Everytime I read about these kind of things, I just think someone isn't getting paid.

Rather than take action, we will just launch a multi-million dollar study, that will take so long that by the time it is done, it will be too late to actually do anything about it.

Michigan has lost enough. Now the fishing industry will probably be doomed, as well.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20100212/NEWS01/2120313/1001/NEWS/Feds-pass-on-surest-solution-to-halt-Great-Lakes-invasion

Feds pass on surest solution to halt Great Lakes invasion
U.S. won't seal off lakes, will consider range of alternatives
John Flesher • Associated Press • February 12, 2010

TRAVERSE CITY - With marauding Asian carp on the Great Lakes' doorstep, the federal government has crafted a $78.5 million battle plan that offers no assurance of thwarting an invasion and doesn't use the most promising weapon available to fight it off.


The surest way to prevent the huge, hungry carp from gaining a foothold in the lakes and threatening a $7 billion fishing industry is to sever the link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River basin, created by engineers in Chicago more than a century ago.

The strategy released by the Obama administration this week agrees only to conduct a long-range study of that idea, which could take years. The government also refuses to shut down two navigational locks on Chicago waterways that could provide an easy pathway for the carp into the lakes, although it promises to consider opening them less often.

Instead, the plan outlines two dozen other steps, from strengthening an electric barrier designed to block the carp's advance to using nets or poisons to nab fish that make it through. It's an expensive gamble that may not keep enough carp out of the lakes to prevent an infestation.

"We're spending close to $80 million just for a short-term deterrent," said Joel Brammeier, president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, an environmental group. "We need to stop pushing money toward temporary solutions and get everyone on track toward investing in one that works for good - and that means absolute physical separation."

To be fair, the solution environmentalists prefer - cutting ties between the lakes and the Mississippi - would mean reconfiguring some 70 miles of canals and rivers. That's a massive undertaking that could not happen quickly and is fervently opposed by barge operators who move millions of tons of commodities through the Chicago locks each year.

Scientists differ on whether the carp would thrive in the Great Lakes, which are colder, deeper and ecologically different than rivers, and it is unclear just what effect they would have if they did.

"We don't know, and anyone who tells you that they do know is not telling you the truth," said Brian Roth, a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University.

"As a general rule, we would prefer not to find out what their impacts are," he added. "Any invasive species could have a very dramatic effect."

Pulled in different directions by the fishing and the barge industries, and politicians in Illinois and those from the other Great Lakes states, the Obama administration says the only realistic approach is to confront the carp on multiple fronts instead of taking the bolder step of severing Lake Michigan from the Mississippi basin.