A Good, Not Great Lake (from Points North)

Summary

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HISTORY This Week: “A Good, Not Great Lake” (from Points North)

Release Date: April 9, 2026
Podcast: HISTORY This Week (originally Points North)
Principal Host: Dan Wanshura
Guest/Key Voices: Senator Patrick Leahy, Fred Upton, Suzanne Fleek Green, Ellen Marsden, Tom Berry, Chris Gilchrist

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

This episode takes a witty, entertaining, and deeply investigative look at a little-known, nearly farcical episode in American history: the 1998 moment when, buried in a routine bill, Congress suddenly named Lake Champlain the "sixth Great Lake." What began as an attempt to secure environmental funding exploded into a national controversy, provoking outrage and jokes from the Midwest, soul-searching in Vermont, and eventually, a classic legislative compromise. Through interviews, archival tape, and first-person recollections, the episode explores questions of political maneuvering, regional identity, the meaning of “greatness,” and how decisions that reshape the nation sometimes hinge on the smallest details.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. The Strange Congressional Creation of a Sixth Great Lake (01:05–04:11)

• Inciting Incident: Tom Berry recalls his mother calling from Michigan in 1998, bewildered that Lake Champlain was suddenly a “Great Lake.”
  • Quote: “There’s only five Great Lakes, and Lake Champlain’s not one of them.” – Tom Berry (02:12)
• Widespread Outrage: The Midwest—media, schoolchildren, and politicians—reacted with shock and derision at the idea.
  • Quote: “We have islands in the Great Lakes larger than Lake Champlain.” – Davis Helberg (03:31)
  • Quote: “It’s just crazy.” – Rep. Fred Upton (04:03)
• Mockery Begins: Nicknames and jokes appear in news coverage.
  • Quote: “‘If Lake Champlain ends up as a Great Lake, I propose we rename it Lake Plain Sham.’” – Reporting on Rep. Steve LaTourette (04:11)

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2. Why Make Lake Champlain a Great Lake? Vermont’s Playbook (07:19–11:09)

• Senator Leahy’s Motivation: With Lake Champlain suffering from agricultural runoff and invasive species, Sen. Patrick Leahy sought more resources for its environmental protection.
  • Quote: "I wanted to make sure we were protected. The lake... faces all these environmental pressures." – Sen. Patrick Leahy (07:47)
• The Funding Angle – Sea Grant Program:
  • Insight: The Sea Grant Program funded research for oceans and the existing Great Lakes, but left Champlain (and Vermont researchers) out. Leahy and staff wanted to include Champlain and the University of Vermont for better access to grants.
    • Quote: "The University of Vermont said, hey, it would be great if we, too, could be part of the Sea Grant program." – Suzanne Fleek Green (09:41)
  • The Tactic: Add a single line to the pending Sea Grant reauthorization: "The term Great Lakes includes Lake Champlain."
    • Quote: "Just an extra line of language here or there...could have a dramatic impact on Vermont." — Tom Berry (11:09)

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3. Midwestern Backlash: History, Identity, and (Most Of All) Money (11:27–16:54)

• A Sneaky Surprise: The bill, seen as uncontroversial, passed without notice. The political fallout erupted only after news coverage and public outcry began.
  • Quote (Leahy): “These are people who basically were embarrassed that they had to tell their constituents, I voted for a bill I never read or didn’t understand. And I was. I was not going to push back on him.” (14:35)
• Concerns Over Funding:
  • Quote: "When you go from five Great Lakes to six, guess what? The funding gets cut." – Rep. Fred Upton (15:11)
  • Quote: "It would have been a foot in the door to eventually block us out by adding a sixth...who knows...a seventh Great Lake?" – Rep. Fred Upton (15:33)
• Defense of Regional Identity:
  • Quote: "It illustrated a lot of things about how people viewed the Great Lakes and kind of a lack of respect for the history of the Great Lakes..." – Chris Gilchrist (16:32)

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4. Negotiation & Compromise: How to Un-Make a Great Lake (16:54–22:13)

