Army Corps Plans a "zone of chaos" to Protect Great Lakes from Asian Carp

The federal government is developing some unusual strategies to constrain this invasive species.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is taking some innovative, and perhaps unusual, steps to keep Asian carp (the silver and bighead carp in particular) from infesting the Great Lakes. From a report on Cleveland.com:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has an aquatic house of horrors planned for invasive Asian carp threatening the Great Lakes.

The gauntlet of irritation is part of a "layered defense" of Lake Michigan that the Corps is preparing to implement over the next several years to thwart the arrival of undesirable carp by way of Chicago-area rivers and canals.

If the noise won't drive them away, then perhaps the curtain of bubbles will. And if neither are successful then ideally a shot of electricity will do the trick.

The first part of this effort was just awarded a $225 million grant, and the federal government will ultimately spend close to $1 billion on the effort.

Corps officials and scientists are concerned that the Asian carp would crowd out native species within the Great Lakes ecosystem, including walleye and perch (which would be a significant blow to fishing in the region). And then there's this: "The silver carp provide an added danger because they are known to jump out of the water in response to boat motors and cause injuries to humans." (I see the makings of a great B-movie here.)

As for what the project will entail, here's more from the Cleveland.com report:

One of the planned deterrents will be speakers in the water that will emit noise designed to turn the fish away. Irons said researchers are still working on the right sounds. . . .

A second layer of deterrent will be a curtain of bubbles rising from an air-filled pipe along the bottom of the stream. It's expected that the bubbles will turn the fish away, said Andrew Leichty, project manager for the Corps, but they may also be used to extract tiny carp caught in the hydraulic currents created between two barges as they approach the lock.

Also, an electric barrier will be installed as part of the project's "increment two." It's expected to be most effective on larger carp. . . .

Yet another technique to be employed later in the project's development will be the ability to flush water downstream through the lock when boats pass through. The flushing would be designed to carry away any fish eggs or larvae floating in the water, Leichty said.

Concern about Asian carp is not new, but these efforts are. Nearly a decade ago Great Lakes states lost a legal effort to force the federal government to take more aggressive steps to stem the carp's spread, after trying to take their case to the Supreme Court.

Comments

[Brett Bellmore]

Ultimately going to prove futile. The only way to prevent the carp from ever making it into the Great Lakes would be to eradicate it in the rivers leading to the Great Lakes. Any other approach will ultimately fail in the end.

[Archibald Tuttle]

Half measures have a low probability of success.

Only rerouting of waters, in essence to create the equivalent of a continental divide, will protect the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes drain via the St. Lawrence River. The Illinois River and the Chicago canals drain to the Gulf of Mexico.

[Kevin Smith]

It wouldn’t be a problem were it not for the rerouting of waters. The Great Lakes washershed is not naturally connected to the Mississippi River watershed (where the carp lives) which is why ships have to go through a series of locks to transition from one to the other. Restoring the original flow of rivers and closing canals would solve the problem

[Brett Bellmore]

Where the carp lived. As Davie C notes below, too late to close the barn door, the barn is already empty. Which won’t stop the Army Corps of Engineers from nailing that door shut at great expense.

They would have gotten into the Great Lakes even if not for locks; It’s an Asian carp, no more native to the Mississippi river than the Great lakes, and would have arrived in the Great lakes in the same manner, and quite likely did.

[DaivdBehar]

The same measures should be taken against all other illegal aliens, who are toxic to our nation.

[David Welker]

What makes you so certain that these efforts are doomed to fail? It sounds like they have considered the problem from a lot of angles and are implementing a thorough plan. Are they missing a piece of the puzzle?

[Brett Bellmore]

It’s one of those “has to work every single time to work at all” solutions. Solutions of that nature always eventually fail.

[Davy C]

They’ve almost certainly *already* failed.

https://www.illinoisscience.org/2021/11/aquatic-invaders-threaten-the-great-lakes/

Despite its initial promise, concerning signs that some Asian Carp had made it through eventually emerged. In 2010, a bighead carp was caught only six miles from Lake Michigan. A 2012 study detected environmental DNA or eDNA, genetic material that is expelled into the environment, from Asian Carp in Lake Erie. The next year, eDNA was found in Lake Michigan, near Green Bay, Wisconsin. By 2014, eDNA from either silver or bighead carp had been found in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, indicating that Asian Carp had invaded waterways upstream of the Great Lakes.

