By Molly Dillon and Christa Milster
April 20, 2010

The sea lamprey is one of many invasive species in the Great Lakes. These eel-like creatures suck out fish’s bodily fluids after latching onto them with their mouths. Lamprey have caused the extinction of three types of whitefish. Resource managers across the region are determined to find a cost-effective way to manage the parasites..

By Tina Lam
Free Press Staff Writer
January 15, 2010

The U.S. Supreme Court, which met today in a closed conference, took no action on the Michigan attorney general’s request for an injunction to shut down Chicago-area locks to keep Asian carp out. The court is closed Monday. No dates are set for the court to decide on the injunction or even whether to accept the case.

Michigan is seeking to reopen a case first filed in 1922 by the state of Wisconsin against Illinois over the building of a shipping canal that diverted water from Lake Michigan. Four states — Wisconsin, New York, Minnesota and Ohio — have joined Michigan asking for a shutdown to protect the Great Lakes from bighead and silver carp, which are considered to be voracious feeders that could wreck the lakes’ ecosystem. Illinois and the U.S. government oppose Michigan’s request and say the case should not be heard by the Supreme Court, but by a lower court.

Evidence of Asian carp has been found within a mile of Lake Michigan at the Wilmette pumping station north of Chicago, as well as the O’Brien lock leading to Lake Michigan. Barge operators and marinas argue closing the locks would severely restrict their business, while Michigan and other states say their fishing and tourism industries would be harmed if carp move in.

"We are very pleased with the response we are getting from people concerned about the Great Lakes and look forward to the Supreme Court’s decision," said John Sellek, spokesman for Cox. Cox set up a Web site to urge Great Lakes residents to push for action against carp.

By Eric Sharp
Free Press Outdoors Writer
January 10, 2010

IIf you need an example of why neither political party can be trusted to choose doing the right thing over political expediency, look at President Barack Obama administration's decision to back Illinois and Chicago in fighting the closure of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican gubernatorial hopeful, has filed suit in U.S. Supreme Court to close the canal, which is a gateway for two species of Asian carp to reach the Great Lakes and threaten tourism and fishing interests valued at $7 billion a year.

He has been joined by the attorneys general of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and New York and the justice ministry of Ontario, which has more shoreline on the lakes than any of the states.

I've seen the canal's economic value in recreational and commercial barge traffic valued at about $30 million a year, which makes it meaningless in terms of the economic threat posed by the carp.

I've also read arguments from well-informed people who refute Illinois and Chicago's claim that closing the canal would cost the city and state hundreds of millions in lost business and sewage-plant renovations.

So it's hard to understand why Obama would allow the Environmental Protection Agency to join Illinois and Chicago in opposing Cox's suit unless that decision is viewed in light of political patronage to people who formed Obama's political power base.

Unfortunately, that kind of thinking denies the reality we are facing. Would Obama support airport authorities if they claimed that installing a new security measure like body scanners would hurt the local economy?

Yet Asian carp and other exotic species present a long-term threat to the well-being of this country. The threat might not be as dramatic as radical terrorists, but it's just as real.

Twenty years ago, I saw the oyster industry in Mobile Bay, Ala., shut down for a time because the oysters were infected with cholera germs traced to a ship that came from Colombia. It's only a matter of time before the Chicago canal or the St. Lawrence Seaway allows the entry of a pathogen that could wipe out valuable native fisheries or even harm people.

The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal was created about 100 years ago to carry sewage away from a booming city, and it connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

It was a terrible mistake.

Now we must depend on the Supreme Court to force Chicago, Illinois and the feds to do what should have been done at least 10 years ago and shut down the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Cox might be grandstanding to call attention to his gubernatorial run, but that's more than any of his potential opponents from both parties have done.

And if he is successful, Cox should think about turning his attention to that other great abomination that is responsible for 90% of the exotics now established in the Great Lakes: the St. Lawrence Seaway.

There's no reason to close it, even though it is economically hopeless and carries only a fraction of the cargo tonnage that its boosters claimed it would when it was built 50 years ago.

But there's also no reason for the oceangoing ships that come up the seaway from the Atlantic Ocean to continue into the Great Lakes and spew dangerous and harmful organisms from their ballast tanks or the crud clinging to the outsides of their hulls.

There already is a system in place that would let them stop where the St. Lawrence is still tidal and transfer their cargoes to and from lake freighters, trains and trucks.

If he succeeds in his fight to close the Chicago canal and follows that by stopping the threat from the St. Lawrence, Mike Cox would be remembered as the equal of the greatest environmentalist in Michigan history: former Gov. William Milliken, another Republican.

Contact ERIC SHARP: 313-222-2511 or esharp@freepress.com.