Asian Carp threat: Action needed on Chicago connection

From Mary Muter,
 Chair, Great Lakes Section,
 Sierra Club Canada Foundation

The US Army Corps of Engineers recently released a report on options to prevent the very invasive Asian Carp from getting into Great Lakes and all connecting waterways and lakes.

To learn more about these fish, please watch video, available here

The US Army Corps of Engineers were in Toronto yesterday to brief Canadian agencies and a few invited observers on the options to prevent these fish from getting into the Great Lakes.

I was at that meeting and I left with significant concern that not enough is being done.  The fish escaped into the Mississippi River in the 1990’s and are now only 50 miles south of Chicago. The army has electric barriers placed near Chicago, but videos were taken last summer showed schools of fish swimming through these multi-million dollar barriers.

In an attempt to control the spread last summer, commercial fishers were paid to remove 50,000 Asian Carp from the river, more than 50 miles south of the barriers.

Most Great Lakes cities treat their polluted sewage water to a high level and discharge into the Great Lakes, but the City of Chicago does not want to pollute its waterfront. Over 100 years ago, Chicago connected a river that drained to Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River and to this day discharges 400 to 500 million gallons per day of only primary treated sewage and storm water into the canal. The canal, called the Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal, sends all the polluted sewage water south, to the Mississippi River. The connecting locks are opened regularly, opening the pathways for the fish to enter Lake Michigan.

Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans has deemed these fish as high risk to our Canadian waters, but the risk is not being considered adequately by the US Army Corps.

Americans need to know that we want rapid action to physically separate the connections to the Great Lakes in Chicago.

You can make a difference by submitting comments until Monday, Mar. 31 at 6:00 pm by clicking here

Please copy ontariochapter@sierraclub.ca when you submit comments so we can keep a count on submissions.

Thanks for caring about the lakes.