Kalamazoo River Oil Disaster Response

July 30, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum

Earlier this week, an oil pipeline beneath Marshall, Michigan (about 70 miles west of Ann Arbor), burst and released between 800,000 and 1,000,000 gallons of oil into Talmadge Creek, a small tributary of the Kalamazoo River. The oil quickly flowed into the river and has travelled 35 miles downstream, where it is about 60 miles from Lake Michigan. The pipeline has been shut off so no more oil should be released into the river, but the pipeline is underground and the EPA has not confirmed whether the oil has indeed stopped entering the stream.

Visit www.nwf.org/MichiganOilSpill for more on the disaster.

Oil in the Kalamazoo River

Oil in the Kalamazoo River | National Wildlife Federation

Federal and state officials are working with the pipeline owner, Enbridge, to try to contain the spill, recover the oil, and protect and rehabilitate damaged wildlife. U.S. EPA is the incident commander for the spill. The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security, the Coast Guard, and the Michigan DNRE also are part of the response team.
As of noon today (Thursday), federal and state officials believe that they have largely contained the spill in Morrow Lake, an impoundment of the Morrow Dam just east of Kalamazoo. They say that they have removed approximately 2,500 barrels of oil from the river, or about 10 percent of the spill. 

NWF staff on site this morning verified that the spill did not appear to have gotten to the dam. Officials are also making contingency plans for actions at Lake Allegan, another 30 miles downstream from Morrow Pond (near Allegan), if the spill is not contained earlier. Despite comments by Governor Granholm this morning indicating otherwise, officials appear to be confident that the spill will not reach Lake Michigan or the wetlands complexes near Saugatuck. However, the damage to the areas along the Kalamazoo River is severe. Toxic fumes have made evacuations necessary and residents along the river have been warned to boil their water before using it. Oiled birds and dead fish have been discovered, but there is little information about the extent of the wildlife damage; the pipeline company, Enbridge, appears to be concealing that.

Although this spill is very small compared to the Gulf spill, it has been called the largest oil spill in the Midwest. To provide a sense of perspective, the Kalamazoo River spill is about 10 percent of the size of the Exxon Valdez spill. Because it is in a medium-sized river, the spill is highly concentrated and will stay that way until it is removed or diffuses in Morrow Lake, Lake Allegan, and Lake Michigan itself.

National and regional media have been reporting on the spill, including the New York Times and the Detroit Free Press. NWF has issued a statement. Our office has a team of people on the ground in Marshall, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo tracking the spill and the wildlife recovery efforts.

As we learned from the Gulf disaster, this is all unfolding rapidly and we are still learning critical information. We have hopes that despite its size, this spill will be quickly contained and much of the oil slick removed. The impacts on the river and its wildlife are still unknown; I believe we’ll be dealing with those impacts for years.

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Dammit, It’s Happening Here

July 27, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum

Oil spill in the Kalamazoo River | Photo from the National Wildlife Federation

We just heard that at least 877,000 gallons of oil has leaked from an oil pipeline into the Kalamazoo River in Marshall, Michigan.  

The oil has moved 16 miles downstream and has already killed fish; the fumes have forced some people to evacuate; wildlife is getting coated with oil; shorelines are getting fouled; and containment efforts have been hampered by the high flows in the river because of all the rain. A federal-state response team has swung into action. 

Meanwhile, the company owning the pipeline, Enbridge, Inc., couldn’t initially be reached for comment, other than to a message saying that it hoped it had not caused any “inconvenience” to the community. Since then the company has issued an apology. 

We just released the statement below. We’ll provide updates as we learn more.  

Pipeline Spews 845,000 Gallons of Oil into Michigan Waters, Threatening Great Lakes 

National Wildlife Federation: ‘Michigan has become another casualty to our country’s addiction to oil and dirty fuels.’ 

ANN ARBOR, MICH. (July 27, 2010)—A major oil spill has dumped a reported 845,000 gallons of oil into a creek that feeds into the Kalamazoo River, sparking a state of emergency in Kalamazoo County and sparking fears will not be able to contain the massive spill before it reaches Lake Michigan. 

Commenting on the oil spill, Danielle Korpalski, Midwest regional outreach coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation, said: 

“We never thought it would happen here. When people throughout Michigan responded to the Gulf oil spill with an outpouring of money, concern, and support for those who live on the Gulf, we never thought we would share that awful feeling of watching a massive oil slick flowing through our waters, coating our wildlife, killing fish, and fouling our coastline. We never thought we’d see evacuations in Michigan because of the fumes from an oil spill. And we never thought we’d see almost a million gallons of oil poised to flow into the Great Lakes. 

