my hope is, is that by the time the chairman and I meet on Wednesday, that we've made sufficient progress that we can start actually seeing a structure that would be in place.  But it's too early now at this point, Major, for me to make an announcement.  By Wednesday, though, my hope is, is that we've made some progress on this front.
 
All right.
 
Q    (Inaudible.)
 
THE PRESIDENT:  I'm going to let Thad Allen, who's the National Incident Coordinator, address this very quickly because we talked about it during our meeting.
 
ADMIRAL ALLEN:  First of all, we have a number of different types of skimming equipment.  Some are offshore⁸ deep-draft vessels⁹; the skimming equipment is organically built into it.  We have other skimming arrays that are towed（拖拽） with boom systems, and we have shallow water skimmers that are deployed¹⁰ inshore.  They become the major resource of effectiveness to try and fight this battle offshore, and we know what we're doing near the wellhead（泉源，水源） .  We have to push the enemy, if you will, back 20 or 30 miles offshore and do maximum skimming there. 
 
We have over 400 of those skimming vessels that are actually organic -- organically contained skimming equipment.  Our goal is to take the smaller equipment that's flexible, put it on vessels of opportunity, and then coordinate¹¹ better with our local state partners, including National Guard overflights, local fishermen's associations, and so forth¹², mass our effect and get it pointed¹³ up with a command and control system that can attack it on all levels.
 
THE PRESIDENT:  All right.
 
Q    About the vessels of opportunity, there are a lot of local fishermen that say they're not being --
 
THE PRESIDENT:  The -- this is an issue -- and you're only going to get two questions.  This is an issue that's come up（发生，开始） across the Gulf.  Keep in mind what we're talking about with vessels of opportunity -- that could range from a big shrimp¹⁴ boat to just a little recreation（娱乐，消遣） boat that somebody has brought up. 
 
So each of them is going to have different capacity.  Some of them are going to be able to take swimming -- skimming equipment of the sort that Admiral Allen discussed and actually place it on the boat.  Some of them aren't going to have that capacity, but maybe they can act as sentinels（哨兵，守卫） to spot oil, or maybe some of them are just shuttling supplies back and forth to these ships.
 
So what we're doing now is we're taking inventory¹⁵（盘货） of all the vessels that have presented themselves to determine which ones can go out in deep water -- they've got radio, they've got full equipment, they can actually lay out boom, they can engage in skimming -- which ones aren't able to do that, and that process is going to be coordinated¹⁶. 
 
But keep in mind we've got to do this across four states.  And what that means is, is that at any given time, as Thad indicated, the priority might be we just want to get some stuff out 20 miles before it starts coming in closer, which means you're not going to see necessarily a lot of skimmers（撇油器） close in because every resource that we have is being deployed further out.
 
But one of the key points that we made with the regional incident commander is we've got to make sure that we've got a full inventory, we know exactly what the capacity of each of these boats are, we've made sure that people are being trained, and we're matched up folks who are trained with these vessels, and we start actually putting to work as quickly as possible.
 
All right.
 
Q    (Inaudible.)
 
THE PRESIDENT:  Well, look, I've seen a number of beautiful beaches.  I saw some in Mississippi.  We saw some beaches flying over.  But I'll be honest with you -- that we're going to stop as much of the oil from coming in as possible.  That's our number one job. 
 
It turns out that if the oil hits the beaches, that's actually probably the easiest to clean up.  So it's a concern obviously for tourism, it's a concern for an entire Gulf region that economically depends on the tourist season and this period of time when people are out of school.  But those beaches will recover because those big globs（一滴，水珠） of oil, when they hit the beaches, we can send a bunch of people out there and scoop¹⁷ them up, dispose of it properly, and those beaches will look pretty pristine¹⁸（原始的，纯朴的） a year or two years from now.
 
The biggest concern we have, actually, are the marshes¹⁹（沼泽） , the estuaries²⁰（河口） , the wetlands, where if you start seeing that oil seeping²¹ in（渗入） , that not only can kill oyster²² beds and other vitally important seafood²³ and ecosystems²⁴, but even the repair efforts in those areas can actually destroy the ecology in the region.
 
So we're having to coordinate with the best scientists we've got available.  Thad Allen is working with NOAA and all the other agencies to make sure that we are grading priorities in terms of areas that have to be protected first and foremost（首先） because they may have the most difficult time to recover.  And that means that sometimes, for example, in Mississippi, where I just came from, they just made a decision they're not putting any boom in front of the beaches, because the fact of the matter is if the oil hits there it's bad but it's temporary, whereas in some of these other areas it could end up being permanent（永久的，永恒的） .
 
All right.  Thank you, everybody.  (Applause.)

END
3:22 P.M. CDT