Tag: asian carp

Michigan Sen. Stabenow: Stop the Asian Carp

  • Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow says we need to move quickly to stop the threat of the Asian Carp on the Great Lakes' eco-system. (Photo: Kate Gardner, Flickr)

By now, you’ve probably heard all about the Asian Carp.

The invasive species is making its way up the Mississippi River and there’s concern that if the fish are able to get into the Great Lakes that they could drastically change the waters’ eco-system.

Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow and Michigan Republican Congressman Dave Camp introduced the Stop the Asian Carp Act last year. The legislation required the Army Corps of Engineers to create a plan to permanently separate the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan.

Transcript

Stopping the Carp

I spoke with Senator Stabenow this week and asked her where things stand with the Army Corps of Engineers’ plan. “The Army Corps of Engineers is working on a plan to give us specific recommendations on how to separate the waters… The problem is they say they won’t have this done until 2015. And, so, what we’re trying to do is push them to get this done much quicker,” Stabenow explains.

The Mississippi River: Not the only entry point for the Carp

A lot of attention has been paid to the Mississippi River as the main entry point where the Carp could get into the Great Lakes. But, Stabenow explains, “We also, now, are looking more broadly than just the Illinois River and the Mississippi River going into Lake Michigan. We’ve found that there have been some fish seen going across Indiana – in the Wabash River. At certain times, during the year, it connects to the Maumee River in Ohio and then actually goes into Lake Erie. And, so, this is a real challenge for us. There is, I believe, nineteen different tributaries and ways to get into the Great Lakes – that’s my biggest worry.”

Chicago shipping interests

Recently, we’ve been hearing more about the idea of permanently separating the waterways rather than a temporary solution. “I believe that we ought to be closing the [Chicago] locks until we get to a permanent solution. But, there is a lot of pushback from Illinois and Chicago,” Stabenow says. Those who work in commercial shipping in Chicago are against the idea of closing the locks. They say it would hurt their multi-million dollar business interests. “Personally, I’d say the other side’s interests are – not that we don’t respect them – but they’re small in terms of economic impact compared to what could happen having the fish go into the Great Lakes.

How to pay for it?

A question remains regarding closure of the waterways: who would pay for a permanent solution?  

“No one knows exactly how much it would cost to shut down the Chicago shipping canals and replace them with something else. But, the price-tag would be big, it could run into the billions of dollars, “Rick Pluta, Lansing Bureau Chief for the Michigan Public Radio Network explains.

Michigan Republican Congressman Dave Camp, Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee told Pluta, “I think there’s enough money certainly in the Great Lakes Restoration Fund that we could use to help with that problem.”

As Pluta explains, the Great Lakes Restoration Fund is used for, “Great Lakes cleanup, dredging and pollution prevention. Camp’s idea could divert funding from those purposes. But, environmentalist groups say restoring a physical separation of the two water systems, and eliminating the danger of non-native species back and forth between them, just might be worth it."

Replumbing Chicago to Keep Carp Out

  • These fish get big. They eat a lot, and if they get into the Great Lakes, people worry they'll swallow up the food web. (Photo by the USFWS)

You might recall that Michigan got a kind of asian carp scare a few weeks back. Biologists found one asian carp near Chicago, past an electric barrier that was supposed to keep them away from Lake Michigan. They worry if carp make it to the Great Lakes and rivers in Michigan, they could crowd out native fish. Congress worries the barrier might not be enough and it wants a more permanent solution. Shawn Allee reports that won’t happen anytime soon.

“Eco-Sep” – The Corps of Engineers’ Study

Brush up on your Asian Carp Knowledge

More on the Electric Barriers

Transcript

Joel Brammeier’s with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, an advocacy group. When I meet him, I expect him to be completely freakin’ out, since just a few weeks ago biologists found one live Asian carp on the Great Lakes side of the electric carp barrier. That’s the, um, wrong side of the barrier, since we want Asian carp to stay on the other side, the side closer to the Mississippi. Anyway, Brammeier’s is either a good actor, or maybe he actually feels OK, since now other people, the right people, are freakin’ out, too. Those would be people in Congress.

