I am going to write some of my thoughts on issues I feel are important for the Great Lakes.
Read the article below to get a little history on the issue, but in this installment I am going to bring you up to the minute. I just returned from meetings in Michigan where I had a chance to go on public record as to how I feel about Obama's plan to address asian carp. Unfortunately it is too little, too late with no urgency and no plan to address the carp that have already reached Lake Michigan.
In January it was learned that the asian carp have reached Lake Michigan. Doctors Lodge and Chadderton, from Notre Dame have been using eDNA tests to detect the presence of asian carp in the canals around Chicago and in Calumet Harbor in Lake Michigan. (eDNA is environmental DNA that is DNA from fish in the environment. Fish lose cells from their skin, gills or even their gut when they urinate or in their feces, these cells if collected can be used to determin what species of fish are present.)
The presence of asian carp in Lake Michigan changes everything. The old plans to protect the Great Lakes have to be scrapped. We need to figure out how to rid the lake of asian carp before there are enough to start successfully spawning, if they aren't already. This is very serious we have a very small window of opportunity to turn this disaster back. We need aggressive actions to erradicate the carp that have reached the lake. The carp in the canals have to be eliminated above the barrier. All the locks must be closed immedeately to stop anymore carp from reaching Lake Michigan. Quickly, we need to start to hydrologically separate the Mississippi watershed from the Great Lakes. This does two things it makes the barrier between the two system impenetrable, stopping invasive species from migrating into Lake Michigan and the reverse; preventing species from Lake Michigan from reaching the Mississippi. Finally all ballast water carried in lake freighters from Lake Michigan can not be dumped into any other of the Great Lakes. Young carp fry could be moved from one lake to another in ballast water accelerating the spread of the fish.
The Army Corps of Engineers, EPA, US Fish and Wildlife and the Illinois DNR are in denial about the carp reaching Lake Michigan they would rather prefer to believe that the test results by Dr Lodge and Chadderton are just "false positives" and that the asian carp are still miles below the electric barrier. We can not sit back and let them continue to act as if everything is under control because it is not. We may have already lost but we have to try to do as I suggested. If we don't we certainly will lose our Great Lakes to Asian Carp.
Please call your congressman, tell him we need to close all the locks on The Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal and the Cal-Sag Channel, to take aggressive actions to rid Lake Michigan of asian carp and eliminate them in the canals north of the electric barrier in Lemont, Illinois. Tell your congressman to enact emergency regulations stopping ballast water discharges from ships coming out of Lake Michigan and that we need hydrological separation between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi watershed. We need to start today!
The article that follows is one I recently wrote for the New York Outdoor News. Since I wrote it Michigan has sued Illinois to close the canal, and the Asian Carp have been detected in Lake Michigan. It may be too late to save the Great Lakes from this invader. However if there is a slim chance we have to fight for our lakes. Let me know what you think by emailing me ... Capt. Tom Marks
The Electric Barrier and the Asian Carp
By Thomas Marks, NY Director
Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council
Around the time the Chicago District Army Corps of Engineers was beginning the plan to build the electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC) I became interested in the threat posed by the Asian carp which were threatening the Great Lakes. I attended Dispersal Barrier Panel meetings in Chicago spoke to scientists, and engineers I even went to the electric barrier site and toured the CSSC to learn all I could about electric barrier project. What I learned was shocking and too lengthy for this space. However, the reporters writing the recent news stories regarding the Asian carp and electric barrier do not have a full understanding about the problem nor the original plan adopted by the Dispersal Barrier Panel. While the threat of the Asian Carp is serious he problem is not Asian carp; it is the unfinished construction of the electric barrier which is years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget. Promises of completion for next year are doubtful given the Army Corps of Engineers’ history on the project. The second point is that the electric barrier, which is to prevent the carp from reaching the Great Lakes, was known from the start not to be 100% effective. With only an electric barrier we will only slow the invasion eventually Asian carp will invade our Great Lakes. There are fears that the Asian carp may have already breached the electric barrier.
The original plan has three parts, first the electric barrier, second an ecological barrier, and third a hydrological barrier. The Dispersal Panel members, advisors and consultants on the project understood the inefficiency of the electric barrier, however backed by an ecological barrier stopping the Asian carp could be possible. They also knew that to generate the political will and public support for a hydrological barrier would be difficult and take many years. The combined electric and ecological barriers have the best chance of protecting the Great Lakes. However, as long as there is a connection between the two watersheds there will always be the possibility for the Asian Carp or other invaders to reach the Great Lakes.
The Dispersal Barrier Panel, its advisors, and consultants as well as fishery experts from around the region and country understand that not only is the barrier project to protect the Great Lakes it is to protect the Mississippi watershed from invasive species expanding their range out of the Great Lakes. Electric barriers and ecological barriers maybe good at stopping fish but they are ineffective for water containing drifting plants or harmful fish pathogens. The Great Lakes water harbor a deadly fish virus called viral hemmorhagic septicemia (VHS) as well as other pathogens. Only a hydrological barrier can stop the spread to the Mississippi Basin. The connection between the Great Lakes and Mississippi basin is not natural. The canal was constructed as an open sewer to direct sewage away from Chicago’s drinking water source, Lake Michigan. With current technology Chicago’s treated sewage is ok to discharge into the lake. If not, it is not suitable to discharge into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal either. The CSSC is obsolete; the connection should be broken between the two watersheds.
The Army Corps of Engineers, Dispersal Barrier Panel, consultants and other agencies involved in the Barrier Project never really believed in the plan as they outlined it. This is obvious by the lake of urgency in completing the electric barrier by the Army Corps of Engineers. The execution of the barrier plan has been pathetic at best. The Dispersal Barrier Panel members were not committed to the plan either, it is obvious because they held no one accountable for its timely execution. It is obvious they had no confidence in the plan when they considered less effective barriers such as the “acoustic bubble array” to back-up the electric barrier. It obvious no one believed in the plan because Barrier Panel used the Army Corps inability to solve problems on the barrier construction as a diversion to the state of Illinois, Congress, and the press as they had deviated from the original plan. It is obvious that the Dispersal Panel members had no confidence in the original plan because they became focussed on just building the electric barrier not stopping the carp from reaching Lake Michigan. It is obvious they had no confidence because they have deviated so far from their original plan and had no intentions of executing phase two or three, because they knew failure could be imminent.
There is a serious threat to the Great Lakes it is the Asian Carp. There is also a serious problem, it is with the Dispersal Barrier Panel, the Army Corps of Engineers, consultants and other agencies involved in the barrier project who have strayed from the original plan to protect Lake Michigan. Everyone needs to get back on track, move onto phase two to implement the ecological barrier and work hard towards implementing the hydrological barrier; neither the Great Lakes nor the Mississippi basins have the luxury of time.
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