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Friday, October 15, 2010
Environment - "No Asian carp in e-DNA tests at Indiana ports" [Updated]
One of the concerns about Asian carp and Lake Michigan issues is that it is not only the Chicago River that flows into Lake Michigan, Indiana also has some possible sources. Today this release from the IDNR:
No evidence of Asian carp was found in an environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling of Indiana ports and harbors near Lake Michigan, researchers from the University of Notre Dame who did the study announced Thursday.But what about, for instance, the Little Calumet River? Was it tested by IDNR? Conservationists "want a federal judge to shut two navigation locks - one on the Chicago River and one on the Little Calumet River," according to this Milwaulkee Journal Sentinel story by Dan Egan, dated Oct. 3rd, that begins:The researchers collected 125 samples from five areas in northwest Indiana:
-On Aug. 6, 14 samples were collected from the outflow of Lake George by kayak and by wading into lower reaches of Deep River. All tested negative for bighead and silver carp DNA.
-On Aug. 11, 25 samples were collected from Burns Harbor and 21 from Burns Ditch. All 46 samples tested negative.
-On Aug. 18, 11 samples were collected from the Gary Boat Slip and 54 samples from Indiana Harbor. All 65 samples tested negative.
Bighead and silver carp are two species of Asian carp that are considered a serious risk to the Great Lakes. Both are voracious eaters. They consume plankton - algae and other microscopic organisms - stripping the food web of a key source of food for small and big native fish.
Bighead and silver carp were imported into the southern United States to keep aquaculture facilities clean and to provide fresh fish for fish markets. They escaped into the wild in the 1980s and have been moving northward ever since.
They were first detected in Indiana waters in 1995 and have worked their way up the Wabash River, into the East and West forks of the White River, the Patoka River, and the Ohio River and and some of its tributaries.
For thousands of years, the Great Lakes were protected by Niagara Falls on the east and a subcontinental divide on the west, but those barriers to our grandest freshwater system were obliterated over the past century so that oceanic freighters could float in and Chicago sewage could float out.[Updated 10/17/10] This Oct. 16th story by Gitte Laasby of the Gary Post Tribune, headed "Researchers: No traces of Asian carp near lake," reports:Unwanted species have been invading with tick-tock regularity ever since.
It is a problem that lacks the graphic horror of the Gulf oil spill, but is more environmentally catastrophic in that it unleashes a pollution that does not decay or disperse - it breeds.
Native fish populations have crashed, freshwater beaches have suffocated under mounds of rotting algae, bird-killing botulism outbreaks have soared and the lakes' invasive species problems have spread down Chicago's canals, into the vast Mississippi basin and across the continent.
Politicians have paid little attention.
Until now. While the lakes have become a biological stew thick with an estimated 185 foreign species, elected officials from both parties in all eight Great Lakes states are demanding that federal agencies muster the will to stop number 186.
They have turned to the courts and to Congress to compel the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to keep Asian carp from colonizing Lake Michigan by slamming shut the back door to the Great Lakes blasted open by Chicago canal builders more than a century ago.
But what about the front door?
It is still basically business-as-usual on the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Biologists say the artificial shipping link between the Great Lakes and Atlantic Ocean has already wrought more damage than the carp might ever do. And they worry about what might be coming in next, even as the drama to shut the back door plays out in a Chicago federal courtroom and as the Obama administration touts its new Asian carp czar.
Researchers have found no genetic traces of Asian carp in Northwest Indiana close to Lake Michigan, state officials said Friday.Scientists at the University of Notre Dame sampled five areas for environmental DNA -- the Indiana Harbor, the Gary Boat Slip, Burns Harbor, Burns Ditch, Lake George and Deep River. All 125 samples taken in August tested negative for traces of Asian carp, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources announced Friday.
"This is the most extensive sampling we've seen on the Indiana side of the border," said Thom Cmar, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's good news but it's important not to overinterpret the results in light of what we've seen on the Illinois side. There's still a lot of reasons to be concerned."
A 20-pound, 3-feet-long Asian carp was found in Lake Calumet on the south side of Chicago six miles from Lake Michigan on June 22. It was the first time a live carp had been found above the electric barriers intended to keep them out.
A rapid response group has periodically sampled the Little Calumet in Indiana, but not found evidence of Asian carp. The sampling this summer was the most comprehensive testing in Indiana waters. Researchers collected the most samples from the Indiana Harbor, 54, and 46 total from Burns Harbor and Burns Ditch.
"There's a complete vacuum now of effective, real-time data to tell us where these fish are within the waterway system and guide agency decision-making," Cmar said. "The biggest concern is that there's a much bigger problem than we know because the agencies in charge aren't looking for it. This case of the Asian carp invading Lake Michigan has been a case of 'the more you look the more you find.' "
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 15, 2010 01:58 PM
Posted to Environment