“We’ve seen over the past few months, more energy devoted to predicting and preventing a crisis to the Great Lakes than I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Brammeier says Congress doubts that electric barriers, poisons, or other gadgets will keep the carp out of Lake Michigan for good, so there’s talk about the mack daddy of Asian carp prevention: hydrological separation. This just means cutting off canals that connect Lake Michigan to rivers that head west. That’d make it impossible for carp to swim to the Lake.

“I think what folks are realizing now is that the only way to achieve that is physical separation between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. That’s easy to say, but it’s incredably difficult to conceptualize how that happens.”

Brammeier says the good news is that back in 2007, Congress already asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to figure all this out. The bad news is that the study’s moving too slow for Congress. The Army Corps was planning to finish its proposal in, say, five years. Tomorrow, a U.S. Senate committee will debate asking the Corps to speed things up. They want the study finished in less than two years.

“Twelve to eighteen months with the right people, the right funding and leadership strikes me as a generous amount of time to get the answers we need.  It’s simply a matter of prioritization.”

“To do that in 18 months in my and my team’s opinion is not a reasonable assumption.”

This is Dave Wethington. He’s in charge of the study for the Army Corps of Engineers. Wethington says the real issue isn’t whether the Corps can propose some way of separating Lake Michigan from rivers that head west. He says it can do that. It’s that that there’s a lot to consider.

“What kind of impacts could there be to commercial shipping, passenger boats, recreational boats. What kind of flood risk could there be, to the Chicago area specifically.”

None of this is enough for some Michigan congressmen. Representative Dave Camp is from the 4th district.

“The problem is that it’s taking far too long. This will speed that up. What we’re trying to bring is this sense of urgency to the problem that, frankly, the bureacrats don’t get.”

Camp admits even if he gets his study eighteen months from now, he’d still have a problem. Re-jiggering the water canals around Chicago won’t be cheap, and there’d probably be a fight over that, too. Still, he says he’d rather have that fight sooner rather than later. After all, we might still have time to stop the carp’s invasion, but we’re pressing our luck if we wait too long.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

By the way, we still don’t know where that carp that was caught beyond the electric barrier came from.  Scientists are using DNA tests to figure out whether it just swam through the barrier or whether someone released it into the wild. Biologists say that happens from time to time.

That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Live Animal Import Laws

A recent report accuses the federal government of failing to take simple, inexpensive steps that could reduce the risk of live animal imports. Zebra mussels, Asian carp, and pets that get loose, such as Burmese pythons in Florida, hurt native wildlife and can damage the nation’s economy. Lester Graham talked with Peter Jenkins, one of the authors of the report issued by the Defenders of Wildlife. Jenkins says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is one of the agencies that needs to do a better job screening for invasive species:

Transcript

A recent report accuses the federal government of failing to take simple, inexpensive steps that could reduce the risk of live animal imports. Zebra mussels, Asian carp, and pets that get loose, such as Burmese pythons in Florida, hurt native wildlife and can damage the nation’s economy. Lester Graham talked with Peter Jenkins, one of the authors of the report issued by the Defenders of Wildlife. Jenkins says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is one of the agencies that needs to do a better job screening for invasive species:


Peter Jenkins: They’re charged with protecting native species. They’re charged with enforcing the
Endangered Species Act, which is an important part of this issue because these non-
native species threaten our native species, including threatening endangered species in
many cases.


Lester Graham: In the past, the US Fish & Wildlife Service has been accused of being too
slow to act, even when a problem is pointed out. Would the regulation changes you’re
talking about help speed that process?


PJ: Well, Congress would have to agree to commit more resources to the agency…I mean,
there is only one person, believe it or not, only one person whose job is to assess species
to be listed under that law to keep out of the country. Obviously, we need more than one,
we need some qualified professionals working this area. We don’t need millions and
millions of dollars, but we do need a significant increase, probably five or six or up to ten
professional staff looking closely at these imported animals to assess whether we’re
gonna have problems and which ones need to be restricted.


Now, how’s that gonna be paid for? Well, the industries that are bringing these species in
and that want to benefit from the import trade, whether it be pet or live animals or
biomedical testing or zoos or what have you…Those people bringing these species in
clearly should carry some of the cost of what they’re bringing in and in that way, the
taxpayers don’t get burdened too much.


LG: As you’ve mentioned, this is as much an economic problem as it is an environmental
problem. Why haven’t the dollars and sense of this issue really had an impact on the
politics behind making sure that we can restrict this kind of trade?


