Asian carp found in Chicago canal during poisoning

[ry]

i would consider that waste water as well.

and yes i agree removing the canal would easily solve the problem, but business is business and that ain't going to happen quickly.

and rather than spending money on an electric fence-dam thing that is apparently not working we could have given millions to poor folks to fish the damn carp outta the river and remove the threat.

[croat]

Well you missed the part in the article about how they can overcome the commerce part of the canal removal.

[ry]

"You don't have to shut the canal down to commerce," Marc Gaden, spokesman for the fishery commission, said at the time of the study's release.

The Army Corps has already agreed to explore the feasibility of re-creating such a separation, but the agency is notorious for its plodding pace.
Political pressure

i said it's not going to happen quickly.

[croat]

http://detnews.com/article/20091221/METRO/912210366/Cox-taking-fight-against-Great-Lakes-Asian-carp-to-Supreme-Court

Cox taking fight against Great Lakes Asian carp to Supreme Court
Jim Lynch / The Detroit News

Detroit -- Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to flex its muscle in the fight to keep invasive Asian carp from Lake Michigan. In a press conference this morning, Cox announced his intention to sue the State of Illinois, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago to force them to close off waterways leading to the lake.

His move comes just weeks after authorities poisoned a section of the Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal to halt the spread of the carp, which are considered a major threat to the ecosystem of Lake Michigan. That project produced one Asian carp above an electrical barrier designed to keep the fish out of Lake Michigan.

"With the finding of (Asian carp) DNA within 6 miles of Lake Michigan recently ... quite simply, now is the time," Cox said. "These agencies have not acted quickly enough."

Cox is calling for:

• Closure of the O'Brien Lock and Dam and the Chicago Controlling Works.

• Operation of sluice gates at Wilmette Pumping Station, the O'Brien Lock and Dam, and the Chicago Controlling Works to keep the carp at bay.

• Construction of new barriers to prevent the carp from being flooded out of the Des Plaines River and into the Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal.

• A study of the Chicago waterway system to understand the number of carp and their location and how best to deal with them.

Cox said his lawsuits will be filed today and that he hopes that the Supreme Court will take some injunctive action before the end of the year.

[ry]

yes that all sounds good

PLUS:

pay some rednecks along the mississippi to fish the carp out of the river and remove them for good.

[croat]

Wisconsin joins legal battle to stop spread of giant carp

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/80371762.html

Wisconsin has entered the multi-state battle against Illinois and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop an Asian carp invasion of the Great Lakes.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday in support of Michigan's recent motion to force the state of Illinois and the federal government to shut down a couple of navigational locks that provide an artificial link between Lake Michigan and the adjacent carp-infested waters of the Mississippi River basin.

Wisconsin now joins Ohio and Minnesota in supporting Michigan's push to reopen a nearly century-old Supreme Court case over Chicago's diversion of Lake Michigan water down the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

That canal was built at the turn of the last century to flush Chicago's sewage away from the city's drinking water intake pipes in Lake Michigan. It was hailed as an engineering marvel at the time, but it spawned a lawsuit from neighboring states that argued it created an illegal diversion of Great Lakes water that resulted in a permanent drop in water levels.

The case began in the 1920s and technically remains open. In 1967, the Supreme Court capped Chicago's daily diversion at 2.1 billion gallons. Still, the justices ruled at the time that if the adjacent states can demonstrate that the diversion is causing them harm, they could bring the case back into court.

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox thinks an Asian carp invasion fits that bill, and he wants an emergency injunction to shut down the locks that are the last remaining barrier between the super-sized, jumping carp and Lake Michigan. He also wants "action to permanently separate" the waters of Lake Michigan from the Mississippi River basin.

Re-separating the two grand drainage basins would be neither easy nor cheap. It would force big changes in the way Chicago treats its human waste because sewage discharges presumably would have to be re-channeled into Lake Michigan instead of down the canal and into the Illinois River to the Mississippi. It also would significantly disrupt the barge industry that emerged after construction of the sewage canal.

Barge industry advocates say even a temporary shutdown of the locks could put 400 barge-related jobs in jeopardy and severely disrupt the businesses that depend on the cargoes that float on the canal. The barge industry group American Waterways Operators, for example, says nearly $1 billion of petroleum products alone moves through Chicago-area locks annually.
Fishing industry threat

Still, conservation groups and politicians say the leaping fish pose a dire threat to the Great Lakes' $7 billion fishing industry and other recreational businesses.

Van Hollen noted in his filing that sport fishing on Wisconsin's Great Lakes supports 5,000 jobs and generates more than $400 million in annual economic activity.

The worry is the invading carp, which can grow to more than 50 pounds and consume up to 20% of their weight in plankton per day, will devastate the prized species that lure anglers to the lakes.

The carp also could squelch recreational activities such as water skiing and personal watercraft riding because of the fish's penchant for leaping out of the water and smacking unsuspecting boaters.

"The infiltration of Asian carp into Lake Michigan may have serious adverse environmental and economic consequences to Wisconsin's waters and industry," Van Hollen said in a statement. "This action seeks to ensure that the integrity of Lake Michigan is not harmed by the introduction of these carp."

Van Hollen's office said it is not clear when the U.S. Supreme Court might take up the issue, but on Tuesday his Minnesota counterpart said the court could consider the matter as early as Jan. 8.

The justices might agree to hear Michigan's request to close the locks and reopen the case over the diversion; they might decline; or they might send the case to another federal court.

The push to force changes in the way Chicago manages its water has gained widespread regional support in recent weeks that cuts across political lines. Wisconsin and Michigan have Republican attorneys general, Ohio and Minnesota have Democrats in that office.

