Asian carp found in Chicago canal during poisoning

[croat]

Durbin states Illinois' case in Asian carp battle

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/81290767.html

Chicago — With the Supreme Court set to consider arguments this week on slamming shut some Chicago-area navigation locks to block the advance of Asian carp into Lake Michigan, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin scheduled his own hearing Tuesday.

Holding court in a packed exhibit hall at the Shedd Aquarium and flanked by phalanx of politicians and federal officials that included the Illinois attorney general and an assistant secretary of the Army, Durbin stared into a crush of camera lenses and said it was time to inject some rationality into what has become a nasty legal and political fight.

"I want to take this fish out of the courtroom and out of the campaign headquarters and into an honest discussion," said the Democratic senator from Illinois.

But the other side of the legal fight over the carp, led by Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, saw little honesty in drawing so much political firepower to what is viewed as a meaningless hearing.

"This was a massive mobilization of resources by the Obama administration and local officials for media purposes because it's clear they underestimated the outrage among the Great Lakes states due to our economies being put at risk," said John Selleck, spokesman for Cox, a Republican and Michigan governor hopeful.

"It's very troubling that the fate of Michigan's economy and ecology rests in the hands of a state that accounts for only 63 of the 10,000 miles of Great Lakes shoreline."

Behind Durbin's seat at the aquarium, in a glass tank, lurked the threat to that ecology: a bighead Asian carp, a north-migrating invader let loose decades ago in Arkansas that can grow to 100 pounds by hogging plankton that sustain prized native fish. It does this with a mouth big enough to gobble softballs, a mouth so big it arcs over its eyes, giving one the impression that it swims upside down.

It could be the Great Lakes themselves that get turned on their head if the invasive carp capture a beachhead in Lake Michigan and establish a breeding population.

The Journal Sentinel reported Monday that the U.S. Army Corps has evidence of Asian carp within a few miles of the lake at the Wilmette Pumping Station, a facility managed by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. The district operates a century-old system of sewage-carrying canals that created an artificial link between the Asian-carp infested Mississippi River basin and the Great Lakes.

That system is at the heart of a decades-old Supreme Court case that the State of Michigan and its allies hope to reopen to force Chicago to dramatically change the way it manages the 2.1 billion gallons of water it sucks away daily from Lake Michigan and flushes into the Mississippi basin.
'Not in denial'

While Durbin is harshly critical of the legal strategy that Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and New York have taken to force the locks shut, he acknowledged the threat the fish pose is real, and he says he and his colleagues opposed to the lawsuit "are not in denial."

"Let's acknowledge the obvious," he said at the beginning of Tuesday's two-hour hearing. "The Asian carp and other invasive species are a real threat to the future of Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes."

But Durbin and the state and federal agency allies he assembled Tuesday pointed out there could be drastic consequences if Michigan is successful in court. Closing the navigation locks could unleash widespread flooding in the Chicago area, and it would put a big dent in the barge industry that moves so many of the raw materials that make this industrial hub hum.

"People have no idea how much this shipping canal is used for commerce, probably because we don't get stopped in traffic by barges," said U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.).

Beyond commercial disruption, Durbin noted that as many as 14,000 Chicago-area homes could be exposed to flooding if just one of the two locks, the O'Brien Lock south of downtown Chicago, were ordered shut.

He also made the case for all that already has been done to keep the fish from advancing up the Chicago canal system and into the lakes. He noted that in the past 12 years more than $41 million has gone into planning, building and operating a system of electric fish barriers on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, about 20 miles downstream from Lake Michigan.

Still, the fish appear to have breached those barriers based on the results of new technology that can identify the presence of Asian carp DNA in water samples.

In November, the Army Corps acknowledged samples taken near the O'Brien lock - about six miles from the shore of Lake Michigan - tested positive for Asian carp. The new batch of samples taken at the Wilmette Pumping Station are near the lakeshore north of downtown, though Army Corps officials could not say Tuesday precisely where the samples were taken.

