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Fight against Asian carps begins with prioritizing

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By Jim Morris, Contributing Writer 10:29 PM Saturday, July 9, 2011

I spent the entire morning last Thursday trying to listen to the greatest minds in the country involved with the fight to stop Asian carp from spreading into the Great Lakes.

Ohio hosted the quarterly meeting of the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee in Port Clinton, and several experts from federal and state agencies involved with the Asian carp issue reported on what has been done, what is being done and what will be done to keep the dreaded fish out of the Great Lakes.

There was a phone number I could call to listen in. Unfortunately, the communications were rather poor.

To Ray Petering — head of the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s fisheries division — the problem isn’t what’s being done, it’s the order in which the problem is being attacked.

“We need to deal with Chicago first,” Petering said after he left the meeting. “Until that door is closed, nothing else anybody does might mean anything. To me it’s a matter of prioritizing, and that is the biggest threat to the Great Lakes right now.”

The concern Petering and many others have is the Chicago Shipping Canal. As long as it remains open, the potential threat is large for carp to sneak through to Lake Michigan. If you close the canal, the carp have to find other ways to get through. That’s not impossible, but those ways probably would be easier to seal.

The problem, however, isn’t a matter of just closing the locks. The canal itself is a large economic factor for Chicago and the region. Stopping shipping through the canal likely would cost millions and plenty of jobs, too.

It’s a matter of weighing one dilemma against another. Shut down the canal and cause economic hardship or allow carp to get into the Great Lakes and cause what could only be considered a natural disaster.

“It would not just affect the region, but the whole country,” Petering observed.

I have not the space here to discuss the damages Asian carp do to a body of water. A place like the western basin of Lake Erie could be pretty much wiped out if Asian carp established a population there. It eventually would mean an end to sport and commercial fishing.

Officials of the Ohio and Indiana departments of natural resources have been concerned with an area near Fort Wayne that, if it floods, could allow Asian carp to migrate from the infested Wabash River near Fort Wayne into the Maumee River, which flows into Lake Erie.

Indiana officials have erected a 1,200-foot chain-link fence across Eagle Marsh, the area that could flood and allow the link between the rivers.

“It’s only a temporary solution,” Petering observed. “Personally, I would like to see earth moved or concrete barriers put in that would totally block them out.”

The problem is the fence keeps only large adult fish from passing beyond that point. Small fish would slip right through. So it really would not stop the spread of Asian carp to the Maumee.

Petering said Ohio has conducted DNA tests in the Maumee, but has never found evidence of Asian carp.

“We have never found any Asian carp in Ohio,” he said.

“The problem with the Wabash and the Maumee will be handled. I am confident about that,” Petering said. “But it won’t matter if they get through in Chicago. That’s what everyone should be concerned about now.”

Outdoors columnist Jim Morris can be reached through his website at www.examiner.com/outdoor-recreation-in-dayton/jim-morris or by email at sports@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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