Asian Carp: The Awful Truth

borrowed from Detroit Business Law (www.detroitbusinesslaw.com)

Someone asked me on Friday why keeping the Asian Carp out of the great lakes is such a big issue.  "Why don't they just close the locks?" he said.  I rubbed my thumb against my index and middle finger (the American hand signal for money) and matter-of-factly said, "they won't do that, because it will slow down commerce, and that's going to cost people money."

Engineers are smart enough to make the Chicago River flow in a different direction than mother nature intended, but they won't be able to win a victory over the carp because they are not willing to close the locks and slow down the delivery of goods.

They are quite a handsome species of fish, I think, and they are also very good jumpers.  There are tons of youtube videos that bear this out, but I chose this one -  carp video
No wonder one of their nicknames is "flying carp".

Tribal Canoe Event on the Detroit River

Had a nice few hours out on the Detroit River on Friday, helping some local native peoples exercise their treaty rights to pass freely back and forth between Canada and the U.S.A.  Even though I really dislike being in front of the camera, I consented to give an interview to a nice CBC television correspondent.  She asked a few basic questions, and then she asked me the same question 6 different ways.  I obviously was not giving her the answer that she wanted.

What I think she wanted me to say, was that the canoes traveling back and forth the river were "shutting down" the river for a time.  I was telling her the truth, that we had worked with authorities in Canada to try and bring most of the large commercial traffic through before or after the canoe event.  We actually had to slow down two ships, and keep the last canoe on our side of the river, so that they would not get run over by the big tug and barge combos or big lakers that are traveling past my office window (up or down river) several times a day.

If you have a lot of time on your hands, you can find all things nerdy and boaty about great lakes shipping at this link.

Photo of M/V ALGORAIL in Saginaw River by Todd Shorkey - borrowed from www.boatnerd.com

This is one of the boats that we had to ask to slow down a bit, the ALGORAIL, so that they would not create some search and rescue cases for us.

Everything went fine.  There were a lot fewer canoes than we expected, but I don't think that they aired the piece on the CBC, because they could not get the controversial response that they were hoping for.

Of course one of the organizers had repeatedly been quoted in short press stories saying that Canada was shutting down the waterway for the event, which was patently untrue.  Either she did not understand how these things happen, or she was trying to claim that their event was causing a big disruption.  Luckily the later did not happen, and no one needed to be saved.  SUCCESS!!!

Interesting things I am learning about fresh water

I have been working at my new job for about a month now.  Detroit has a much different landscape than Juneau, and the water just doesn't look or smell the same.  I am one of those strange people who actually likes the smell of low tide.  There are a lot of different smells one can experience along the waterfront, but none are the salty, tide pool inspired smell that I crave.

However, there are lots of wrecks in the great lakes, and they don't deteriorate as quickly as ones exposed to salt water.  The ice and winter storms do wreak havoc with these unfortunate ships, and the link below shows what my guys were working on recently:


German freighter gets new attention 44 years after sinking in Lake Huron


http://www.uscgd9.blogspot.com/

(The flange where peanut-sized drops of oil had been escaping. Photo courtesy of NOAA)

The weeds in the water are entirely different, and the most plentiful mollusks are the invaders that have made the water much clearer, but have also eaten up all the microorganisms that lots of native fish need to survive.

I think I may have nightmares about zebra mussels tonite.......