Advocates for shutting down the locks say they don't want to close them permanently; they just want the gates shut so the waterways below them can be cleared of fish by some means, such as poisoning or netting. Their hope is to push the fish back down below the electric barriers and then begin to construct a new system that will re-establish the natural hydrological link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi.
Obama sides with Illinois

Michigan and its allies did not speak at the Shedd hearing. Neither did any of the conservation groups that have largely sided with them.

Henry Henderson, of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the former commissioner of the City of Chicago's Department of Environment, said: "Illinois officials seem to be shocked that other interests in the Great Lakes and nation and indeed Canada do not see the Chicago diversion (of Lake Michigan water) as an unambiguous benefit, but they see it as a continuing sore spot that is a poster child for bad behavior in the Great Lakes."

Obama, who ran for office as a champion of Great Lakes issues, has sided with Illinois in the Supreme Court case, which is scheduled to be considered Friday. The court could do several things. It could ignore it. It could grant an injunction and order the locks shut, or it could send the case to a lower court.

On Tuesday, Obama's Great Lakes point person, Cameron Davis, said it would be unwise to shut the locks down based on DNA samples alone. He said it will require more evidence, though David Lodge, the Rhodes scholar and University of Notre Dame professor behind the DNA testing, submitted his filing to the Supreme Court as evidence for its accuracy in determining infested waters.

Asked whether the administration would consider shutting the locks if a fish - even just one - were found near the Lake Michigan shoreline, Davis replied:

"That is an open question right now. I don't think that has been taken off the table."

[ry]

let's fish out the damn carp and eat them already.

sheesh.

[pink posey]

im not sure which would be worse. Eating a carp or licking the bottom of a streetwalkers shoe

[croat]

Carp is almost always a delicacy in almost every country around the world except for American post 1970's.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-asian-carp-culturejan10,0,3510376.story

"The only thing wrong with eating Asian carp is that it has the word carp in it," said Steve McNitt, sales manager at Schafer Fisheries in Thomson, Ill., one of the largest carp processors and distributors in the country. "It's a tasty fish, a fleshy fish. Think of all the hungry people around the world you could feed with carp.

"We shouldn't be trying to eradicate it; it's too late for that. We should be eating it."

"It tastes good, but it's very bony, and most Americans don't like that," Caminiti said. "My Polish customers? They love it. But anything Americans have to eat so gingerly isn't going to become popular."

McNitt agreed, saying, "You aren't going to sell Asian carp to white Americans under 30. As soon as you tell them it's carp, it's over."

When it comes to fish, name and reputation go a long way, industry experts say. Chilean sea bass was not so popular when it went by its original name, the Patagonia toothfish.

[croat]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/81942417.html

Carp-fighting lawsuit doesn't aim to flood Chicago

Chicago — Opponents of the Asian carp lawsuit that takes aim at Chicago for its unnatural link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River say the stakes could not be higher.

That link - the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal - is a highway for barges that carry raw materials to fuel the nation's third-largest city. It also carries the collective flush of Chicagoland.

Mess with the canal, say its operators, and you not only threaten Chicago's industrial might, you had also better get ready to deal with the "disastrous effect" of a city flooded by its own waste.

One problem: Nobody is asking Chicago to drown in sewage in the name of carp prevention.

The State of Michigan, leader of a five-state coalition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reopen a lawsuit over the operation of the canal, has indeed asked that two navigation locks at the top end of the canal system temporarily close to block oversized carp. Biologists believe they may now be within about a mile of the lakeshore. But Michigan acknowledges that gates at those structures serve as safety valves in big rains; they open to allow high water in the canal system to flow backward and into Lake Michigan - instead of into Chicago streets and basements.

That's why Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox is asking the court to shut the gates "except as required to prevent significant flooding that threatens public health or safety."

"Michigan is not asking to inundate Chicago to protect the Great Lakes," says Joel Brammeier of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, a Chicago-based conservation group. "What they're asking for is that reasonable measures be taken until we reduce the imminent threat of an invasion."