• The Battle in Congress: Rep. Upton and other Great Lakes legislators mobilized across state lines, using both backdoor negotiation and public pressure to force a change.
  • Quote: “I felt a little bit like David and Goliath. Leahy was very distinct...a lot of respect and no skeletons...He was able to get a lot of things done for the state of Vermont.” – Upton (17:15)
• Leahy’s Diplomatic Move: Under mounting pressure, Leahy offered a new amendment, recasting Lake Champlain not as a “Great Lake,” but as a “cousin” to the five originals.
  • Quote (Senate floor, 20:39): “We have agreed to call Lake Champlain a cousin instead of a little brother to those larger lakes in the Midwest.” – Sen. Patrick Leahy (21:09)
• Outcome – Everybody Wins:
  • Lake Champlain was no longer officially a Great Lake. However, Vermont still gained access to Sea Grant funds for research.
  • Quote: “The Great Lakes still prevailed at five...and Lake Champlain was eligible for sea grant money...a win win for both regions.” – Rep. Fred Upton (21:52)

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5. Lasting Impact & An Enduring Relationship (22:13–24:32)

• Senator Leahy’s View in Retrospect:
  • Quote: "Once the press made it front page news, I had some fun with all the attention. I realized there were a number of interviews where I was trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face like right now." – Sen. Patrick Leahy (23:24)
  • Quote: “Nobody in Vermont, myself included, wanted to rename Lake Champlain as a Great Lake...provided we got the research money.” (23:02)
• Personal Good Humor and Ongoing Partnership:
  • Quote (to Upton): “Do you remember when I said yes, I do. He said, well, we ended up getting the money. I said, well that wasn’t a problem as long as it didn’t take away from the Great Lakes. So we laughed about it for years afterward and Lake Champlain is a good place.” – Upton (23:43)
• Shared Goals for the Future:
  • The temporary conflict helped strengthen relations across the regions. Leahy worked to ensure funding grew for both the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain in subsequent years.
  • Quote: "I wanted to make sure the ecological research and all the five Great Lakes continued because I think they are a national treasure." – Sen. Patrick Leahy (24:15)

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MEMORABLE MOMENTS & QUOTES (with Timestamps)

• "We have islands in the Great Lakes larger than Lake Champlain."
  – Davis Helberg (03:31)
• On the idea of Greatness:
  "We wanted to find some statistic that would allow us to sort of hold our own, so to speak...We are actually deeper at the deepest point than Lake Erie. But that's not saying a lot. Lake Erie is very shallow."
  – Ellen Marsden (13:26)
• On Political Maneuvering:
  "Just an extra line of language here or there...could have a dramatic impact on Vermont."
  – Tom Berry (11:09)
• On Compromise:
  "The bottom line...the Great Lakes still prevailed at five and getting the funding, and Lake Champlain was eligible for sea grant money...a win-win."
  – Fred Upton (21:52)
• In Retrospect:
  "Nobody in Vermont, myself included, wanted to rename Lake Champlain as a Great Lake...provided we got the research money."
  – Sen. Patrick Leahy (23:02)
• Good-natured teasing:
  “We laughed about it for years afterward and Lake Champlain is a good place.”
  – Fred Upton (23:43)

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TIME-STAMPED SEGMENT GUIDE

• 01:05–04:11 — Sudden Congressional declaration and Midwest outcry
• 07:19–11:09 — Senator Leahy’s rationale; the quest for Sea Grant funding
• 11:27–16:54 — Backlash over identity and funding, history of the Great Lakes
• 16:54–22:13 — Legislative negotiation, the compromise, and its aftermath
• 22:13–24:32 — Legacy, humor, and genuine interregional partnership

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CONCLUSION

What started as bureaucratic sleight of hand turned into a brilliant civics lesson, revealing both the absurdity and the seriousness of American lawmaking. The “Great Lake” status of Champlain was short-lived, yet the episode secured vital research funding for Vermont, kept the Great Lakes coalition intact, and forged lasting political friendships. Above all, the story reminds us that “greatness” can be both a matter of geography—and artful legislation.

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Transcript

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[Sally (Points North Host)]

Hey everyone, it's Sally here. Today we are sharing a story from another podcast that we love called Points North. It tells these carefully crafted stories from America's Great Lakes, like how in 1998, something strange happened in Congress. Buried in a routine bill, lawmakers created a sixth great lake. Lake Champlain, long, skinny and nowhere near the size of the others, was suddenly in the same category as Superior in Michigan. What followed was outrage, political maneuvering, and a fight over identity, money. And what counts as great here is Points North.

[Dan Wanshura (Points North Host)]

This is Points North, a podcast about the land, water and inhabitants of the Great Lakes. I'm Dan Wanshura. More than 25 years ago, back in 1998, Tom Berry had a job in politics in Vermont. It was late February when out of the blue, Tom got a call from back home in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

[Tom Berry]

My mother called and asked me, what's up with Lake Champlain, thinking it could be a great lake. There's only five Great Lakes, and Lake Champlain's not one of them.