“But today, that’s exactly what we’re seeing. 

“Michigan has become another casualty to our country’s addiction to oil and dirty fuels. 

“This massive oil spill is a wake-up call that our nation’s energy policies are failing. 

“From the Gulf Coast to the Midwest, people are paying a steep price for a national energy policy that is addicted to dirty and dangerous fossil fuels—and the results can be seen in our backyards, in our communities and in our nation’s cherished waters and wild places. 

“This oil spill is only the latest evidence that the nation needs to move toward cleaner, safer sources of energy. It’s time to head in a new direction—one which holds the opportunity to make the energy technologies of the future while creating jobs, strengthening our national security, and improving our environment.”

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Posted in Great Lakes | 2 Comments »

Bad News, Doubled, on Asian Carp

June 24, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum

I don’t know which is worse: the discovery of a live Asian carp beyond the electric fence that is supposed to stop them, or the dismissive and obstructionist reaction to that discovery from the Army Corps of Engineers. That’s the negative impression I got after listening to an emergency briefing held yesterday afternoon by the agencies responsible for protecting the Great Lakes from the monster carp: the Corps, the Coast Guard, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. EPA, and the Illinois DNR.

Of course it’s bad news that a 20-pound, 34-inch bighead carp was captured in Lake Calumet, 6 miles from Lake Michigan and beyond the electric fence and the O’Brien Lock. There is no remaining physical barrier between where the fish was found and the Great Lakes. And because the fish was found in larger body of water (Lake Calumet) so close to Lake Michigan, chemical treatment may be unwise or impossible. That leaves increased electrofishing and netting to try to find more invasive carp and suppress whatever populations are present.

The good news is that most of the agencies on the call said that they plan to implement the electrofishing and netting measures and expressed a new urgency in making sure they were doing all in their power to stop the Asian carp from advancing. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US EPA, the Illinois DNR…. they all announced new measures to combat the carp, and each of them pledged to ramp up their efforts.  But not the Corps.

The Corps spokesperson, Mike White, made it sound as if the Corps would just like to wash its hands of the whole problem. On the call and in the press release, he said the Corps’ primary responsibility was:

“to continue to operate the locks and dams in the Chicago Area Waterway System for Congressionally authorized purposes of navigation, water diversion, and flood control. We will continue to support fish suppression activities by modifying existing structures such as locks as requested by other agencies to support this common goal…”

Protect the Great Lakes? Forget about it. Apparently the Corps does not think that protecting the Great Lakes is part of its mission.

When asked if the Corps would post on its website the results, including the date and location, of the additional DNA sampling we assumed the Corps would be conducting, Mr. White said the Corps is in discussions with the institutions who have done sampling in the past (Notre Dame) about whether Corps will continue doing DNA sampling at all. So, will the DNA sampling resume? The Corps doesn’t know, but it certainly hopes those discussions come to resolution sometime soon. Well, that’s a relief, right?

Later, in a call with the press, Mr. White was asked if the discovery of a live carp beyond the electric fence, 6 miles from Lake Michigan, made a response to the problem more urgent. His response was that the Corps would consider its statutory authorities and determine a course of action. In other words, the Corps is going to think about it and get back to us.

Will the Corps act forcefully and with urgency? Forget about it – not to protect the Great Lakes.

What’s terrifying is that the Corps is the agency that is supposed to decide on whether a permanent separation of the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River is feasible. Given the performance we saw yesterday, why bother? Their answer is predetermined (since Great Lakes protection apparently isn’t part of the Corps’s mission), and given the low urgency that agency is assigning to this issue, it could be decades before it finishes the study, anyway.

We’re supporting a bill to force the Corps to do a real feasibility study on hydrological separation, and to do it rapidly. Thanks to the leadership of the Great Lakes senators, particularly Senators Durbin, Stabenow, Levin and Voinovich, this bill might move, and move quickly. It will be a big help with the Corps’ mission.

But what about the Corps’ culture? I think we need to change the agency’s incentives. How about this: if Asian carp colonize the Great Lakes, then the costs to the ecosystem and the economies that depend on it get deducted from the Corps’ annual budget. Or even better: deduct those costs from the paychecks of their staff.

That might light the fire under them the Great Lakes need.

