Bad Boosterism: Chicago Tribune Soft-Pedals Fears About The Asian Carp

The Chicago Tribune editorial board thinks people are worrying too much about Asian carp decimating the Great Lakes.

The evidence: that so far, only one carp has been found - - dead through a mass poisoning effort - - close to the electric barriers designed to keep these great predators out of the Great Lakes.

I'd say it's a little too soon to declare victory, but let's be honest. The Trib was just speaking up on behalf of its city's sewerage and shipping canal - - an engineering feat about a century old that carries Chicago's waste away from the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River system.

Barges and recreational boaters navigate the canal, too, using it as a direct, but artificial route to the Mississippi.

Problem is that the carp have successfully moved up river from the Deep South, swimming against the flow: the canal could be the entry point for the carp, perhaps the ultimate invasive specie, to the Great Lakes.

Closing the canal, or shutting the locks when the electric barriers go down for their regular maintenance would help keep the carp and their environmental disaster out of Lake Michigan, but the Trib says messing with the canal or the locks is going to far.

And another Chicago writer urges caution, too.

The canal certainly helped remove hazardous pollution from Lake Michigan, but major, unprecedented protective measures against invasives are needed it the canal is their conduit.

Cheerleading for the canal as if it were a one-way benefit for the Great Lakes region is counter-productive and parochial.

Or is "Don't Mess With Our Toilet" the Chicago's new slogan?