[Dan Wanshura (Points North Host)]

Tom was completely caught off guard. He hadn't heard anything about this from his colleagues in government, so he was even more surprised to be getting the news from his mom.

[Tom Berry]

And she said, well, you know, one of the Vermont senators just made it a great lake, and it's not a great lake.

[Dan Wanshura (Points North Host)]

What Tom didn't know then was Congress had just passed a bill designating Lake Champlain as one of the Great Lakes. It was quickly becoming this huge national story, like on NBC Nightly News.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Congress wants to create a new Great

[Ellen Marsden]

Lake, a sixth one. Read between the lines of this bill. The president is about to sign it

[Narrator / Storyteller]

and you will find language to designate

[Ellen Marsden]

a new Great Lake.

[Dan Wanshura (Points North Host)]

Tom's mother wasn't alone in her outrage. All over the Midwest, fifth graders, editorial boards and members of Congress pushed back against this new Great Lake. It seems sort of ridiculous. Lake Champlain is way smaller than all the other Great Lakes. It's this long, skinny lake tucked between New York, Vermont and Quebec. Even Lake Ontario. The smallest Great Lake makes Champlain look like a swimming pool. It's over 16 times bigger than Lake Champlain.

[Fred Upton]

We have islands in the Great Lakes larger than Lake Champlain.

[Dan Wanshura (Points North Host)]

That's Davis Helberg on NPR's All Things Considered. He was the port director in Duluth, Minnesota.

[Fred Upton]

We have these thousand foot lakers that carry iron ore and coal within the Great Lakes. Thousand feet long carry about 65,000 tons. I suppose when one of these retires, we could donate it to Lake Champlain and they could make a bridge out of it.

[Dan Wanshura (Points North Host)]

Congress members from the Great Lakes states were quick to chime in too.

[Fred Upton]

To add a Little Lake that's 1/16th the size of the smallest Great Lake is just crazy.

[Dan Wanshura (Points North Host)]

That's Fred Upton, a congressman from Michigan at the time. He also described Lake Champlain as a pencil line on a map. Ohio Representative Steve Latouret piled on too, telling reporters, if Lake Champlain ends up as a Great Lake, I propose we rename it Lake Plain Sham. So if Lake Champlain was not on par with the Fab Five, how did this all happen? Ruth Abramovitz picks up the story right after this.

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[Dan Wanshura (Points North Host)]

Hey friends, Dan Wanshura here. I want to give a big thanks to everyone who is a member of the Points North Fan Club. Your support makes this podcast about the Great Lakes region possible and we are so grateful for you. People like Naomi from Boca Raton, Florida, Tom from Harbor Springs, Michigan, Kerry from Stevens City, Virginia, Solana from Baltimore, Maryland and Ashay from Minneapolis, Minnesota who writes I am a recent transplant to the upper Midwest and as I explore the region, your podcast helps me connect with and understand the things that make this region so unique. Thank you for bringing joy and wonder and awe to my world. Oh, love that Ashay. Thank you and welcome to the fam. If you aren't a member yet, now is the perfect time to join the club. For five bucks a month, you can help us tell these stories and get some cool Points north stuff in return. Sign up [e-mail] fanclub and thanks.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

This all started with one of Lake Champlain's biggest advocates, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. By 1998, Leahy already loomed large in the Senate. He had been in office for more than two decades, and he chaired and held seats on some of the most powerful committees. He also literally loomed large. Leahy is six two. His imposing frame, furrowed eyebrows, and white hair were super recognizable. Leahy knew that Lake Champlain was in trouble.

[Senator Patrick Leahy]

I wanted to make sure we were protected. The lake, which is a beautiful spot, but faces all these environmental pressures.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Senator Leahy tells me this from his kitchen in Burlington. I can see Lake Champlain through the window behind him. Great or not, it's a brilliant shade of Blue. He's 85 now. He retired from the Senate a few years ago after 48 years in office.

[Senator Patrick Leahy]

I wanted to make sure I had a lake. It wasn't falling into the pollution that we saw in a couple of the Great Lakes.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

In both the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, agricultural runoff was causing a buildup of phosphorus in the water. This led to harmful algal blooms and threatened aquatic life. And zebra mussels, sea lamprey, and other invasive species had arrived in Lake Champlain.