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New York shuts the door on ballast water discharges of invasive species into the Great Lakes

June 22, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum

This is the best news in decades on invasive species in the Great Lakes, and chances are, you haven’t heard it yet. Thanks to a New York rule upheld in court last week, starting in 18 months no ship can enter the Great Lakes unless it has the technology to disinfect its ballast water to stop the discharge of invasive species. And that’s not just in New York; it’s anywhere in the Great Lakes.

What happened last week is pretty technical, and that’s why it’s been quiet: New York’s Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) refused to overturn the state’s conditions for certification of EPA’s national ballast water discharge permit. That means New York’s rules for implementing the national ballast water discharge permit are final – no more appeals. (Check out Thom Cmar’s blog post for further details).

What does that mean?

Well, New York’s rules say that beginning January 1, 2012, no ocean-going ship can travel through New York waters without having a ballast water treatment technology that meets some of the toughest standards in the world – approaching zero discharge of invasive species.  To repeat: any ocean-going ship that PASSES THROUGH NEW YORK’S WATERS must have a treatment system that meets these protective standards.

And how many ocean-going ships entering the Great Lakes pass through New York’s waters? EVERY SINGLE ONE. Any ocean-going ship entering the Great Lakes must travel through the St. Lawrence River, through a series of locks including the Snell and Eisenhower Locks in New York. Ships can’t get through the river into the Great Lakes without transiting those locks, and the two other entrances to the Great Lakes (the Erie Canal and the Chicago canals) aren’t big enough to handle ocean-going vessels. So ocean-going ships can’t get into the Great Lakes without traveling through New York’s waters.

And because every ocean-going ship entering the Great Lakes has to travel through New York’s waters, every one of those ships will have to install technology that can meet these incredibly protective ballast water discharge standards by January 1, 2012.

That’s huge.

Ballast water discharges from ocean-going ships are the largest source of invasive species in the Great Lakes. They’ve brought us creatures like zebra mussels, quagga mussels, round gobies, and spiny water fleas. And once these invaders establish residence in the lakes, they’re here to stay. They have few natural predators, so they outcompete native species, reproduce like crazy, and damage the Great Lakes ecosystem.

The Coast Guard and EPA have both taken half-measures to address these ballast water discharges, but none have been very effective. Congress has considered new legislation, but it stalled last session and in any event would not be implemented nearly as rapidly as New York’s rule.  States like New York have begun to step up, but common wisdom was that no single state could stop harmful ballast water discharges throughout the Great Lakes because ships could simply avoid that state and instead discharge their ballast water in a state with weaker protections or in Canadian waters.

But New York took advantage of geography. Knowing that every ship entering the Great Lakes has to travel through New York’s waters, New York set requirements for ships that are just passing through, even if they don’t actually discharge in New York. That means the New York standards apply to all ships entering the Great Lakes. The weaker protection efforts by the Coast Guard and EPA and the slower standards proposed in Congress have been left far behind.

Now the New York rules must be implemented and enforced, which is no small challenge. But New York deserves our applause and gratitude. In a mere 18 months – many years faster than the Coast Guard or Congress has even contemplated – no ocean-going ship will be able to discharge invasive species-contaminated ballast water into the Great Lakes. That truly will be something to celebrate.

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Posted in Asian carp, Great Lakes | 2 Comments »

Back to the drawing board for Waukesha

June 11, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum

By guest blogger, Marc Smith, NWF Great Lakes Policy Manager

The highly watched Lake Michigan diversion crusade from the city of Waukesha hit a pretty big snag this week as the WI DNR returned the application back to the city because it was deemed “incomplete.”

The WI DNR in a letter to Waukesha Mayor Jeff Scrima on June 8th, outlined the following issues that deemed the application incomplete:

  1. Failure to show no other reasonable water supply alternative. The application strictly says that Great Lakes water is the only option. However, the city is currently continuing to examine other alternatives to a Great Lakes diversion.  The Great Lakes Compact is clear that any application for a diversion demonstrates that there is no reasonable water supply alternative;
  2. Failure to analyze impacts of proposed return flow options. This is big.  How can the WI DNR accurately review these options without both the point of withdrawal and the corresponding return flow location?
  3. Failure to include a cost analysis. How much will this cost?  Seems a fair question, don’t you think?  Not only that, but the Great Lakes Compact is clear that you must include this information;
  4. Failure to pay the minimal $5,000 application fee. This is kind of embarrassing.  How could you forget to pay this small amount when the city of Waukesha is reported to have spent between $1-$2 million in consulting fees alone on this application?