Neither is anyone denying that closing the locks, even temporarily, would severely disrupt barge traffic, but perhaps not to the extent that some Chicago politicians would have the public believe.

In arguing against the Michigan lawsuit, U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), for example, says some 19 million tons of cargo - coal, petroleum products, salt and chemicals that numerous industries rely on - move through three of the canal system's navigation locks annually.

But Michigan's request doesn't ask to shut the down the lock that handles the bulk of that traffic.

The locks proposed for closure, however, do handle a flood of recreational boat traffic in warm months.

An estimated 700,000 tourists annually move through one of the locks - near Navy Pier - and gross revenue last year for just four of the companies that handle those passengers was $18 million.

But proponents for shutting the locks say they want it done as an emergency measure at this point, and all the locks may be open by summertime when barge and recreational traffic hits its peak.
Shutdown would buy time

The idea behind a lock shutdown now is to buy some time. Recent water samples in the canal have detected the presence of Asian carp within about a mile of the Lake Michigan shoreline.

The plan supported by some conservation groups is to poison or shock the waterways near the lake in an attempt to eradicate any fish that have breached a new electric fish barrier about 20 miles downstream from Lake Michigan.

That barrier was turned on in April, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not crank up the voltage high enough to repel all sizes of fish until August, when DNA sampling revealed the north-migrating carp had arrived just below the barrier.

And while even a temporary closure of the locks would be a brutal blow for the barge industry, it may pale compared with what's at stake on the other side; the Great Lakes are home to a $7 billion commercial and recreational fishery that biologists say the plankton-gobbling Asian carp could ruin if they get into the lakes.

"They are aquatic vacuum cleaners," says Charlie Wooley, deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "They will come in and clean out our native fish and sport fish."

The potential impact extends beyond the fishing industry. The jumping carp have essentially ruined fun time for water skiers and boaters on heavily infested waters of the Mississippi basin because of the dangers of human-fish collisions.

This is not a small concern to the Great Lakes states, which are home to more than 4 million registered recreational boats - about a third of the U.S. total.

Some Illinois politicians don't think these considerations outweigh the damage a lock closure could put on Chicago businesses.

"At a time when we're working to put the economy back on track, we should not be doing anything that will compromise our efforts to put people back to work," said Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D-Ill.).

Other lawsuit opponents point out that closing the locks won't be a sure fix. The fish could still ride their way into the lakes if floods hit. They might also sneak through holes in the aged structures.

And they argue there's a good chance there aren't even any Asian carp in the area to breach the leaky locks.
Where are the fish?

In August, DNA tests started rolling in, indicating the fish had reached the barrier and then, eventually, bypassed it.

Yet no actual specimens, live or dead, have been found above the barrier.

That, according to President Barack Obama's Great Lakes czar, Cameron Davis, is a big deal when it comes to making big decisions.

Davis said that before the federal government decides things "like closing the locks, like potentially flooding northeastern Illinois, you'd better be a bit more sure than just relying on (DNA) sampling . . . you want to follow up with some kind of alternative methods to confirm they exist."

Davis' official title is senior adviser to Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson, and his statements would seem to contradict a recently released report from an EPA team that visited the labs of environmental DNA pioneer David Lodge at the University of Notre Dame.

That team scrutinized the practices, equipment and quality controls at the lab and determined that Lodge's "eDNA" testing is "sufficiently reliable and robust in reporting a pattern of detection that should be considered actionable in a management context."

In other words, if the tests show the fish are there, you can reasonably classify a body of water as if it were infested.

That's evidently not the case at the moment.

At a meeting of biologists and other technical experts on the carp conundrum last week, Army Corps' barrier manager Chuck Shea acknowledged that most of the scientists in the room accept the accuracy of the DNA testing.

The problem is getting the public to buy in.

"There are a lot of people out there that need more convincing," Shea said. "And to actually recover a body would mean broader support from the public."

One problem with this is that if you wait long enough, that fish might indeed be found . . . in Lake Michigan.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) acknowledged he was in a dicey situation when he convened the public hearing at the Shedd Aquarium last week to defend Illinois' opposition to a lock shutdown.

