Obama Administration Fishes for a Solution to the Asian Carp Invasion

TIME magazine reported this week that the White House convened an "Asian Carp Summit" on Monday, because;

Asian carp are particularly dangerous. Native to China and parts of Southeast Asia, the freshwater fish have been cultivated for aquaculture for more than 1,000 years, often raised in submerged rice paddies. Catfish farmers in the U.S. imported Asian carp decades ago to eat up the algae in their ponds; the fish slowly escaped into the wild and have been making their way up the Mississippi River. They are eating machines; bighead carp can grow incredibly quickly and reproduce rapidly as well. "They just eat so much," says David Ullrich, executive director of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative. "They're like the locusts of the river."

Inevitably there is controversy over the battle plans that have been drawn for dealing with this challenge:

The governors of Michigan and Wisconsin..want the locks of the Chicago canal to be shut down immediately, to prevent the carp from ever gaining a finhold in the Great Lakes. But Illinois lawmakers argue that closing the canal would disrupt hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of shipping. A coalition of six Great Lakes states and the Canadian province of Ontario even sought an injunction last month from the Supreme Court to force an immediate shutdown of the canal; the court declined to issue the ruling but will hear briefs on the subject later this month.

The White House has taken action as well. On Monday, federal officials announced $78.5 million in funding to prevent the spread of Asian carp; plans include building new barriers between the Chicago canal and the Des Plaines River. (The carp may be able to bypass the existing electric barrier in the canal when water levels are high and the two waterways mix.)

The AP caught this story as well and is critical of the Obama administrations plan:

The strategy released by the Obama administration this week agrees only to conduct a long-range study of that idea, sic (shutdown the canal) which could take years. The government also refuses to shut down two navigational locks on Chicago waterways that could provide an easy pathway for the carp into the lakes, although it promises to consider opening them less often.

Instead, the plan outlines two dozen other steps, from strengthening an electric barrier designed to block the carp's advance to using nets or poisons to nab fish that make it through. That's an expensive gamble that may not keep enough carp out of the lakes to prevent an infestation.

The Asian Carp Summit cast a net over the situation, but it is still an open question whether the proposed solution will untangle the problem or not.

A University of Notre Dame biologist told the AP, "While we're all talking,the fish are swimming."

Do you have any professional/personal insight into the problem or the process for dealing with the issue, let us know?