Fight Lies Ahead to Save the Great Lakes

Port Huron Times Herald

 

The ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been called the worst environmental disaster in American history. That might be true, but it is also subjective.

The list of American environmental tragedies is both long and sad. Other candidates for the "worst" label might include the modern practice of mining coal by blowing the tops off mountains and bulldozing the rubble into the valleys.

In the past 20 years, mountaintop removal has devastated an area of Appalachia larger than Delaware. It has destroyed hundreds of miles of trout streams and despoiled some of the finest hardwood forests on the planet.

Another contender for the "worst environmental tragedy" is emerging in Chicago, where an Asian carp has been found on the wrong side of an electric barrier meant to keep the voracious fish out of the Great Lakes.

A 20-pound, 30-inch bighead carp has been found in Calumet Lake in south Chicago, just 6 miles up a murky shipping canal from Lake Michigan.

Ontario and the Great Lakes states, with the notable exception of Illinois, have been pleading with the federal government to close the man-made canals that divert water from Lake Michigan into tributaries of the Mississippi River.

These canals are superhighways for Asian carp, which needed only 20 years to become the dominant fish species in the Mississippi watershed. If they reach the Great Lakes, they threaten to destroy a sports fishery valued at $7.5 billion a year.

They also will destroy one of the planet's most unique ecosystems, truly an environmental disaster of epic proportions.

Illinois strongly opposes closing the canals, saying it would cost the Chicago area as much as $4.7 billion in commerce in the next 20 years. Its chamber of commerce, with its parochial mindset, conveniently makes no mention of the $150 billion the wider region stands to lose.

Michigan lawmakers once again are calling on President Barack Obama to close the locks. "This was so tragically predictable," U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, said of the latest news.

Thus far, the president has sided with the interests of his hometown, Chicago. His administration supports the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' decision to protect shipping interests. It also supports the U.S. Supreme Court, which repeatedly has refused to hear the case for closing the locks.

If the Great Lakes ecosystem as we know it is lost, our friends in Chicago surely will shrug and say it was inevitable.

Perhaps it is inevitable, but losing such a treasure without a fight is worse than folly. It is cowardice. It is avarice. It is madness.

U.S. to Commit $78.5M to Halt Asian Carp

Associated Press

 

TRAVERSE CITY -- Navigational locks and gates in Chicago-area waterways crucial for shipping may be opened less frequently than usual under a $78.5 million campaign to prevent Asian carp from overrunning the Great Lakes, federal officials said Monday.

The plan falls short of closing the navigational structures entirely, as demanded by Michigan and five other Great Lakes states. They fear the locks will provide an opening to the lakes for the giant carp, which some scientists say could devastate the region's $7 billion fishing industry.

But the Obama administration described the plan as part of an effective strategy for keeping the invasive fish at bay while long-term biological controls are developed. The government said it would take 25 actions to slow the advance of the carp, which can reach 4 feet long and 100 pounds.

Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, called the plan "an unparalleled effort on the part of the federal government."

"Today, we have an opportunity to work together to prevent environmental and economic damage before it happens," Sutley said after talks Monday with several governors from the region.

But Michigan officials said nothing short of closing the locks would give the lakes adequate protection. State Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican running for governor, accused President Barack Obama of letting politics dictate policy.

Obama "proved today that he'll do anything to protect the narrow interests of his home state of Illinois, even if it means destroying Michigan's economy," Cox said.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat and strong Obama supporter, said in a phone conference she didn't believe "there is any parochialism happening. I do believe there are great and honest differences of opinion."

Sutley also denied political motivation: "We are taking actions based on science."

Bighead and silver carp, Asian species imported to cleanse fish farms and sewage plants in the Deep South, have been migrating up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers for decades. They have infested rivers and canals near Chicago, and their DNA has been detected in Lake Michigan itself, although no actual carp have been found there.

The Supreme Court last month refused Michigan's request to order the locks and gates closed, a move opposed by the Obama administration and Illinois. They argue that closing the locks would cause millions in losses for barge operators and could lead to flooding.

Michigan last week asked the high court to reconsider and is pushing ahead with a separate lawsuit that calls for permanently severing the century-old, man-made linkage between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. Joining Michigan in the dispute are Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The Obama administration's strategy, announced Monday, calls for modifying operations of the navigational structures by April 30. It says four scenarios are being considered, including opening two primary locks for just three or four days a week, or closing the locks one week per month or every other week. Another option is continuing to operate them normally.