Kudos to the WI DNR for how they have handled this application.  Even though we may have concerns that this application was being processed without rules in place to implement the Great Lakes Compact, they should be commended for taking this application very seriously by going forward on an Environmental Impact Statement and now…ruling it incomplete.

So, now the status of this application is really uncertain.  As the new Mayor continues to explore other alternatives to a future water supply for Waukesha, who will do the above requests from the WI DNR when the water utility says that Lake Michigan is the only option?  Seems there is a very tense political problem in Waukesha to say the least.

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Coming soon: Michigan’s version of the BP disaster

June 4, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum

A company with a history of polluting that wants to take valuable resources from deep underground.

An industrial  extraction operation with high risks to hundreds of miles of coastline, spectacular waters, a vibrant fishery…. and human life.

An agency that promotes the industry rather than regulating it.

No contingency plan if (when) the operation goes wrong.

Sound familiar?

I’m not just talking about the BP oil spill. The same scenario is playing out right here in Michigan. Kennecott Eagle Minerals Corp. is about to start digging for nickel and other minerals underneath the headwaters of the U.P’s Salmon Trout River, which runs through the largest stand of old growth forest east of the Mississippi and into Lake Superior. Kennecott plans to blast through a sacred Native American site, Eagle Rock, into sulfide ore bodies that produce acid mine drainage when they come into contact with air and water….. which inevitably they will do. This operation not only is likely to scar this magnificent landscape for hundreds of years. It also has a significant risk –according to the state’s own experts – of a mine collapse, endangering human life and draining the river.

What’s Kennecott’s plan if any of these disasters come to pass? It doesn’t have one.

This mine was vetted and recommended for approval by the Michigan Office of Geological Survey, part of the DNRE and the state equivalent of the now-infamous U.S. Minerals Management Service.

Why?

Well, the head of the Survey’s mining team called the mining project “my baby” and identified Kennecott as his “customer.”

During the application process, he admitted that he concealed an expert memorandum that reported on the risk of mine collapse, after which he was suspended …. and then reinstated as head of the mining team after an internal state investigation said he was motivated by ignorance, not malfeasance. (Well, that’s a relief, right?) Another member of the state’s mining team formed a business partnership with Kennecott employees to offer mining services to the private sector (the partnership was dissolved after it became public).  Finally, the Governor’s UP representative who helped her formulate her position on the mine has also left government service to work for….. you guessed it:  Kennecott. The mining team recommended approval to the Michigan DEQ before it merged with the DNR to form the DNRE. And just days before that merger – perhaps to avoid tarring the new DNRE with this terrible decision – a mid-level DEQ staff member gave final approval to the operation of the mine.

And we thought MMS was corrupt.

NWF and its partner organizations (Yellow Dog Preserve, Keewenaw Bay Indian Community, and Huron Mountain Club) have filed multiple lawsuits to stop the mine.  So far, we’ve only slowed it down, but the major litigation is just beginning.

Meanwhile, members of the tribe and local residents are taking matters into their own hands, camping on Eagle Rock to stop Kennecott from destroying it. Several have been arrested, but they keep at it. And yesterday, over 100 people rallied against the mine on the steps of the state capitol building. Read the latest on these activists at www.StandfortheLand.com. Or check out Save the Wild UP’s website, www.SavetheWildUP.org.

I’ll be writing about this travesty more often, now that the state has approved it and the action on the ground is heating up. To read a more detailed history, check out NWF’s sulfide mining web page.

Or even better, watch the movie! NWF has co-produced an award-winning documentary on the mine called Mining Madness, Water Wars: Great Lakes in the Balance.

This mine is a massive disaster waiting to happen, and the state’s complicity is an outrage. Call your elected state officials and the Governor to let them know.

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Posted in Kennecot Mine, Sulfide Mine | 2 Comments »

Real progress on carp!

May 25, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum

It’s nice to be able to report good news on this topic, and this news is big.

Remember how many times I’ve emphasized that we must implement a permanent solution to stopping the carp invasion?  Well, the only way to guarantee that carp would not move through the canals into Lake Michigan is to create a physical barrier between the Mississippi River system and the Great Lakes – hydrological separation. And in order to create that physical barrier the Army Corps of Engineers must first complete a feasibility study. But the law directing them to do the study was vague, and by all reports the Corps is not intending to take a hard look at hydrological separation.