[Suzanne Fleek Green]

Senator Lee was really focused on ways to increase both scientific research that went into cleaning up Lake Champlain as well as the actual cleaning up of lake

[Narrator / Storyteller]

that's Suzanne Fleek Green, a legislative assistant to Leahy, who worked on environmental issues.

[Suzanne Fleek Green]

He really, you know, looked at every agency and tried to find ways to help Lake Champlain.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

The lake brought billions of dollars to Vermont and New York through tourism and fishing each year. It also provided hundreds of thousands of residents with clean drinking water. If Lake Champlain fell into ecological disaster, it wouldn't just harm the species in the lake, it would harm Vermonters. But there was a solution. A federal program to fight these problems already existed.

[Fred Upton]

Sea Grant, Sea Grant, Sea Grant research

[Narrator / Storyteller]

run, Sea Grant, the national sea Grant program had been around since 1966. It funded ecological research in coastal areas and the Great Lakes. They were tackling those issues with invasive species and runoff, among other things.

[Suzanne Fleek Green]

The University of Vermont said, hey, it would be great if we, too, could be part of the sea grant program, Especially because they worked on a lot of the same invasive species issues that occurred in the Great Lakes.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

In late 1997, Suzanne went to work.

[Suzanne Fleek Green]

We knew that the sea grant reauthorization bill was bubbling at the commerce committee, and so we started talking to staff on the committee about how to add UVM as a sea grant program.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Reauthorization of the program only happened every couple of years. This was their best shot at including Lake Champlain.

[Suzanne Fleek Green]

You know, like in any legislative process. We went back and forth a little bit to see if that was the best approach.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

They wanted to get this done while the bill was still being polished in committee before it went to the full senate for a vote.

[Senator Patrick Leahy]

The only way we could do it initially, because the bill is about to go to the floor, was just added on to the Great Lakes designation.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

So senator Patrick Leahy added in a brief line, it read, the term Great Lakes includes Lake Champlain. Tom Berry, the guy whose mom called him, later worked as a staffer for Leahy. According to Tom, this was a classic move from Leahy's playbook.

[Tom Berry]

It's just something that the senator was able to do, you know, I think sort of at the 11th hour during a committee markup, which is often how he liked to get significant work done. Just an extra line of language here or there. Not completely remaking the bill could have a dramatic impact on Vermont.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

The sea grant bill made it to the full senate amendment and all compared with a lot of bills in Congress, this one was pretty unremarkable. It was a bill reauthorizing an uncontroversial program. In fact, it didn't even come to a full recorded vote in either chamber. Instead, it went through Legislative shortcuts used to pass boring bills. So in both the Senate and the House, the bill passed super easily without any disruption or complaints from the Midwest legislators. As the media storm brewed, President Bill Clinton signed the sea grant bill into law on March 6, 1998. There were six Great Lakes. Leahy's office put out a press release celebrating this win for Vermont. It noted that Lake Champlain was now one of the greats.

[Senator Patrick Leahy]

They had people come up to me in the capital. Oh, we saw a picture at Lake Champlain. My, that's beautiful. Oh, I had a number of people bring newspapers, wanted me to sign the newspaper. I never had an experience like that.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

This was all welcome news to Ellen Marsden. At the time, she was an assistant professor of wildlife and fisheries biology at the University of Vermont.

[Ellen Marsden]

The sea grant program has always been a very good place to go to for research funding. So it spelled opportunity for us. Wow, we're already doing work on Lake Champlain. Here's even more opportunity to get that work, fund it, or find funding for it.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Ellen and her colleagues saw the attacks on Lake Champlain like Lake Plain Sham, the thousand foot freighter bridge, but they had a sense of humor about it.

[Ellen Marsden]

I remember it. And we were, of course, we were glued to the radio and the press and, you know, alternately being slightly miffed, a bit more just chuckling at the different responses.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

They knew their lake didn't measure up, but they still felt the need to defend it. Maybe it should be a Great Lake.

[Ellen Marsden]

We wanted to find some statistic that would allow us to sort of hold our own, so to speak. Well, when certainly not bigger in area, and we're certainly not bigger in volume, we are actually deeper at the deepest point than Lake Erie. But that's not saying a lot. Lake Erie is very shallow.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Okay? It passes the depth test.

[Ellen Marsden]

And the one big statistic, of course, is we have a remarkably huge drainage basin. So in the Great Lakes, that ratio of watershed to lake area is about 1 to 1. In Lake Champlain, that ratio is 18 to 1.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

The Vermonters stuck to these arguments and said Champlain really was on par with the Great Lakes. Leahy pushed this idea as well. Back in 1998, he told NBC that Vermonters had always considered Lake Champlain the sixth Great Lake.

