For general background on the invasion Asian carp into the Great Lakes, see this diary.
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and five environmental groups threatened on Wednesday to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to force it to temporarily shut three shipping locks near Chicago because of evidence that Asian carp might have breached the electrical barrier that is supposed to hold them back from the lakes.
-- Article
This is where we draw the line. This is where we finally say "no" to the shipping industry and all the other shit that's been falling on us.
We've been kicked and shoved and beaten and battered and Michigan's U6 unemployment stands at 26% for November, and god damn it if we're going to let these fucking fish into our lakes: The most spectacular array of freshwater lakes in the world.
This is the last straw, and we're not going to let this invasion happen. We're not going to let this infestation crush what's left of this ecosystem's natural beauty.
Those locks are closing down. Period.
If you don't know the story...it goes like this:
Several weeks ago, DNA evidence of Asian carp was found in the water beyond an electric barrier meant to keep these four fish out:
Silver carp
Bighead carp
Black carp
Grass carp
Collectively known as Asian Carp.
Wednesday evening, December 2nd, the DNR poured 2000 gallons of rotenone into a six mile stretch of canal so they could safely close down and repair an electric barrier with a lower risk of infestation.
Rotenone is a toxin specific to fish. Incidentally rotenone has been used for centuries by Native Americans to catch fish. It's processed from certain plants, the buckeye nut, for one, and then sprinkled over the water and the fish come floating up. The toxin is short lived. And it is also being neutralized outside of the target area.
The locks have been closed during this time. For several days. For those worried about the Sanitary part of the Sanitary and Ship Canal...Chicago's sewage is flowing as normal. It's unaffected.
A researcher who studied how much rotenone would be needed to kill the Asian carp discovered that the fish don't float to the surface. Instead, they sink.
So it shouldn't be a surprise that among the 200,000 pounds of floating fish recovered from the canal after the poison was applied, there was only 1 bighead carp found.
One is enough anyway. But there are very likely hundreds or thousands more at the bottom of the canal.
Everybody agrees these are drastic measures.
They are.
They are drastic, desperate measures.
There are those who argue with a defeatist attitude that it's going to happen anyway. Or that we're going to hamper business.
These are the same arguments used for fifty years since the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway to ships, as we watched thousands of ships enter the great lakes from ports around the world, and dump millions of gallons of squirming, living species into our freshwater lakes in the name of commerce...and now we're spending way more fighting the effects of the invasive species than we are getting from the shipping benefits.
The unbelievably destructive lamprey eel costs twenty million dollars a year to control. The second we stop controlling them is the second their population explodes again and ravages the ecosystem. We have to do that forever, or watch the system die.
The best policy is to never let them in.
Hundreds of invasive species have taken root in the space of a lifetime since the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway lock system...
And yet many argue that closing them down wouldn't make a difference.
139 invasive species have traveled to the great lakes through ballast water in the past 50 years.
21 invasive species have been introduced into the great lakes from other means since the year 1800.
-- source --
If you believe the canals and locks have not been responsible for accelerating the introduction of invasive species at a rate faster than native species can hope to adapt to, you're either horribly apathetic, miserably misinformed, or beholden to the international shipping industry.
And from the Great Lakes, the invasive species, including the lamprey, round goby, zebra mussel, and quagga mussel move through Chicago's sanitary and ship canal into the Mississippi and its tributaries.
This is an issue EVERYBODY along the Mississippi watershed and the Great Lakes watershed and beyond should give a damn about.
We NEED to close these locks.
We should have closed them down decades ago.
This is where we draw the line. The locks can be shut down. They should be shut down. And if I or many governors around the Great Lakes region, and environmental groups around the country have our say, they will be shut down.
Shut. Down. The. Locks.
Shut down the Sanitary and Ship Canal Locks forever.
And not JUST to stop the Asian carp. But to stop everything that will come after.
Update [2009-12-4 16:55:18 by Muskegon Critic]:
An Obama administration adviser says a decision could come within days on whether to temporarily close a shipping lock in a bid to stop the Asian carp from reaching Lake Michigan.
-Article
Contact Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and tell him it's time to shut the locks down for good.
Or contact the US Army Corps of Engineers and tell them it's time.
Or contact your own governor to let him or her know you appreciate their urgent response to this matter.
I would like to point out, most threat of invasive species is from ships coming into the Great Lakes from the outside. 90% of freight on the Great Lakes is done by "Lakers" which do not introduce invasive species because they spend their entire productive lives in the Great Lakes watershed.