On the recordApril 15, 2010
While I respect the remarks of the gentleman from Arkansas, we specify in this amendment, Mr. Schauer does, that the meeting place of the rivers and the lakes is not a traditional estuary, is not a meeting place of fresh and saltwater, but that these points would be treated as estuaries. As an example, the lamprey eel lays its eggs in the discharge point of the rivers that contribute to and discharge into the Great Lakes. That is a meeting place of river water and lake water where a destructive, nonindigenous, invasive species multiplies. Including the Great Lakes in the estuary program will provide additional authority for the Great Lakes to work to control this monster that destroys the fishery of the Great Lakes. This is not an allocation, this is not an earmark, it is not a specific designation. It simply allows the Great Lakes to compete for available dollars authorized under this program. We think that this body of the greatest repository of freshwater on the earth ought to have standing among the others that have designation as estuaries. Those meeting places on the Great Lakes are every bit as important as the meeting places of the freshwater rivers and the saltwater repositories of a traditional estuary definition.