[Senator Patrick Leahy (Senate Floor)]

Lake Champlain has always been one of the Great Lakes in its ecology, its geography, and its origin.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

So why did the Great Lakes politicians let this happen in the first place? Likely they weren't paying much attention to the sea grant bill at all.

[Senator Patrick Leahy]

These are people who basically were embarrassed that they had to tell their constituents, I voted for a bill I never read or didn't understand. And I was. I was not going to push back on him.

[Fred Upton]

It missed the attention of everyone.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

That's Representative Fred Upton again.

[Fred Upton]

You know, we have a lot of bills, pieces of legislation. You rely on staff, you rely on others. Often, you know, you might have 25 bills up in an hour's time for a vote on the House floor.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

He was worried that this bill could hurt funding for the Great Lakes.

[Fred Upton]

When you go from five Great Lakes to six, guess what? The funding gets cut.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

At first. A Lake Champlain Sea Grant program would take less than 200,000 from a $56 million pot. But what if Lake Champlain cut into other programs beyond Sea Grant, and this set a dangerous precedent.

[Fred Upton]

It would have been a foot in the door to eventually block us out by adding a sixth. And who knows if someone someplace else had an idea for a seventh Great Lake, or, you know, whether it be in Florida, California.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

The heated backlash coming from the Great Lakes was about funding, but it was also about identity.

[Fred Upton]

The idea that the Midwest is culturally different from, say, the east coast or the west coast is really, it's. It's been a long standing tradition.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

That's Chris Gilchrist, the director emeritus of the Great Lakes Historical Society. Chris says this attempt to add a sixth Great Lake felt like an affront on the five original lakes and their home states. It was annoying. The Great Lakes region were often victims of bicoastal bias, Chris argues. When it came to federal projects, they always had to fight for attention over the two coasts. Making Lake Champlain a Great Lake on a whim, making it felt like just another example of east coast favoritism.

[Fred Upton]

I think it illustrated a lot of things about how people viewed the Great Lakes and kind of a lack of respect for the history of the Great Lakes and what it had done for this country over 200 years.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Even though the bill was signed into law, the fight wasn't over. The Great Lakes delegation did not want to admit Lake Champlain, and Senator Leahy did not want to lose the funding he had just finessed. The stage was set for negotiations to begin. In the ring, it was Representative Upton and Michigan's two senators. They were up against the heavy hitter from Vermont.

[Fred Upton]

I felt a little bit like David and Goliath. Leahy was very distinct, real white hair, a lot of respect and no skeletons, for sure. Well loved. He was able to get a lot of things done for the state of

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Vermont compared to Leahy. Upton just didn't have the same stature and he looked it. He said he would still get carded buying alcohol when he was in Congress.

[Fred Upton]

You know, I got tackled once on the House floor by the security folks so they didn't think I was a member of Congress rushing to vote early in my career. And here's this young guy, not even a subcommittee chair, working to take him on.

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[Narrator / Storyteller]

K Pop Demon Hunters, Haja Boy's Breakfast Meal and Hunt Trick's meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that Rumi? It's not a battle.

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[Suzanne Fleek Green]

It is an honor to share.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

No, it's our honor.

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[Narrator / Storyteller]

No really, stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle.

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[Senator Patrick Leahy]

ba da ba ba ba and participate

[Narrator / Storyteller]

in McDonald's while supplies last. But it wasn't just the Michigan Congressional delegation negotiating with this titan of the Senate.

[Fred Upton]

You know, I relied on folks from Wisconsin and Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York. We're all reliant on the Great Lakes. We know the importance of it whether you live on the Great Lakes or not.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Outside of negotiations, the Midwest had some other tactics.

[Fred Upton]

We utilized the press, so NPR covered it as they should. Lake Champlain is Now a Great Lake. It's the law, no matter what logic or geography says. And we got some wonderful editorials and headlines and major city papers.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

The more attention this got and the more the Midwest outrage made headlines, the better it would ramp up pressure on Leahy to undo the designation.

[Senator Patrick Leahy]

I told him quietly, don't worry. We're going to fix all this, and we're going to have a bill that you will want to vote for.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Eighteen days after the bill was signed, Senator Leahy came to the floor with an announcement.

