Dan Egan with the Journal Sentinel captures the story.

Not good news

What this means is more and more Asian carp are finding their way past the electrical barrier —which is in direct contrast with the Army Corps’ assurance that these barriers are working to stop carp from entering the Great Lakes.

Also of concern is that these new test results were apparently posted 10 days ago very quietly via an update on a website that only a select few wonks (including me) check.

Given that Asian carp negatively impact our fish, wildlife and economy of the Great Lakes, this information should have been released more broadly to the public.

If this doesn’t alarm folks—it should. We need to permanently separate the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River in Chicago in order to stop Asian carp and other invasive species from moving back in forth between both basins.

While the Corps sluggishly moves, Asian carp are swimming faster and getting closer to our Great Lakes. We appreciate the efforts of the White House to speed up its efforts on finding a solution, but more urgent action needs to happen now or our Great Lakes will never be the same.

Asian carp were imported to Arkansas fish farms in the 1960s; the fish have since spread throughout the Mississippi River basin. The menacing invaders, which hog fish food and leap out of the water when disturbed by the sound of boat motors, are on the verge of invading Lake Erie and Lake Michigan.

A new study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that Asian carp could thrive in Ohio’s Maumee, Sandusky, and Grand rivers, which could allow the fish to establish reproducing populations in Western Lake Erie. Such a development would be devastating for the most bountiful of all the Great Lakes fisheries.

Michigan’s U.S. Senators, Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, called for immediate, stronger action to keep Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes.

“Asian carp represent a critical threat to our boating, fishing and tourism industries, and ultimately our Michigan way of life,” Stabenow said in a press release. “This report further shows how devastating the carp’s entry into the Great Lakes would be. We need action now to protect our natural resources.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently studying how best to keep Asian carp and other invasive species in the Mississippi River basin from invading the Great Lakes. The problem is that the study won’t be completed until late 2015, at the earliest.

Stabenow recently introduced the Stop Asian Carp Act of 2011 in an attempt to speed up the Corps of Engineers study. Her bill, which is stalled in a Congressional committee, would require the Corps to complete its Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study within 18 months.

National Wildlife Federation is leading efforts to keep Asian carp from colonizing the Great Lakes. Go here to learn more about what we are doing to combat the invasive fish.

The disturbing results of the USGS study were the most recent reason for the Corps of Engineers to hasten its study of how best to separate the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.

A Corps of Engineers study released in December found that the volume of cargo hauled on the Chicago Waterway System decreased by nearly 50 percent between 1994 and 2009. That study destroyed claims that separating the Lake Michigan from the Chicago Waterway System — to keep Asian carp in the manmade canals from invading the Great Lakes — would devastate Chicago’s economy. Go here for more study details.

Later this month, the Great Lakes Commission will release a much-anticipated study of potential options for separating Lake Michigan from the Chicago Waterway System. The Chicago-area canals  provide an artificial link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River basin.

The rationale for acting quickly to separate the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River basin grows stronger with every passing day. Sadly, most members of Congress and the head honchos in the Corps of Engineers don’t view this brewing ecological disaster with the same sense of urgency that is shared by the millions of people who rely on the Great Lakes for recreation and their livelihoods.

Perhaps a blow to the head from a flying Asian carp would change the minds of those in Congress and the Corps of Engineers who believe that we have plenty of time to keep Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes. We don’t.

Asian carp photo courtesy Jason Lindsey

Unfortunately, these abundant natural resources in Minnesota are the latest victim of Asian carp.

Known to batter boaters and even knock them into the water at the sound of a passing motor, Asian carp are voracious filter feeders that can grow to more than 4 feet long, weigh up to 100 pounds and quickly dominate a body of water by gobbling up the same food that sustains native fish populations.

Asian Carp in the Twin Cities

Earlier this summer, positive eDNA hits of Asian carp were detected(Minnesota Carp eDNA hits map )in the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers near the Twin Cities.  Further elevating the urgency of this crisis, on December 8^th, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MN DNR) officials announced that positive eDNA samples indicated that silver carp are above and below the Coon Rapids Dam – just north of the Twin Cities.

