Asian Carp May Have Breached Barrier For Lake

[Britbillsfan]

Back in the 70's a friend of mine used to keep piranha in his aquarium in his apartment in Lackawanna. Well they died, so he put them in the freezer. Being a clown he thaws them out and takes them down to the Buffalo small boat harbor and calls the paper. Says he just caught a piranha with a rod and reel-the paper[i guess Buffalo evening news] runs this big time. Front page, with many biologists giving their thoughts of why piranhas Had gotten to lake Erie, and how it made sense to them.

Week later the lab says"by the way, that was a frozen fish"

Funny guy. Around these parts people who want to make a splash news wise make crop circles (or crop weird geometric shapes if they are feeling particularly creative) and then laugh at the idiots who come to look at the 'proof' of UFOs.

[ExiledInIllinois]

I guess they are going ahead with poisoning the whole river. It will be the largest fis kill in Illinois history, some 200,000 pounds of fish are expected to be taken. Right now the there is safety zone set up from the lower end of our lock to six miles down stream where they are also netting... No vessels are allowed to move in this area till further notice. Everything has been haulted... Commercial shipping and the national economy is losing about $350,000 a day... Started at 0800 this morning.

 

They found one (Asian/silver carp) around Lockport, IL (second lock down on the Illinois Waterway from Lake Michigan) about 40 miles for the Lake.

 

 

Scientists, biologists from all the Great Lakes states and ONT and QUE are here... Not sure when we will open?

 

It will be quite interesting if and when the fish make it to the Lakes... Some are almost a 100 pounds and jump out of the water and can kill a person on a boat, jetski, or what not.

 

I am not sure if I posted this... Check this out!

 

 

[ExiledInIllinois]

Update:

 

Technically we are still "open" but just not locking boats... I guess that makes us "closed."

 

They just took a TXT pool on Fox local news:

 

Should they close the locks to stop the spread of the Asian carp? I guess they don't realize the lock leaks and fish can swim around the leaky seals.

 

Oh well... I just wish they would have done this in the middle of pleasure boat season... About 30,000 pleasure boats transit annually.

 

Commercial shipping is squealling like a stuck pig right about now.

[/dev/null]

They just took a TXT pool on Fox local news:

 

EII citing Fox News

 

Somewhere in heaven Jesus just broke the 7th seal

[ExiledInIllinois]

EII citing Fox News

 

Somewhere in heaven Jesus just broke the 7th seal

 

LOCAL news!

 

Can't wait for the mouthbreeders to chime in... The suspense is killin' me!

 

I should be on my cell texting a 1,000 times!

[ExiledInIllinois]

The populace has spoken, to closing:

 

69% Yes

31% No

 

Now another question... There are two ways to get out to Lake Michigan, the other way is through the lock downtown at Chicago Harbor... What is stopping the fish from swimming straight and not turning right?

 

Actually, to clarify... The closure would be a minimum of 10 days so they can poison and fishkill the lower pool below the lock.

 

Commercial shipping is already saying that the lack of notice is gonna kill them. Expect a decision in a few days. Another note: during heavy ice season, shipping usually stops for about 2 weeks, depending on how severe the cold and if they can keep cutting ice.

 

More to come!

 

[DC Tom]

The populace has spoken, to closing:

 

69% Yes

31% No

 

Now another question... There are two ways to get out to Lake Michigan, the other way is through the lock downtown at Chicago Harbor... What is stopping the fish from swimming straight and not turning right?

 

Actually, to clarify... The closure would be a minimum of 10 days so they can poison and fishkill the lower pool below the lock.

 

Commercial shipping is already saying that the lack of notice is gonna kill them. Expect a decision in a few days. Another note: during heavy ice season, shipping usually stops for about 2 weeks, depending on how severe the cold and if they can keep cutting ice.

 

More to come!

 

 

Let the commercial shipping suffer. Letting the asian carp get into the lakes is a bigger economic disaster.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Another concern that I was wondering is what effect will it have on the eagles roosting in this neck of the woods come January and February... Just recently (last few years), eagles have made a return, even within miles of known SuperFund sites... Will the fishkill effect them? I know the posion (rotenone) will be used.

 

Rotenone

A recent study linking rotenone – a pesticide with a ‘natural’ image, commonly used in organic farming and gardening – to Parkinson’s disease, has increased demand for a level playing field in the safety assessment of pesticides. The current regulatory system, designed for synthetic agrochemicals, impedes research into, and registration of, least toxic, relatively benign pest control substances...

 

...Water

Rotenone is highly toxic to fish: most values for the 96 hour LC50 (lethal concentration required to kill half the test organisms) for different fish species and for daphnids (water fleas) lie in the range of 0.02 to 0.2 mg/litre. If used as a piscicide, it may also cause a temporary decrease in numbers of other aquatic organisms(40).

There is considerable controversy over the use of rotenone to kill non-game fish in water body management areas. One study found that the practice has a substantially harmful effect on biodiversity, in which several populations of the native fish showed negligible signs of recovering stocks, while populations of all exotic species are up(41)...

 

 

 

 

Rotenone, Fact Sheet

 

Supposedly, it just hurts the fish.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Let the commercial shipping suffer. Letting the asian carp get into the lakes is a bigger economic disaster.

