Mississippi River, Asian Carp

[CDPalmer]

curious how far north anyone has seen these "flying carp" on the Mississippi?  I'm in pool 19, Burlington, and havent seen any here.

[Black_Diamond]

All the way to Chicago.  Knocking on the door to Lake Michigan, and looming disaster.

Time for:
a) Chicago to start treating their waste water (it is all untreated..just dumped in the canals to the Mississippi)
b) Close the locks. 

[CDPalmer]

I'm not sure when the Illinois dumps in the Mississippi, but thank GOD it is south of where i live! 
Didnt know about the waste water thing.  How in the world is that even possible?

[bat32]

All the way to Chicago.  Knocking on the door to Lake Michigan, and looming disaster.

Time for:
a) Chicago to start treating their waste water (it is all untreated..just dumped in the canals to the Mississippi)
b) Close the locks. 

Not sure where you wre getting your information about waste water being untreated but you better check again and closing the locks is not even close to a viable solution.  I wouldn't worry about the Illinois dumping into the Mississippi. The River is very clean where I boat and for sure has less industry than the Mississipi has and we all know (I hope) moving water such as a river cleans itself every one and a half feet.  The Asain Carp is nature.  Not native but nature, and no electric fence, lock etc.. is going to stop them for ever.  More viable options like harvesting them and selling back to China are int he place now and are starting to deplete the population  better than any fence. 

[Dan&Darci]

All the way to Chicago.  Knocking on the door to Lake Michigan, and looming disaster.

Time for:
a) Chicago to start treating their waste water (it is all untreated..just dumped in the canals to the Mississippi)
b) Close the locks. 

Reminds me of an old joke when Chicago did dump raw waste water into the river to get down to Missouri - something to the effect that then St. Louis sends it back up as Budweiser!    I crack myself up! 

Actually, what I believe goes into the river is storm water runoff when the storm sewer system is full.  No waste water has been dumped in the river for many decades.

[frodo13056]

I have traversed the Illinois river from near my house (Channahon, IL) to Chicago many times and back and I have never seen Asian carp upriver of Brandon Road locks which is about 40 miles south of Chicago and about 20 miles down river of the electric fence in Romeoville. I've seen a few of them in the Starved Rock pool and I hear it gets worse the closer to Peoria you get - but I have not been down river to the Peoria area in about 4 years or so.
As for the carp making their way to the Great Lakes, they have only found carp DNA in the Chicago river - how they can find DNA in a river is beyond me but finding carp DNA does not equal finding an actual living Asian carp in the Chicago river.
Even if Illinois were to shut down the Illinois & Michigan canal between the Illinois river and Chicago, all you need is one wacko with a fishing pole and a bucket of water to catch a bunch of the carp and dump them where ever he wants - Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, the swimming pool in your back yard, the local retention pond, where ever and now you have an invasive species in a body of water close to you. There have been studies that indicate that Lake Michigan may not be a very hospitable environment for the Asian carp - but like any argument, there are two sides.
As for dumping raw sewage - well, yes, it does happen during heavy rainfalls. The Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago is in the process of building a tunnel in and around Chicago and the surrounding communities to hold a few billion gallons of rainwater during heavy rains – project is called the Deep Tunnel and was started in 1975 and is supposed to complete in 2019. Once in a while the rain is so heavy that they do release waste water to Lake Michigan and to the Chicago river. You will see that the Chicago beaches close a few times during the summer due to high pollutants. I suppose that is what happens when you pack 3 million or so people into a fairly small part of the earth that used to be mainly swamp land.

[rmusser]

I put in at Hamilton and boat up to burrlington often, you ever see a blue 192 captiva that is me. Well there are plenty below the keokuk dam, I have even went snagging for them. I think I remember seeing some dead one in pool 19 too. There around, just not in sizable levels in burrlington yet...

[B-Juled]

I haven't seen them, but they are reported to be in Lake Pepin, above Lock 4. The rivers are doing their 1st crest this week and boats will be in the water 2-3 weeks from now. We run down that way often and will report back any findings.

[B-Juled]

Well it looks like it is spreading further north...
http://m.startribune.com/topic/1554-Local%20+%20Metro%20News/articles/206424767?paging=off

[Babyboomer]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/x3Bf0WhvsNk&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/x3Bf0WhvsNk&rel=0</a>

[Ldswift]

Boomer that video shows how bad these carp are for our local fisheries. It's to bad that the DNR can't do a large enough fish kill to control these carp.

[raybo3]

That is wild.....