PJ: Well, that’s a great question and defenders of wildlife did do a white paper on the
economic impact of animal imports trade. The reason is very simple…the people who
benefit do not suffer the cost when these things go wrong. That is to say, the costs are
suffered by the public in terms of disease or invasive species concern or pests, so these
costs are externalized or passed on to the general public and it’s the taxpayers in the end
who wind up having to pay the costs. On the whole, these species that are brought in,
non-native species, are brought in for the pet trade…That’s by far the biggest reason that
species are brought in. That’s basically a luxury item, that’s not an essential item. Those
that benefit from luxury items should bare the cost.


LG: Now, nature seems to eventually cope with many of these exotic species, even the
invasive species to one degree or another and some people would say that this biological
pollution is nearly impossible to prevent so why fight the inevitable?


PJ: Uh, I don’t buy that argument at all. It’s like saying diseases are natural and people are
going to eventually cope with diseases, so why bother trying to prevent diseases? I mean,
we do it because we want to protect certain values. We want to protect our native species,
we want to protect human health, we want to protect the health of our livestock. Of
course we need to be protective and have adequate standards. I mean, we don’t need to be
operating under a law that was written in 1900 just because some people think it’s futile
to try to deal with this issue…We could cope with it.


HOST TAG: Peter Jenkins was one of the authors of a Defenders of Wildlife report calling on the government to do a better job of screening live animal imports. He spoke with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham. The report is available at www.defenders.org.

Related Links

Invasive Species at the Aquarium

  • Asian carp are one of the invasive species featured in the exhibits in your local museums. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)

Big, public aquariums spend a lot of money to make fish look like they’re at home in the wild. But lately some aquariums are showing fish that are out of place. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee looks at one aquarium’s effort to give them the spotlight, too:

Transcript

Big, public aquariums spend a lot of money to make fish look like
they’re at home in the wild, but lately some aquariums are showing fish
that are out of place. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee looks at one aquarium’s
effort to give them the spotlight, too:


The federal government’s spending millions to keep Asian Carp out of
the Great Lakes. Biologists worry Asian Carp could devastate the lakes’
ecosystem. Recently, though, several carp were brought within sight of
the Great Lakes, and biologists are happy about it.


Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium is on the shore of Lake Michigan. It’s
holding an exhibit of Asian Carp and other alien invasive species.


Curator Kurt Hettinger captured the aquarium’s carp during a trip on an
Illinois river.


“They’re literally jumping, sometimes over the bow of the boat,
sometimes smacking into the side of the boat. I just looked behind me
and was amazed to see all these fish jumping in the wake of the boat, and
to this day, I’m still stunned by this.”


And Hettinger’s more than just stunned. He’s worried.


Asian Carp are an invasive species, basically … pests that crowd out
native fish, and that river where he caught them hooks up to Lake
Michigan.


Again, Asian carp haven’t made it to the Great Lakes, but more than one
hundred and sixty other invasive species have arrived and are breeding
quickly.


One example’s the zebra mussel. At first, scientists worried about how
much money it could cost us. Zebra mussels multiply so fast they can
block pipes that carry cooling water to power plants. But now, we know
the zebra mussel’s disrupting the lakes’ natural food chain.


In other words, invasive species are a huge economic and ecological
nuisance. That’s why the Shedd Aquarium started the exhibit.


“The public I think has seen enough stories about the damages and the
spread and the harmfulness, but those stories are not very often coupled
with solutions.”


That’s ecologist David Lodge. He says the exhibit tries to show how
people spread these species around. Lodge points to one exhibit tank. It
looks like a typical backyard water garden. It’s decked out with a small
fishpond, water lilies, even a little fountain shaped like an angel. It looks
pretty innocent, but Lodge says plants and fish you buy for your own
water garden could be invasive species.


“All those plants and animals that are put outside, then have an
opportunity to spread. Now, it doesn’t happen very often, but with the
number of water gardens, it happens enough so that they are a serious
threat to the spread of species.”


Birds or even a quick flood could move seeds or minnows from your
garden to a nearby lake or river.


The Shedd Aquarium’s not alone in spotlighting invasive species.
Several aquariums and science museums are also getting on board. For example one in
Florida shows how invasive species have infested the Everglades.


