Something Needs to be Done

11/3/2011
Dustin Masin
Let’s remove, for a moment, the threat of asian carp to the Great Lakes. Let’s just assume that these beautiful waters have already been biologically polluted. After all, the Corps Of Engineers has released studies admitting, “…electric barriers in the Chicago Waterway System won’t keep Asian carp from reaching Lake Michigan.” The barrier is said to not be affective against carp < 5.4 inches long. I am not necessarily suggesting they have yet; I am simply removing that variable from the equation for a moment.
Personally, I don’t require the above argument to contend that the Chicago Waterway System should be abolished, separating the Mississippi river system from the Great Lakes and returning the two watersheds back to their natural state.
Sources I have read indicate the Mississippi watershed houses upwards of 40 other potentially dangerous invasive species that could enter the lakes we call great. The Mississippi is threatening our resources daily through the greed and ignorance of Chicago’s economy. I understand that people need jobs and money needs to flow, but let’s pay someone to start shoveling some dirt back into that manmade ditch! I work for the WIDNR as a fisheries biologist, and the carp would negatively affect my job as well as those across all the Great Lake states. Maybe not so flippantly, but the government ought to redirect these canal preservation jobs and do something to return these waters to their natural state.
What effects do you think Chicago’s/Illinois’ Economy would feel with the destruction of the canal?
It’s not only invasive organisms that harm the Great Lakes. People interfered with the natural watersheds and flow of waters when they constructed it back in 1849: long before current environmental impacts were understood. The Chicago River is now even said to flow bi-directionally in winter seasons! I’m sure this and the asian carp are merely visible impacts that are only a fraction of the impacts we were unable to see or predict when the canal was constructed.
What’s most impressive is that the two largest surface water systems in America were connected providing a passage for goods and a constant flush of untreated sewage into the Mississippi watershed and eventually into the gulf. Essentially, these waters were employed as plumbing for a growing population’s fecal discharge. Mankind made the problem to deal with crap, but I contest that our government has been shoveling itself out of more fecal matter than they flushed away. The matters they are dealing with may no longer be biological excretions but have since transformed into equally smelly legal litigation and environmental invasion.
I’m concerned what impacts the project had on the natural system immediately that people were unaware of at the time, but the environment is quick to rebound. Let’s be quicker to act and rectify this issue.
What other impacts do you think have been a result of tampering with this system?
Now let’s reintroduce the reality of the asian carp. If (and I emphasize the word “if”) the carp haven’t conquered the barrier, it certainly won’t be long. The electric barrier is admittedly insufficient in its purpose though it has been the primary barrier for years. The introduction and acclimatization of asian carp into the great lakes is an inevitable truth without the restoration of the two separate, natural water systems.
Do you think carp have breached the barriers?
More importantly, does it matter?
In its day, the project to connect these two monster water bodies was an engineering marvel that trained those who would go on to design the Panama Canal. We can all appreciate the feat accomplished, but more than I want to appreciate man’s ingenuity, I want to appreciate what is natural: at least, what’s left of natural.
http://prairierivers.org/articles/2011/09/army-corps-strategy-puts-great-lakes-at-risk/