States Cast for Way to Stop Carp

Officials Poison Canal Near Key Barrier to Keep Giant Leaping Fish Out of Great
Lakes
By DOUGLAS BELKIN

ROMEOVILLE, Ill. -- A decades-long battle to stop the northern migration of a
voracious, invasive fish that can leap eight feet out of the water and batter
boaters with enough force to break bones has come down to a six-mile stretch of
muddy brown water here.

WSJ's Joe Barrett explains why Illinois officials have launched a big campaign
to kill carp in the Great Lakes region.

On Wednesday night, officials pumped 2,200 gallons of fish poison into the
narrow channel of the Chicago Shipping and Sanitary Canal to stop the spread of
the Asian carp. By Thursday morning, scores of workers in 20-foot boats had
scooped tens of thousands of pounds of dead and dying fish from the gritty
canal, which is lined with weeds and hulking grain elevators.

The effort was launched to allow the routine maintenance of an electric barrier
a few miles upstream that was put in place in 2002 to stop the carp from
entering Lake Michigan. The torpedo-shaped fish can grow up to 100 pounds, and
its tendency to leap out of the water at the sound of approaching watercraft has
made some sections of the Mississippi treacherous for boaters.

Voracious eaters that reproduce rapidly, the Asian carp can quickly displace
native species. In some stretches of the river, the carp account for as much as
90% of the fish population by weight, and scientists fear they could do the same
in the Great Lakes, potentially destroying the lakes' $7 billion recreational
fishing industry. What's more, the fish tend to be boney and have an unpleasant
taste to the American palate.

View Full Image
Crews dump poison into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Thursday as part of
an effort to keep the invasive Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes. The
fish can grow up to 100 pounds and tend to leap out of the water at the sound of
approaching craft, threatening boaters
Associated Press

Crews dump poison into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Thursday as part of
an effort to keep the invasive Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes. The
fish can grow up to 100 pounds and tend to leap out of the water at the sound of
approaching craft, threatening boaters
Crews dump poison into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Thursday as part of
an effort to keep the invasive Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes. The
fish can grow up to 100 pounds and tend to leap out of the water at the sound of
approaching craft, threatening boaters
Crews dump poison into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Thursday as part of
an effort to keep the invasive Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes. The
fish can grow up to 100 pounds and tend to leap out of the water at the sound of
approaching craft, threatening boaters

"The barrier is the best weapon we have to keep the Asian carp from the Great
Lakes," said Chris McCloud, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Natural
Resources, which was overseeing an effort that drew about 300 workers from a
half-dozen Great Lakes states as well as Canada. "We need to push them back
right here."

The Asian carp were imported to fish farms in the Mississippi Delta in the 1970s
to clean holding pens. They escaped during floods in the 1990s and have been
heading north ever since. The electrical fence here was supposed to be the last
backstop between the fish and Lake Michigan, but this fall genetic material from
the Asian carp was detected on the other side of the barrier.

That discovery sent shock waves across Great Lakes states. On Wednesday,
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, supported by five environmental groups, asked
the state attorney general to pursue "every legal means" to force the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers to temporarily shut three frequently opened shipping locks
near Chicago as a last-gasp measure to stop the fish.
video
Asian Silver Carp Jump When Spooked By Boat
1:47

Asian Silver Carp jump high out of the water when a boat passes through a
tributary of the Missouri River. Recorded in 2006.

Despite the discovery of the carp's biological matter, none of the dead fish
pulled from the canal Thursday afternoon were Asian carp. The poison was pumped
into the canal as a precaution to make sure none of the fish breached the
barrier while it was shut down. The operation is expected to continue through
Sunday.

Several environmental groups and Ms. Granholm have said it is only a matter of
time before the barrier is breached. They have called for the drastic and
massively expensive action of separating the Great Lakes from the Mississippi
water basin. The two systems were connected in an epic feat of engineering a
century ago when the Chicago River was reversed so that the city's waste would
flow away from Lake Michigan -- which provides the city's drinking water --
rather than into it.

Army Corps of Engineers Brig. Gen. John Peabody, who oversees the Great Lakes
and the waterways around Chicago, said the possibility of a complete separation
is being studied but warned that such a project would cost hundreds of millions
of dollars and be complicated by the urban environment.

Write to Douglas Belkin at

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