Today the Great Lakes Congressional delegation took a big step toward hydrological separation. Led by senators from Michigan, Ohio and Illinois — yes, Illinois, too — the Great Lakes Congressional Task Force sent a letter to their Senate colleagues calling for legislation to direct the Corps to do a study of hydrological separation. Now, this is a study, not an order for action, but it’s an essential step and it’s the right step. Illinois Senator Durbin has really stepped up here, joining Michigan’s Senators Levin and Stabenow and Ohio’s Senator Voinovich in leading this Great Lakes protection effort. You can read the environmental community’s positive reaction to the letter.

Senators Durbin, Levin, Stabenow, and Voinoich, and the other 9 Senators who also signed the letter, recognize that hyrdological separation is not only essential for saving the Great Lakes ecosystem, but if done right can be of great benefit to improving Chicago’s transportation system, lowering transportation costs for businesses in Chicago and throughout the region, better cleaning Chicago’s wastewater, and bringing federal investment and jobs into the city. In other words, hydrological separation can be a win for the Great Lakes, the city of Chicago, and the entire region.

Congress should act quickly on the recommendations in the letter. Of course, the Corps doesn’t have to wait for Congress to authorize a new study. It should take the hint from these Senators and get started on a hydro sep study right away.

I hope this regional unity on this study is the beginning of a trend. The Great Lakes community is an incredible political force when we’re unified; just look at our successes the past two years on Great Lakes restoration funding and the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact. Now facing one of the most serious threats to the lakes in decades, we need that unity more than ever. Our Great Lakes senators are moving us in that direction, and just in time.

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Is this the Asian carp action plan we’ve been waiting for?

May 13, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum

Last week, the federal and state and federal agencies constituting the Asian Carp task force released what looked like an action plan to attack Asian carp. 

The agencies’ plan is to take lethal measures to kill Asian carp wherever eDNA testing indicates those carp are present – most recently, near the O’Brien Lock and Dam and in the North Shore Channel. They will use rotenone to poison the fish in a two-mile stretch near the O’Brien section, and they will use electroshocking and netting to kill the fish in a narrow section of the North Shore Channel. In both locations, they will close the locks for several days to increase the efficiency of the response actions.

Attacking the Asian carp wherever the evidence says they are present sounds like progress to me. It sounds like the kind of action plan we asked for three months ago.

It is also a positive sign that the agencies are acknowledging by their actions that DNA evidence is a good indicator of where carp are. The agencies are using the DNA hits to determine where to attack the carp.

But while these specific measures are good ones, it is now unclear whether these actions actually part of a comprehensive plan.

Unfortunately, the agencies’ press release (pdf) makes what they are proposing sound like more monitoring and not like a new response plan. And after a conversation with agency staff, it’s clear to me that their plan is being spun as monitoring: the agencies are planning on poisoning fish to see if Asian carp are present, not killing fish because the evidence already indicates that Asian carp are present.

And that difference is important; it will make a real difference on the ground. If agencies’ activities are just monitoring, then there is no way of knowing whether new evidence of Asian carp will trigger a killing response or some form of monitoring that isn’t lethal to carp.

So if this is the agencies’ new action plan, they should tell us. And if this is not their action plan, then they should come up with one fast. It’s been over six months and the Asian carp continue to move faster than the government.

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Posted in Asian carp, Great Lakes, Invasive Asian carp | 1 Comment »

Supreme Court decision on Asian carp: the ball is in our court now

May 4, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum

Pardon the length of this post, but I haven’t blogged in awhile, and this one is a bit complicated. Prominent in the news last week was the Supreme Court’s dismissal of Michigan’s petition to end the Chicago diversion and restore the natural divide between the Mississippi River system and Lake Michigan. After earlier refusing to hear two emergency motions to order short-term actions to stop the carp, the Court refused to reopen its consent decree that governs the Chicago diversion — which means the Court has declined to participate in any way on the Asian carp issue. That’s certainly disappointing, but at least in my mind, it does not have to be devastating.

Here’s why.

The only way to make sure Asian carp don’t enter Lake Michigan is to create a permanent barrier in the Chicago waterway system that stops live organisms from traveling through the canals (otherwise known as “ecological separation”). And the only entity that can build that barrier is the Army Corps of Engineers. To build such a barrier, the Corps would need to do studies on where and how the barrier could be built so as to maximize ecological protection while simultaneously creating economic growth (or at least minimizing economic harm). And then Congress would need to authorize the Corps to do the work and provide significant funding for construction.

