Traverse City Record-Eagle

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EDITORIAL

The issue: Asian carp may make it to Lake Erie

Our view: There's no more time to waste

January 19, 2012

New report underlines carp threat to Lake Erie

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The federal government must quit dawdling and take swift action to prevent Asian carp from entering Lake Michigan through Chicago Waterway canals or Lake Erie through Indiana's Wabash River and Ohio's Maumee River -- now, not later.

A U.S. Geological Survey paper released last week underlines just how urgent this issue is.

It reported that Lake Erie and some of its biggest tributary rivers, especially the Maumee, have just the right water temperature and other characteristics needed for Asian carp to spawn and mature. The Maumee flows into Lake Erie at Toledo.

Now, not later, is the time for federal courts to issue an order compelling the Army Corps of Engineers and Chicago's Municipal Water Reclamation District to close the locks near Chicago to prevent the spread of Asian carp into Lake Michigan.

Now, not later, is the time for Congress and President Obama to tell the Army Corps to narrow its research to solutions that guarantee permanent separation of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.

Now, not later, is the time to require the Corps to finish its Great Lakes Mississippi River Interbasin Study by June 2012, instead of 2015.

Now, not later, is the time for Congress to enact legislation for the hydrological separation of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.

In 2010, Asian carp were found in the Wabash River in central Indiana, prompting officials to construct a 1,177-foot chain-link fence near Fort Wayne to stop the fish from traveling through a marshy area connected to the Maumee River.

The imported and highly adaptable carp, which escaped three decades ago from Southern fish farms and sewage lagoons, already have infested several tributaries of the Mississippi, including the Illinois River, and are threatening to enter Lake Michigan.

The Corps of Engineers said an electric barrier in the canal is blocking their path, but DNA from Asian carp has been found beyond the barrier. Such material has also has been found upstream from Minneapolis, suggesting many of Minnesota's most popular lakes might be at risk.

Scientists said if the carp gain a foothold in the Great Lakes, they could damage the region's $7 billion fishing industry by starving out native plankton-eating fish, the primary diet of bigger species such as whitefish and salmon.

The carp aren't going away, and they certainly move faster than the Corps, Congress, federal courts and the White House.

Get moving, Washington -- now. Remember the zebra mussel. Remember what dawdling on freighter ballast tank legislation cost us and the Great Lakes.

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