INTRO: The clock is ticking in favor of Asian carp. Their DNA has been found in Lake Michigan. As the ugly truth is made known, politicians can use it to get votes. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus reports from Lansing.
How close to Michigan is the Asian carp? Lindsay Chadderton says it’s close enough that you have to start worrying about the Manistee, the St. Joseph and the Grand River here. It has a fish ladder to help salmon spawn upriver toward Jackson. In a few years it could help the carp spawn upriver too.
“Clearly our evidence indicates that some fish have got into the Great Lakes. We need to try and ascertain how many fish or where those fish are. That’s gonna be incredibly difficult. But the fish are likely to move up within the rivers where they’re likely to spawn. That’s where we need to establish a monitoring program, detect those fish and then hopefully target and remove them before they can establish a population.”
Chadderton is a zoologist working for The University of Notre Dame and the Nature Conservancy of Michigan. Over the last year, his team has collected 600 water samples in 2 liter bottles in and around Chicago. Back in the lab, fish feces, urine and slime have matched up with Asian carp DNA. Chadderton’s standing over the river in Lansing. To protect this water, he says, extra barriers need to be built in Illinois. There’s an electric fence 30 miles southwest of Lake Michigan. It is under too much pressure.
“We know there are tens of thousands of fish below the barrier, further down stream but they’re working their way up. If those fish were to get into the Great Lakes then it is game over.”
Biologists say 200 carp would make enough to breed. They’d try to do that in Michigan’s rivers. Attorney General Mike Cox had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to close the Chicago and O’Brien Locks. That was in December.
“On January 19 the Supreme Court said no to the injunction.”
Cox has said Lindsey Chadderton’s teams’s DNA evidence should change the high court’s mind.
“But 4 hours after that the Army Corps of Engineers released what was then new information that the court didn’t have that DNA had been found in Calumet Harbor actually in Lake Michigan. So we refiled.”
And the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the second filing. Meanwhile, the attorney general has held public meetings around the state. Fishing and tourism operators, plus DNR officials join him. They have called for a permanent barrier between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi basin. Kyle Melinn covers capitol politics for the Michigan Information Research Service. MIRS.
“While invasive species have been a problem for years and years, you can’t exactly go out and sue a zebra mussel.”
The legislature passes laws. And the attorney general’s job is to enforce them. Kyle Melinn says the job doesn’t require suing Illinois and the Army Corps of Engineers. But Melinn says Cox has picked up on public opinion anyway.
“So I don’t know if exploiting is the right term. But I do think that he’s taking significant political advantage of this situation. Obviously, Mike Cox is going to be running for governor here in 2010. And this is something that is hard to be against. There is nobody out there from the political end of things saying hey we want Asian carp in.”
Melinn’s capitol press corps colleague Bill Ballenger agrees. He’s the editor of Inside Michigan Politics. He was a deputy assistant secretary of education under Gerald Ford. He says Cox’s extra curricular activity is not cynical. But still….
“You could ask the question. What about the barnacles in ballast water. The zebra mussels, invasive species that come in on the hulls of ships. There was an issue, block off the St. Lawrence seaway and the Welland Canal and stop ships coming in that way. Because they can bring in destructive matter as well. Nobody, including Mike Cox, seems to have gotten quite as upset about that as they have about the Asian carp. I think it’s because the Asian carp is such a visible ugly enemy.”
Ballenger says, finally, on this issue anyway, state government has bi-partisanship. But that might not be enough to stop the looming fish.
Zebra mussels come in ballast water, not on the hulls of ships. And barnacles come on hulls, not in ballast water. Either Bill Ballenger was misquoted or has no idea what he is talking about.
Thanks Kevin.
You will hear Bill’s words when listening to the audio at top right of this page.
Chris
Too little, too late. The invasive species issue has cried out for a solution for over 2 decades. The supposed intractable problem has suffered from solid leadership and political support at the federal level. Now we’re going to redirect over $80 million of Great Lakes restoration dollars to combat carp, which are likely to be established with or without intervention at this late hour. The sky is not falling, but it won’t be pretty in the end. Politicians have been grandstanding on this issue since the beginning of time.
Thanks Mark.
What is your work? Why do you pay attention to this issue?
I was close to the issue for over a decade when I worked in state government, representing Michigan in regional and binational forums. We fought mightily, only to fall victims to lip service at the federal level and foot-dragging and intenstive lobbying efforts by the maritime industry. The Coast Guard is held captive by industry (i.e., capture theory of regulations)
http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/etzioni/documents/A400%20Society,%20Capture.pdf
and never saw invasives as a priority consistent with their mission of safety, immigration, and drug interdiction. The carp is one in a long list of invaders and has become another poster child for the issue–deja vu all over again.