Institute; Clarence C. Cottam, director of the Welder Wildlife Foundation 

 (formerly director and assistant director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service); Richard Stroud, executive vice president of the Sport Fishing 

 Institute; Thomas Kimball, executive director of the National Wildlife 

 Federation; Joseph Penfold, conservation director of the Isaac Walton 

 League; Charles Jackson of the National Fisheries Institute; and Charles H. 

 Callison, executive vice president of the Audubon Society. 



These conservation organizations presented testimony before congres- 

 sional committees on various issues at frequent intervals. Some of their 

 testimony, especially that of Richard Stroud of the Sport Fishing 

 Institute, presented the need for and the value of national water quality 

 laboratories, one for fresh waters and one for marine waters, to carry out 

 research to determine water quality requirements for aquatic life. In 

 April 1962 the House of Representatives passed legislation authorizing two 

 water quality laboratories and appropriating money for their construction. 

 The Senate passed a similar bill in June. The conference committees came 

 to an agreement in August, and the bill authorizing the laboratories was 

 signed into law on August 12, 1962. 



Planning for the Third Seminar on Biological Problems in Water 

 Pollution was under way for more than 2 years. The theme of this meeting 

 was water quality requirements for aquatic life. Every possible effort was 

 made to secure leading investigators to present papers and to assemble the 

 best possible program dealing with the chosen theme. The objective was to 

 produce a handbook summarizing available data on water quality requirements 

 for aquatic life. Representatives of 26 nations were in attendance. 

 Leaders of the national conservation groups took a prominent part in the 

 seminar, which was held August 13-17, 1962, just after the passage of the 

 legislation providing for the construction of the two water quality 

 laboratories. 



Planning for the water quality laboratories was largely completed in 

 June 1963. Planning for the research program had been under way even 

 before the laboratories were authorized. The first staff member for the 

 National Water Quality Laboratory at Duluth, Minnesota, was housed in a 

 fish hatchery of the Minnesota Department of Conservation on the shore of 

 Lake Superior just northeast of Duluth in September 1964. The following 

 year several thousand square feet of space was made available by the 

 University of Minnesota at Duluth. The staff was enlarged and research 

 activities began. Initial activities of the National Marine Water Quality 

 Laboratory began on July 1, 1965, in office space provided by the 

 University of Rhode Island at Kingston. A search was made for laboratory 

 space on the coast, which could be used for research activities before the 

 construction of the new laboratory. Since none was available, the labora- 

 tory was set up in a former industrial laboratory at West Kingston, about 8 

 miles from Narragansett Bay. The assembled staff moved into this building 

 in September 1966. Laboratory furniture, equipment, and supplies, and a 

 laboratory staff were secured and assembled for both of the water quality 

 laboratories, and the research program for the determination of water 

 quality requirements for aquatic life was initiated under my direction. 



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