Earlier this month, a bipartisan coalition of 50 members of Congress representing the Great Lakes states - including both of Wisconsin's senators - fired off a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency, urging top officials at each agency to "immediately consider" re-establishing the natural hydrologic separation between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basin.

And now the Supreme Court justices are being asked to weigh in on a case that has been dormant for decades.

"This is really unique, unusual litigation," said Noah Hall, a Wayne State University law professor who was instrumental in crafting the recent Great Lakes compact that restricts most water diversions out of the lakes. "There is no standard playbook for any of this."

Illinois Attorney General spokesman Robyn Ziegler said Wednesday that Illinois also is preparing a brief for the Supreme Court that should be filed within the week.

[croat]

And Indian joins: http://www.chestertontribune.com/Environment/123098%20indiana_attorney_general_zoeller.htm

So now Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana are all in against the evil F.I.B.'s!

[croat]

N.Y. to enter Asian carp debate

New York's attorney general says he'll join the legal effort to keep Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes because the species could devastate the fishing industry and the environment.

Andrew Cuomo said he'll file a brief in U.S. Supreme Court on Monday supporting Michigan's request to sever a century-old Chicago canal connecting Lake Michigan and the Mississippi water basin.

Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ohio also are supporting the request. Illinois' attorney general's office is reviewing the suit.

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago has said that closing the canal would not prevent the carp from migrating.

Asian carp can grow to be 100 pounds and can consume massive quantities of plankton, the base of the Great Lakes food chain.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/80572727.html

[ry]

heh.

FIBS are going down.

[croat]

All we need now is Pennsylvania to hop on board and for the Canadian's to start pissing & moaning

[croat]

Bwahaaa ..... too late - Ontario filed its own separate lawsuit against the FIB's!

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091231/carp_100101/20100101?hub=Canada

[ry]

i say we start a boston tea party-esque rally where we throw big rocks into the canal to dam it up.

let the politicians and lawyers sort it out their own way - there isn't time for red tape with this.

[croat]

Heh - I'll drive

[ry]

i wonder what the consequences would be.

it's not littering if we would use organic materials like rocks and logs, but it isn't exactly a public waterway with free access is it?

[croat]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/80731962.html

Chicago responds to Asian carp suit

By Dan Egan of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Jan. 5, 2010 2:58 p.m.

The fight to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes could soon turn testy.

To force the federal government and state of Illinois to do more to block the advance of the jumbo fish, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox is trying to crack open a decades-old U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit over Chicago's controversial diversion of billions of gallons of Lake Michigan water each day.

He filed his motion just over two weeks ago and has quickly acquired some heavy-duty allies, including the states of Wisconsin, New York, Ohio and Minnesota.

Now Illinois and the co-defendants in the suit - the Army Corps of Engineers and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago - are coming back swinging.

The reclamation district, which manages much of the system that drains some 2.1 billion gallons from Lake Michigan daily, gave the Chicago Tribune a sneak peek at its legal strategy Tuesday when it provided the paper exclusive access to its legal response to the lawsuit - the same day a Tribune editorial likened the threat of a carp invasion to the " 'Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" or 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers.' "

The editorial says now is not the time to start closing locks, as Cox has requested, and it accused Michigan and its supporting states of being in "full panic mode."

"Closing locks that serve as major shipping channels would cause serious economic damage throughout the region and should be considered only a last resort."

Water reclamation district boss Richard Lanyon told the Tribune: "We think that this issue about Asian carp destroying the ecology and the economy of the Great Lakes is just overblown and just fraught with a lot of emotion."

Lanyon pointed out that some Asian carp had long ago been found in Lake Erie as evidence that the fish might not be the ecosystem destroyers so many politicians have painted them to be.

The Journal Sentinel earlier reported that Ontario biologists confirmed three bighead carp had been taken there by 2004, including a 3-foot-long one snagged in a fisherman's net on Oct. 16, 2000. A doctor snorkeling in Lake Erie's main tributary in August 2003 identified two bighead carp lurking just off the riverbed, and the U.S. Geological Survey also reports that a fourth bighead was taken from Lake Erie in 2002.

The fish, according to Asian carp expert and USGS biologist Duane Chapman, likely were released after being purchased at live fish markets, or they may have ridden floodwaters in from fish farms in the 1990s.

But Chapman says no juvenile fish have been found, which would indicate a breeding population has made it into the lake.

Chapman said the same thing could happen if some adults make their way into Lake Michigan up the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

For a breeding population to get established, "all the factors have to come into alignment," Chapman said last month." That may not happen ever," he said. "It may happen in 10 years. It may happen in 20 years."

But the fish have proven to be ecosystem game changers in some river systems in the Mississippi basin, and Chapman and other biologists say the fish pose a similar threat to the rivers that feed the Great Lakes.

The state of Illinois is expected to file its own response to the Michigan suit sometime later Tuesday, but Michigan's Cox, a gubernatorial hopeful, is clearly feeling emboldened by the regional show of support for his request to shut some Chicago-area navigation locks to keep the fish from invading Lake Michigan.

More significantly, his suit seeks to once again re-separate Lake Michigan from the Mississippi basin. That would mean big - and expensive - changes for the way the water district operates. It could also deal a brutal blow to the barge industry that depends on the canal and locks to operate.

But Illinois' neighbors are saying the economic consequences will also be disastrous if the fish get into the lakes, which sustain a $7 billion industry.

"Five states and a province are now standing with Michigan before the United States Supreme Court in our battle to protect the Great Lakes and the billions in economic activity they create for our economy," said Cox's spokesman.