The carp threat remains

The carp threat remains

Last week President Barack Obama met with a Great Lakes region delegation that included Govs. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Ted Strickland of Ohio, apparently to assure everyone that the U.S. government was taking appropriate and effective action to keep the Asian carp from colonizing the Great Lakes.

White House officials and representatives of agencies including the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA and the Coast Guard described an impressive array of present and potential responses to the carp threat:

Targeted removal of Asian carp in the Chicago Area Waterway System and other potential pathways through electro fishing, netting, and use of Rotenone, a fish poison.

Strengthening of the fish barrier system, including strengthening electric barriers, building physical barriers to prevent carp movement during flooding, and identifying and closing off smaller waterway connections to the Great Lakes.

Developing long-term biological controls such as Asian carp-specific poisons, methods to disrupt spawning and egg viability and sonic barriers.

That’s encouraging, and if all those strategies work, it may not be necessary to take more drastic action. But it should not be forgotten that at this point, the surest way to keep Asian carp from gaining a foothold in the Great Lakes is to sever the link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River basin, created by engineers in Chicago more than a century ago.

Powerful interests in the president’s hometown are vociferously opposed to that, but given the existential threat the carp represent to the Great Lakes’ ecology, it should not be taken off the table.