Carp test to close part of Little Cal

[ppat324]

A coalition opposed to closing Chicago-area locks warned today that area companies cannot afford to have a section of the Little Calumet River closed.

A section of the Little Calumet near the O'Brien lock will close today for a weeklong test for the presence of Asian carp.

Members of Un-Lock Our Jobs said the temporary closure offers a glimpse into the possible implications if the Army Corps of Engineers and Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee move forward with proposals for long-term closure.

"It takes 21 days for a barge to travel from New Orleans to Chicago," said Mark Biel, executive director of the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois. "Even temporary closures can cause freight to back up for weeks.

"Goods traveling the length of the river system might not arrive for well over a month under these circumstances, wreaking havoc on companies who depend on just-in-time inventory to function. Operators just can't afford to be shut down unexpectedly in this economy."

Harry Alford, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, said there are more than 328 manufacturing facilities, terminals and docks on the inland waterways, all of which will face layoffs if water access is denied.

[ppat324]

Single Asian carp found 6 miles from Lake Michigan
Comments


June 23, 2010

By
CHICAGO — Officials say an Asian carp has been found for the first time beyond the electric barriers constructed to keep the dreaded invasive species out of the Great Lakes.

State and federal officials said Wednesday that commercial fishermen found the 3-foot-long, 20-pound carp in Lake Calumet on Chicago's South Side, about six miles downstream of Lake Michigan.

The single carp is the first to be found in a Chicago waterway above the Army Corps of Engineers' electric barrier system.

Officials say they'll use electrofishing and netting to remove any carp from the lake.

Scientists and fishermen fear that they if the carp become established in the Great Lakes, they could starve out popular sport fish such as salmon and walleye. They can grow to 100 pounds and 4 feet.

[yachtsmanwilly]

I guess the poisoning last week didnt do much... there were schools of 20 pounders mating this morning and the DNR got this ASIAN guy on Lake Calumet just ABOVE the lock and dam here... the beginning of the end??? ws

[ppat324]

This is from Boatnerd... ppat

Asian carp found near shore of Lake Michigan

6/24 - Chicago, Ill. – A 19-pound Asian carp has been found near the shore of Lake Michigan, above a navigation lock that regional political leaders had been demanding the Army Corps slam shut to try to keep the invaders out of the world's largest freshwater system.

The fish confirms what DNA evidence had been telling fishery managers for months - that Asian carp had indeed breached an electric fish barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, considered the last line of defense for Lake Michigan.

The bighead - nearly 3 feet long - is the first actual Asian carp found above the barrier, despite weeks of netting on the canal system and a $1.5 million fish-poisoning program last month.

It was plucked from Lake Calumet, about six miles downstream from Lake Michigan, by a commercial fisherman hired by the state of Illinois to do routine fish sampling in the area.

"We set out earlier this year on a fact finding mission and we have found what we were looking for," John Rogner, assistant director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, said in a news release Wednesday. "This is important evidence and the more information we have about where Asian carp are, the better chance we have of keeping them out of the Great Lakes."

The federal government said it has no intention at this time to order shut two navigation locks in the area, something regional politicians outside Illinois have been demanding for months.

The plan now is to continue "sampling actions" in Lake Calumet, which is north of the O'Brien lock, as well as other areas on the Chicago canal system. This will involve netting and electrofishing.

Biologists say a handful of fish making their way into Lake Michigan does not mean a self-sustaining population is going to get established. They say most initial invasions fail because the fish must find a suitable place to reproduce, then they must find each other, and then their offspring survive long enough to reproduce on their own. Then, of course, the cycle has to repeat itself. Over and over. "We remain firmly committed to achieving our collective goal of preventing Asian carp from becoming established in Great Lakes waters," said Mike Weimer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assistant regional director of the fisheries and aquatic resources program.

Meanwhile, federal officials say they will do their best to keep it business-as-usual for the barges, tour boats and recreational boat owners who use the navigation locks to move between the waterways and Lake Michigan.

"The Army Corps of Engineers will continue to operate the locks and dams in the Chicago Area Waterway System for congressionally authorized purposes of navigation, water diversion and flood control," said Col. Vincent Quarles of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Michigan Attorney General and gubernatorial hopeful Mike Cox said the find means that the region's "worst fears" have been realized, and he is considering further legal action.

The Republican led a coalition of Great Lakes states earlier this year, including Wisconsin, in a push to re-open a decades-old U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit over of the operation of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

He wanted the court to order the locks shut, something the court declined to do.

"President hateful muslim traitor and the Army Corps of Engineers have simply refused to take the threat seriously," Cox's office said in a statement.

