Echo

President misses the boat on Asian carp danger

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(OH) Toledo Blade – Imagine a terrorist heading toward your community. Not a disgruntled Nigerian with possible ties to al-Qaeda, mind you. But a hyperactive, monster fish from Asia armed with a voracious appetite and the ability to wipe out a Great Lakes fishery valued at $7 billion.  
It’s an especially frightful scenario for Ohio and Michigan, two states looking to the sportfishing industry for help in recovering from economic ruin with more recreation and tourism. More

Echo

Minnesota joins suit to stop Great Lakes carp invasion

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(MN) The Minnesota Independent – Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson has added Minnesota’s support to a lawsuit by the state of Michigan against the state of Illinois to force the closure of a canal connecting the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan. Unless the canal is closed, Asian carp will make their way into the Great Lakes and eventually Minnesota inland lakes, rivers and stream. The lawsuit will be heard by the U.S. States Supreme Court on Thursday. “If they invade the Great Lakes, they will have access to the rivers and tributaries that feed into the Great Lakes, thereby threatening inland waters,” Swanson said in a brief to the high court. “This would be extremely destructive to Minnesota’s economy and way of life, where inland fishing is an important recreational and economic pursuit.

Echo

Wisconsin joins legal battle to stop spread of giant carp

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – 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. More

Echo

Holiday treat musseled out

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(WI) Miwaukee Journal Sentinel – A tasty little fish traditionally smoked and spread on crackers during the holidays has disappeared from Lake Michigan to the point that it’s scarcely available in area fish markets this New Year’s Eve. “It would be very, very disappointing if we couldn’t have chubs anymore,” said Sally Huber, 66, of Cudahy, who nearly gave up on her family’s holiday tradition of shrimp and smoked chubs after calling several stores and finding no chubs. More

Echo

Carp hold edge over Mr. Cox

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(MI) The Detroit News – The Fantastic Mr. Cox is waging political war against the Asian carp. He’ll need the wind at his back. My worry is that his strategy is more likely to create high farce than permanent fish kill. On Monday, the attorney general announced he was taking his case against the carp all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping that the scales of justice will tilt against big fish and the state of Illinois. So far, though, the fearsome fish of many adjectives (“invasive” “omnivorous” “aggressive” are regulars) have eluded all of the manmade impediments placed in their paths, including an expensive electrical barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Wildlife

Coast Guard targets zebra mussels in Great Lakes

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(IL) Chicago Sun Times – Twenty years after the pervasive zebra mussel was first detected in the Great Lakes, the U.S. Coast Guard is preparing rules to prevent new invasive species from infiltrating the nation’s freshwater systems.

Ecologists, environmentalists and public officials have mixed feelings about the rules. While they are delighted over the prospect of the first national standard for treating ship ballast water, they’re disappointed by the timetable. “We’ve been dealing with this issue literally for decades,” said Matt Frank, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. “And we don’t believe the Coast Guard rules are aggressive enough.” More

Echo

Cox to detail Asian carp lawsuit

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – Michigan’s attorney general plans to file a lawsuit to protect the Great Lakes and Michigan workers from the threat posed by the invasive Asian carp. Attorney General Mike Cox’s office said Sunday that Cox will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. today at the Cobo Center in downtown Detroit to announce details of the lawsuit. Cox, a Republican running for governor, said earlier this month that he would file a suit in federal court. More

Echo

Editorial: Act now before invader hits Great Lakes

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(WI) Green Bay Press Gazette – The latest invasive species to threaten the Great Lakes is a brute called the Asian carp. The Wisconsin Legislature should take an opportunity today to act swiftly against the threat. Capable of growing to 4 feet long and 100 pounds, the Asian carp has starved out native species by scooping up plankton as it slowly migrated north up the Mississippi River since the 1970s. The fish originally was imported from Asia to cleanse fish ponds and sewage lagoons in the deep South, but they escaped into the river. More

Echo

To guard Great Lakes, give fence a chance

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(VA) USA Today – It sounds like science fiction: an alien invasion of Lake Michigan by toddler-sized scum suckers. But around Chicago, the fear is so real that governments have already spent more than $11 million building electronic defenses to zap the invaders and trying to poison them. The alien is a fish, the Asian carp. The fear is that the voracious plant-eaters could migrate from the Mississippi River basin through a Chicago canal and into the Great Lakes, threatening the habitat of lake fish. The risk, however, is that a going-overboard solution (walling off the canal) will be adopted before the costly new defenses (electrical barriers) are given a chance to work.

Echo

EPA to spend $13 million to help stop Asian carp

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Less than two weeks after fishery experts spent about $3 million to poison the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in a desperate attempt to beat back an Asian carp invasion of Lake Michigan, the federal government has announced it will throw another $13 million at the problem. That money will come from the recently passed $475 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and much of it will go to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers so the agency can build emergency berms and plug various waterways in the Chicago area to keep the carp from riding floodwaters into the lake. More