"If we're going to take a look at this honestly . . . there are no simple and easy answers," Durbin said.

The Supreme Court could make a decision on the request to close the locks as soon as Tuesday.

[croat]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/82058727.html

Asian carp DNA found in Lake Michigan; Supreme Court rejects remedy

Water samples taken in Lake Michigan reveal that Asian carp have made the jump into the world's largest freshwater system, the Journal Sentinel has learned.

Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to slam shut two lakeside navigation locks to prevent the super-sized, north-migrating carp from making the jump into the lake.

The court issued its announcement Tuesday with no explanation.

Now the Army Corps is poised to announce that two "environmental" DNA samples show the presence of leaping silver carp above the O'Brien lock south of downtown Chicago.

One of those samples, taken Dec. 8, reveals the presence of DNA in Lake Michigan.

The Army Corps is scheduled to make an announcement at 1:30 Tuesday afternoon.

The court, meanwhile, has denied a request for a preliminary injunction to shut a lock at Navy Pier and O'Brien lock, the lock that the carp have apparently already bypassed.

While no actual fish have been found above the barrier, biologists say the presence of DNA in lake waters is essentially as good as finding a fish.

The technology can detect even the tiniest trace of fish DNA, and scientists say it indicates a fish has been in the area within the past two days.

The material likely comes from a carp's digestive tract, and while there are other possible explanations for the material to be found in a body of water - contaminated ballast discharges from a barge, for example - the scientists behind the technology say that is highly unlikely.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency dispatched a team to the laboratories at the University of Notre Dame where the DNA tests are being conducted, and concluded that the tests are a reliable means of detecting presence of a fish.

What the tests do not reveal, however, are how many fish may be in an area, or the size or age of the fish.

The news did not come as a surprise to Phil Moy, a University of Wisconsin Sea Grant biologist who has co-chaired the panel that helped the Army Corps construct an electric fish barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal about 20 miles downstream from Lake Michigan.

"The fish have probably been up there around the locks for a year," Moy said.

The reason: the Army Corps turned off the power to the barrier system in October of 2008 for about a week's worth of maintenance, and Moy said the fish likely slipped through at that time.

The barrier that was turned off at that time was the first one to operate in the canal, and was not built to operate at level strong enough to repel juvenile fish, which need a bigger jolt.

A second, stronger barrier was subsequently turned on in April 2009, but it was not turned up to a level strong enough to deter small fish until last August.
Case not over

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, did not rule on a separate request from the State of Michigan to re-open an ongoing case over the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which is a provides an artificial link between the Mississippi River basin and Lake Michigan.

"They just denied the motion for preliminary injunction to shut the locks, they're completely silent on the petition to re-open the case," said Noah Hall, a Wayne State University law professor who has followed the case closely.

In that portion of the case, the State of Michigan, backed by Wisconsin, New York, Ohio and Minnesota, is hoping the court will re-open a decades-old lawsuit over the operation of the Chicago canal.

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox said he was disappointed the court decided not to push the "pause button on this crisis" by closing the locks on an emergency basis, but he said briefs in the petition to re-open the case are due Feb. 19.

The canal, which opened in 1900, was built to flush Chicago sewage toward the Gulf of Mexico.

It worked wonders for Chicago sanitation, but it also permanently lowered Lake Michigan and upset Illinois' downstream neighbors.

The case dragged on for years, but in 1967 the court ruled the diversion of Lake Michigan water could continue, provided it was capped at about 2.1 billion gallons a day.

The court, however, left the door open for future action if the neighboring states could demonstrate that the canal was causing them harm.

Cox, who is running for governor, hopes the carp invasion will fit that bill, and he is asking the court to force Illinois and the Army Corps to re-engineer the canal system to once again separate Lake Michigan from the Mississippi.
Biologists: Fish may not breed

Biologists have said all is not lost if a small population of fish make it into Lake Michigan, because it can be very difficult for a breeding population to get established.

