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Post Info TOPIC: Asian Carp Story=bad news!!!
catman


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Asian Carp Story=bad news!!!
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Here is a story from the Milwaukee paper about how close the Asian Carp are to getting into Lake Michigan....

09/29/09 By Dan Egan of the Journal Sentinel

This is how desperate the fight to keep Asian carp from invading Lake Michigan has become: Biologists are talking about turning to sandbags.
University of Wisconsin Sea Grant's Phil Moy said Tuesday that Lake Michigan may be just one big rainstorm away from an infestation of the super-sized jumping carp that fishery experts fear could ravage what's left of the big lake's natural food chain.

In recent weeks the Army Corps of Engineers has boosted the power on its new $9 million electric fish barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which has until now been considered the primary pathway for the fish to make the jump from the Mississippi River basin to the waters of the Great Lakes.

The problem is the carp also have recently migrated up the adjacent Des Plaines River, and that river has a history of flooding its banks and spilling into the sanitary and ship canal. The distance between the two waterways is, in places, only a matter of yards.

A flood between the two would provide the carp a bypass around the barrier, and a straight shot up the sanitary and ship canal and into Lake Michigan about 20 miles to the north.

"The biggest risk right now is the Des Plaines River, and if we get a (big rain) like we did last year, they could very well go over the wall," said Moy, co-chairman of the advisory panel working with the Army Corps to keep the leaping fish from spilling into the Great Lakes - the biggest home the fish could ever hope to find.

Dike required
Moy says an emergency dike needs to be built immediately to raise the narrow strip of land separating the Des Plaines, which lies in the Mississippi River Basin, and the sanitary and ship canal, which is connected to Lake Michigan.

This won't be a small project. He said there is roughly a 6-mile-long flood zone between the two waterways and the only realistic way to keep those waters from mixing during a heavy flood is to build an earthen berm or deploy a wall of sandbags.

To further complicate matters, Moy isn't even sure who owns the land where the rampart would have to be built, or who would have jurisdiction over issuing a permit to build it. Such a structure likely would increase flooding risks for area homeowners.

So how grim is the situation?

"It all depends on rainfall, doesn't it?" Moy said.

But other problems are emerging. Moy said the barrier itself will have to be shut down briefly in either October or November for regular maintenance, even though tests show the fish have recently advanced to within a mile of the barrier.

A shutdown will leave an older, weaker experimental barrier just upstream as the last line of defense for Lake Michigan.

Moy said the hope is to get approval to drop of dose of fish poison in the river just above the new barrier prior to the shutdown.

"We want to be sure we get those (Asian carp) out of there before the maintenance," he said.

Moy also hopes to poison small portions of the Des Plaines River so researchers can get an idea of how many Asian carp have colonized that waterway in the area of the flood zone. The only evidence they have of the fish is water samples that indicate the presence of Asian carp DNA.

"We want to know if there are 10 of them, or thousands," he said.

Saving Lake Michigan
Moy spoke to the Journal Sentinel at this week's "State of the Lake" conference in Milwaukee, where more than 100 lake experts and advocates are gathering to share their research and strategize on how to preserve and protect the only Great Lake that lies entirely within the United States.

There is much excitement at the meeting about the prospect of hundreds of millions of new dollars flowing into the Great Lakes. The U.S. House has approved $475 million in the next budget for Great Lakes restoration; the Senate has approved $400 million.

The actual amount likely will land between those two figures. That money will go toward toxic sediment cleanup, choking off sources of ongoing pollution and habitat protection for fish and wildlife.

"We'll no longer have excuses for not getting to work and not getting the job done," said Judy Beck, Lake Michigan coordinator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But Beck on Tuesday was particularly worried about the carp, which pose not only an ecological risk but an economic one as well. The jumping fish present a serious hazard to people in motorboats and personal watercraft, as well as wake boarders and water-skiers.

Asian carp can grow bigger than 50 pounds and threaten the Great Lakes billion-dollar fishery because they are ravenous filter feeders, consuming up to 20% of their body weight in plankton per day. That's food upon which virtually every other fish species in the lakes directly or indirectly depends.

"The wolf is at the door," Beck said.

"We need to learn from our mistakes," she added. "And this is definitely going to be a learning moment, I'm afraid."

Beck told the group that the fish escaped Southern fish farms during the 1993 floods in the Mississippi River.

That's not the whole story.

A 2006 Journal Sentinel investigation revealed the EPA played a role in their release.

Three decades ago, it funded programs in Arkansas that used the fish in sewage treatment experiments, and those fish were among the first known to have escaped into the wild.

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Kevin Lee "catman"
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gotfish1


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Here is the latest information on this topic.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009312020010


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catman


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Thanks for the info Mike.

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Kevin Lee "catman"
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gotfish1


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Today's update.  They did find one (and that's too many) but most may not be seen for some time since studies have shown that these fish sink to the bottom when killed this way.  Time will tell if they find more but keeping these exotics out of the Great Lakes is probably one of the most significant issues we have ever faced. 

http://www.freep.com/article/20091204/NEWS06/912040373/?imw=Y


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Never be afraid to try or do something new. Remember, amateurs built the Ark; professionals built the Titanic.  (Anonymous)
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Scary, scary, scary....hopefully the Gov't can come up with permanent solution instead of just delaying the inevitable.

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gotfish1


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Here is the very latest.  It seems the DNA they found while sampling got the attention of the legislators.  We'll see.....

http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2009/12/attorney_general_mike_cox_says.html




-- Edited by catman on Monday 7th of December 2009 05:03:50 PM

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Never be afraid to try or do something new. Remember, amateurs built the Ark; professionals built the Titanic.  (Anonymous)
gotfish1


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http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/537828.html?nav=5006


-- Edited by catman on Monday 28th of December 2009 02:09:06 PM

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catman


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Minnisota and Indiana may join lawsuit to keep Carp out...

http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/80032972.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUF


http://www.post-trib.com/news/1962040,carp11229.article




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Kevin Lee "catman"
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