# Asian Carp Past Barrier?



## EdB (Feb 28, 2002)

This is not good.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/70573047.html

Great Lakes, Great Peril | Update
Asian carp may have breached barrier 
By Dan Egan of the Journal Sentinel 

Posted: Nov. 19, 2009

Silver and bighead carp threaten to invade Lake Michigan.Close 
What's Next 
The Army Corps has scheduled a news conference for 10 a.m. Friday.

Great Lakes, Great Peril
Special Section: This series will periodically examine challenges facing the Great Lakes in what experts forecast will be the century of water.
The decade-old battle to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes might be over.

New research shows the fish likely have made it past the $9 million electric fish barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a source familiar with the situation told the Journal Sentinel late Thursday.

The barrier is considered the last chance to stop the super-sized fish that can upend entire ecosystems, and recent environmental DNA tests showed that the carp had advanced to within a mile of the barrier.

That research backed the federal government into a desperate situation because the barrier must be turned off within a couple of weeks for regular maintenance. The plan is to spend some $1.5 million to temporarily poison the canal so the maintenance work can be done.

But even as those plans are being finalized the news everyone dreaded came: It might be too late.

Now the only thing left standing between the fish and Lake Michigan is a heavily used navigational lock.

Army Corps officials declined to comment on the situation.

"I am not prepared to discuss this today, but I will be prepared to discuss this tomorrow," Col. Vincent Quarles, commander of the Chicago District of the Army Corps of Engineers, said when asked about news that the fish had breached the barrier.

The Army Corps, along with its state and federal partners in the barrier's design and operation, has scheduled a news conference for 10 a.m. Friday.

The fish that can grow to 50 pounds or more are a big deal because they are voracious feeders, overwhelming native species, and they pose a huge hazard to recreational boaters because of their habit of jumping out of the water when agitated by the whir of a boat motor.

No fish have been found, but a new type of DNA testing that can show the presence of fish in the water shows that the barrier does not appear to have worked at stopping all the fish.

"We've got some bad problems," Dan Thomas, president of the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council, said when told the news.

Thomas said the plan to poison the canal is going to have to grow to cover areas above the barrier, which is about 20 miles downstream from the Lake Michigan shoreline.

"Unless we treat that canal real quick as far up as we can, then we can almost be assured that they're on their way into the lake," he said.

For several years, the northern migration of the silver carp had stalled in a pool just above the Dresden Island Lock and Dam on the Des Plaines River southwest of Joliet, Ill. - about 20 miles downstream from the barrier.

In August, the Journal Sentinel learned the environmental DNA testing that biologists had quietly begun using on the canal revealed that the fish had started to move again. It's been all hands on deck ever since.

In addition to plans to poison the river, the Army Corps is scrambling to build a twin to the new barrier. It also is looking at building an emergency berm to prevent the fish from riding floodwaters from the carp-infested Des Plaines River into the canal above the barrier.

The two species of Asian carp threatening to invade Lake Michigan are silver and bighead carp. It's not known which species - or whether both species - have been detected above the barrier with DNA tests.

Silver carp are considered the bigger threat to the economy, ecology and culture of the Great Lakes because of their penchant for leaping out of the water and injuring boaters.

Silver carp were imported to Arkansas in the 1960s where they were used in federally funded sewage treatment experiments.

They escaped their containment ponds soon thereafter and have been swimming north since.


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## backstrap bill (Oct 10, 2004)

That sucks big time!


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## snaggs (Jul 20, 2005)

Do not panic....It's government as usual.. Somehow those in charge of keeping our environment safe will procrastinate till the damage is so far gone it will created hundreds of jobs to clean up the mess. Frankly I will enjoy the loss of the fishery on the Great Lakes. Now if you don't like that statement it should parrallel the dislike for those in charge of keeping check and destroying the carp years ago. What a country!!!!