When the locks are opened, poisons would be spread in the waters to kill any Asian carp lurking nearby.

Granholm said she feared the measures wouldn't be enough. "You have to permanently shut these locks down," she said.

Administration officials said a $10.5 million contract will be awarded to build a third electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a crucial link with Lake Michigan. The two existing barriers emit pulses designed to repel the carp and give them a non-lethal jolt if they don't turn away.

Also pledged was $13.2 million for construction of barriers to prevent the carp from bypassing the electric devices by slipping into the canal from the adjacent Des Plaines River during flooding.

An additional $9.5 million will be spent to promote commercial fishing of carp, research chemical treatments to kill off the carp if the electric barriers fail, and study other control techniques such as preventing carp from spawning or developing poisons that would kill the carp but not other fish.

Agencies also will speed up their analysis of DNA samples and continue exploring the waterways in hopes of determining whether Asian carp have actually gotten past the electric barriers -- and if so, how many.

The carp battle involves the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the navigational structures; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Fish and Wildlife Service; and the Coast Guard. State and local agencies also are taking part.

Feds Outline Plan to Nurse Great Lakes to Health

USA Today

TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan  —  The Obama administration has developed a five-year blueprint for rescuing the Great Lakes, a sprawling ecosystem plagued by toxic contamination, shrinking wildlife habitat and invasive species.

The plan envisions spending more than $2.2 billion for long-awaited repairs after a century of damage to the lakes, which hold 20% of the world's fresh water. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the document, which Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was releasing at a news conference Sunday in Washington.



"We're committed to creating a new standard of care that will leave the Great Lakes better for the next generation," Jackson said in a statement.

Among the goals is a "zero tolerance policy" toward future invasions by foreign species, including the Asian carp, a huge, ravenous fish that has overrun portions of the Mississippi River system and is threatening to enter Lake Michigan.

Others include cleanup of the region's most heavily polluted sites, restoring wetlands and other crucial habitat, and improving water quality in shallow areas, where runoff from cities and farms has led to unsightly algae blooms and beach closings.

Also promised is a strategy for monitoring the ecosystem's health and holding federal agencies accountable for carrying out the plan.

During his 2008 campaign, Obama pledged $5 billion over a decade toward fulfilling a Great Lakes cleanup wish list developed by a coalition of agencies, scientists and activists.

Congress last year approved his request for a first installment of $475 million. The newly released plan assumes yearly appropriations of the same amount through 2014, except for the $300 million President Obama requested this month in his 2011 budget.

The 41-page plan sets out ecological targets and specific actions to be taken by 16 federal agencies working with state, local and tribal governments and private groups.

Among the goals it seeks by 2014: finishing work at five toxic hot spots that have languished on cleanup lists for two decades; a 40% reduction in the rate at which invasive species are discovered in the lakes; measurable decreases in phosphorus runoff; and protection of nearly 100,000 wetland acres.

It also will help save species such as the lake sturgeon, a prehistoric fish that can reach 8 feet long and 200 pounds but is endangered because of overharvesting and habitat degradation. The plan promises to provide 25,000 young sturgeon for stocking programs.

Combined with enforcement of environmental rules and new ones where needed, officials said the plan would help make Great Lakes fish safe to eat, their waters suitable for drinking and swimming, and their native plants and animals thriving.

The lakes provide drinking water to more than 30 million people and are the backbone of a regional economy dependent on tourism, outdoor recreation, shipping and manufacturing.

"We now have a golden opportunity, even a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to make huge progress," Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, co-chairman of the Council of Great Lakes Governors, said in a telephone interview Saturday. "We've been talking about this for a long time. Now the federal government is putting some real resources behind it."

Jeff Skelding, director of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, which represents environmental groups across the region, praised the plan's commitment to long-range funding for the restoration but said Congress should boost Obama's 2011 spending request to $475 million.

The coalition also says too much restoration money is being diverted to fighting Asian carp, which could endanger the region's $7 billion sport fishing industry by gobbling plankton and unraveling the food chain.

An "all-out effort" is needed to keep the carp out of the lakes, but funding should come from elsewhere in the federal budget, the coalition said.