Shedd curator George Parsons went far and wide for inspiration.


“I was in Japan last year when we were planning this, and I just
happened to stumble across one of their aquariums and they had an
invasive species exhibit, except that they were talking about large mouth
bass and blue gill. You know, something that is our natives. So, it was
kind of ironic to see that out there. It was kind of neat.”


Like us, the Japanese take invasive species seriously. Back in 1999 the
humble Midwestern Blue Gill created a national uproar. Turns out, they
had taken over ponds throughout the Emperor’s palace, and how did the
bluegill get to Japan?


Probably as a gift from a former Chicago mayor. Apparently, the mayor
thought blue gill might make nice sport fishing in Japan. It was an
innocent mistake, but it’s just the kind of mishap biologists want all of us
to avoid from now on.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

President’s Budget Cuts Great Lakes Programs

The President’s proposed budget calls for big boosts in military and homeland security spending. And deep cuts to many domestic programs. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports, the Great Lakes are getting their share of cuts too:

Transcript

The President’s proposed budget calls for big boosts in military and
homeland security spending. And deep cuts to many domestic programs.
As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports, the
Great Lakes are getting their share of cuts too:


Several groups are calling the President’s budget a net loss for the Great
Lakes.


A fund that helps states update their outdated sewage treatment plants is
slated to get one of the biggest cuts. Programs that protect fisheries from
the destructive sea lamprey would also get cut back.


Andy Buchsbaum directs the Great Lakes office of the National Wildlife
Federation.


“We knew that it was going to be a tight budget year, but it really was pretty
shocking to see the level of cuts in key Great Lakes programs. Now
there were some programs that went up but by and large across the board
the programs were severely cut, in things that are just critical.”


One action Buchsbaum says is critical is stopping the Asian carp from
getting into the Great Lakes. Right now, there’s no federal funding for an
electric barrier designed to keep the invasive carp out.


It’s now up to Congress to decide whether to go through with these
proposed cuts.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Congress Rejects Carp Barrier Funding

The Asian Carp is a big eater… and it’s moving closer to
the Great Lakes. Great Lakes states are hoping to stop the carp with electric barriers on the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports… a Congressional committee voted against operating money for the barriers:

Transcript

The Asian Carp is a big eater, and it’s moving closer to the Great Lakes.
Great Lakes states are hoping to stop the carp with electric barriers on the
Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams reports a Congressional committee voted against operating
money for the barriers:


It’s estimated the Asian Carp is about 20 miles away from Lake Michigan.
Right now there’s a temporary electric barrier standing in its way, and the
Army Corps of Engineers is building a second, stronger barrier. Great Lakes
states are looking to Congress for money to operate the carp barriers, but a House-Senate
conference committee recently voted against any funding for them. Without federal funding the
state of Illinois will have to come up with the hundreds of thousands of dollars to operate and
maintain the barriers.


Marc Gaden is with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.


“We think that this is actually a national problem. The carp escaped from the
southern United States and have been making their way northward and have been causing
destruction on their whole path, so this is something that’s more than just
a Great Lakes or even a state of Illinois issue.”


Gaden says two additional bills before Congress could provide money to
operate the barriers, but he says the carp might move faster than either of
those bills.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Ten Threats: The Earliest Invader

  • A bridge for a river... this portion of the Erie Canal crossed the Genesee River via an aqueduct in Rochester, NY. This photo was taken around 1914. (From the collection of the Rochester Public Library Local History Division)

The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” is looking first at alien invasive species. There are more than 160 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin. If they do environmental or economic harm, they’re called invasive species. There are estimates that invasive species cost the region billions of dollars a year. Different species got here different ways. David Sommerstein tells us how some of the region’s earliest invaders got into the Lakes:

Transcript

We’re bringing you an extensive series on Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is guiding us through the reports:


“The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” is looking first at alien invasive species. There are more than 160 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin. If they do environmental or economic harm, they’re called invasive species. There are estimates that invasive species cost the region billions of dollars a year. Different species got here different ways. David Sommerstein tells us how some of the region’s earliest invaders got into the Lakes:


If the history of invasive species were a movie, it would open like this:


(Sound of banjo)


It’s 1825. Politicians have just ridden the first ship across the newly dug Erie Canal from Buffalo to New York.