Now, all this can happen without intervention by the Supreme Court. The Corps can do its study in a timely way (say, in 12-18 months), Congress can adopt the recommendations and fund them, and the Corps can then undertake construction. The problem is that the Corps is dragging its feet on the study and our Congressional delegation is divided as to what it would like the Corps to do. We heard last week that the Corps thinks it cannot finish its study by the end of 2012. And Congress isn’t likely to provide clear direction because there have been divisions between the Illinois delegation and most of the other Great Lakes states over the issue of ecological separation; without a unified front from the Great Lakes, Congress is unlikely to provide billions of dollars to fix a problem primarily associated with the Great Lakes.

Until the Supreme Court decision last week there were two strategies to getting the Corps to act quickly to complete the right kind of study and then for Congress to fund it.

The first strategy was (and is) to build consensus: to work with members of Congress, the states, the cities, the business community, scientists, and environmental organizations to find a method to do ecological separation that closes this canal system to invasive species while improving transportation and the Chicago and regional economies. This strategy brings people together to find a win-win outcome; it builds a consensus that the Corps would have every reason to adopt. We are already seeing signs that such a consensus is possible: the adoption of resolutions endorsing ecological separation by the Great Lakes Commission and its chair, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, was an excellent development. But that strategy takes time, and the Corps so far has been resistant to changing the slow, ineffective path on which it currently treads.

The second strategy was the opposite of consensus – the litigation option. Over the opposition of Illinois and some Chicago stakeholders, the Court could just order the Corps to do a study to determine the best ecological separation option and then implement it. Such an order would have been helpful in the following respects: it could have made sure the Corps did the right study (on how, and not whether, to do ecological separation); it could have forced the Corps to do the study quickly; and it could have established a special master to push the Corps to implement the study. But even under the best case scenario, the Court’s order could not have forced the government to stop the carp. The Court could not order Congress to provide funding, and without funding, there’s no construction for ecological separation. So even if we had the best decision from the Court, we’d need major action from Congress to protect the Great Lakes.

And that’s where the lawsuit created a bit of a paradox. A successful lawsuit could move the Corps along much more quickly…. but it also made action by Congress more unlikely. The lawsuit deepened and exacerbated the conflict between Illinois and other states, particularly Michigan, and their Congressional delegations. That conflict has made it extremely difficult for Congress as a whole to act. So while the lawsuit would have been really helpful in getting the Corps to do a good study quickly, it could have made doing the construction needed for ecological separation more difficult.

The dismissal of the lawsuit is a mixed bag. On the one hand, no lawsuit means a chance for the first strategy to work: to find widespread agreement around a win-win scenario for ecological separation. That agreement can be a force for funding and construction of ecological separation in ways that a Court order could not. On the other hand, it means that there’s no clear way to hold the Corps accountable – to conduct the right kind of study, and to conduct it quickly. It means that the first strategy becomes the only strategy. If we can’t build consensus and build it quickly, then the Corps will continue plodding along, often in the wrong direction, and the Great Lakes will be in real trouble.

That means the ball’s in our court now: we in the region, and not the Supreme Court, will decide the fate of the lakes. We’ve got some work to do.

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Houston, we have a solution

April 14, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum

I spent much of last week at NWF’s annual meeting in Houston, Texas, with affiliated organizations from 46 different states and Washington, D.C. While national issues like climate change took up most of the agenda, guess what caused the biggest stir? That’s right, Asian carp.

Everybody had heard about these huge flying fish, they knew the crisis facing the Great Lakes, and they wanted to know how to help.

They found a way. Several of our affiliates, led by Illinois’ Prairie Rivers Network and NWF Board member Clark Bullard (also from Illinois), proposed a resolution calling for hydrological separation of the Mississippi River system and the Great Lakes basin, to be done as rapidly as possible. That resolution went through committee last week and was voted on by the all of the NWF affiliates.

The result? Unanimous approval.

Check out this television news segment and article from Chicago’s Fox News on NWF’s carp resolution.

Wildlife Federation Wants Drastic Anti-Carp Measures

Chicago – The National Wildlife Federation is calling for drastic steps to protect the Great Lakes from Asian Carp. The plan, approved unanimously at the federation’s national meeting in Houston, calls for setting up a barrier to separate Lake Michigan from the Mississippi River Basin.

The plan would once again reverse the flow of the Chicago River so it would empty into Lake Michigan.

The barrier could be set up out near Romeoville or Joliet, according to Clark Bullard, one of the Illinois representatives. Electric barriers now in place in the shipping canal currently serve as the barrier to keep the carp from migrating into Lake Michigan.

Read the rest of the story

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