 

 

 

I tend to agree. It is winter anyway and most recreational craft are either south or put away for the winter... Still this is the season for the big commercial "push."

 

Yet closing still doesn't address the point about the leaky locks? What is the point if the lock leaks anyway... I know for a fact they swim around the seals... I have been saying it for years.

 

IMO, they would literally have to brick it to have any effect. Again, note this closure is so they don't stir up the rotenone and is not permanent.

 

The fish will get hear sooner or later... Yet, the biologists act like they can stop them totally and not let two in.

[Jim in Anchorage]

What is the big deal with these carp? Back in the 70's I used to go to 18 mile Creek in Hamburg during spring spawning and shoot em with a 30-06. They are not new.

[Frit0 Bandit0]

speaking of invasive species, Piranha have showed (shown?) up in a lake down here in Habana Norte

 

Like the Mexicanum illegatos alienus

[ExiledInIllinois]

What is the big deal with these carp? Back in the 70's I used to go to 18 mile Creek in Hamburg during spring spawning and shoot em with a 30-06. They are not new.

 

Yes they are new... You never had silver carp till the ponds in the south flooded in the 1990's and they spilled over to the MS river. These carp were brought in to the south in the 1970's to control algae on farmers ponds. in MS.

 

I guess the 70-100 pound ones eat everything and push all other fish out, killing them from lack of food. They also jump 5-6 feet out of the water when a boat goes by... The propulsion of the boat causes this action... Sometimes a 70-100 pounder will hit a person on a boat causing serious if not fatal injury.

 

I say this would make great entertainment for the recreational craft on the Great Lakes... I for one know that we do 10's of thousands of pleasure boats a year at the lock... The fear of gettig killed by one of these fish would surely slow them down and make my job as "traffic cop" easier. Same for the pesky speeding jetskis! I sure hate to be a waterskier... You better hit the gym an bulk up!

[ExiledInIllinois]

There is just no common sense with all this. Crazy enviromentalists and what not. Here is a good article that conveys my sentiment:

 

Yep, it's a boondoggle

 

TOXIC WASTE | Poisoning fish blows money and can't stop carp

 

December 6, 2009

BY DALE BOWMAN Staff Reporter

I get it. We all get it. Asian carp, bad; native species, good.

 

But chanting that mantra loud and long isn't enough cover to justify flinging more millions of dollars after earlier millions of bad dollars at the electric fish barrier at Romeoville.

 

I stick with what I called it from early on -- a boondoggle...

 

...I don't want Asian carp to reach the Great Lakes. No sane person does. But operating from that premise does not authorize government agencies to operate any scheme. And that is what is happening now.

 

The international hand-wringing over the threat of Asian carp reaching the Great Lakes is so intense that we are supposed to OK any cockamamie idea.

 

It's disingenuous at best, flat-out deceptive at worst...

 

...my personal favorite, ignoring the fact flooding on the nearby Des Plaines River could allow Asian carp to bypass the barrier...

 

...The latest hot item, tracking of eDNA, an inaccurate scientific process at this point but also an utterly fascinating one, shows Asian carp eDNA almost to the O'Brien Lock on the Cal-Sag.

 

There's a reason tracking of the eDNA makes a dramatic turn down the Cal-Sag and not up toward the South Branch of the Chicago River -- that's the direction the majority of the barge traffic goes.

 

In all this hand-wringing and dramatic draconian action, there has not been any extensive action related to barge traffic, even something as mundane as sterilizing ballast or the outside of the vessels before passing the electric barrier.

 

 

You can read on at the link above courtesy of the Chicago-Sun Times.

 

[ExiledInIllinois]

Here is an update on the carp thing... The US Supreme may rule tommorrow on what to do.

 

Here is an good Op-Ed which I side with. Basically trading one BIG IF (silver carp situation) ecological problem for a immediate and certain ecological disaster.

 

The Worry About Asian Carp

 

 

 

"...But while blocking the carp is an important priority, Michigan's lawsuit amounts to a tacit willingness to sacrifice billions of dollars in commerce, thousands of jobs and basic common sense -- all in pursuit of a solution that by no means is sure to work..."

 

 

"...Every year, billions of dollars worth of goods are moved along Illinois waterways, including much of the region's oil, cement, iron, coal and agricultural goods. Delays in the transport of these goods could result in higher electricity, gasoline and road construction costs, as well as layoffs by companies dependent on waterway shipments.

 

In 2008, more than 6.9 million tons of goods were moved through the Chicago and O'Brien locks, and 8,500 jobs are tied to port activities at these two locks. If the locks were closed, these millions of tons of goods would have to be transported by truck on the Chicago area's already congested roadways, increasing traffic and emissions and creating safety problems..."

 

 

"...According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, permanently closing the Chicago and O'Brien locks also would place much of metro Chicago at great risk of flood damage and could threaten the city's water supply..."

 

 

 

The tonnage represented above is a bit low (a few million tons). Also one has to factor in other transportation like 1,000's of empty cargo vessels that shuttle back and forth... Along with 10,000's of other vessels that transit the waterways.

[inkman]

Gotta taste better than camel.

Some parts of the camel are quite tasty, the toe for instance...