Courtesy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer—Great Outdoors by D'arcy Egan

Stickland sounds call to action to keep asian carp out of lake

Governor concerned with keeping Lake Erie clean and safe

"Port Clinton, Ohio, July 17,2010—Lake Erie is a precious asset," said Strickland after his fishing trip. "We need to recognize that. We need to protect it. We're all concerned right now about the potential impact of the Asian carp." "I think there's a lack of urgency among the decision makers about that issue. We tried to encourage them to think about (Asian carp) as similar to what's happening in the Gulf of Mexico." Can an invasive carp match the destruction of millions of gallons of oil? "We need to recognize the incredible destructive happening if this fish invades the Great Lakes," Strickland said. "We're talking about a natural jewel that would be forever altered. The Gulf will recover. It may take decades. It may take generations. But the Gulf will eventually recover. "If the Asian carp gets in to the Great Lakes, we may never be able to reverse that. We don't need a study right now. What we need is action. We need to begin the process of a physical barrier that can keep this fish out of the Great Lakes. If it gets in, it will be an ecological and economic disaster."

Asian carp have infested the Mississippi, Illinois and other major rivers. They keep popping up in various waterways in Indiana and Illinois that are a stone's throw from Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes. Federal officials have constructed an electric fence to keep the invasive carp from slipping through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and swimming to nearby Lake Michigan. President Barack Obama responded to demands from Strickland, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and other Great Lakes officials this week, promising to appoint an Asian carp czar within the month to oversee state and federal efforts. At the same time, opponents of shutting down the Chicago waterways that could introduce Asian carp to the Great Lakes criticized any additional controls. "There is no place for knee-jerk reactions, unfounded fear of implausible migrations or demonization of regulators," Mark Biel of the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois told Chicago Business. Others called for more studies, even though an Asian carp was caught June 22 in Lake Calumet, near Lake Michigan and about 30 miles beyond the electronic barriers designed to stop them.

"We have been on the phone with the White House, sharing our concerns about this," said Strickland. "We've written letters. I think we've done everything we've been able to do thus far, but we're going to keep the pressure on." Lake Erie and the Great Lakes have a variety of problems to be solved, said Strickland. "We have a blimp over the Lake Erie waters right now, studying the algae problem," he said. "We can see the algae in the lake. Problems like this can be dealt with if we take the right action. "The concern I have is there is a tendency to study something to death before action is taken. Studies and research are important, but we need to act as auickly as we can." "This is a jewel," said Strickland. "I think it's not fully appreciated by many Ohioans, and that's quite sad. This is a wonderful recreational spot, a great place for fishing. It contributes so much to our state." * * * Article Courtesy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer by Liz Navratil Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray says Asian carp threat is real CLEVELAND, Ohio, July 19, 2010—Ohio and four other Great Lakes states filed a federal lawsuit today to combat what state Attorney General Richard Cordray called the "immediate and dire" threat posed by Asian carp. The suit -- filed with Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- asks the federal government to close locks and gates that would allow the invasive fish to travel from the Mississippi River basin into Lake Michigan, and potentially into the other Great Lakes. It also asks the government to speed up the process of creating a permanent physical barrier between the two bodies of water. Asian carp reproduce frequently and chow down on the same plankton other species of fish eat in their infancy. Environmental experts fear that the Asian carp -- which can range from 60 to 100 pounds as adults, depending on the variety -- will eat more than their fair share, making it difficult for other species to survive. "They are so large that when they are in a habitat, they will alter it in ways that match them," Cordray said. "This threat is not just prospective or hypothetical, it is real." He and attorneys general from the other states worry that an Asian carp invasion could destroy the area's tourism and fishing industries. Ohio's Lake Erie tourism brings in an estimated $10 billion a year, according to Cordray's office. Cordray acknowledged that the suit could inconvenience businesses in Chicago, who frequently used the waterways that would be blocked. "It could cost money, and it could cost time," he said. "We need a court to balance that inconvenience with the needs of the Great Lakes." The U.S. Supreme Court refused to order the locks closed twice this year. Cordray said he thinks this suit will be more successful because the federal court will focus on a "fact-finding mission" specific to the Asian carp. The other suit sought to reopen a decades-old case that debated how much water could travel through the locks, he said. The suit comes a week-and-a-half after Cordray and Gov. Ted Strickland wrote a letter to President Obama asking for an emergency summit to address the carp threat. It comes about a month after officials found a live Asian carp miles away from Lake Michigan. * * *