Not good news for those 11,842 lakes. 

While most of the focus remains on stopping Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes via the Chicago Waterway System, we must work to close all the doors across the Great Lakes Basin to carp.  As such, NWF and our state affiliate, Minnesota Conservation Federation (MCF), have pulled together a strong and diverse coalition of sportsmen and women, environmental groups and private property owners in calling for immediate action to stop the northward advance of carp into Minnesota’s waters.

Asian Carp Solutions

Lock #1 downtown Minneapolis

While this goal is similar to our efforts in Chicago, the political lay of the land is more promising in Minnesota.  Unlike Chicago, the state and some federal agencies are moving fast and there seems to be momentum building to prevent carp from advancing up the Mississippi River.  In fact, it is our hope that our efforts in Minnesota can serve as an example for the Chicago Waterway System that achieving a permanent solution is feasible. 

New Nickname for Minnesota?

If we don’t act now and implement a plan of action to stop carp, Minnesota better start thinking of a new state nickname. 

How about this one:  Land of 10,000 Asian Carp Infested Lakes? 

Sad, but possibly true.

Introducing: Choose Your Cause

Because of my personal experience and passion for protecting special places in Minnesota and throughout the Great Lakes, I know first-hand what a profound effect my donations to this program can have.  And, it’s why I choose to continue to support this program through NWF’s newly launched Choose Your Cause online portal.

I know that you care about protecting Minnesota’s vast water resources from Asian carp and other threats.  So, through our new Choose Your Cause site,  Just click on the cause you care about most and enjoy inspiring stories and photos from folks on-the-ground who are working tirelessly to protect the wildlife and wild places we all love.

The announcement was the Corps’ latest attempt to assure the public that the federal government has the Asian carp crisis under control.

What I found most interesting about the April 7 announcement was that it came one week after the Corps stopped taking public comment on the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study, known as GLMRIS. That $25 million study is supposed to provide a blueprint for keeping Asian carp in the Mississippi River system from invading the Great Lakes, where the foreign fish could decimate a $7 billion fishery and disrupt the region’s $16 billion recreational boating economy.

The problem is that the GLMRIS study won’t be completed until 2015 at the earliest. Asian carp could invade the Great Lakes long before then.

Studies have already found that the electric barrier in the Chicago Waterway System doesn’t stop all sizes of Asian carp. Worse, scientists have discovered Asian carp DNA beyond the electric barrier, in waters linked directly to Lake Michigan.

Earlier this year, the Corps held a series of public hearings around the region to gather input on the GLMRIS study.

Hundreds of people from across the region — boaters, anglers, conservationists and people who simply treasure the Great Lakes — spoke with one voice to the Corps. Their message: Speed up the GLMRIS study; focus exclusively on preventing an Asian carp invasion (instead of reducing the risk, as the Corps is wont to do); and work toward separating the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.

More than 4,000 people submitted comments on the GLMRIS study via National Wildlife Federation Action Fund.

But the Corps has, thus far, turned a deaf ear to the public’s call to faster action. Officials with the Corps have repeatedly said that they take their orders from Congress, not special interest groups or the public.

If the Corps won’t speed up the GLMRIS study, perhaps voters should exert pressure on Congress to make it happen.

A bill pending in Congress, the Stop Asian Carp Act of 2011, would force the Corps to complete the GLMRIS study within 18 months.  The bill was introduced by U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, of Michigan; Sen. Dick Durbin, of Illinois; and Congressman Dave Camp, of Michigan.

Go here to find out if your representatives in Congress support the Stop Asian Carp Act.

We can’t afford to wait until 2015 for the Corps to figure out how to keep Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes. This is a looming, albeit preventable, disaster. But time is not on our side.

More than 150 people showed up at the hearing. In the crowd were politicians in suits, anglers in  blue jeans, old men, young women, Native Americans and other people of color, middle school students, urban dwellers and country folk.

Over and over, people who spoke at the meeting urged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to move faster and do more to keep Asian carp in the Mississippi River system from invading Lake Michigan via the Chicago Waterway System.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette told federal officials it would be “nuts” for the Corps to take another four years, until 2015, to complete its Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study, known as GLMRIS.

