Washington DC
THE US now has a sixth Great Lake鈥攁t least on paper. In a grab for
federal research funds, a senator has smuggled through legislation that
designates Lake Champlain in Vermont as a Great Lake. The move has outraged
members of Congress from traditional Great Lake states.
As every American schoolchild should know, there are five Great Lakes:
Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario and Superior. For years, government funds have
been earmarked to study their ecology. With an eye on this cash, Patrick Leahy,
a Democrat from Vermont, introduced the following phrase into the National Sea
Grant College Program Reauthorization Act of 1998: 鈥淭he term `Great Lakes鈥�
includes Lake Champlain.鈥�
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鈥淭hey鈥檙e playing cute little games,鈥� says Jon Brandt, press secretary for
Michigan representative Pete Hoekstra, who is trying to pass a law that will
strip Lake Champlain of its new-found greatness. 鈥淚t may be a very good lake, a
very nice lake, but it鈥檚 not a Great Lake. People are genuinely offended.鈥�
The name game will not change any maps and Lake Champlain, with a surface
area a mere 6 per cent of that of the smallest Great Lake, Ontario, is unlikely
to enter the public consciousness as the sixth Great Lake.
Some of the scientists who may face stiffer competition for research funds as
a result of the move admit they have benefited from similar name games in the
past. 鈥淐ongress declared the Great Lakes to be oceans,鈥� says John Lehman, a
limnologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. This allowed researchers
to apply for grants from the Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science
Foundation.
Lehman says scientists in Vermont may use the money to study an invasion of
zebra mussels into Lake Champlain. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not necessarily a bad thing,鈥� he says.
