By JOHN FLESHER
TRAVERSE CITY -- Permanently severing a man-made link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system is the only sure way to protect the lakes from voracious Asian carp, scientists and activists told a congressional panel Tuesday.
While praising the Obama administration for pledging to spend $78.5 million on a wide-ranging plan for thwarting a carp invasion of Lake Michigan through Chicago waterways, critics said it was at best a temporary and flawed approach.
"The goal must be ecological separation. The Great Lakes cannot wait," Michael Hansen, chairman of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, said during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment.
Scientists told the House subcommittee it was unclear how much damage the carp would do if they gain a foothold in the Great Lakes. But they said the risk was too great to ignore.