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## 1mainiac (Nov 23, 2008)

How to turn a minor problem into a major one let the Government try and fix it once again we get screwed. The canal should be pushed shut and anyone who can't see it should be hung on a post next to it. And what will come of this the government will say if we had given them more funding they could have fixed while they waste billions doing studies the fish keep coming. Folks it is time for a reveloution to save America by 2010 it may well be too late.


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## Thorzep (Nov 19, 2009)

i sure hope they arnt through......but i think they probably are


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## Spanky (Mar 21, 2001)

The battle is not over.

http://www.asiancarp.org/rapidresponse/

a nice link to good info.


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## 2PawsRiver (Aug 4, 2002)

I hope you're right Spanky. Wouldn't take all that long before the Joe would only be good for a carp shoot
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Spanky (Mar 21, 2001)

got that right!


and additional press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 1, 2009

Contact Jim Dexter 269-685-6851 or Mary Dettloff 517-335-3014


Michigan DNR to Assists Illinois on Asian Carp Project

The Department of Natural Resources will send a crew of fisheries
technicians and fish-killing chemicals to Illinois this week as part of
an assault on Asian carp populations in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship
Canal that threaten to make their way into the Great Lakes.

The large exotics, which escaped from agricultural facilities in the
South and have become established in the Mississippi and Illinois
Rivers, are able to out-compete native species and pose a dire threat to
the entire Great Lakes ecosystem. The fish have been kept out of the
Great Lakes by a $9 million electric barrier, though recent DNA testing
of water samples suggests the fish have breeched the barrier and are a
mere seven miles from Lake Michigan.

The electrical barrier is scheduled to be deactivated for necessary
maintenance for several days in December. The Illinois Department of
Natural Resources plans to kill the carp in a stretch of the canal below
the electrical barrier with rotenone, a natural substance, before the
barrier is shut down.

We jumped on board the minute Illinois requested assistance with
this project because the potential of these fish getting into the Great
Lakes could be ecologically devastating, said DNR Lake Michigan Basin
Coordinator Jim Dexter. If they do get in, they could wreak havoc on
the Great Lakes and its tributaries.

Bighead and silver carp feed on plankton. Bigheads are capable of
consuming up to 40 percent of their body weight in plankton daily and
can reach weights of 80 pounds. Fisheries officials believe they could
drastically alter the food chain in the Great Lakes and out-compete
native species for habitat.

The DNR will send six technicians and three boats from Plainwell and
Pontiac as well as most of the departments inventory of rotenone and
potassium permanganate, which neutralizes rotenone, to Illinois for the
project.

Given the potential environmental damage these fish can do to the
Great Lakes, we think getting on board with this project is a
no-brainer, Dexter said.

The DNR is committed to the conservation, protection, management,
accessible use and enjoyment of the States natural resources for
current and future generations.



Like I said a month ago as much of a threat this is to our fishing and the ecosystem of the Lake, the quagga mussel problem that is looming in the shadows is gonna make this look like small potatoes. The mussels eat the phytoplankton, and thats what the plankton eat. So between these two invasives, the bottom of the food chain could all but dissapear in the next 5-6 years IMO.


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## Bonz 54 (Apr 17, 2005)

Why are they not treating the entire river systems that have these things in them with rotenone? It would be far easier and less expensive to restock with native species now than if these fish get into Lake Michigan. Oh, but let's wait and see if....:rant: FRANK


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## gooseboy (Jul 11, 2008)

Wonder if there could be a lawsuit against Arkansas by groups in Michigan to help "Fund" the removal of the carp? Seeing how they appear to be the ones that did the importation. This is serious...a huge cancer in the Great Lakes Water System...


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## erock (Jan 6, 2010)

not good at all


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## Sam22 (Jan 22, 2003)

All I can say is we need a drastic measure, immediately. I don't think they are looking at the real hard core options, and I understand why. Realistically, we need the fisheries management version of round up, maybe we can just use a couple of gas tankers full of it?


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