(Sound of “The Erie Canal”)


“I’ve got an old mule, and her name is Sal. Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal…”


Chuck O’Neill is an invasive species expert with New York Sea Grant.


“At the canal’s formal opening, Governor DeWitt Clinton dumped a cask of Lake Erie water; he dumped that water into New York Harbor.”


Meanwhile, in Buffalo, a cask of Hudson River water was triumphantly poured into Lake Erie.


“In a movie, that would be the flashback with the impending doom-type music in the background.”


(Sound of ominous music)


It was an engineering and economic milestone, but a danger lurked. For the first time since glaciers carved the landscape twelve thousand years ago, water from the Hudson and water from the Great Lakes mixed.


(Sound of “Dragnet” theme)


Enter the villain: the sea lamprey. It’s a slimy, snake-like parasite in the Atlantic Ocean. It sucks the blood of host fish.


Within a decade after the Erie Canal and its network of feeders opened, the sea lamprey uses the waterways to swim into Lake Ontario. By the 1920’s and 30’s, it squirms into the upper Lakes, bypassing Niagara Falls through the Welland Canal.


What happens next is among the most notorious examples of damage done by an invasive species in the Great Lakes. By the 1950’s, the sea lamprey devastates Lake trout populations in Lake Superior. Mark Gaden is with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.


“They changed a way of life in the Great Lakes basin, the lampreys. They preyed directly on fish, they drove commercial fisheries out of business, the communities in the areas that were built around the fisheries were impacted severely.”


The sea lamprey wasn’t the only invader that used the canals. Canal barges carried stowaway plants and animals in their hulls and ballast. In the mid-1800’s, the European faucet snail clogged water intakes across the region. The European pea clam, purple loosestrife, marsh foxtail, flowering rush – all used the canal system to enter the Great Lakes.


Chuck O’Neill says the spread of invasive species also tells the tale of human transportation.


“If you look at a map, you can pretty much say there was some kind of a right-of-way – railroad, canal, stageline – that was in those areas just by the vegetation patterns.”


Almost one hundred invasive species came to the Great Lakes this way before 1960. O’Neill says every new arrival had a cascading effect.


“Each time you add in to an ecosystem another organism that can out-compete the native organisms that evolved there, you’re gradually making that ecosystem more and more artificial, less and less stable, much more likely to be invaded by the next invader that comes along.”


(Sound of “Dragnet” theme)


The next one in the Great Lakes just might be the Asian Carp. It’s swimming up the Illinois River, headed toward Lake Michigan. Cameron Davis directs the Alliance for the Great Lakes.


“If this thing gets in, it can cause catastrophic damage to the Great Lakes, ‘cause it eats thirty, forty percent of its body weight in plankton every day, and plankton are the base of the food chain in the Great Lakes.”


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has installed an electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that might stop the carp. But as long as the canals around the region remain open for shipping and recreation, it’s likely more invaders may hitch a ride or simply swim into the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Hidden Costs of Invasives

  • Foreign ships like this one from Cypress are known as "Salties" around the Great Lakes. These ships are responsible for bringing aquatic invasive species into the Lakes, and we're all paying a price. (Photo by Mark Brush)

In looking at these threats to the Great Lakes, almost everyone we surveyed agreed the worst threat was alien invasive species. Shipping goods in and out of the Great Lakes has helped build the major cities on the Lakes. But shipping from foreign ports has brought in unwanted pests. Zebra mussels are probably the most infamous, but there are more than 160 aquatic species that have invaded the Lakes and changed them, almost always for the worse. So why can’t we keep them out?

Transcript

Today we begin an extensive series called “Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide through this series:


In looking at these threats to the Great Lakes, almost everyone we surveyed agreed the worst threat was alien invasive species. Shipping goods in and out of the Great Lakes has helped build the major cities on the Lakes. But shipping from foreign ports has brought in unwanted pests. Zebra mussels are probably the most infamous, but there are more than 160 aquatic species that have invaded the Lakes and changed them, almost always for the worse. So why can’t we keep them out?


Well, let’s say I import widgets.


