Massive Fish Kill Starts in Order to Keep Asian Carp at Bay

Last week officials in Illinois began a massive poisoning operation on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship canal to prevent the invasive Asian Carp from breaching an electrical barrier that must be shut down for maintenance.  There is already DNA evidence showing that the dreaded fish are in the canal and just several miles from Lake Michigan.

In a related action, Milwaukee Riverkeeper together with several other environmental groups sent a letter to Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox in support of a letter to him from Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm (attached).
 

Governor Granholm's letter urges Attorney General Cox to pursue every legal tool available to ensure no carp get over the  barrier into Lake Michigan. Legal action could include of a lawsuit against the State of Illinois and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Milwaukee Riverkeeper and its partners previously requested that authorities close the navigational locks to prevent the invasive carp from swimming into Lake Michigan.  Yet no action has been taken. 

MAKE A CALL, STOP THE CARP:

Please call or e-mail Senator Kohl and ask him to sign onto the Great Lakes Task Force letter (attached), urging the Federal Government to take emergency action and close the locks.  Due to everyone's support Feingold has just added his name.

More information about the fish kill:

[excerpted from the Journal-Sentinel]

Mop-up from the massive fish kill continued on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal on Friday, and while officials said they've killed thousands of fish, as of Friday afternoon only one of them was confirmed to be an Asian carp. Those are the fish actually targeted in the $3 million operation to protect Lake Michigan.

That doesn't necessarily mean there aren't loads of dead Asian carp lying on the bottom of the 25-foot-deep canal built more than 100 years ago to send Chicagoland's treated sewage into the Mississippi River basin.

The poisoning of a six-mile stretch of canal was ordered to clear the canal of all Asian carp so an electric fish barrier built to keep the super-sized jumping fish from invading Lake Michigan can be briefly shut down for maintenance.

No actual Asian carp had been found in the waters immediately below the barrier before this week's poisoning, but last summer a new type of "environmental" DNA testing revealed the presence two species of Asian carp, silver and bighead.

Federal biologist Duane Chapman has done research on the effect the fish poison has on silver and bighead carp, and he says the poison does not cause those fish to immediately float.

Chapman predicted before the lone carp was found late Thursday that biologists might find a specimen or two in the wake of the poisoning, but he said nobody should be expecting a flotsam of Asian carp carcasses.

He said some of the dead fish likely will reach the surface when their stomachs fill with gas, but that might not happen in cold water, and it might not happen for a long time.

"There will be dead fish floating up for a long time in this stretch of river," he said.

To read the full article please visit JSOnline.com.