Courtesy of IT -- Illinois Times

Thursday, June 24,2010
Attack of the flying fish
Asian carp invade the Illinois River
By Rachel Wells

Jumping several feet into the air, a single silver carp can knock a boat driver unconscious before a passenger even has time to say “Duck!”

For that reason, the Illinois Natural History Survey station in Havana installed netting around the steering wheel and dashboard of its electro-fishing boats.

“It’s simply one of the most dangerous things that we’re doing, so we have to protect ourselves. We can’t have a fish jumping on the throttle [or] a fish knocking somebody out,” says Kevin Irons, INHS fisheries specialist.

The invasive species has become a common sight on the Illinois River and its tributaries, including parts of the Sangamon River, but leaping silver carp are only the most visible representation of a much deeper problem – one that scientists fear will soon spread to the Great Lakes, where Asian carp threaten a $7 billion fishing and tourism industry.

“Economic damage is the fish hitting people, people not wanting to spend time on the water,” says Irons. “But the ecological damage is much worse. … People can see this and say ‘Oh my gosh, this is horrible,’ but they don’t understand the effects of having them in the water year after year after year.”

While biologists and fishermen now see Asian carp as an environmental detriment, the fish were originally brought to the country as an environmentally safe alternative to chemical treatment, Irons says. In the 1960s and 1970s, southern fish farmers imported Asian carp to help keep catfish ponds clean.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Irons says. “We can use a biological control to control nutrients in our catfish ponds, our catfish is healthier, tastes better, and then you have a large fish that you can use for either cleaning up the next pond or you can use for animal feed or fertilizers.”

But once flooding washed Asian carp out of the controlled ponds and into the Mississippi River, the fish quickly became an environmental problem and have been threatening to change the ecology of major waterways ever since.

Fish food

INHS’ Havana group saw its first bighead carp – the Asian carp known for weighing up to 100 pounds – in 1995, and its first silver carp in 1998, Irons says. But it wasn’t until 2000 that the fish finally started spawning on the Illinois River in great numbers. That year, through its annual sampling of 400 random Illinois River sites, INHS caught about 1,200 bighead carp and several hundred silver carp, mostly small, young specimens, Irons says.

By 2007, sampling brought in more than 10,000 silver carp. “The next year it was over 100,000 juvenile [silver carp].… Most of those are small, but if only 1 percent of those survive you can see how those numbers [rise],” Irons says.

If a substantial number of silver carp survive to adulthood, they will continue to compete with other young fish for food. The adult silver carp’s gills are so spongy that they can consume plankton as small as 3 microns (a human hair has a minimum diameter of about 40 microns), food usually consumed only by juvenile fish, says Matt O’Hara, INHS biologist.

“All that food is impacting every other fish species because all fish need plankton at some point in their life,” Irons says. While he hasn’t seen any extreme long-term population decreases in native fish species, those fish are looking much thinner than in the past.

“The populations are generally fairly robust until 2007-2008, when we thought we were seeing a tremendous crash in our bluegills and sunfish,” Irons says, adding that they hit 17-year lows during the drought-like conditions. “After that, we had good floods and those numbers have rebounded.”

While the relationship between Asian carp and the populations of other fish species is complex, it appears that when water levels are low, the impact of Asian carp is greater. At the same time, Asian carp, like other fish, have more successful spawns under flood conditions.

“It’s really dynamic,” Irons says, explaining that Asian carp have the upper hand because they can survive on the most basic form of food provided by the waterway. “When the water … provides good stuff for the bass and for the carp, they both flourish, but if water levels are low I think Asian carp might win that battle.”

