Obama administration's stand on carp criticizedBy Dan Egan of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Jan. 7, 2010President Barack Obama staked his claim as the Great Lakes president during the heat of the 2008 campaign when he pledged to pump billions of dollars into a restoration plan for the lakes while at the same time champion a "zero tolerance" policy for new invasive species.
That "zero" is starting to look like a political bull's-eye for conservationists and regional politicians critical of the Obama administration's decision Tuesday to oppose efforts by a coalition of five Great Lakes states to force Illinois and the Army Corps of Engineers to do more to protect Lake Michigan from what many fear is an imminent invasion of the jumbo carp that could ravage the Great Lakes' $7 billion fishery.
"It is inexcusable that the administration has decided to side with their political allies in the state of Illinois to protect the narrow interests of their state, while the rest of the Great Lakes region and federal taxpayers will be forced to deal with the carp entering the lakes," said Rep. Candice S. Miller (R-Mich.).
Conservationists who weeks ago were aglow over Obama's billion-dollar plan for the Great Lakes were in a different mood Wednesday. They said it all might mean money down the drain if the administration doesn't recognize the threat carp pose to the lakes and take - or at least not oppose - action to close some navigational locks considered the last thing standing between the carp and Lake Michigan.
"The Obama administration has miscalculated the threat Asian carp pose to the Great Lakes," said Andy Buchsbaum, regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Great Lakes Regional Center. "Without immediate action, an invasion of Asian carp will unravel many of the president's Great Lakes initiatives."
Diversion caseMichigan is leading the charge to reopen a decades-old Supreme Court case over Chicago's diversion of 2.1 billion gallons of water a day from Lake Michigan down the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.
Michigan, along with Wisconsin, Ohio, New York and Minnesota, hopes to sway the Supreme Court to reopen that case and issue an emergency injunction forcing the Army Corps to close some of the locks to keep the north-migrating fish from colonizing the Great Lakes via Chicago's manmade canal system.
The lawsuit names the State of Illinois, the Army Corps and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago as defendants, and it also seeks to force a permanent re-plumbing of the Chicago-area waterway system to once again separate Lake Michigan from the adjacent Mississippi River basin.
That natural separation was destroyed with the 1900 opening of the sewage-carrying Sanitary and Ship Canal.
But the defendants in the suit have no intention at this time to shut those locks. They contend that closing the structures could cripple the barge industry and result in flooding of the Chicago area if big rains hit; the locks are occasionally opened as safety valves to allow floodwaters to spill into Lake Michigan.
Illinois and the reclamation district also question whether an Asian carp invasion is even imminent. They point to water samples that have tested positive for fish DNA as the only evidence that the fish have breached an electric barrier on the canal and are now within about six miles of Lake Michigan.
Despite that DNA evidence, a week's worth of netting in the area last month yielded no Asian carp.
In its filing opposing the Michigan lawsuit, the State of Illinois claims the DNA research conducted by Notre Dame University biologist David Lodge has been "kept secret" and that the "nascent technology" has yet to undergo "the rigors of publication and peer review."
Lodge says it's nonsense that his science has somehow been kept secret, noting he has gone to great pains to walk the Army Corps and others through the steps he has taken to ensure his sampling systems work, and that the Environmental Protection Agency itself has stated it has a "high degree of confidence" in using his research for management decisions.
Richard Lanyon, boss of the reclamation district that manages much of the canal system, also doubts that the carp are necessarily a risk to the lakes.
Carp in Lake ErieHe notes that a handful of the fish have been found in Lake Erie in the past decade as evidence the fish might not be the monster the media, politicians and environmentalists have painted them to be.
Biologists, however, say the handful of fish found could have escaped from area fish farms during floods in the past decade, or perhaps they were dumped there after being purchased.
They say the fact that no juvenile fish have been found is a good sign that a reproducing population has not been established.
U.S. Geological Survey biologist Duane Chapman said it likely won't be known for years if the fish can thrive in the big cold lakes and their river tributaries, but it would be folly to assume they won't.
"It took 20 to 25 years for bighead and silver carp to begin the geometric population expansion phase in the Mississippi River basin," Chapman said. "I would expect that in the Great Lakes it would take as long or longer because the water is colder and the fish will take longer to mature."
Political issueGiven the controversial history of the Chicago diversion, this issue might well turn out to be more about politics than biology.
That became apparent with Tuesday's Supreme Court motion filed by Obama's solicitor general that sided with Obama's home state of Illinois. Elena Kagan doesn't think that the locks need to be closed and she said enough is already being done to protect the lakes from the fish.
The decision baffled Wayne State University law professor Noah Hall, who has his pulse on Great Lakes regional politics after his years of work to get the water export-blocking Great Lakes compact passed in 2008.
After reading the solicitor general's motion, he called the 53-page document "revisionist history."
"They'd have the Supreme Court believe the federal government has been doing much to protect the Great Lakes from invasive species, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth," he said.
Hall also guessed that there is much dissention among various federal agencies involved in managing the lakes.
Obama's handpicked Great Lakes czar Cameron Davis, after all, previously served as the president of the environmental group, Alliance for the Great Lakes. In 2006, he went on record in author Peter Annin's book "Great Lakes Water Wars" as challenging the wisdom of the way Chicago manages Lake Michigan water.
"I think the Chicago River diversion has gotten to the point of absurdity," he said.
Davis could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but Annin could, and he doesn't like the way things are shaping up for the Great Lakes.
He noted that the region spoke in one voice when it demanded tough laws to block new water diversions from the lakes two years ago, and it did the same last year when it voiced support for Obama's Great Lakes restoration program.
And now this.
"This one critter is potentially going to turn that extraordinary regional cooperation on its head," he said.
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