"If a few fish get into the Great Lakes, it's not game over," Duane Chapman, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher who has made a career out of studying the fish on the heavily infested Missouri River, said last month.

The fish can grow to 50 pounds and consume up to 20% of their weight in plankton per day - food upon which every other species in a water system either directly or indirectly depends.

Chapman said they do indeed pose a dire threat to fishing and recreational boating on the world's largest freshwater system.

But he said what matters now is how many get into the lake. That will determine whether a breeding population gets established.

For invasion biologists, numbers are everything. First, the invading fish have to find each other. Then they have to find a place to spawn. Asian carp probably won't be able to breed in open lake waters. Research shows that fertilized Asian carp eggs require long free-flowing rivers; without a current to keep them afloat, they sink to the bottom and die. Surveys have shown there are 22 tributaries on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes that may provide suitable spawning habitat. More such rivers flow into the lakes from Canada.

"The number of fish that get in is everything - it will control whether these fish have a chance of putting together a population or not," Chapman said.

The worry is what the carp will do to Lake Michigan's $7 billion commercial and recreational fishery, as well as the recreational boating industry.

The two Asian carp species now threatening the Great Lakes were first imported to the United States by an Arkansas fish farmer in the early 1970s. He wasn't interested in the fish and turned them over to Arkansas fishery officials, and they in turn used them in sewage treatment experiments funded in part by an $81,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a 2006 Journal Sentinel investigation.

[croat]

[ry]

so how long till we see a great lakes asian carp fish fry in milwaukee?

[croat]

Ya no shit.

[croat]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/82211997.html

White House will host carp summit

The White House has agreed to Gov. Jim Doyle's request to hold an emergency Asian carp summit with Great Lakes governors while a Michigan congressman has vowed to take the fight to block carp from invading Lake Michigan to the Capitol.

U.S. Rep. Dave Camp introduced a bill Wednesday that seeks to shut navigation locks in the Chicago area, a drastic step the U.S. Supreme Court opted not to order in a ruling issued Tuesday.

Camp's measure also calls for the eventual construction of permanent barriers to re-establish the natural separation between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basin that was destroyed with the construction of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

"The failure of the Supreme Court to act yesterday jeopardizes the future of the lakes, and it is clear we must take additional steps now," said Camp, a Republican and ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The Obama administration supported the Supreme Court's decision to not close the locks as an emergency attempt to stop the carp's advance.

But White House officials say they have not given up fighting the carp.

Responding to a call from Doyle and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to hold a high-level meeting on how to beat back the invading fish, Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said Wednesday that she would coordinate a session between the Great Lakes governors and senior White House officials "to identify a rapid response to the threat of Asian carp."

The governors' request followed news on Tuesday that scientists collected DNA evidence from water samples that indicate the fish have made their way beyond the Chicago canal system and are swimming in Lake Michigan.

No actual Asian carp have been found above an electric fish barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, located about 20 miles downstream from Lake Michigan, and biologists say they have no reason to believe a breeding population has taken hold above the barrier.

Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, New York and Minnesota sued to force the Army Corps of Engineers last month to close two Chicago-area navigation locks as part of a larger lawsuit challenging the way the Chicago canal system is operated. Those canals, which carry Chicago's treated wastewater, also opened a pathway for the north-migrating Asian carp to colonize the lakes.

The idea behind closing the locks is to create a makeshift emergency barrier between Lake Michigan and the canals.

The problem is a lock closure would disrupt navigation and industry and possibly lead to flooding in the Chicago area.

The states that sued don't dispute the damage a closure would cause the barge industry, but they say that's a price worth paying to reduce the risk of an invasion. Illinois and its co-defendants, the Army Corps and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, disagree.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Illinois when it declined to order an emergency lock closure, though it has yet to rule on the larger lawsuit. Briefs in that lawsuit are due Feb. 19.

The target date for the White House summit is the first week of February.

The goal of that meeting is to "discuss the strategy to combat the spread of Asian carp and ensure coordination and the most effective response across all levels of government to respond to the threat," Sutley wrote to Doyle and Granholm.

