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State of the Great Lakes

a set of environmental indicators used in a Canadian government report gives a clear picture of the health of the Great Lakes. The report, The State of the Great Lakes , gives information based on 19 of 80 indicators developed by scientists, said participants at the 1998 State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference ( solec ) recently held in Buffalo, New York.

The 19 indicators that have been selected, represent 80 other indicators that the parties will be reporting on biennially. "Indicators have been used to assess the state of the Great Lakes before. However, people at previous conferences said they needed a more rigorous process. Therefore, they had proposed this new set of 80 indicators. Initially, only 19 of those indicators were used to assess the state of the lakes, but now we hope to use 25 or 30 of them by October 2000. By 2004 we will hopefully be reporting on all of them,' Harvey Shear, science advisor to Environment Canada, Ontario region, told reporters.

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