Commercial fishermen say Asian carp are, indeed, taking over native populations.

“We are more or less forced to fish for these fish [Asian carp] because there’s nothing else to catch,” says Dallas City resident Kirby Marsden, president of the Illinois Commercial Fishing Association. “Our nets are coming up [with] 90 percent of these Asian carp. … Where’s our native fish?”

Guarding the Great Lakes

Scientists, fishermen and policymakers are looking to the commercial fishing industry as the most viable solution, not only for downstate Illinois but also for keeping Asian carp from crossing into the Great Lakes, and for good reason, Marsden says. “The idea, if you want to keep them out of the Great Lakes, is to catch these fish before they even get to the barrier.”

About eight years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers turned on an underwater electric barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the artificial waterway that connects the Great Lakes to the Illinois River. Engineers designed the barrier to keep non-native aquatic species, including Asian carp in the Illinois River and the invasive round goby fish in the Great Lakes, from swimming across it and damaging either water system. Since then, the Corps has added an additional electric barrier and is now working on a third in efforts to keep Asian carp from entering Lake Michigan.

Meanwhile, state and federal agencies are looking for more ways to deter the movement of Asian carp, and the Havana INHS station is now studying the effectiveness of one proposed measure.

A graduate student at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Blake Ruebush, will soon start a second round of trials for a sound bubble barrier placed just before a dam on Quiver Creek, a tributary to the Illinois River near Havana, in an attempt to deter Asian carp from traveling further upstream. The technology uses a bubble curtain accompanied by LED strobe lights and sound frequencies that only Asian carp are sensitive to.

Last year, the equipment allowed 97 percent of the studied fish, excluding Asian carp, to still pass through the barrier while none of the marked silver carp were recaptured on the other side, suggesting 100 percent effectiveness.

But Ruebush isn’t ready to declare victory – other variables could have kept the silver carp from even wanting to approach the barrier, and he’s still trying to find out if the mechanism would work on all ages of Asian carp.

“If it is effective, I don’t know if it will be 100 percent effective,” Ruebush says. “So many things can happen.” If anything, the sound bubble barrier would be just part of a comprehensive solution, he adds.

Most stakeholders seem to agree that Asian carp can’t be eliminated entirely.

“The best we can hope for is to control their populations and right now about the only option we have available is the commercial fishing industry,” says Rob Maher, commercial fisheries biologist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Commercial fishermen have found markets in Thomson, Pearl and Chicago. Another market is across the globe in China, where Asian carp are overfished and intentionally stocked, says Irons.

In Chicago, like in other large cities across the U.S., traditional Asian populations enjoy eating Asian carp. But, throughout the rest of the U.S., people snub the abundant food source, and supply continues to outweigh demand.

“One of the problems is that they’re not native to America, so Americans are just not going to eat them,” Marsden says. “It’s just hard to get people to try them.”

Clint Carter, manager at Springfield’s Carter’s Fish Market, says Asian carp aren’t on his menus, but not because the meat isn’t good. To the contrary, he says the fish, which feed close to the water’s surface, provide clean-tasting white meat.

For fun, Carter experiments with Asian carp and serves them to his friends. “I’ve cooked them for a lot of people and haven’t had many complaints,” he says.

“But the negatives overwhelm it,” Carter says. The ‘Y’ bones that drop down on both sides of a silver carp’s body are enveloped by flesh, making it time-consuming and difficult to separate good meat from inedible bone.

Yet if the Asian carp is properly cut and fried, the bones will pop out of the meat with relative ease, Carter says. He also suggests mincing them up and making patties out of them, or smoking them. He adds that they’d make a great imitation fish.

But besides bones, Asian carp also have a public relations problem. “They’ve got the name ‘carp’ and there aren’t many people who like carp,” Carter says. When people think of carp, they think of the bottom-feeding common variety which have a darker meat, not realizing that Asian carp feed close to the surface, are less likely to hold high levels of contaminants and aren’t fishy tasting.

