Panel presses Asian carp fight

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Updated: February 14, 2012 10:28AM

PORTAGE — Federal, state and local officials on Thursday outlined the array of efforts under way to prevent the spread of Asian carp to the Great Lakes.

Officials fear the carp, which feed on the plankton that form the base of the aquatic food chain, could crowd out competitors and severely damage the Great Lakes fishing industry.

Currently, more than 40 projects are under way to deal with invasive species in the Great Lakes, and many were outlined at the quarterly meeting of the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee.

John Goss, Asian carp director for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said regular meetings between agencies are necessary to build momentum and coordinate efforts.

“We have good news going ahead,” Goss said. “Thanks to bipartisan support in Congress, funding will be level in 2012 to what it was in 2011.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is studying how best to limit ties between the lakes and the Mississippi River to prevent invasive species from migrating between them. It’s scheduled for completion in summer of 2015.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources and Purdue University scientists have studied a possible connection point at Eagle Marsh near Fort Wayne. They installed a temporary but pourous fencing barrier; a solid barrier would cause flooding in Fort Wayne. Common carp have been spotted on two occasions, but they haven’t passed through the barrier, instead trying to hop over the fencing to no avail.

Col. Frederic Drummond of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers discussed the three electrified barriers along the Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal. In 2012, the Army Corps will award a construction contract for a fourth barrier in the canal.

In 2010, researchers found no genetic traces of the Asian carp in Northwest Indiana waters.

The Army Corps uses two methods to monitor the presence of Asian carp in Chicago waterways — placing transmitters on carp and tracking their movement, and testing waterways for traces of carp DNA. The first method has detected only one adult carp above the barriers, while the DNA testing has found traces of the bighead and silver Asian carp above and below the barriers.

Lee Botts of the Alliance for the Great Lakes said she’s grateful for the level of cooperation, but she’s troubled that it’s taken so long to get agencies working together on the invasive species problem, which she spoke out about while working for the city of Chicago in the 1980s.