New York Great Lakes Initiative

New York Great Lakes Initiative for Science and Education
The Crisis of the Late 60s and 70s From the mid 1960s to the late1970s, New Yorkers were shocked by what had happened to their Great Lakes. A huge oxygen-depleted zone formed annually in Erie’s central basin creating large areas of water deadly to aquatic organisms. Algal blooms turned the water a murky green that washed up on Erie’s beaches leaving thick mats of rotting algae to sicken the air. For the first time in people’s memories, the familiar swarms of mayflies failed to make their annual appearance. Fish populations plummeted.
What was once one of the premier freshwater fisheries in the world was devastated. Meanwhile, in Toledo and in Buffalo, Lake Erie tributaries proved that with enough pollution, rivers will burn. Vacationers went elsewhere. Property values bottomed. It was an ecological and environmental nightmare. Since all of Erie’s water gradually fills Lake Ontario’s depths, that lake was not far behind. Especially in the nearshore zone, Erie’s conditions were replayed in Ontario with algal blooms and windrows of dead and dying alewife with no predators to control their out of control population. New York’s Great Lakes were a mess. The Scientific Response For a printable version of this page click here (Adobe pdf,308K )
Great Lakes Research Consortium scientists have been warning for some time that despite the clean-up successes of the last two decades, New York’s Great Lakes are highly altered ecosystems, unstable and prone to crisis. One of New York’s Greatest Resources: The Great Lakes HYDROPOWER Among the Great Lakes states, New York ranks first in hydroelectricity production with three large facilities, which together supply about 10% of the state’s power demand RECREATION & TOURISM The Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River and Niagara River are major destinations for fishing, boating, swimming and other waterrelated activities. Over 6 million people visited New York state parks along the Great Lakes corridor in 1996 (OPRHP 1996) COMMERCE Approximately 80 million tons of commodities flow through New York Great Lakes ports annually.	The Growing Great Lakes Crisis The Crisis of the Late 1960s and 70s The Scientific Response The Origins of the Great Lakes Research Consortium The Need to Support Science in New York New York Has Not Received Its Fair Share of Federal Great Lakes Funding
New York's Great Lakes Facilities Network
Great Lakes Center at Buffalo Great Lakes Center at Brockport Environmental Research Center at Oswego GLRC Headquarters Cornell Biological Field Station SUNY ESF Thousand Islands Biological Field station Great Rivers Institute Lake Champlain Research Institute	To learn more about the facilities of the GLRC network, their current research projects, research specialties, facilities, and needed upgrades, click on any location above