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COLUMBUS — Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and other state officials are working to protect Ohio’s greatest natural resource, Lake Erie, from Asian carp and other invasive species.
Last week, Fisher participated in an Asian Carp Summit with officials from the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies. Fisher stressed to federal officials that tougher measures need to be taken to prevent the spread of Asian carp.
Strickland and Fisher are pressing for a permanent ecological separation of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal from Lake Michigan to keep Asian carp and other potentially dangerous invasive species from entering the Great Lakes.
“Although Ohio appreciates the fact that the Obama Administration is taking this issue seriously and investing significant resources in short-term strategies, but there must be additional consideration to address the larger structural issues that will yield longer term protections for the Great Lakes,” said Fisher.
The presence of Asian carp, which pose a serious threat to the Great Lakes fishing industry, was recently detected in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which connects a complex network of natural rivers and manmade canals to Lake Michigan. Unless preventive measures are taken, Asian carp will eventually migrate throughout the Great Lakes system and potentially devastate Lake Erie’s $1.1 billion dollar recreational fishing industry.
“In our experience, investments and actions geared towards prevention have the biggest payoff. It would be prudent for us to help Illinois determine a new way to move people, water and goods to and from Lake Michigan without relying freely flowing water between the Lake and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal,” said ODNR Director Sean Logan. “This is the best use of the funding available and we must begin making the investments in a new infrastructure now for what is sure to be a huge undertaking.”
Logan met with officials from federal agencies and other Great Lakes states in Chicago to discuss the Asian Carp Control Strategy Framework released last week by the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee.
Although the Asian carp has recently received national attention, Ohio has spent the past decade studying and strongly urging the protection of the Great Lakes from aquatic invasive species.
In the early 1990s, Ohio banned the possession of Asian carp. Banning possession of potentially dangerous invasive species is an effective tool to prevent the intentional introduction of new aquatic invasive species.
Last December, the ODNR Division of Wildlife contributed $20,000 to the effort to prevent Asian carp from breaching the electrical barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal when it was down for routine maintenance. State and federal partners applied a fish toxicant, called rotenone, to a 5.7-mile stretch of the canal, which successfully prevented live Asian carp from migrating further up the canal.
Additionally, ODNR routinely monitors for aquatic invasive species in Lake Erie and in the Ohio River. Other Great Lakes states, the Ohio Sea Grant, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a number of universities from the Great Lake states have active Lake Erie sampling programs as well. These efforts will provide early warning of the arrival of aquatic invasive species including Asian carp.
While the threat of Asian carp entering Lake Michigan did not manifest itself through a ballast water release of an oceangoing vessel, the threat of this aggressive species has prompted the Strickland Administration to call for the enactment of strong federal ballast water standards which will address the overall issue of harmful aquatic invasive species in the Great Lakes.
“The threat of Asian carp has heightened the awareness of what is at stake if the Great Lakes were impacted by an aggressive non-native species,” said Strickland. “Asian carp could pose significant risks to our fisheries and travel and tourism industry if we do not work together to determine long-term solutions.”
Logan was set to participate in Great Lakes Days in Washington, D.C., Feb. 22–24, and meet with Ohio’ congressional delegation and federal officials to discuss a number of important issues concerning the Great Lakes.
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The great mid-American system of rivers and lakes hold the native fish species genomes which must be preserved. These native fish are under heavy attack from the invasive Asian Carp. Thus far, I have discovered nothing on the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) website which suggests USFWS is taking action on a basin-wide basis to effect a solution. USFWS is not alone in this state of lack of action concerning the invasive carp. True, some Great Lakes states have tried to shut down the hydro-connection between the Great Lakes and the Upper Mississippi River Basin, but to no avail. Some experimental fish kills have taken place which prove little. Electric barriers are in use, hoping that the DC current will prevent migration between the two bodies of water.
The suggestion has been made that because the Asian Carp invasion affects the Mississippi River basin, that the solution should be basin-wide. As of now, this suggestion has not taken root among the NPO's, state and federal governments of USA and Canada. (MISSISSIPPI INTERSTATE COOPERATIVE RESOURCE ASSOCIATION
Summary of Permit Authority and Prohibited Species by State With Special Emphasis on Asian Carp, http://www.asiancarp.org/Regulations/ansregus MRB.pdf) While the debate, science experiments and turf battles rage, the Silver and Bighead continue to gorge themselves on zooplankton and phytoplankton and happily continue to reproduce, adding greater stress to the native fish population.
The only recommendation of practical substance for a solution is the removal of the adult Asian carp population. (Asian carps biological synopsis andenvironmental risk assessment; http://www.fws.gov/contaminant...rt2005.pdf)
The U. S. Fish and Wildlife service is so heavily impacted by its duties under the several protection acts, by litigation, by demands from Congress and/or the Executive, that it is basically not able to respond quickly and deftly to the Asian Carp invasion solution. The job of putting together a Mississippi River Basin-wide solution should fall to NFWF which has an outstanding staff of scientists and grant administrators. It has proven, many times, it is capable of working with multi-agencies and NPO to effect a solution in a timely manner.
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is probably best positioned to exert leadership toward a basin-wide solution or solutions. Time is of the essence. Whitehouse leadership, while present, has not been stunningly successful. Congressional leadership is more talk than walk. Other NGOs, while earnest, have not the talent nor the availability of funding to act swiftly and basin-wide, as does NFWF.
You would likely ask me, “Well, Miller, what is your solution?” My response is the Carp Catchers Cooperative three vessel, commercial carp harvesting fleet. The Carp Avenger catches the live fish, sorts and returns the native fish via water slide tubes to the river, unharmed, and sends the carp to processing. The Carpe Carpae is the fish factory which process the fish for human consumption, uses the extracted the fish oil for biodiesel and for sale into the health food stores, and creates high nutrient fish meal for animal feed and other uses. The crew lives aboard a flotel, the Carp Ark. All three vessels are hooked together much like rail cars and travel as a unit, thus allowing the crew to walk between home and work.
More detail about this solution is found by visiting: Carp Catchers Cooperative: http://carpcatchersco-op.wetpaint.com/
Please urge the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment and the full House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to join with other agencies, NGOs and private firms and individuals, to place NFWF in the driver's seat and get the business plan on paper and the funding to support it in the very near term – weeks or a couple of months, not years.
Sincerely yours,
James E. Miller, BA, BS, JD
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