US lawmakers: Speed up research to stop Asian carp

June 26, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

CHICAGO

Environmentalists have warned for years that it was just a matter of time before the invasive Asian carp broke through an electrical barrier meant to keep it from moving beyond Chicago- area shipping canals. But now that it’s happened, efforts to keep the voracious fish out of the Great Lakes are taking on new urgency.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said Friday that he and Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan will introduce a bill next week to speed up research on ways to permanently prevent the transfer of invasive species between the Mississippi River and Great Lakes watersheds.

The legislation would require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to complete research on so-called “hydrological separation” within 18 months, Durbin said. The Army Corps has said research could take up to five years.

The action comes after officials announced Wednesday that an Asian carp had been found for the first time beyond the barriers. Commercial fishermen landed the 3-foot-long, 20-pound bighead carp in Lake Calumet on Chicago’s South Side, about six miles from Lake Michigan.

“This could be a game changer, and we have to take it very seriously,” Durbin said Friday.

Asian carp can grow to as many as 4-feet long and weigh up to 100 pounds, and biologists fear the ravenous fish could decimate the lakes’ $7 billion fishing industry by gobbling plankton, a key link in the food chain that supports prized species such as salmon and walleye.

For decades, Bighead and silver carp — Asian species imported to cleanse fish farms and sewage plants in the Deep South — have been migrating toward the Great Lakes. Two electric barriers, which emit pulses to scare the carp away or give a jolt if they proceed, have been a last line of defense. The Army Corps plans to complete another one this year.

But environmentalists say the only long-term solution now is an ecological separation of the watersheds, which have no natural connections. They were linked more than a century ago with a series of canals and other waterways when engineers reversed the flow of the Chicago River.

But stopping the threat is impossible without speedy research from the Army Corps, said Joel Brammeier, president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

“Right now, we’re clutching in the dark, looking for solutions without information,” Brammeier said.

Others, though, including U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., said blocking the connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system might hurt the shipping industry and cause flooding. She said the current methods of netting, electric fishing and poisoning work well, and an alternative to permanent closure is possible.