Block the Carp

Federal and state officials in Illinois this week outlined a plan for stepping up the multimillion-dollar war against invading Asian carp with an array of technologies ranging from an underwater camera to high-pressure "hydro guns" that repel the fish. These positive steps fall short of the best way to keep the invaders out of the Great Lakes: cutting off man-made connections between Chicago-area waterways and Lake Michigan.

Asian carp are considered a peril to the Great Lakes ecosystem and its $7.5-billion fishing industry. The Obama administration has pledged $47 million toward carp containment, but rejected even a temporary blockade of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal — the final link between the Mississippi River system and Great Lakes.

A $7-million monitoring and rapid response plan this summer will look for Asian carp at five locations beyond an underwater electronic barrier that's about 25 miles from Lake Michigan. Four other sections of the canal will be checked seasonally, officials said.

Reports on the Asian carp advance have been conflicting.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife official said there's no evidence of breeding Asian carp within 130 miles of Lake Michigan. Yet their DNA has been found in numerous spots between the electronic barrier and Lake Michigan. In addition, crews have landed 9,862 of the carp below the electronic barrier this spring, way more than the 6,082 caught in all of 2010, according an Illinois natural resources spokesman.

Part of the reason for an underwater camera and other such measures is speculation by researchers that pulses given off by the electronic barrier won't turn back juvenile fish that are just a few inches long. If carp are found beyond the barrier, officials said they'll hit that stretch of the waterway with an array of weapons including fish poison and nets.

A surer deterrent would be closing off the canal, as well as any other links between Illinois waterways and Lake Michigan, at least until researchers have clearer idea of what other measures will work best against the carp. Michigan and other Great Lakes states have learned a hard lesson about doing too little to keep out past invaders, such as lamprey and zebra mussels. Controlling them and offsetting their damage costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

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