Carp v. Cox - Put your money on the carp!

[Bozita]

Mike Cox is the AG for the State of Michigan. The GOPer has high hopes for succeeding Governor Granholm.

Laura Berman is a columnist for the Detroit News.


http://www.detnews.com/article/20091223/OPINION03/912230346/1409/METRO/Carp-hold-edge-over-Mr.-Cox

Last Updated: December 23. 2009 1:00AM
Laura Berman
Carp hold edge over Mr. Cox

The Fantastic Mr. Cox is waging political war against the Asian carp. He'll need the wind at his back.

My worry is that his strategy is more likely to create high farce than permanent fish kill.

On Monday, the attorney general announced he was taking his case against the carp all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping that the scales of justice will tilt against big fish and the state of Illinois.

So far, though, the fearsome fish of many adjectives ("invasive" "omnivorous" "aggressive" are regulars) have eluded all of the manmade impediments placed in their paths, including an expensive electrical barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Cox's latest effort, and all of the too-little-too-late efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers and various departments of natural resources, can at best slow the relentless assault of the giant carp. Although I've run into writhing carp now and then in the local Rouge River tributaries, these Asian immigrants on the move are always described as if they're great white sharks overcoming ineffectual bureaucrats in rowboats.

As invaders, they're more destructive than Toronto's trash, but politically more appealing.

The foreign fish can't lobby or align themselves with special interests. Even the environmentalists would love to send them back to China.

Unloved they are, but as foes for a populist would-be governor, they're absolutely magnificent: Ugly, huge and capable of leaping 10 feet in the air, Asian carp have only bad P.R.
They're threatening pure Michigan's crystalline waters and scary enough to provoke parental nightmares ("the carp took my baby!").

It's not a stretch for a bipartisan majority of Michigan voters to imagine thousands of them churning Lake Michigan into a muddy and impure mess, destroying commercial fishing and ending a tradition of Michigan specialties, from fried perch to cedar-planked whitefish.

Sure, the case of Cox vs. Carp may make political hay. Just don't expect the people, or even Lake Michigan, to prevail in the end.

more...

[msongs]

1. carp in great lakes = environmental disaster. they need to be stopped if possible. nt

[Bozita]

2. Seems to me like the perfect spot for some federal initiative using stimulus money.

Just think of the Congressional response if we were to change the name of the Asian Carp to Al-Qaeda Carp.

[blue_onyx]

3. We need to protect the lakes

This is probably the first time I've agreed with something Cox has done.

[Thickasabrick]

4. These fish need to be stopped. Why didn't a democrat take up

this cause?

[pansypoo53219]

5. fuck chicago.

close the canal PERMANENTLY. the corpse of engineers need to pay.

[undeterred]

6. Carp nightmare is going to the Supremes

Michigan sues to protect Great Lakes from Asian carp

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 27, 2009

The reversal of the Chicago River a century ago, to send the city's sewage to the Mississippi River instead of into Lake Michigan, was hailed as an engineering marvel. Now Michigan is suing Illinois to potentially re-reverse the river to prevent the movement of voracious, invasive Asian carp into the lake.

The suit, which is going to the Supreme Court, also challenges Chicago's controversial withdrawal of up to 2 billion gallons of water a day from Lake Michigan.

Environmental groups have long called for the ecological separation of the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River basin to curb the spread of invasive species and to retain Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes basin.

The Chicago River was reversed by connecting it through a system of canals to rivers whose waters flow into the Mississippi. Varying degrees of ecological separation could be achieved by closing the canals: using sluice gates to allow lake water to flow but blocking fish or boats; or using measures such as bubble or sound "curtains," chemicals or electricity to limit the movement of fish and smaller organisms.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/26/AR2009122601568.html?hpid=moreheadlines

[roamer65]

7. I have heard that they are already in Lake Michigan.

If they are in Lk Michigan, they soon will be in Lk Huron, Lk St Clair and Lk Erie. I'm sure bilge water containing eggs is the culprit. The lakes have endured the sea lamprey and zebra mussels, hopefully they endure this invader.

[roamer65]

8. ...and remember that Great Lakes fisheries all hinge on the application of poisonous lampricides...

...to many of the tributaries of the Great Lakes. I sat through a lecture by a Great Lakes fisheries specialist about 20 years ago. It was an eye-opening lecture. The entire fish stocks of the lakes hinge upon the application of these lampricides. Without the lampricides, the whole system comes crashing down within a few years.