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False alarm on Asian Carp?

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Illinois

Federal and state agencies announced [last] Friday that invasive Asian Carp DNA has been found in Bubbly Creek in Chicago, which is about 5 miles from Lake Michigan. This spike in eDNA so close to Lake Michigan is a cause for alarm. Agencies have commenced increased sampling and monitoring in the area.

In reaction to this alarming news, Alliance for the Great Lakes President & CEO Joel Brammeier released the following statement:

“This discovery is yet another sign that we are teetering on the edge of a nightmare scenario. The time for delay is over…”

* Today…

Officials are eyeballing the metropolitan sewer system as a possible source for invasive carp genetic material found in the Chicago River last month in amounts that puzzled wildlife experts and triggered emergency searching for live fish.

So far, netting and electrofishing have found no traces of silver or bighead carp after agencies announced Nov. 1 that routine testing around the Chicago Area Waterway System turned up 76 positive carp genetic material detections in Chicago’s Bubbly Creek. […]

There’s a suspicion the DNA hits could be related to either human waste or wash water from fish markets entering the sewer system, she said. City fish mongers sell silver and bighead carp and the state of Illinois is promoting commercial catch as a means of species control.

[Amy McGovern, aquatic invasive species supervisor with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife service] said the Racine Avenue station is “pumping a significant amount of material into the water near a community that eats a lot of dead Asian carp.”

The wildlife service wants to begin sampling inside the sewer system. […]

The Racine Avenue pumping station on Bubbly Creek transfers wastewater to the Stickney treatment plant from Chinatown and much of the city south of the river down to 87th Street. According to MWRD, the station discharged to the creek twice just prior to the eDNA sampling; 731 million gallons on Oct. 3 and 185 million gallons on Oct. 5.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 12:07 pm

Comments

Bubbly Creek figures in Sinclair’s “The Jungle”, as the place the slaughterhouses and industrial sites dumped really really heinous pollution. Now we have a different ecological threat there. The “oh it must be a false positive” thing sounds like whistling in the dark to me, because it suggests we can relax about the Asian Carp and we’re meanwhile doing practically nothing for prevention.

his is what people who don’t want to spend money or hurt profits do: they minimize the risk… Remember Rauner talking about EPO “isn’t a big deal” and: “meh, that bacteria is very common in water supplies”…?

When I hear this stuff It sounds like a PR smokescreen by the barge companies, who don’t want to be inconvenienced in their money-making, by having the creek terminated. It would mean building some kind of overland portaging system for their barge loads, or a more complex lock system. Their profits are unaffected if Lake Michigan gets invaded, but there’s millions, maybe billions of dollars’ worth of permanentness damage to fisheries and the ecology, if we just sit around hoping the fish don’t keep coming.

Everybody knows what the right thing to do is… but “shareholder value” is the only thing they listen to.

Comment by Upton your Sinclair Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 12:42 pm
Oh, man, let’s hope so.

Comment by Benjamin Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 12:43 pm
Just a slight delay of the inevitable. Soon enough it will be another sad tale of an invasive species ruining an ecosystem thanks to our carelessness and/or naivete and/or hubris. Zebra Mussels, mongoose, cane toads, lampreys, wild pigs, etc.

Comment by Shemp Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 12:44 pm
Shemp you are correct.

Comment by Nieva Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 12:50 pm
We’ve got these things and they’re effin’ silver. And we’re going to give them away for nothin’.

Comment by 47th Ward Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 1:06 pm
It all sounds fishy to me.

Comment by Groucho Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 1:06 pm
I have literally seen people catching them in Bubbly Creek (yes, people are out there catching fish for eating…)

Comment by NIU Grad Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 1:37 pm
How to deal with invasive species fast forward to 40 seconds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc-e8EGkLMo
This would be a lot of fun to watch on the lake front (play pen).

Comment by NorthsideNoMore Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 3:12 pm
==The wildlife service wants to begin sampling inside the sewer system. […]==

Just want to point out this example of the necessary, unglamorous work that gets done every day by folks on the public payroll.

Comment by Ebenezer Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 4:18 pm
Almost got knocked out of my boat by the Peoria lock and dam when one hit me.

We keep bringing species from one ecosystem to another and can’t seem to ever figure out why they breed out of control. Remember it was the best and brightest biologists who thought it was a good idea.

Comment by FormerParatrooper Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 5:28 pm
- best and brightest biologists who thought it was a good idea. -

No, it was catfish farmers along the Mississippi whose pond cleaners got out during floods.

Comment by Excitable Boy Wednesday, Nov 13, 19 @ 6:01 pm