Despite the setbacks, in the last decade Illinois’ commercial fishing industry managed to ramp up the market for Asian carp from zero to 15 million pounds, but that’s not enough to bring native fish populations back up, Marsden says.

“We need sales for probably closer to 50 million pounds per year to actually reduce [the Asian carp population].” Marsden says that with that amount of production, commercial fishermen could reduce Asian carp populations by 95 percent within five years. In decreasing Asian carp populations, fishermen could turn their attention back to catching native fish, which would be hardier because they’d have less competition for food.

The only problems, Marsden says, are transportation costs to foreign countries and marketing in the U.S.

Cost is also a primary concern for another stakeholder. Dr. Tim Leeds, a representative of Heartland Processing, says he can make a useful product out of parts or all of an Asian carp with virtually no waste and no odor. The company, founded in 2007 by Illinois resident John Holden, makes protein supplement for animal feed using agricultural byproducts, such as the heads and guts of fish.

Last spring the company opened a “show and smell” plant, its first, in Havana to demonstrate the odorless process of grinding fish, leaving only water vapor as the waste product.



The mobile machinery Heartland Processing uses is designed as a rapid response mechanism for any biological hazard, meaning, for example, that the government could use it on location at a farm to eliminate all of the potentially infected chickens where Avian flu is present, thus stopping a national outbreak.

Leeds sees Asian carp as another type of biological hazard, and although he could make fish meal and fish oil out of Asian carp, those products don’t bring in high enough prices to make the process economical without government subsidies.

Heartland Processing shut down its Havana plant after only four months of operation, when Leeds says potential state funding fell through, but the company is back in talks with the state and other stakeholders and hopes to find a funding solution in the near future.


Lesson learned?

The story of Asian carp is a familiar tale, Irons says, pointing to a long list of other invasive species. Starlings, for instance, spread across the U.S. after literary enthusiasts in the late 1800s introduced them as homage to William Shakespeare, who mentioned the bird in his works. Starlings are now abundant and are known for taking over native birds’ nests, eating crops and, moving in large groups, leaving corrosive droppings wherever they go.

Aquatic examples of invasive species include gobies, zebra mussels, white perch and, brought to the U.S. about 130 years ago, common carp.

“[Silver carp are] kind of a poster child of invasive fish where people aren’t aware of fish,” Irons says, adding that the flying fish provide a “unique opportunity” to talk about invasive species.

“This might be a point where we can make some good legislation to prevent moving around too much. There’s certainly a platform we can talk about not dumping your bait bucket into your favorite lake.”

Do your part to prevent invasion

• Don’t take live fish from one body of water to another.
• Never use wild-caught baitfish in waters it didn’t come from.
• Know the difference between juvenile Asian carp and juvenile gizzard shad. The two look similar.
• Drain water from live wells and boat bilges before leaving the water.

Source: Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, www.asiancarp.org

Contact Rachel Wells at rwells@illinoistimes.com.

 

Closure of Chicago & O'Brien Locks Would Cost $4.7 Billion Over 20 Years According to Report Released by Illinois Chamber of Commerce.