The oversized, jumping carp have become a hot political topic because of their potential to upend the Great Lakes' $7 billion fishery and related recreational and boating industries.

Despite the Obama administration's decision to side with the State of Illinois in the Michigan-led lawsuit, officials have been insisting that turning back the carp's advance is a high priority for the administration.

"I was told that (chief of staff) Rahm Emanuel is briefed about twice a week on this matter," Bill Bolen, senior adviser at the Environmental Protection Agency's Great Lakes National Program Office, said last week.

[croat]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/82968642.html

White House summit on Asian carp set for Feb. 8



An Asian carp "summit" has been scheduled for Feb. 8 at the White House, the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality announced Thursday.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle will meet with fellow governors from Michigan and Illinois as well as federal agency leaders to talk about the Obama administration's plans to protect Lake Michigan from being colonized by the supersized fish.

Wisconsin is among a coalition of five Great Lakes states that last month asked the Supreme Court to order shut two lakeside navigation locks in the Chicago area in a desperate attempt to keep the fish from swimming into the lake.

The Supreme Court declined to order the shutdown, but it has yet to decide whether to hear the case brought by the Michigan-led coalition of states that sued over the way Illinois, the Army Corps and the Metropolitan Water District of Greater Chicago manages the Chicago canal system.

The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal created an artificial connection between the previously separated Mississippi River basin and the Great Lakes.

The meeting, according to Doyle's office, will focus on strategies to slow the spread of the fish and ensure coordination among various government agencies. All three governors are Democrats.

Several of the attorneys general who have spearheaded the lawsuit are Republicans and earlier this week asked for a seat at the summit table. Whether they have been invited could not be confirmed Thursday.

Candidate Obama ran as the Great Lakes president and was successful in securing nearly a half billion dollars this year in what the administration hopes will be the first installment of a 10-year, $5 billion restoration plan for the Great Lakes.

But conservationists and politicians alike say much of that could be money down the drain if the carp eventually established a breeding population in the Great Lakes.

"I am very pleased with the Obama administration's quick action on this important issue and their pledge of $5 billion to restore and protect the Great Lakes," Doyle said in a statement. "We must act immediately to protect the Great Lakes, our region's greatest natural resource, against the devastating threat of Asian carp. We look forward to working with the White House to protect this fragile ecosystem against Asian carp and other harmful invasive species."

[croat]

From some of the most recent rulings from the supreme court - it seems that they have been shifting gears and aligning with big business over anything including this ruling.

[farzad]

i wouldnt be surprised if thats the way it goes.

[croat]

New Asian carp motion filed with court

By Dan Egan of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Feb. 4, 2010 1:54 p.m.

Less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox's request to shut down two Chicago navigation locks to protect Lake Michigan from an Asian carp invasion, Cox is headed back to court.

On Thursday the Republican candidate for governor filed another motion requesting the lock closure "because of new information that became available" since the Jan. 19 denial.

That new information includes the results from environmental DNA tests released the same day as the court's denial that indicate at least a small number of over-sized carp have arrived in Lake Michigan.

Cox also has the results of a study he commissioned to look at the economic impacts of closing the locks, and he says the dire economic consequences predicted by the barge industry are "seriously exaggerated."

The report says the approximately 7 million tons of cargo that move annually through the two locks Cox wants closed account for less than 1% of the cargo that moves through the Chicago area each year.

Barge industry representatives weren't immediately available for comment.

Meanwhile, while the Supreme Court denied the request to close the locks, the court has yet to rule whether it will reopen an ongoing lawsuit over operation of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Cox is hoping to use that decades-old lawsuit to force dramatic changes in the way officials operate the sewage-carrying canal, which created an artificial link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River basin.

His filing has the backing of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and New York, as well as the Province of Ontario.

The new request comes just days before a planned Asian carp "summit" Monday at the White House where Great Lakes governors will meet with Obama administration officials to strategize how to best deal with the advancing carp.

Cox isn't waiting to see what unfolds at the conference.

