Feds release new Asian carp plan

While Gov. Jennifer Granholm and other Great Lakes leaders were meeting at the White House with the leadership of the key executive agencies involved, the Obama administration released the details of a 25-point plan to prevent the destructive Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes — but stopped short of agreeing to close the locks connecting Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River via the Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal. The Detroit News reports:

Federal officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency and other key agencies unveiled a $78.5 million, 25-step plan today to stop the migration of the Asian carp into the Great Lakes…

Larger numbers of field crews will be used for sonar observation, electro-shocking and netting operations within the waterway, the White House said. DNA sampling will be doubled to 120 samples per week.

Next month, a $13.2 million contract will given to build barriers between the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and Des Plaines River, the White House said, to prevent carp from getting past the electric barrier if there were a flood.

Another $10.5 million will be used to build and operate a third electric barrier.

The plan, called the Asian Carp Control Strategy Framework , also includes longer term strategies, such as $5 million for chemical treatments if the barriers fail and $1.5 million for research into Asian carp controls such as Asian carp-specific poisons and methods to disrupt spawning and egg viability.

Part of the plan also apparently is to open the locks less often, but not to close them off entirely as Granholm and the leaders of all the Great Lakes states other than Illinois have demanded. Closing the locks would mean no shipping through the channel, requiring millions of tons of freight currently shipped on barges to move by truck or train instead.