[Senator Patrick Leahy (Senate Floor)]

Mr. President, I want to say that I'm pleased to join my colleagues from the Great Lake states today to offer an amendment that clarifies an issue that relates to ecological research involving Lake Champlain and its relatives, the Great Lakes of the Midwest. The purpose of my earlier amendment was not to change any maps, but to promote ecological research on the common problems facing our lake. I understand the symbolic issue this has become with our friends in the Midwest, and because they are my friends, I do not want to create problems for them. We have agreed to call Lake Champlain a cousin instead of a little brother to those larger lakes in the Midwest.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Under this amendment brought by Leahy and his colleagues from the Midwest, Lake Champlain would no longer be one of the Great Lakes. The amendment didn't guarantee money for Lake Champlain, but it allowed nearby universities to apply for it, just like any other college in the sea Grant program. Looking back, Upton remembers this as a true compromise.

[Fred Upton]

The bottom line, of course, was that the Great Lakes still prevailed at five and getting the funding, and Lake Champlain was eligible for sea grant money, and he was pretty happy about that, too. So it was a win win for both regions.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

This new amendment was tacked on to another appropriations bill in the Senate, which passed both chambers of Congress. The national news died down, the dust settled over Vermont, and President Clinton signed the bill into law. About six weeks later, Lake Champlain was still a good lake, but not a Great Lake. 27 years later, this footnote in congressional history has paid off.

[Senator Patrick Leahy]

I'm looking at future generations, my children and grandchildren, that they'll have a lake. There'll be a clean lake they can swim in, they can fish in sail and everything else and not have to worry about dangerous chemicals and pollution. So it ended up being a win win for everybody.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Despite what he told the press back then, Senator Leahy now says he was never trying to add a sixth Great Lake.

[Senator Patrick Leahy]

Nobody in Vermont, myself included, wanted to rename Lake Champlain as a Great Lake. I didn't care if they could designate Lake Champlain as Lake X if they wanted to, provided we got the research money.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

But Leahy admits that once the press made it front page news, he had some fun with all the attention.

[Senator Patrick Leahy]

I realized there were a number of interviews where I was trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face like right now.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Even years later, Leahy and his colleagues would still rib each other about Lake Champlain. Fred Upton remembers Leahy putting his hand

[Fred Upton]

on his shoulder, giving me a little twinkle in his eye. Do you remember when I said yes, I do. He said, well, we ended up getting the money. I said, well that wasn't a problem as long as it didn't take away from the Great Lakes. So we laughed about it for years afterward and Lake Champlain is a good

[Narrator / Storyteller]

place for as much as they teased each other, Senator Leahy and the Great Lakes Congress members found a genuine and shared interest in protecting their lakes. They formed a lasting relationship that benefited both the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.

[Senator Patrick Leahy]

I wanted to make sure the ecological research and all the five Great Lakes continued because I think they are a national treasure. So I wanted them to continue to have the research so they can keep clean for again thinking of future generations.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Each time Sea Grant needed to be renewed, Leahy fought hard to grow the pieces and ensure that no state felt like they were getting cut out. In doing so, Leahy brought home more funding for both the Midwest and the east for the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain alike.

[Dan Wanshura (Points North Host)]

Ruth Abramovitz with that story. The episode was edited by Morgan Springer with editing help from Ellie Katz, Claire Keenan Kurgan and me, Dan Wanchura. We have got a lot of people to thank for their help with this episode, including Lexi Krupp, Bob Kinzel, Lydia Slauson, Marcel Leahy, Mark Brederland, Tom Crane, Mike Donahue, Dave Dempsey, Chris Stepanuk, Rachelle Sturtevant, Mark Gaydon, Luke Albee and Brendan Banaszak. Radio excerpts in this episode were Originally broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered and Weekend Edition TV Excerpts from NBC Nightly News. If you want to help us make these stories, join the Points North Fan club. For just five bucks a month, you can support Great Lakes storytelling and get a cool welcome packet with all sorts of PointsNorth goodies. Sign up [e-mail] fanclub and thanks. Points north is a production of Interlaken Public Radio.

[Narrator / Storyteller]

Foreign.

[Sally (Points North Host)]

North is brought to you in part by Cherry Republic, celebrating Northern Michigan's tart cherries with products like jams, barbecue sauces, chocolate covered cherries and more [e-mail] and aspire north Realtors bringing real estate professionals together, so supporting their involvement in the community and advocating for the industry in a sustainable way. Online at aspirenorth realtors.com.