Carp barrier maintenance not just Corps' problem, official says

[Spiel]

Carp barrier maintenance not just Corps' problem, official says

 

 

Nov. 6, 2009

Dan Egan / Journal Sentinel

 

 

A lot of noise has been made in recent weeks about President Barack Obama's $5 billion Great Lakes restoration plan, but nobody in the federal government right now is willing to spend a penny so necessary maintenance can be done on the Asian carp barrier built to keep the jumbo jumping fish from spilling into Lake Michigan.

 

The electric barrier, located about 20 miles south of the Lake Michigan shoreline on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, was turned on last April but requires regular maintenance every six months. Biologists liken it to an oil change in a car, and to do the work the barrier needs to be shut down for a day or two.

 

The problem is the carp are now swarming within about a mile of the barrier, so to keep the fish from swimming past the barrier during the down time, fish poison needs to be dumped in the canal. The cost to poison the canal is estimated to be about $750,000, and U.S. Army Corps officials say they don't believe it is their responsibility to pay that bill.

 

"That is not a task that the Corps normally does and the best way to address the threat of Asian carp of getting into Lake Michigan (during the barrier shutdown) is through multiple agencies," said Col. Vincent Quarles of the Army Corps' Chicago office.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency recently received $475 million to begin Great Lakes restoration work, but at this point that agency, or any other state or federal agency, isn't stepping forward to spend the money everyone agrees needs to be spent to protect the lakes.

 

The EPA's point person for Great Lakes restoration, Cameron Davis, declined to comment for this article.

 

The situation has the people who are fighting to keep the fish from invading the world's largest freshwater system at wits' end.

 

"It's frustrating as hell," Phil Moy, a University of Wisconsin Sea Grant biologist who is the co-chairman of the advisory panel that is helping the Army Corps with the barrier, said this week.

 

"In a time when you're throwing around millions and millions of dollars for (Great Lakes restoration), you'd like to see a tiny little piece of that sent our way."

 

Quarles said he doesn't believe the barrier is in imminent danger of breaking down, but he conceded nobody really knows how the $9 million contraption is holding up until they can turn it off and get a look under the hood.

 

"I'm sure once we shut it down we'll learn a lot," he said.