New tests have begun at an underwater electric barrier that’s considered essential to keeping a bothersome invasive species out of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has the story:
Transcript
New tests have begun at an underwater electric barrier that’s considered essential to keeping a
bothersome invasive species out of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck
Quirmbach has the story:
A few months ago, a common carp fitted with a radio transmitter passed through an electric
barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. That barrier is just thirty miles from Lake
Michigan and is called the last line of defense for keeping the potentially damaging Asian carp
out of the Great Lakes. The common carp got through as a barge was passing over the barrier.
Chuck Shea is the Project Coordinator for the Army Corps of Engineers. He says researchers
want to see if barges limit the effectiveness of the electronic pulses.
“So we are going to do a study where we are actually renting barges and running them back and
forth through the barrier while measuring the strength of the electric field with a variety of
equipment to see if barges absorb or deflect the electric field and create a problem.”
Shea says the results may affect the design of a second barrier that researchers want to set up
downstream.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach in Romeoville, Illinois.