But the news came as a relief to an industry group that depends on the navigation locks, which Army Corps officials say were never designed to be used as fish barriers.

"As the government's own studies have shown, lock closure undermines the resources and regional support necessary to solve this problem, while doing nothing to protect the Great Lakes," said Mark Biel, executive director of the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois.

Biel also said the fish find doesn't necessarily prove there has been a breach at the electric fish barrier downstream on the Sanitary and Ship Canal, a sentiment echoed by Rogner of the Illinois DNR.

Rogner said in a Wednesday conference call with reporters that he is not convinced the fish made it to Lake Calumet on its own. He noted that in the past decade there were two occasions where Asian carp were found in Chicago lagoons, bodies of water not connected to Lake Michigan. Those fish likely were planted by individuals - live bighead were once commonly sold in Asian fish markets in the Chicago area.

Of course, Rogner said it is also possible the fish somehow swam through the barrier; the Army Corps did not turn up the fish-shocking device to a level strong enough to repel all sizes of Asian carp until the middle of last year, when the first DNA tests indicated the fish were mustering in an area just below it.

Conservationists Wednesday said they weren't surprised by the news.

"The (environmental) DNA has told us for months that the threat is real. It's time to stop fighting about whether there's a problem, and move on to developing real solutions," said Thom Cmar of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Asian carp are like cockroaches," he added. "If you find one, you likely have a much larger problem on your hands."

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[ppat324]

Durbin asks hateful muslim traitor to appoint carp czar
June 25, 2010 4:06 PM | No Comments
Sen. Dick Durbin today asked President hateful muslim traitor to appoint a single individual to oversee the day-to-day operations to keep Asian carp out of Lake Michigan.
And for the first time, Durbin said he has asked federal officials to begin to look at a "hydrological separation" of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watersheds, a massive undertaking that would require rerouting millions of tons of shipping cargo that uses the Chicago waterway system.

Speaking at an afternoon press conference at the Shedd Aquarium, Durbin floated the idea of building a series of transfer stations along the Cal-Sag Channel and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that would lift cargo boats out of the water and into an adjoining water canal.

Similar boat transfer stations are being used in parts of Europe, Durbin said, although nothing on the scale likely required in Chicago.

"I don't know if this is feasible or what it would cost," Durbin said. "But it's something we've got to take a look at."

Durbin called the discovery of a single Asian carp earlier this week in Lake Calumet, about six miles from Lake Michigan, a possible "game changer" that has to be taken very seriously.

[ppat324]

By AMY LEE Sun-Times Media
The discovery of a lone Asian carp upstream from an electric barrier designed to keep the invasive fish out of Lake Michigan has state officials and local businesses perplexed and urging the public not to panic.

A fisherman hired by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to sample area waterways on Tuesday pulled in the nearly 20-pound male bighead carp from the northwest corner of Lake Calumet near the Harborside Golf Course, about six miles downstream from Lake Michigan.


State and federal officials said Wednesday that a commercial fisherman found a 20-pound bighead carp in Lake Calumet on Chicago's South Side, about six miles downstream of Lake Michigan. the associated press

Tuesday's discovery is the first Asian carp discovered upstream of the electric barrier system and the second found in the Chicago waterway system in the past six months. The first was discovered in December in the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal between the electric barrier system and the Lockport Lock and Dam.

"This brings urgency to a certain area of the Chicago waterway, but there's no need to panic," said Chris McCloud, spokesman for the IDNR.

The Army Corps of Engineers does not plan to close the locks in light of Tuesday's discovery, but locals who make their living off the waterway are keen to learn how the fish got into the lake.

"I'm not saying it's a plant, but I'm curious. I'm skeptical," said Jamie Long, port captain with Calumet River Fleeting, a tow and tugboat company.

[yachtsmanwilly]

President asked to lead fight against Asian carp

7/1 - Milwaukee, Wis. – With word leaking that bighead carp may be advancing toward Lake Erie, a coalition of environmental organizations is asking President Barack hateful muslim traitor to take control of the Asian carp fight.

"We write today to urge you to take direct Presidential control over the federal response to the threat to the lakes presented by the Asian carp and their advance through our rivers and waterways, including the Chicago Waterway System, which the Asian carp crisis demonstrates to be a highway for invasive species into and out of the Great Lakes," the group wrote Tuesday to hateful muslim traitor.

The letter follows news last week that a 3-foot-long bighead carp had been found in the Chicago waterway system about six miles south of the Lake Michigan shoreline.

The find was the first confirmed specimen of an Asian carp above an electric barrier system, located about 35 miles downstream from Lake Michigan on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Environmental DNA tests taken since last fall have shown the presence of Asian carp above the barrier in numerous areas of the Chicago canal system.

