It's heartening to see you here this morning. I know that many of you probably still prefer to be out in the corridors because that's where we get most of our discussion and catch up on what's going on in the areas, but we appreciate you coming in and sitting down. My name is Tom Baldini, and I am the Chair of the U.S. Section of the International Joint Commission for Canada and the United States. Let me introduce to you, my colleagues who are here also today. And as you know, under the terms of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement the governments undertake programs and report on that progress.
Governments provide an opportunity to learn about actual environmental conditions.
The most recent conference was held in November 1996 and governments released their 1997 State of the Lakes report about a month ago. Secondly, we're here in Niagara Falls to hear from our boards. We have four boards that provide advice to us about Agreement matters, specifically, the Great Lakes Water Quality Board, the Science Advisory Board, the International Air Quality Advisory Board and the Council of Great Lakes Research Managers. The boards have already provided detailed advice to us in their 1995-97 Priorities reports, and copies of those are available at the desk. It's this document here and they are out front.