"We think the Court should take another look at our request to hit the pause button on the locks until the entire Great Lakes region is comfortable that an effective plan is in place to stop Asian carp," he said in a news release. "While we would like to see significant and immediate action as a result of next week's meeting between the governors and administration, that is an unknown at this time, so our battle to protect the Lakes will continue."

It is not known when the Supreme Court might address this latest request.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/83571672.html

[croat]

Illinois politicians have claimed that even a temporary closure of two Chicago navigation locks will lead to regional economic devastation, but a new transportation analysis released by Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox tells a different story.

The two locks near the shore of Lake Michigan handle about 7 million tons of cargo annually, mostly bulk materials such as sand, coal and petroleum that fuel Chicago-area industries. That volume is merely a sliver of what's already moving down Chicago-area rails, roads and canals, said Cox, who sued unsuccessfully last month to close the locks to protect Lake Michigan from an Asian carp invasion.

Cox's study claims just two trains a day could handle the amount of cargo affected by a lock closure and the added cost of transferring the cargo would amount to a mere $70 million a year.

By contrast, the commercial and sport fishing Cox and others say is jeopardized by an Asian carp invasion is worth an estimated $7 billion a year.

Claiming the economic impact of a temporary lock closure has been "seriously exaggerated" and citing recent evidence that some carp already might have made their way into Lake Michigan, Cox said Thursday that he plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its Jan. 19 decision not to order the locks shut.

"We think the Court should take another look at our request to hit the pause button on the locks until the entire Great Lakes region is comfortable that an effective plan is in place to stop Asian carp," Cox said in a news release.

The study Cox released Thursday claims:

•  The 7 million tons of cargo that move annually through the locks represent less than 1% of all the freight traffic in the region.

•  The amount of cargo affected by a lock closure could be handled by the equivalent of two daily trains; approximately 500 trains move through the Chicago area each day.

•  The cost to shift these materials to other transportation modes would cost less than $70 million annually, much less than the $190 million figure Cox says has been used by Illinois and the federal government.

"The suggestion that other modes of transportation are not available is incorrect," write study authors John Taylor, a Wayne State University professor, and John Roach, a transportation consultant and former manager of the Intermodal Section for the Michigan Department of Transportation.

"Virtually all of the major shippers have direct or proximity access to both rail and highway. The assertion that there are not enough rail cars or trucks to handle the traffic is also very wrong.

"There is more than sufficient capacity to handle seven million tons and it could readily be provided."

Barge industry representatives could not be reached for comment.

Efforts to contact Cox's office to learn how much the study cost were unsuccessful.

Taylor and Roach aren't rookies at tackling controversial transportation questions.
2005 study

The two authored a 2005 study that analyzed traffic patterns on the St. Lawrence Seaway that revealed overseas freighters account for only about 7% of the traffic on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, and that the relatively tiny industry benefits the region only about $55 million annually in terms of transportation savings.

Conservationists, critical of the overseas shipping industry because of the invasive species it has unleashed on the Great Lakes, seized on the number as a reason why overseas ships should not be allowed into the Great Lakes until they can do so without discharging ballast water contaminated with foreign organisms.

The shipping industry called the study a simplistic look at a highly complicated transportation system, but Taylor and Roach did successfully defend their conclusions before a panel of transportation experts.

Meanwhile, despite the Supreme Court's previous refusal to close the locks, the court has yet to rule whether it will reopen an ongoing lawsuit over operation of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Cox hopes to use that decades-old lawsuit to force dramatic changes in the way officials operate the sewage-carrying canal, which created an artificial link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River basin.

His filing has the backing of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, New York and the Province of Ontario.

The new request comes days before a planned Asian carp "summit" Monday at the White House where Great Lakes governors will meet with Obama administration officials to strategize how to best deal with the advancing carp.

Cox isn't waiting to hear their conclusions.

"While we would like to see significant and immediate action as a result of next week's meeting between the governors and administration, that is an unknown at this time, so our battle to protect the lakes will continue," he said.

It is not known when the Supreme Court might address this latest request.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/83571672.html