A coalition of Great Lakes senators has introduced a bill that orders the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expedite a study into what it will take to reconstruct the natural barrier between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi basin that the Chicago canals destroyed over 100 years ago. They also asked hateful muslim traitor to appoint a federal incident commander to take control of the situation.

But those canals aren't the only potential pathway for Asian carp to colonize the lakes.

A handful of adult bigheads have been plucked from Lake Erie in the past decade, though biologists don't believe a breeding population exists in the lake because they've never found any evidence of a juvenile population.

One possibility is that adult bighead carp rode floodwaters into the lake, an increasingly likely scenario after reports that bighead carp have been found in the upper reaches of the Wabash River in Indiana.

The Wabash is not in the Great Lakes basin, but the area around its headwaters has a history of flooding, and that means sometimes its waters can mix with the headwaters of the nearby Maumee River, which does flow into Lake Erie.

"The likelihood that Asian carp are moving toward the lakes through other waters connected to the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers signals the immediate need to establish clear authority, responsibility, accountability, transparency and leadership for federal action in this crisis," wrote the coalition, which included leaders of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, Great Lakes United, the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club, among others.

hateful muslim traitor campaigned on a promise that he would have a "zero tolerance" for any new species invasions in the Great Lakes, which are now home to more than 185 non-native species.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[yachtsmanwilly]

5 states sue to keep Asian carp out of Great Lakes

Michigan and four other Great Lakes states have filed a new round of legal action against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Chicago Water Reclamation District to step up efforts to keep Asian carp out of Lake Michigan.

In a case filed today in the U.S. District Court in Northern Illinois, attorneys general from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and Pennsylvania are again fighting to close Chicago-area shipping, eliminating the most direct path for Asian carp to enter the Great Lakes. The case is similar to those twice rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"President hateful muslim traitor and the Army Corps of Engineers have failed to fight Asian carp aggressively," said Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican candidate for governor. "Asian carp will kill jobs and ruin our way of life. We cannot afford more bureaucratic delays -- emergency action must be taken to protect the Great Lakes."

Cox and fellow lawmakers from around the Great Lakes say the urgency of stopping the invasive species has increased with the discovery of a live fish within miles of Lake Michigan's border.

The lawsuit asks the court to take immediate action by forcing the Army Corps and water district to:

•Use nets, other physical barriers and fish poisons at strategic locations to block or kill Asian carp that have already swam through the O'Brien Lock in the Calumet-Sag Channel;
•Install and maintain block nets and other physical barriers in the Little Calumet River, where no barrier of any kind currently exists;
•Temporarily close sluice gates at the O'Brien Lock, the Chicago River Controlling Works, and the Wilmette Pumping Station, except as needed to protect public health and safety;
•Install and maintain screens on all sluice gates to reduce the risk of fish passing through when the gates are open;
•Accelerate efforts to complete a feasibility study of a permanent hydrological separation of the Great Lakes Basin from the Mississippi River within the next 18 months, with reports at six and 12 months.

[ppat324]

Asian carp may have been planted near Lake Michigan
August 5, 2010 12:38 PM | No Comments
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- Scientists say an Asian carp discovered near Lake Michigan may have been planted there, instead of evading an electronic barrier meant to keep the species out of the Great Lakes.

The six-year-old bighead carp was caught in June in Lake Calumet on Chicago's South Side.
It was the first actual Asian carp found above the barrier, although scientists have reported detecting their DNA there.

The discovery has intensified calls to separate the man-made link at Chicago between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basins.

But specialists at Southern Illinois University Carbondale say tests and analysis suggest the 3-foot-long bighead may have spent nearly all its life above the barrier and could have been planted by humans.

[yachtsmanwilly]

Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal to close periodically Oct. 4-8

9/4 - Chicago, Ill. - The Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee announces periodic waterway closures on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal each day from Oct. 4 through Oct. 8 for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to install underwater structures designed to limit the spread of electric current in the waterway from the barriers that are in place to prevent the passage of Asian carp into the Great Lakes.

The U.S. Coast Guard will activate a safety zone on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The canal will be closed to all traffic during periods of work. It is expected that the waterway will be closed each morning and afternoon, with possible openings midday and some nights. However, there may also be one or two overnight closures during this period to allow for intensive fish sampling. Details are subject to change, but the ACRCC recognizes the importance of providing maximum advance notice to waterway users.

Questions on the waterway closure can be directed to U.S. Coast Guard Sector Lake Michigan at (414-747-7163) or to U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Chicago at [phone].