[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 101 (Tuesday, July 23, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S7225]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       GREAT LAKES SCIENCE CENTER

 Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am proud to congratulate the Great 
Lakes Science Center on 75 years of service to Michigan and the Great 
Lakes region. This center provides the scientific information needed 
for restoring, enhancing, managing, and protecting wildlife and their 
habitat in the Great Lakes, Despite the importance of the Great Lakes, 
too few resources are devoted to researching and monitoring the 
ecosystem health. However, the Great Lakes Science Center has been at 
work for nearly eight decades--through the rise and fall of numerous 
species like lake trout, alewife, white fish, and sturgeon.
  After the collapse of the cisco fishery in Lake Erie in 1925, the 
Great Lakes Science Center, which was then called the Great Lakes 
Biological Laboratory, was created to study the causes of this 
collapse. Though the fisheries in the Great Lakes continued to suffer, 
it was not until 1950 that biological research was truly supported. At 
that time the Great Lakes were experiencing one of the worst disasters 
possible--the invasion of sea lamprey. The sea lamprey, which moved 
into the Great Lakes through the Welland Canal and spread throughout 
the Great Lakes, destroyed the lake trout and lake whitefish commercial 
fisheries. After testing over 4,000 chemicals, the Great Lakes Science 
Center found the compound that is still being used today to destroy the 
lamprey.
  In 1965, the center moved to its newly constructed headquarters on 
the North Campus of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The center 
has been active in all areas of Great Lakes research including algal 
blooms, invasive species, near-shore habitat, fishery genetics and DDT 
levels in fish. The work of the dedicated staff has helped bring back 
the sturgeon and lake trout.
  Today, the Great Lakes Science Center has 107 staff members, 5 field 
stations, 1 vessel base, and 3 vessel base-field station combinations 
throughout the Great Lakes. I am proud of the long and distinguished 
history of the Great Lakes Science Center, and I wish all of the 
researchers at the Science Center great success for the next 75 
years.

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