Editorial: Geography rules

Wednesday, March 25, 1998 | 10:27 a.m.

The Senate agreed unanimously Tuesday to rescind its embarrassing decision to make Lake Champlain our nation's sixth Great Lake. For those who haven't followed this controversy over geography and politics, a little background is in order:

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., quietly slipped into a reauthorization bill some language designating Lake Champlain, which abuts Vermont, as a Great Lake. But as any student who has taken a geography class knows, there are just five Great Lakes. Lake Champlain hardly merits the status of a Great Lake; it is just one-fifteenth the size of Lake Ontario, the smallest of the Great Lakes.

So why would Leahy, a respected member of the Senate, try to rewrite geography? Federal funding. You see, since Lake Champlain didn't carry official status as a Great Lake, it wasn't eligible for federal research funding given to universities in states that border oceans and the Great Lakes. If Lake Champlain had gotten the coveted status, then Vermont institutions of higher learning would have been eligible to get a portion of $290 million in Sea Grant research programs over the next five years.

Midwestern senators, who know a Great Lake when they see one, obviously were upset over the designation, which President Clinton signed into law on March 6. So Leahy finally agreed this week to a compromise to undo the designation: Lake Champlain won't be added to Great Lake status, but Vermont universities and colleges will be eligible for federal Sea Grant funding.

It won't rank as one of the great Senate issues of our time, but it was heartening to see that geography won the day.