(Sound of widgets dropping into a cup)


I’ve been getting widgets from somewhere in Asia, but I found out I could get widgets from an eastern European company for a dollar-a-widget cheaper. The factory there can ship them directly to my warehouse in Great Lakes City, USA by ship across the Atlantic and into the Great Lakes.


Pretty good deal. I get good widgets, the shipping costs are cheaper, my profits go up, and it means cheaper widgets at the retail level. Everybody wins, right?


Well, the ship that brought the widgets also brought an alien invasive species that stowed away in the ship’s ballast. A critter that’s native to eastern European waters is now wreaking havoc on the Great Lakes ecosystem.


Aquatic alien invasive species that have invaded the Great Lakes now cost the economy an estimated five billion dollars a year. Five billion dollars of what’s considered biological pollution.


So, who’s paying the price?


Cameron Davis is with the environmental group Alliance for the Great Lakes.


“Unfortunately, in most instances, who pays for those hiddens costs are you and me. We pay for our water agencies to have to clean zebra mussels out of their pipes, we pay our agencies through taxes to have to keep Asian Carp out of the Chicago River, we pay through our taxes in any number of ways to try to fight these invaders.”


So right now, taxpayers and utility ratepayers – even those who never bought a widget and never will – are paying the price. Davis says that’s just not right.


“One of the things we need to do is make sure that those ships are paying full cost for everything that they bring, not just the widgets, but the stowaways like the zebra mussels, things like that that they have on board.”


So, why target the ships?


Dennis Schornack chairs the U.S. Sector of the International Joint Commission. The IJC is a bi-national agency that monitors a water quality agreement between the U.S. and Canada. Schornack says that’s the way it usually works: the polluters pay.


“The cost of the impact of these unwanted creatures is something that’s not baked into the price charged for the widgets. So, somewhere that external cost needs to be captured back into the price. The ship owners themselves are the likely target to pay for this through a permitting fee which, of course, they will pass on to their customers, the people who made the widgets.”


So all of us who buy widgets end up paying a little more, but paying permits and fees could cost shippers more than they can afford. George Kuper is with the Council of Great Lakes Industries. Kuper says he understands the first impulse is to make the shippers pay.


“The problem with that, of course, is the shippers were already close to non-economic as a method of transportation, which puts us right up against an environmental challenge because shipping is by far the most environmentally un-intrusive method of moving large amounts of materials.”


Kuper says using other methods of transportation such as trains or trucks to move that cargo from East Coast ports might burn more fuel and cause more pollution.


But of all the shipping on the Great Lakes, only six percent of the tonnage is carried on ocean-going vessels. The rest is transported on Great Lakes carriers that never leave the lakes and don’t bring in new invasives. So, the question is this: is that six percent of cargo worth the damage that aquatic invasive species cost each year.


Many experts say there is a fairly simple answer to all of this. Technology is available for cargo ships to eliminate invasives from their ballast tanks. Requiring those ships to use that technology would likely add some to the cost of every widget, but supporters of the idea say it would greatly reduce the environmental cost to the Lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Predicting New Invaders

  • Some say it's only a matter of time before the Asian Carp enters the Great Lakes. (Photo courtesy of the USFWS)

More than 160 kinds of foreign creatures are in the Great Lakes right now, and every few months, a new one finds its way into the Lakes. Those invasive species are considered the number one problem by the experts we surveyed. The outsiders crowd out native species and disrupt the natural food chain, and it’s likely more will be coming. Zach Peterson reports scientists are putting a lot of time and effort into figuring out which new foreign creatures might next invade the Great Lakes:

Transcript

There are new problems for the Great Lakes on the horizon. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide in a series that explains that new invasive species are one of the Ten
Threats to the Great Lakes:


More than 160 kinds of foreign creatures are in the Great Lakes right now, and every few months, a new one finds its way into the Lakes. Those invasive species are considered the number one problem by the experts we surveyed. The outsiders crowd out native species and disrupt the natural food chain, and it’s likely more will be coming. Zach Peterson reports scientists are putting a lot of time and effort into figuring out which new foreign creatures might next invade the Great Lakes:


(Sound of boat motor)


Jim Barta is a charter boat captain just above Lake Erie on the Detroit River. He says over the last decade, zebra mussels and other foreign species have altered the habitat of the walleye he fishes for.


