TOPIC:

www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/02/trump_asian_carp.html

The saga continues... more hiding behind "economic impact" of actions to keep Asian Carp out of the Great Lakes.

On Feb. 23, a letter signed by 16 Republican members of Congress, mostly from Illinois and Indiana, was sent to the White House urging the Brandon Road plan be delayed until a new secretary of the Army Civil Works office is confirmed.

The letter argues the leading edge of the carp population is still 10 miles downriver of the Brandon Road lock and efforts to fish out the population have dropped the silver and bighead carp population by 68 percent.

"Many commercial vessel owners and their employees that reside in our districts are greatly concerned the TSP will include a structural modification to the Brandon Road Lock that would disrupt commercial activity on the CAWS (Chicago Area Waterway System) and harm the local, regional and ultimately the national economy," the letter read

Conveniently ignored is the HUGE economic cost of the immense disruption and devaluing of the Great Lakes' multi-billion dollar fishery, the tourism economy upon which all those states depend on, the hundreds of millions of infrastructure costs of zebra and quagga mussels when they get into water intakes of power plants, factories, and municipal water supplies.

We have more than 180 invasive species in the Great Lakes because we put the short-term economics of the shipping industry ahead of the long-term economic integrity of our most valuable natural resource in the Midwest

If you feel strongly about keeping asian carp out of the great lakes, I would encourage you to write, call, or talk to your congressional rep in person

For the sake of conversation, how would you rate the chances of Asian carp becoming problematic in Lake Michigan if they did manage to reach the lake?

Sense they are filter feeders, wouldn't the availability and density of phytoplankton play a role in establishing a population? The levels of availability in the lake would seem to be much lower than in nutrient rich rivers where the fish would expend a significantly less amount of energy to consume an exponentially greater amount of food.

Do the tributaries of Lake Michigan provide a suitable spawning habitat? I have read that the eggs are neutrally buoyant and require between 30 and 60 miles of free floating to spawn.

I am not advocating we lessen restrictions on stop the migration of the carp to lake or looking for new ways to lessen the impact of the carp.

I also feel Lake Erie would be the most vulnerable to a sustainable population of Asian carp.

Yes, not a big issue in Lake Michigan proper, most likely, for the reasons you listed. But the concern is once they are in the Great Lakes watershed, they are going to be very difficult to stop from spreading immensely.

New research has show that asian carp need much shorter distances of free-flowing river to reproduce than previously thought, which is extremely concerning. In fact, grass carp have successfully reproduced in the Sandusky River, which is only 14 miles long. Other research has identified 16 miles of river as the new minimum. It's very possible that new research could find it's even less than that. Fast growing, highly fecund species like asian carp produce a lot of offspring and show a lot of potential for adaptation/evolution

cida.usgs.gov/glri/projects/invasive_spe...t-suitability-8.html

voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/31...eat-lakes-tributary/


www.researchgate.net/profile/Reuben_Gofo...Novel-Ecosystems.pdf

Modeling work has identified over 25 rivers that have high certainty of sustaining asian carp, particularly bighead and silver. And unfortunately, researchers keep finding asian carp spawning activity in smaller and smaller streams that show they can and will utilize much different spawning conditions than previously thought. Meaning that a heck of a lot more than 25 big rivers would be able to be colonized.

Knowing what we know right now, they would be an unmitigated disaster in our big rivers, drowned river mouths, Lake St. Clair, Lake Erie, etc.

Think about the St. Joseph, Muskegon, Grand, Sandusky, Saginaw River (and Saginaw Bay), Lake St. Clair, Detroit River, Lake Erie, Maumee River infested with asian carp. It would be very, very bad

One study estimated that 34% of all fish biomass in Lake Erie could eventually be silver carp. In some areas of the Illinois River, over 80% of the fish biomass is asian carp.

I hate to sound all doom and gloom, but this is essentially on par with zebra and quagga mussels in terms of ecosystem disruption. And we KNOW what happened there. If we had a chance to go back in time and prevent that, we would do it, right? It wouldn't even be a question!

We have a chance to prevent Asian Carp from entering the Great Lakes watershed. I hope we don't screw it up