The big building on the beach strip

The Canada Centre for Inland Waters opened its doors to the public Wednesday for a glimpse at what goes on inside

BACK 1972, IN when Justin Trudeau’s father was prime minister, a giant federal government building on the Burlington side of the beach strip officially opened to become one of the world’s leading water research complexes.

At the time of the ribbon-cutting at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (CCIW), Hamilton Harbour was a mess of industrial and municipal pollution, Lake Erie was choking on phosphorus and had at one time been declared dead, and fresh on the public’s mind was the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River actually catching on fire from all the nasty chemicals in it.

Much has improved over the last several decades when it comes to water quality in the Great Lakes, but new issues have emerged such as climate change, the impact of invasive species and more recently high water levels.

On Wednesday, the federal government facility that houses more than 700 government employees, opened its doors to the public with a series of displays about everything from managing the $138.9-million Randle Reef contaminated sediment remediation project in Hamilton Harbour, to testing calibration equipment used to measure water flow, to housing office facilities for the wildlife enforcement directorate division of Environment Canada.

Staff there enforce nature preservation legislation such as the Species at Risk Act. A display at the CCIW showed everything from an illegallyhunted Nunavut polar bear, to numerous items made from exotic skins and furs from endangered animals around the world, to a book that was used to try to hide waxed butterflies.

It was the second annual open house for the CCIW.

Officials there plan to host another open house next year.

Courtney Weather, a summer student with Environment Canada, waves to visitors from inside a 6,000-gallon tank used to calibrate instruments for use underwater.

Mark McIntrye, an officer with the wildlife enforcement directorate of Environment and Climate Change Canada, holds an African rock python skin from Ghana for visitors at the CCIW open house. The skin was confiscated from someone who was trying to...

This polar bear from Nunavut was illegally killed by hunters, who were apprehended while trying to leave the country in a private plane.

Student Zora Lauren, 11, moves around nymphs of various insects used to study the effects of sediment contamination on a school trip to the CCIW.