Water that once had a brownish hue is now clear. That’s because Zebra mussels have eaten the algae and plankton that used to cloud the water, and that means Barta’s boat is no longer invisible to the fish he aims to hook.


“You could catch the fish a little closer to the boat because they weren’t as spooked by the boat. They weren’t as afraid of what was taking place.”


So Barta had to rethink his tactics. He now casts his lines out further, and he’s changed lures to continue catching walleye.


But there are other problems the zebra mussel is causing. Eating all the plankton means it’s stealing food at the bottom of the food chain. And, that affects how many fish survive and how much the surviving fish are able to grow.


Anthony Ricciardi is trying to help Barta, and other people who rely on a stable Great Lakes ecosystem. He’s an “invasion biologist” at McGill University in Montreal.


Ricciardi looks for evidence that can predict the next non-native species that might make it’s way into the Great Lakes. He says species that have spread throughout waterways in Europe and Asia are prime candidates to become Great Lakes invaders.


“If the organism has shown itself to be invasive elsewhere, it has the ability to adapt to new habitats, to rapidly increase in small numbers, to dominate ecosystems, or to change them in certain ways that change the rules of exsistence for everything else, and thus can cause a disruption.”


Ricciardi says most aquatic invasive species are transported to North America in the ballast tanks of ocean freighters. Freighters use ballast water to help balance their loads. Some of the foreign species hitchhike in the ballast water or in the sediment in the bottom of the ballasts.


Ships coming from overseas release those foreign species unintentionally when they pump out ballast water in Great Lakes ports. Ricciardi says one of the potential invaders that might pose the next big threat to the Great Lakes is the “killer shrimp.” Like the Zebra Mussel, it’s a native of the Black Sea.


“And it’s earned the name killer shrimp because it attacks invertebrates, all kinds of invertebrates, including some that are bigger than it is. And it takes bites out of them and kills them, but doesn’t necessarily eat them. So, it’s not immediately satiated. It actually feeds in a buffet style: it’ll sample invertebrates, and so it can leave a lot of carcasses around it.”


Ballasts on cargo ships aren’t the only way foreign species can get into the Lakes. Right now, scientists are watching as a giant Asian Carp makes its way toward Lake Michigan. It’s a voracious eater and it grows to a hundred pounds or more.


This non-native fish was introduced into the Mississippi River, when flooding allowed the carp to escape from fish farms in the South. A manmade canal near Chicago connects the Mississippi River system to the Great Lakes.


If it gets past an electric barrier in the canal, it could invade. Many scientists believe it’s just a matter of time. Another invasive, the sea lamprey, also got into the Great Lakes through a manmade canal.


But, researchers don’t usually know when or where an invader will show up. David Reid is a researcher for the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor. He says they can’t predict the effect an invader will have when it arrives in its new ecosystem.


“That’s the problem. We don’t know when the next zebra mussel’s going to come in. We don’t know when the next sea lamprey type of organism is going to come in. Generally, if you look at the invasion history of the Great Lakes, you’re seeing about one new organism being reported probably about once every eight months.”


Knowing what the next invader might be could help biologists, fisheries experts, and fishermen know what to do to limit its spread. Invasional biologists hope that their work will help develop the most effective measures to limit harm to the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, I’m Zach Peterson.

Related Links

New Bill Aims to Ban Asian Carp Imports

  • A new bill would make the prevention of the spread of Asian carp a higher priority. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

A new bill in Congress aims to ban the importation and possession of a fish that threatens the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A new bill in Congress aims to ban the importation and
possession of a fish that threatens the Great Lakes. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports.


Biologists say if Asian carp ever get into the Lakes, the fish would do major
damage to aquatic life.


Even though the carp are already in some Midwest rivers, several states ban people from importing or having the fish. Wisconsin Republican Congress member Mark Green says the ban needs to be nationwide.


“There are some areas that don’t have Asian carp now. So by
banning the importation we at least hopefully stem the flow while we
take other steps.”


Steps like making sure a new publicly funded carp barrier is finished in a canal southwest of Chicago. A bill Green has introduced would add four types of Asian carp to a list of destructive species currently banned under federal law.


Green expects opposition from parts of the aquaculture industry. It’s generally thought that the Asian carp first entered Midwest rivers when they got away from fish farms during floods.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links