Nightmare carp are getting closer

August 7, 10:17 AMMilwaukee Environmental News ExaminerMaureen Daly

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One does not have to look very far to see example after example of bad results when humans meddle with the natural environment.  We await a report to see if our Army Corps of Engineers contributed to what amounts to a drain hole in lakes Michigan and Huron. Now it appears that Asian carp, a rather nasty member of the aquatic family may be within 10 miles of the final barrier between them and Lake Michigan and from there the rest of the Great Lakes and the rivers that feed them. You may not spend a lot of time in a boat to get concerned, but these huge fish actually throw themselves out of the water to injure boaters.  The sequel to Snakes on a Plane! may take place on the Great Lakes.

The carp got here after they were imported in the 1960s to test their use in consuming sewerage treatment waste.  They escaped their containment pools and headed north. Yes the project was federally funded and at the time was most likely considered a "green" experiment.

The carp have been stuck at a dam on the Des Plaines River in Illinois, but DNA tests point to the fact that the fish may have cleared the dam and the lock and are now in waters above it. Now there is precious little to prevent the fish from getting into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, another fine example of human ingenuity. In 1887 Chicago decided to reverse the flow of the Chicago River and build a canal to link the south branch of the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River. The result was a shipping canal of course and a method to use Lake Michigan water to flush Chicago sewerage to the Mississippi watershed and protect the city's source for drinking water - Lake Michigan. Fear of sewerage causing typhoid, cholera and dysentery at the time was real, but other solutions of course could have been explored. Thankfully, today, diversions from the Great Lakes system are regulated by an International treaty with Canada, through the International Joint Commission and by governors of the Great Lakes states. The illustration of the flow of the rivers before and after the diversion is from Wikipedia.

The lesson is clear. The unintended consequences of our grand ideas and engineering skills to shape the natural environment today can surface generations from now.