New DePaul study shows closing locks will have far greater economic impact than numbers cited in Michigan's 'Taylor and Roach' report CHICAGO, April 7 /PRNewswire/ -- The Illinois Chamber of Commerce today released an economic impact analysis reporting that the economic value lost from permanent closure of the Chicago and O'Brien locks would be $582 million the first year, $531 million annually over the subsequent 7 years and would result in a net loss of $4.7 billion over a 20-year planning horizon. The report, conducted by DePaul University economist Dr. Joseph Schwieterman, stands in stark contrast to Michigan's 'Taylor and Roach' report, which attempted to trivialize the impact of lock closure on the Chicago economy, purporting that losses would fall within the range of $64 million to $69 million annually. Where the 'Taylor and Roach' report focused on a very narrow scope of impact, the Schwieterman report accounts for the impact lock closure would have across multiple industries locally and regionally, thereby providing a more well-rounded and accurate assessment of the total effect on the region's economic well-being. "It is the Chamber's hope that this study will bring some well-reasoned perspective to a debate that has been fueled by rhetoric from the state of Michigan," said Jim Farrell, executive director of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce's Infrastructure Council. "The Schwieterman study shows, through well-reasoned economics, that closing these locks will have a devastating affect on our local economy, resulting in the loss of potentially hundreds of area jobs and hurting a range of industries and services." The economic debate on closing of the Chicago and O'Brien locks has recently been reliant on Michigan's 'Taylor and Roach' study, which has since been peer reviewed and proven unscientific and inaccurate. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce released three independent critiques of the 'Taylor and Roach' report last week, which are available for download on the Illinois Chamber's website at www.ilchamber.org. "Beyond the economics, we question the science as well. The eDNA test cited in claims that Asian Carp are above the electric barrier was only recently developed within the past year, and has not had the benefit of peer review to determine its reliability or accuracy," added Farrell. "Essentially, the Asian Carp debate has been fueled by an unscientific economic analysis and an experimental eDNA test. This hardly seems like sufficient evidence to bring the most environmentally friendly mode of transportation and a billion-dollar industry to a halt." Two weeks of recent targeted fishing in areas above the electronic barrier yielded zero Asian Carp, calling into question the original eDNA testing mechanism used to detect the Carp's existence. According to Farrell, "The Illinois Department of Natural Resources used a very sound scientific approach which yielded Asian Carp more than 50 miles from Lake Michigan, but none where eDNA had indicated in the Chicago Area Waterways." The Schwieterman report concludes that the closure of the locks would result in enormous financial losses resulting from added transportation costs and losses to commercial shipping, recreational boating, commercial cruises and tours, and public protection. Specific examples of these costs include: Costs of lock closure for existing shippers "With 7,289,428 tons moving through the Chicago and O'Brien locks annually, the increase in costs for shippers in estimated at approximately $89 million." External Costs and Highway Cost Responsibility "All transportation modes generate external costs in the form of pollution, congestion, and safety risks. For some modes, these are not offset by user fees, creating inefficiency in the use of resources… Shifting to heavy trucks also increases wear and tear on the highway system, most notably in the form of pavement and structural fatigue… We estimate the additional costs to be $27.5 million annually." Boats using Chicago Park District facilities and marinas on the Calumet River "Between April and June each year, an estimated 2,600 recreational boats depart marinas, boat ramps or winter storage facilities on the Chicago River or Cal Sag Channel en route to Chicago Park District facilities on Lake Michigan, where they remain for the summer… The lost value to boat users from losing their preferred option would, as a rough approximation, be about $5.1 million annually." Commercial Tours and Cruises "Approximately 75% of all tour and cruise activity in Chicago that uses the river system involves use of the locks… The river-cruise industry has a total boat capacity for 4,500 to 5,100 passengers. The five companies (operating boat tours and cruises) employ 604 workers and have an approximately $7 million payroll… The cumulative effect of this lost value is $19.6 million per year." Stormwater, Flooding and Water Reclamation "Stormwater management and flooding has been a problem in metropolitan Chicago for more than a century… The locks must be periodically opened to allow rising waters of the river to flow into the lake for the inadequacy of stormwater systems… Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Chicago has reported that it would be necessary to bore a tunnel between the North Branch on the river if operations at the locks, sluice gates and pump stations are halted… The costs would be $226 million per year (over eight years)." Schwieterman further notes that his report includes conservative estimates and that additional research is needed to fully understand the effects of lock closure. For example, this study does not look at the investments industries have made in specialized transportation equipment and facilities, the effects of changing shipping patterns on employment at suppliers of barge services, the effects that changes in barge transportation will have on the rates charged by competing transportation modes, changes in tax revenue and the effects of changing water quality on the demand for river-oriented recreation. Dr Joseph Schwieterman is a Professor at the School of Public Service and Director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University. Full copies of the report are available for review and download by visiting the Illinois Chamber of Commerce's website at www.ilchamber.org. To speak with representatives from the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, or Dr. Joseph Schwieterman, call Patrick O'Connor at 312-573-5510. SOURCE Illinois Chamber of Commerce

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