[Bob from Ohio]

“implementing a thorough plan”

Noise and bubbles. Its a plan sure.

[Sarcastr0]

While I agree the horse has probably already left the barn, your reflexive contempt for the Army Corp comes is entirely an appeal to incredulity.

[Bob from Ohio]

Bubbles in water, no fish has ever ran into those before!

[Absaroka]

Fish, at least some of them, seem to view bubble walls as barriers. Marine mammals use this to corral them as a hunting strategy.

I’m not optimistic it will work – as Brett points out, you only need one pair of leakers. But if you are going to try, this may be a reasonable strategy.

[Brett Bellmore]

But if the carp are already in the Great lakes, it’s not reasonable to try, the effort is totally wasted.

[m4019597]

Not true. All it needs to do is be highly effective so that the invasive population decreases and naturally occurring fish increase.

[Brett Bellmore]

The only reason invasive species are ever a problem is that they out-compete the native species. If they can’t do that, occasional introductions don’t matter, they die out.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Not true. All it needs to do is be highly effective so that the invasive population decreases and naturally occurring fish increase.

Are you under the impression that Asian Carp were artificially introduced into U.S. waters in large numbers?

[Longtobefree]

“The first part of this effort was just awarded a $225 million grant, and the federal government will ultimately spend close to $1 billion on the effort.”

All to fight evolution.

“One of the planned deterrents will be speakers in the water that will emit noise designed to turn the fish away. Irons said researchers are still working on the right sounds. . . .”

May I suggest recordings of speeches made at national political party conventions?

[David Welker]

What does it mean to “fight evolution” and when is “fighting evolution” good and when is it bad?

[hobie]

You’ve gotta fight like hell!

[Titus PUllo]

And it will fail and cause any number of unintended consequences which more and more govt spending will be needed. Like covid, it is too late to stop. have to live with them now

[David Welker]

Your analogy seems off.

People try to treat COVID-19. When someone is hospitalized, the doctors don’t just shrug their shoulders and say it is too late to stop.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Your analogy seems off.

And your answer is an even worse analogy:

People try to treat COVID-19. When someone is hospitalized, the doctors don’t just shrug their shoulders and say it is too late to stop.

The purpose of treating a patient with Covid is to prevent/minimize harm to that patient, not to prevent spread of the disease (and therefor harm to others).

[Stephen Lathrop]

Since WilliamDouglas, has there been even one other justice on the Supreme Court who showed any apparent interest in ecology and the natural world? Given the career paths likely to lead to a court nomination, it is hard to imagine how that particular focus would ever get represented.

[David Welker]

Based on your definition of “apparent interest in ecology” (I am not so sure that justices are, in fact, generally uninterested in this topic) there has already been a justice who had such an interest. Why not another?

[captcrisis]

The existing fish should have standing to sue.

[CindyF]

Maybe the Asian carp identify as American Carp. Has anyone thought about that? Who are we to question their lived experience? First we discriminate against Asian students at Harvard and now against Asian fish in Michigan. Maybe SCOTUS can combine the cases.

[rsteinmetz]

I though we were supposed to be in favor of immigration for every fish.

[Moderation4ever]

I would suggest the money might be better spend in getting people to eat carp. This is an ongoing process and not likely to be stopped.

BTW – walleye and perch are cold water fish. The rising temperature of the lakes and rivers in the Great Lake States, caused by global climate change, is forcing these prized fish northwards. The carp and bass are filling in the void.

[Joe_dallas]

The additional warming in the Great Lakes due to global warming is trivial

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Alarmunists gotta stretch for anything no matter how implausible.

[Sarcastr0]

Trying to do something about global warming is communism?

Lame red-baiting.

[Moderation4ever]

Not just the Great Lakes but the lakes, rivers and streams in these states. The fact is the water is warming and the walleyes are moving north.

