Industry experts huddle to discuss Asian carp

(Above) A fisheries biologist with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources holds a Bighead carp – a type of Asian carp – that was caught in South Chicago’s Lake Calumet on Tuesday. (Click on image to view larger version.)

June 22, 2010 – Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency and Illinois Department of Natural Resources met Monday with businesses dependent on the Chicago River, trying to assure them closing the river to keep out Asian carp is not imminent and if it happened, it would be based on careful analysis.

Business owners are skeptical of “e-DNA” analysis that has detected DNA of Asian carp in the river. The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers has considered at least a partial closing of the Chicago River – keeping boat traffic from entering Lake Michigan – to combat the large, hungry, and prolific fish.

Bill Bolen, Senior Advisor for the EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office, told the group the e-DNA could be from sources other than Asian carp. “There are possible other vectors, ways that DNA material could be getting into the waterway system.”

He said funding recently obtained by the EPA would allow them to work with the University of Notre Dame and with other federal agencies to consider other possibilities, such as waste from birds and barges.

“We do want to get some definitive information,” he says. “Is DNA getting into the waterway in some other way, shape, and form? We’re going to move really rapidly on that. I expect to get that work started within the next couple of weeks.”

John D. Rogner, Assistant Director of Illinois Department of Natural Resources, said risk analysis was being done, based on “a large body of sampling data going back to last November or December.”

Along with actual fish that have been collected, Rogner said the data would help the DNR determine if Asian carp exist in significant numbers and are a risk to the Great Lakes.

“Based on all of the sampling we’ve done so far,” said Rogner, “our tentative conclusion is that if Asian carp are in that waterway, they’re there in very low numbers. And every time we sample and fail to get Asian carp, it reinforces that conclusion.”

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

(Above) John D. Rogner with Illinois Governor Pat Quinn at an event in 2009.

He said the exact numbers would eventually be made public.

Jim Farrell of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce summed it up for the business owners. “We want to know what you have to find out about e-DNA to continue to trust it, because on our side of the table, common sense has said it’s time to put it on the shelf.”