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Plan outlined to ‘push back’ Asian carp

Photo by Kate Gardiner

28-Apr-16 – Fighting Asian carp will be expensive but a committee of environmental and natural resource agencies has a plan.

The Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, composed of federal, state, and local agencies in the United States and Canada, has outlined actions its members are taking this year to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes, including Lake Michigan. Efforts include increased monitoring, improving fishery nets and equipment, constructing a new electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects the Des Plaines River to the Chicago River, and addressing the potential for unwanted fish to get trapped between barges and transported to new areas.

Electric barriers are located near Romeoville, Illinois, about 30 miles southwest of Chicago, and operated by the Chicago District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

$57.3 million will be spent this year keeping invasive carp out of the Great Lakes. $17.5 million is from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, launched in 2010 to protect and restore the Great Lakes. The rest is from the federal government.

Charlie Wooley “The Great Lakes are a tremendous resource that must be protected,” says Charlie Wooley (left), Midwest deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, one of the members of the committee.

“Through our monitoring efforts, we continue to be ever-vigilant to ongoing and emerging Asian carp threats to the Great Lakes. As Asian carp continue to push up against our defenses, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and our partners will continue to push back.”

Priorities for the year include increased effort to detect Asian carp at various life stages. They are also testing methods of deterring the carp by using carbon dioxide and underwater sound.

Committee members also include City of Chicago, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

U.S. Geological Survey

(Above) A U.S. Geological Survey scientist holds an Asian carp. Photo obtained from USGS. (Top) Asian carp photographed by Kate Gardiner. Click on images to view larger versions.