[Bob from Ohio]

Any article that says that?

Walleye stocks in Lake Erie are at record levels. If waters were warming, you would expect the population to decline.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I would suggest the money might be better spend in getting people to eat carp.

CEDAR PLANK CARP:
– Clean and scale one freshly-caught carp. Medium-sized works best.
– Season with salt, pepper, curry powder and cumin, applied to the scaled surface of the fish as a rub.
– Prepare a bread stuffing using butter, chopped celery, and dried cranberries.
– Stuff the cavity of the carp with the stuffing.
– Nail the prepared carp to a cedar plank long enough and broad enough to match the dimensions of the fish.
– Prop the plank close to a slow fire, roasting until the flesh visibly flakes.
– Remove the fish from the plank.
– Eat the plank. Discard the fish.

[WashRep]

Stephen, your planked carp recipe is well known throughout the midwest. When I was a kid those fish were called CRAP, not carp. I fished for them with a .22 pistol when I was 13-16 years old.

[John F. Carr]

The slow response reminded me of a sign I saw in a national wildlife refuge telling me not to disturb the invasive purple loosestrife. Do things the bureaucrats’ way or no way at all.

[A nerdy Fred]

“(I see the makings of a great B-movie here.)”

It could also be done as a horror film from the fish’s point of view.

“The world according to carp”.

[DWB]

They’ll have about as much luck controlling Asian carp as they have controlling Covid.

Also Asian carp? RACIST!!!!!

[ducksalad]

Can someone who’s sampled both the “invading” species and the native ones tell me how they rank in tastiness and edibility?

Need to know that in order to decide if there’s even a problem to be solved.

[Jmaie]

People don’t eat a lot of carp because it’s a bottom feeding fish, which spoils the taste. This can be ameliorated by placing the live fish in clean water for a couple of days, but it’s extra work.

[Brett Bellmore]

They also tend to be a bit on the bony side, which can make it a pain to eat them. We used to throw them back when I was a kid fishing on Lake St. Claire. Of course, fishing Lake St. Claire in the 60’s you could afford to throw back fish, if you hit a school of perch you’d make your limit in minutes.

I personally find carp a bit blah, (Think tilapia.) my favorite fresh water fish is actually pickerel. Which, looking it up, turns out to have been an invasive species where I was fishing for it, in Michigan!

[Noscitur a sociis]

I don’t eat much freshwater fish and I’ve never tried carp, but it seems to be pretty popular outside of the US, so it seems like it should be possible to make it palatable.

[Brett Bellmore]

It’s not bad tasting, it’s just kind of blah. Like I said, tastes about the same as tilapia, only bonier. Tilapia is OK, if you cook it right. It’s all in the sauce.

The US is about the only country where carp is looked down on as an eating fish, for some silly historical reason.

[CindyF]

Sounds as if the Army Corp of Engineers is racist as crap and should just cancel themselves.

[Cal Cetín]

Rename it the Ku Klux Karp and Congress will trip over itself to fund eradication programs.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

The jumping and hitting boaters in the face thing is a real problem. These carp can be forty pounds.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, I’ve seen videos of that going on, pretty scary.

[D.A]

I’ve always heard the Corps does things the way God would, if only He had the money.

[Goju]

WI solved the problem of lamprey eels getting into Lake Winnebago by sealing off one of the locks. Nothing gets past. A lot of boaters didn’t like the fact they could no longer cruise from Green Bay to Oshkosh but it would have cost millions a year to control the eels if they got into Winnebago. The canals in IL should be similarly sealed off.

Grew up in WI – a very German state – and have eaten common carp (known then as German carp) many times and many ways. Fried, baked, pickled, poached, etc. My personal favorite was smoked.

[Brett Bellmore]

That’s how I’d heard of it being eaten when I was a kid. But I got the impression from my dad that smoked carp was a low-class thing. Maybe with a racial element to it. We mostly ate perch.

[Michael Hardy]

A real solution would be a bounty on Asian Carp. We signaled that would be a solution several years ago. Asian Carp – It’s Time To Consider A $20 Bounty https://thumbwind.com/2017/05/19/asian-carp-bounty/