Fight over carp-control plan continues

February 13, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Cargo and passenger vessel operators begged federal officials Friday not to close Chicago shipping locks to prevent Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes, but others said there was no good alternative and demanded quick action.

Maritime industry representatives packed a public meeting in Chicago called by agencies crafting a strategy for keeping the carp from gaining a foothold in Lake Michigan. Dozens said interrupting passage through the locks would kill jobs and hammer the city’s economy.

“It’s our livelihood at stake,” said Chip Collopy, owner of Shoreline Sightseeing. Added Ken Wagner, whose tour boat regularly cruises through the locks: “A knee-jerk decision could put people like me out of business.”

Although outnumbered at the standing-room-only gathering, environmentalists and charter fishing boat skippers reminded the crowd that a carp infestation could have dire consequences for the entire Great Lakes economy, including its $7 billion fishery.

“Our fishing industry relies on a clean and healthy Lake Superior,” Larry MacDonald, mayor of Bayfield, Wis., told officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and other departments.

Asian carp are ravenous eating machines that can grow to 4 feet long and 100 pounds. Biologists say once established in the lakes, they could disrupt the food chain and starve out popular sport species such as salmon and walleye.

A $78.5 million blueprint released by the Obama administration this week includes 25 measures for controlling the carp, which have infested Chicago- area rivers and canals linked to Lake Michigan.

They include strengthening an electric barrier designed to halt the fish’s advance, stepped-up DNA testing to determine how many carp may have slipped past the barrier and using nets and electrofishing to nab them.

The plan rejects closing two shipping locks in the waterways as demanded by Michigan and five other states. Instead, it promises to consider keeping them open less often.

But any disruption of lock service was unacceptable to cargo- and passenger-vessel operators at the meeting. It “risks severe damage to our economy at a time when we can least afford it,” said Mike Mini of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.

Many accused the government of moving hastily toward lock closure.

Earlier, however, environmental groups had the opposite complaint: the government plan lacks deadlines for closing the locks and eventually severing the man-made connection between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River systems.

Michigan has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to order the locks closed, a request supported by Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.