Great Lake states must all react to threat of Asian carp

There are lots of good fish stories, typically tales about the big one that got away. This is a story about some big fish that got away, but there’s nothing good about it.

The Supreme Court of the United States this week refused to intervene in a dispute between Illinois and other Great Lakes states over what action should be taken to attempt to retard further progress of the Asian carp, which has been methodically working its way upstream from the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes. They were known to have gotten as far as the Illinois River.

This voracious species represents what is probably the greatest threat to the environment of the lakes since cities started dumping residential and industrial waste into the lakes more than two centuries ago. People living along the lakes came to realize that using the largest body of fresh water in the world as a giant sewer was bad public policy, and much of the damage has been reversed.

That turnaround, it seems, will be easier to accomplish than controlling the Asian carp population if these bottom feeders, which can grow to 4 feet in length and consume 40 percent of their weight a day, ever become established.

And, ironically, locks and canals built to keep shipping channels open without letting Chicago’s sewage get into the lakes are now giving the carp a dangerous passageway.

Relief sought

The state of Michigan filed suit to force the closing of all the locks that connect the rivers of Illinois with Lake Michigan. Illinois opposed the closing because it would cripple Chicagoarea freight traffic. It was that case in which the Supreme Court refused to intervene, leaving the locks open and the danger of carp infiltration unabated.

The only good news that can be found in this story is the fact that new information on how close the carp have come to the lake seems to have spurred some action.

U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., introduced a bill on the House floor to force closure of two locks and expand the powers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop migration of the carp. And the White House announced plans to hold a meeting early next month with Great Lakes governors to work on a stop-the-carp strategy.

It would be a tragedy if everything all the Great Lake states and Canada have done to bring the lakes back to life is lost to a voracious species of fish and the refusal of any one state or province to react appropriately to this or any other threat.