“Asian carp are knock, knock, knocking on Lake Michigan’s door,” Schuette said. “Asian carp pose a clear and present danger to the state of Michigan … waiting until 2015 to complete this study is unacceptable.”

The newly elected Schuette has vowed to continue Michigan’s legal fight to force the closure of locks in the Chicago Shipping Canal, a measure that could keep Asian carp from swimming into Lake Michigan.

National Wildlife Federation has urged the Corps to complete the GLMRIS study by mid-2011. NWF and other groups believe the long-term solution to stopping the northern migration of Asian carp is to create a hydrologic barrier between Lake Michigan and the Chicago Waterway System.

Marc Smith, senior policy manager at NWF’s Great Lakes Regional Center, said the Corps can move quickly when it wants to. He said Corps officials needed just three months to identify 18 possible sites where artificial links, such as canal and drainage ditches, could allow Asian carp and other invasive species to move between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basins.

“That was great — that’s an example that the Corps can move fast,” Smith said.

He urged the Corps to get involved with a privately funded of study of how to create a hydrologic barrier between Lake Michigan and the Chicago Waterway System. That study, commissioned by the Great Lakes Commission and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, will cost $2 million and be completed by January 2012.

The Chicago portion of the Corps study will cost $15 million and take at least four more years to complete. Implementing a solution could take several years after that.

“I represent the Grand Traverse Sportfishing Association and our group of more than 500 members has no faith in you,” Ryan Matuzak, a charter boat captain in Frankfort, told Corps officials. “We don’t believe that you care and we don’t believe you are doing enough.”

John Goss, who is President Obama’s Asian carp czar, said federal agencies are doing a good job of “managing” the spread of Asian carp in the Mississippi River basin.

“We are putting the best and brightest (people) in the Great Lakes region into this fight and I believe we are going to be successful,” Goss said.

Matuzak said the Corps should treat efforts to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes as a type of war.

“This country has put people on the moon and we can’t stop an invasion in our own country when we know the pathway?” Matuzak said. “We’d like to see some aggressive action. I want to see some fight.”

One year, perhaps two.

How about eight years?

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is studying how best to break the artificial connections between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins that could allow Asian carp to invade the  lakes, won’t complete its study until 2015.

Corps officials have said another four years to complete its Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study, known as GLMRIS, constitutes an “aggressive” schedule. What’s rarely noted is that Congress authorized the Corps to conduct the GLMRIS study in 2007.

In other words, the Corps will complete the GLMRIS study eight years after Congress authorized it as part of an expanded effort to keep Asian carp from invading Lake Michigan via the Chicago Waterway System. It will likely take s several more years after the GLMRIS study is complete for the Corps to implement a solution.

It’s not a stretch to say that it could be 2020 before the Corps takes action to create a hydrological barrier between Lake Michigan and the Chicago Waterway System, the manmade aquatic pipeline that links the Great Lakes to  the Mississippi River system.

Yet, Corps officials are traveling around the region telling people that the agency’s timetable for completing the GLMRIS study is “quite aggressive.”

Please, don’t insult our intelligence.

A similar,  privately funded study commissioned by the Great Lakes Commission and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative will take one year to figure out how best to create a hydrological barrier between Lake Michigan and the Chicago Waterway System. And the Great Lakes Commission’s study will cost just $2 million.

The Corps will spend $15 million on the Chicago portion of the GLMRIS study; the entire study will cost $25 million.

Let’s break this down: The Chicago portion of the Corps’ GLMRIS study will cost seven times more than a similar, privately funded study and take four times longer to complete.

Something is seriously wrong with this picture.

If you’re concerned about Asian carp invading the Great Lakes, now is the time to demand that the Corps speed up its study. Here’s how. People across the region are demanding that the Corps move faster to prevent an Asian carp invasion. Go here to hear what they are saying.

We need as many people as possible to tell the Corps to pick up the pace and at least complete the Chicago portion of the GLMRIS study by mid-2012.