UW Gazette, September 3, 1997


                                     


     Daily Bulletin, July 23
     
     A get-together at the Waterloo Inn this afternoon is
the last hurrah for the Waterloo Centre for Groundwater
Research, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary and
looking ahead to being merged with another provincial
"centre of excellence".
     WCGR is being merged with the Institute for Space and
Terrestrial Science to become the new Centre for Research
in Earth and Space Technology - CRESTech. The change is
part of an Ontario government move to cut the number of
"centres" from seven to four.
     The new CRESTech will seek "to achieve and maintain
world-class excellence in multidisciplinary collaborative
research and development in space and earth sciences with a
focus on: water, earth and the atmosphere" and "to advance
the management of our natural resource capital by providing
leadership and innovative solutions in measuring, monitor
ing and remediating earth's environment".
     A launch event for CRESTech is set for September 24 in
Toronto.
     "At WCGR we feel this is a very positive outcome for
the Centres Program, in light of severe expenditure
restraint by the government," says Art Headlam, acting
director of WCGR. "Not only is the overall OCE Program
being funded at 87% of the previous level, but WCGR is
moving from a small centre funded at just under $2 million
per year to become an integral part of a larger centre with
a broader focus and a total annual budget of over $7 mil
lion."
     About 100 people are invited to today's event, says
Leanne Gelsthorpe of WCGR. "We will have, through a series
of displays, a ten-year retrospective. To say the least, it
should be entertaining!" A business meeting at 2:00 begins
the events. Presentations about the "old" and "new" centres
will follow, and "networking" runs from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.