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STATEMENT OF LEONARD J. GOODSELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

 GREAT LAKES COMMISSION 



Colonel GooDSELL. Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentleman, the 

 Great Lakes Commission is pleased to have the opportunity to present 

 views on matters under consideration by the Congressional Conference 

 on Coastal Zone Management. 



The Great Lakes Commission has served for 14 years as the advisory 

 and recommendatory agency for the Great Lakes States on regional 

 water resources matters. Our interests encompass all water uses and 

 manipulations, fisheries and -wildlife, navigation, and commerce, hydo 

 and thermal power generation and utilization, domestic and industrial 

 water uses, shoreline use and recreational facilities, water quality, water 

 quantities including this parameter measured in vrater levels of the 

 Great Lakes, economic development, and, I suppose, one broad interest 

 could be described as regional ecology. 



In the Great Lakes we have 20 to 25 percent of the world's reservoir of 

 fresh water on the surface, and the U.S. Geological Survey informs 

 there's much more than that underground. It must be protected, it must 

 be wisely developed and it must be conserved. Our broad objectives, no 

 matter from what region we come, are: (1) to have a place to live, (2) 

 to have a place to work, and ( 3 ) to have a place to play. 



Going back to yesterday's discussion as the man from Louisiana 

 said, these are our objectives in the Great Lakes and the N'ation. The 

 technology leading to objectives for meeting the requirements in the 

 Great Lakes varies somewhat because of the huge water impound- 

 ments and the resultant inertia of the system, whicli was another word 

 used yesterday. We certainly do have a ^ood system in the Great Lakes 

 as compared to, say, the interactions within a swiftly flowing stream 

 or the vagaries of the world's oceans. 



REPORT "our nation AND THE SEA — A PLAN FOR NATIONAL ACTIOn" 



The Commission on Marine Science, Engineering, and Resources, 

 no doubt, already has been complimented on its report. To approach 

 a subject of this scope and magnitude, and to report in a single volume 

 in about 300 pages requires the greatest zeal and temerity, and I must 

 add my praise for an monumental effort. 



The report lumps together millions of square miles of sovereign 

 marine environment areas, the contiguous zone, the high seas, "internal 

 waters," rivers, lakes and canals, and the Great Lakes. 



My remarks are based generally on the conditions we see in the Great 

 Lakes and we also have international considerations in the Great Lakes 

 that some of the States don't enjoy. 



The Great Lakes: To put the Great Lakes in perspective — 

 The Great Lakes basin has a total area of almost 300,000 square 

 miles of land and water area, with approximately 100,000 square miles 

 of water surface area and 200,000 square miles of land surface area. 



Lake Erie has a maximum depth of 210 feet, an average depth of 

 58 feet. Lake Superior has a maximum depth of 1,333 feet, average 

 depth of 487 feet. Within the context of Marine Technology one of 

 the subjects treated in the report, our operations on the Great Lakes 

 would fall under the first goal, "The development of the necessary 



