Carp poisoning begins amid calls for stronger action
By Eartha Jane Melzer 5/21/10 11:17 AM Federal officials closed a portion of the Chicago canal system this week and began poisoning the waters with rotenone in order to kill any invasive Asian carp that may have made it across an electric fish barrier intended to keep them out of Lake Michigan. The Detroit Free Press reports that Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox and the attorneys general from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Ohio are urging the federal government to apply poison to more of the rivers where Asian carp live and for permanent closure of the locks and canal that connect the Mississippi basin to the Great Lakes. Environmental groups, while less focused on increased poison use, are also arguing for a more comprehensive approach to the problem of invasive species. Henry Henderson, director of the Midwest program for the Natural Resources Defense Council said that it’s wrong for officials to only focus on carp.
The Chicago Waterway system is a highway for invasive species moving in both directions, and most of these critters cannot be stopped with nets or even an electric fence. Since we cannot keep poisoning our waterways, it is time to move on to a real solution to this vexing issue – a physical barrier separating the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River system. …