Cameron Davis, EPA's senior adviser on the Great Lakes, said about $58 million in restoration funds would go to the carp battle this year. But invasive species programs are getting less restoration money than other needs such as toxic cleanups and habitat improvements, he said.

Turning Asian Carp From Disaster Into Dinner

LA Times

Reporting from Chicago - Asian carp may indeed be poised to destroy commercial fishing as we know it in the Great Lakes, but Reggie McLeod likes his smoked or pickled.

The Vietnamese community cooks carp in coconut milk with lemongrass and chili peppers. The Polish like to draw out the pungent fishy odor by soaking it in milk and onions.

At Joe Tess Place in Omaha, Neb., which has proudly served deep-fried carp sandwiches since the 1930s, it's presented on rye bread with fries and handmade coleslaw.

The humble Asian carp, which by some accounts is now within six miles of Lake Michigan, didn't ask to be at the center of a legal and political firestorm. But in a short time, this scaly bottom feeder has attracted the attention of the White House and the U.S. Supreme Court, which is considering whether to force Illinois to close locks and dams in Chicago-area waterways to keep the carp out of the Great Lakes.

There's no question this ugly, stinky fish has an image problem in the United States. But so many varieties of carp, including the feared Asian carp, have been popular in ethnic cuisines for so long that some can't help but see Illinois' current crisis as the culinary opportunity of a lifetime.

"The only thing wrong with eating Asian carp is that it has the word carp in it," said Steve McNitt, sales manager at Schafer Fisheries in Thomson, Ill., one of the largest carp processors and distributors in the country. "It's a tasty fish, a fleshy fish. Think of all the hungry people around the world you could feed with carp.

"We shouldn't be trying to eradicate it; it's too late for that. We should be eating it."

Since escaping from government fish hatcheries and catfish ponds in the South during the 1970s, Asian carp have made their steady and dramatic way up the Mississippi River toward the Great Lakes.

Feeding on vegetation and plankton, Asian carp -- a term that actually encompasses four varieties of carp -- are fast, prolific breeders that can weigh up to 100 pounds and eat several times their body weight a day.

Some estimate there are tens of millions of pounds of harvestable Asian carp in the Illinois River -- a tantalizing prospect for anglers and entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on a slimy, silvery gold rush.

Schafer Fisheries alone processes about 12 million pounds of carp a year from a 30,000-square-foot facility near the banks of the Mississippi River, across from Iowa. Nearly 10 million pounds are shipped to China, Japan, Canada and Europe, McNitt said. The rest is sent to restaurants and ethnic grocery markets in Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago.

Bighead carp, a variety of Asian carp, arrives twice a week at markets such as Mayflower grocery in Chicago's Chinatown, where it sits amid the imported salted mackerel and the dried octopus.

At a Vietnamese supermarket in the Uptown neighborhood, bighead carp is sliced thin and wrapped in cellophane for $2.19 a pound.

Customers can buy whole carp or just the heads at Rubino's Seafood Co., a wholesale fish distributor, which sold about 15,000 pounds of it over the holidays. Co-owner Ron Caminiti said the carp has two crucial obstacles to wider culinary acceptance: bones and a bad rap.

"It tastes good, but it's very bony, and most Americans don't like that," Caminiti said. "My Polish customers? They love it. But anything Americans have to eat so gingerly isn't going to become popular."

McNitt agreed. "As soon as you tell them it's carp, it's over," he said.

When it comes to fish, name and reputation go a long way, industry experts say. Chilean sea bass was not so popular when it went by its original name, Patagonia toothfish.

Similarly, many Chinese won't eat carp known to have lived in rivers, said Z.J. Tong of the Chicago Chinese Cultural Institute, but they will happily fry up those from lakes or fish farms. Tong's family in northern China sautes carp with garlic, ginger, onions and other spices.

Reggie McLeod, who edits and publishes a small, Minnesota-based magazine dedicated to the upper reaches of the Mississippi River, said carp suffers from "a cultural bias" in the United States. The fish looks terrible, and it smells bad, but it has a subtle, moist flavor that is surprising -- provided all the bones are removed.

"My dad always told me [carp] was inedible," McLeod said. "But I have fished a lot and eaten a lot of fish, and carp has a very mild taste that I really like."

