Great Lakes form a single, naturally interconnected body of fresh water, within the Great Lakes Basin. They form a chain connecting the east-central interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. From the interior to the outlet at the Saint Lawrence River, water flows from Superior to Huron and Michigan, southward to Erie, and finally northward to Lake Ontario. The lakes drain a large watershed via many rivers, and are studded with approximately 35,000 islands. There are also several thousand smaller lakes, often called "inland lakes," within the basin. The surface area of the five primary lakes combined is roughly equal to
Great Lakes Protection Fund the 1986 Toxic Substances Control Agreement, signed by the Great Lakes governors. Seven Great Lakes states contributed $81,000,000 to capitalize the Fund. Each state contributed to the Fund based on its usage of Great Lakes water. The Great Lakes Research Consortium hailed the Fund as a "unique and precedent-setting conclusion to the search for a stable, long-term funding mechanism for Great Lakes research." The Great Lakes Protection Fund held its first meeting on July 12, 1989, in Chicago. The earnings from the endowment, now worth over $100 million, have supported 274 regional projects, committing more than $83 million to regional