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Friday, September 30, 2011

Environment - "Invasive species, other issues at center of presentations for lawmakers, officials"

Bowdeya Tweh reports today in the NWI Times on the legislative Environmental Quality Service Council's meeting held Thursday in Portage. Here is the agenda. (An archived videocast may be available at this site, but as of this writing it has not been upload).

Today's story begins:

PORTAGE | Managing Asian carp was the top agenda item Thursday during a legislative panel discussion about environmental issues facing the state.

The Indiana General Assembly's Environmental Quality Service Council also heard presentations from state officials on other Great Lakes concerns including water quality, conserving water and managing ballast to deter invasive species.

Keeping the bighead and silver carp from the Great Lakes is difficult but ongoing, said John Goss, Asian carp director for the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

In a presentation to the council and about 30 audience members at the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission building, Goss outlined some of the 40 projects under way to study or control the growing threat the fish pose to Great Lakes ecosystems. He said research, which shows carp already present in large numbers in the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, are threatening to move upstream.

[More] John Robbins of the Gary Post-Tribune has this report of the meeting yesterday. Some quotes:
Goss made it clear that the Asian carp are in Indiana waters, “up to Huntington on the Wabash and Seymour on the White River and moving into Sugar Creek and the Blue River.” Traces of the Asian carp, though no live fish, have been found in Lake Calumet.

In describing the threat Goss said the carp “grow very fast and are like giant vacuum cleaners, sucking up the food supply and depriving native fish of their food. The goal is to keep them out of the Great Lakes,” said Goss.

Goss described efforts to date to restrict entry by the Asian carp to the Great Lakes. The carp were introduced in the southern U.S. in the 1970s and have been steadily making their way up the Mississippi ever since.

Goss said that “the spawning population in Illinois is about 150 miles from Lake Michigan.” Electric barriers placed along the Illinois River have kept the advance in check for 10 years.

Goss told the Council the Asian carp could invade the Great Lakes through another avenue in Indiana ­— the Eagle Marsh near Fort Wayne, which connects the Mississippi river basin with the Lake Erie basin. In a time of flooding, carp in Indiana could easily move across the watershed divide. Goss said four Asian carp have been found in Lake Erie.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 30, 2011 10:42 AM
Posted to Environment