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Saturday, March 27, 2010
Environment - Portending the future of the Great Lakes? [Updated]
"Asian carp spreading through Tenn. waters" is the headline of a story today by Anne Paine of The Tennessean. Some quotes from the long story:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- They're nicknamed the "silver bullet" and have broken boaters' noses, jaws and ribs.[Updated 3/28/10] "Great Lakes DNRs need to unite" is the heading to a story today in the Detroit Free Press by outdoors writer Eric Sharp.That hasn't happened here, but Asian carp that can weigh up to 50 pounds and jump into the air when disturbed have shown up in the Cumberland River as far upstream as Cheatham Dam in Ashland City, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
Aside from endangering boaters and water skiers, the bug-eyed, silver-colored fish have anglers alarmed because they can multiply quickly and threaten the food that bass, crappie, paddlefish and the state's other native species depend on. If the fish can't be controlled they could jeopardize the state's $1.3 billion sports and commercial fishing industries.
"Every year they just get thicker and thicker," said Thomas Peach, a commercial catfish fisherman in Camden, Tenn. "Each year they get further up the river.
"We're worried about what's going to happen to our fish - all fish. Not just commercial fish."
In the Illinois River, the invasive fish erupt around motorboats like popcorn in a hot pan. Efforts to keep them out of the Great Lakes where they could wipe out the fisheries include spending millions of dollars on electrical barriers, with many other projects proposed. * * *
One of Peach's colleagues has hauled in as much as 5,000 pounds of silver carp in a day from the northern portion of Kentucky Lake. The lake, which runs from Kentucky to Pickwick Dam south of Savannah, Tenn., is part of the Tennessee River.
"What we don't know is if they're going to spawn in Kentucky Lake," said Bill Reeves, chief of TWRA's fisheries division.
"It's one thing to deal with migrants coming through locks. It's another thing if they get to Pickwick. If the numbers are there and the flow is there that creates the optimum conditions for spawning, they'll fill the lake up."
The silver carp were brought to this country from China, mainly to clean up the algae and detritus in catfish ponds and sewage lagoons.
But massive flooding on the Mississippi River since the early 1990s sent water across ponds, allowing the carp to escape into the major waterway.
The Mississippi has the flow, large size and other qualities needed to trigger the fish's reproduction cycle. They've proliferated, particularly in tributaries like the Illinois River where treated sewage wastewater and fertilizers with phosphorous and nitrogen that wash off crop fields create algae blooms and provide the food they seek.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 27, 2010 08:00 PM
Posted to Environment