Asian carp jumping out of the water (source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District)
Imagine you’re taking a leisurely boatride through Lake Michigan. But watch out! A giant, 100 pound Asian carp could fly out of the water and knock you down.
This danger to boaters is just one of the threats Asian carp pose to the Great Lakes ecosystem.
The fish have not reached the Great Lakes yet but they are rapidly approaching and will bring serious problems with them.
The danger to the ecosystem comes from the carp’s ability to outcompete bigger native fish and eat smaller ones.
The carp mainly eat plankton, the base of the aquatic food chain. But they eat voraciously. A 100 pound carp can eat more than their body weight in a day. In a 2016 study looking at potential impacts in Lake Erie, researchers found Asian carp could account for 30 percent of fish within 20 years, driving a 40% decline in some native fish like white perch. That would jeopardize a fishing industry worth $7 billion.
By being proactive, these harms can be avoided. More often than not, invasive species become a problem before anyone can do anything to stop it. People don’t realize they are a problem until they see the harms. Once an invasive species becomes established, they are very difficult to eradicate. So, it is much more effective to stop them from being introduced in the first place. Asian carp is the perfect opportunity to do so.
To fend off the Asian carp, projects either planned or in place aim to keep these fish out of the Great Lakes.
The critical player in this defensive strategy is the Brandon Road Lock and Dam project in Illinois.
Southwest of Chicago, the Brandon Road Lock and Dam sits on the Des Plaines River, which connects to Lake Michigan through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The project is designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Map of Brandon Road Lock and Dam (source: US Army Corps of Engineers)
Brandon Road Lock and Dam project diagram (source: US Army Corps of Engineers)
Using various types of technology, this project has the potential to stop the fish from advancing from the Des Plaines River to Lake Michigan where they can then spread to the four other Great Lakes. One technology is an acoustic fish deterrent with speakers that play sound frequencies the carp doesn’t like to make them swim away from the noise. Another element is an air bubble curtain that shoots out a constant stream of bubbles to keep smaller fish from continuing to swim upstream.
The Army Corps estimates the project will take 3 to 4 years to fully construct. But, the timeline is based on when funds are available with federal funding being most important.
The project is estimated to cost $830,784,000 with funding split between federal and non-federal sources, 65 and 35 percent. Federal funding will come from the Army Corps, but those funds depend upon what is allocated from the annual federal budget.
Close to $1 billion dollars is a huge amount of money to spend on one project, but it would be worth it. If the Great Lake’s fishing and boating industries are kept intact, they would protect industries worth $7 billion and $16 billion, respectively.
The federal government should give proper funding to the Brandon Road project as quickly as possible to stop Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes and causing irreversible damage to the second largest freshwater ecosystem in the world. The alternative is lakes filled with Asian carp and significant amounts of money wasted on hopeless attempts to eradicate them.