McLeod became so taken with the smoked and pickled varieties his friends offered him that his publication, Big River Magazine, sponsored a contest last year asking every chef, angler and fish-lover in Minnesota, Iowa and western Illinois to submit their favorite carp recipes to be judged by the magazine.

"No one entered," he said, somewhat deflated. "I guess we have a way to go still before it catches on."

With all the recent buzz about Asian carp, though, McLeod said he planned to relaunch the recipe contest this year.

Schafer Fisheries thought so much of Asian carp in 2006 that it entered talks with lawmakers in Springfield to cultivate carp meat to feed prisoners at the nearby Thomson Correctional Center and other state prisons. However, the response was tepid, McNitt said.

Caminiti, no fan of carp himself, said the fish's only chance at the mainstream is if a celebrity chef takes pity on it.

"You get some fancy chef to throw a sauce on it and charge $25, people will buy it," Caminiti said. "But it'll never happen."

Illinois Officials Present United Front Against Lawsuit, Carp

NY Times

Federal and state officials from Illinois on Tuesday defended their efforts to ward off Asian carp, a voracious, nonnative fish that could threaten the ecosystem of the Great Lakes, even as they reported new evidence that the fish may be near Lake Michigan.

Facing a legal challenge over the issue from Michigan, which is demanding the closing of Chicago-area waterways that lead to the lakes, the leaders from Illinois met at an aquarium beside Lake Michigan and sought to present a united front.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said that closing the waterways, where signs of the carp have been found, could cause economic problems for the shipping software industry as well as flood thousands of homes.

“We are not in denial about the threat of this invasive species,” Mr. Durbin said. “The purpose of this meeting is to make it clear that we are doing things proactively, and we will continue to.”

Still, during the meeting on Tuesday, officials from the Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged that genetic material from the Asian carp had been found in a channel beyond an elaborate barrier system that was designed to stop their journey north through the Mississippi River system and into the Great Lakes. Traces of the fish were found in samples gathered in October at a pumping station in Wilmette, Ill., a suburb north of Chicago that is not far from Lake Michigan, officials said.

That marked the second time genetic material from the carp was discovered beyond the barrier. The first finding, in a canal south of Chicago, was announced in November. Live fish have yet to be discovered past the barrier. The barrier system, which acts like a powerful electric fence, has been a major part of efforts since 2002 to prevent the spread of the carp, a big, hungry fish that, scientists say, can take over an ecosystem by eating the plankton needed by native species.

“This has been an urgent situation for a number of years that has evolved into an imminent crisis,” said Henry Henderson, the director of the Midwest program for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He called the response at Tuesday’s meeting “surprisingly lackadaisical.”

In December, the State of Michigan filed a lawsuit against the State of Illinois. Other Great Lakes states, including Minnesota, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin, and the Canadian province of Ontario have supported Michigan’s effort. Among other things, Michigan has called for an injunction to close the locks along the Chicago-area waterways. The Supreme Court is scheduled to consider the issue during a private conference on Friday.

Michigan’s attorney general, Mike Cox, a Republican who is running for governor, said he was disappointed that Illinois officials appeared more concerned with local interests than the health of the Great Lakes.

“It is distressing that inaction on the part of a state with only a few miles of shoreline is threatening the economy and ecology of Michigan and every other state in the Great Lakes basin,” Mr. Cox said in a statement.

Senator Durbin said the lawsuit was unhelpful. “Let’s not meet in the courtroom,” he said. “Let’s meet in the halls of Congress to find a way to come up with a solution.”

Another $13 Million From EPA To Fight Asian Carp

Detroit Free Press

The Environmental Protection Agency announced $13 million in funding late today for measures that would help keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.

The funding will come from $475 million already approved by Congress this fall to help restore the Great Lakes.

The EPA said the money would go to efforts that would keep Asian carp in the Des Plaines and other rivers and canals from washing into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal during floods.

That fear was raised in the past six months by environmental groups and others concerned about spread of the voracious invasive species of carp.

The money will also go to pay for more DNA testing to determine where Asian carp are in the Chicago waterways that lead to Lake Michigan. So far, that testing has shown the presence of flying silver carp seven miles from Lake Michigan.

Michigan members of Congress have been pushing hard in the last two weeks to make sure that various federal agencies dealing with the carp problem get the funding they need.