CARPAL TUNNEL: Asian carp have been moving into the Great Lakes via the Mississippi and Illinois rivers.
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Michigan has taken its fight against invasive Asian carp to the U.S. Supreme Court, suing Illinois to force the closure of Chicago-area waterways that provide the fish a pathway to the Great Lakes.
Experts fear that the invasive carp, which have been traveling up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers for decades, will devastate the $7 billion Great Lakes fisheries. The 100-pound fish have voracious appetites and rapid reproduction rates that could ravage native lake species.
Michigan's lawsuit asks the high court to immediately close the O'Brien Lock and Dam in the Calumet-Sag Channel and the Chicago Controlling Works in the Illinois River, a stopgap measure aimed at keeping the fish at bay.
But the state also has asked the court to permanently sever the man-made link between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, a move long urged by environmental groups and opposed by the shipping industry.
"The actions of Illinois and federal authorities have not been enough to assure us the Lakes are safe," Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox (R) said yesterday in a news release. "That's why the waterways must be shut down until we are assured that Michigan will be protected."
The lawsuit follows tests last month that showed the carp may have crossed an electric fish barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that is meant to halt their advance, putting them within 6 miles of Lake Michigan.
Earlier this month, officials poisoned a 6-mile stretch of the canal to kill off the carp while the electric barrier was down for routine maintenance. The operation netted one Asian carp, discovered Dec. 3 just above the Lockport Lock and Dam, below the electric barrier.
Michigan's suit attempts to reopen a century-old case spurred when Chicago reversed the flow of the Chicago River to direct its sewage flow toward the Mississippi River.
Noah Hall, a professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, said the court is much more likely to take an existing case than a new one and that Michigan has a strong chance of prevailing if the case does move forward.
"This is not political grandstanding or some kind of publicity stunt," Hall said. "This is a very solid case."
The court likely would weigh the economic consequences for the shipping industry of closing the locks against the economic impacts of allowing the carp to enter the Great Lakes, which are projected to be much larger, Hall said.
The court's ruling on the preliminary injunction, which could come as soon as next week or early January, will hint how it views the larger case, Hall said.
Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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11 Comments
Add CommentWhile carp of fun to catch they are no fun to eat. :(
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need to convince the Chinese that ground carp meal does more than tiger penises to restore/enhance virility. The carp will be extinct in a decade.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy don't we just start eating these carp, and let the other fisheries recover? Problem solved.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf humans can figure out a way to make intestines edible, we can figure out how to make carp so as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sure carp meal could be used as agricultural fertilizer, or pig food. We just need to use our imaginations, when life gives you carp, you make fishsticks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey are just like us, they intend to over-run the planet, as we already have.
If you are worried don't. Darwinian pressures will fix the problem, just as it will our own runaway population growth.
We blame our problem on CO2 (a result of an unsustainable population), wonder what the carp would blame if they could think.
What is the 'problem' that Darwinian pressures will fix? If the problem is one species always over-running the next, then this is an inevitable cycle of the planet, built into Darwinian evolution from the onset, and not a problem at all. An analogy would be the cycle of alleles that drift into and out of the genome of a species.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only thing carp intend on doing is eating and mating, and unlike us humans, they are not aware of the larger picture outside their own environment. Eventually nature would reach a balance once these fish eat themselves into a corner that would not support their numbers. But since we humans feel the need to reverse any potential threats to our economic status quo, we cannot let nature take it's course, or we will lose the fisheries we depend on for food/money.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow as to our own fate, our awareness of our surroundings, and the control we exhibit over them are a responsibility that is shrugged off. Now that we are separated from the other animals by our awareness, if we do not heed the signals we get from nature, we are surely doomed. Greed is the cancer of mankind, and will be our undoing.
But this isn't a 'natural' problem or phenomenon. These carp are from Asia. They are here through human interference. Trying to fix this isn't simply interfering with nature and natural processes - it's trying to fix something that we messed up in the first place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre humans created from nature? Well then everything we do is natural. And to emphasize this further, how do fish get from one lake to another in nature? Google it. The carp don't know that they're not in asia. The best solution may not be to eradicate the carp, but to accept that we messed up, and to pay for that mess as a society. Maybe someone should figure out a use for these fish, so they can be hunted and harvested, and USED for something positive to society. Rarely is the concept of eradicating a species one that can be implemented safely in regards to the entire ecosystem. We may just have to live with the new species no matter what it brings us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have some idea how to catch these flying carp, but do not know where and who to get connected with.
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