Thursday, January 21, 2010

White House Summit On Asian Carp Awfully Late In The Game

President Obama will be hosting in a couple of weeks a meeting of Great Lakes officials about the threat to the Great Lakes posed by the Asian carp.

Gov. Doyle was instrumental in getting the meeting scheduled.

This comes on the heels of the discovery of carp DNA in Lakes Michigan and Superior, indicating that all measure of electric barrier zapping and massive fish poisonings in waterway connections to the Great Lakes in recent months have failed.

And with the US Supreme Court turning down a multi-state petition to force Illinois to close a shipping canal's locks through which the predatory fish may entered Lake Michigan, it's unclear what will come of a White House meeting now.

Pick you fractured idiom: horse already out of the barn...cat out of the bag...you get the picture.

What's galling about the failure of the Great Lakes states to act decisively - - and we're looking at you, Illinois, since it is Chicago's shipping canal that is the probable offender - - is that media have been carrying stories for years about the carp's relentless swim northward up the Mississippi River and towards the Great Lakes.

Where $7 billion of commercial fishing and recreational businesses could be trashed by these hungry, 100-pound flying fish.

Take a look at this very comprehensive piece in the Michigan media - - from the summer of 2007.

Where was the White House meeting about the carp back then?

Oh, I forgot who was President then.

3 comments:

Anon Jim said...

Understanding blaming Bush is your answer to everything - hope it at least makes you feel better since it otherwise accomplishes nothing.

As far as the Carp Summit goes, let me make a prediction they are going to announce the formation of a "blue ribbon" commission. Which we all know will accomplish absolutely nothing except waste even more of the taxpayers money.

Don't know what is more pathetic - our governmental leaders or your expectation that they will actually do anything about this issue.

James Rowen said...

The facts are that Bush was President from 2000-2008.

Anon Jim said...

Since the Obama Administration in involved, are going to get a Carp Czar along with the aforementioned Blue Ribbon Commission?

Or is it Tzar, was never sure about the proper spelling on that title.

We really should organize a betting pool on which happens first, action of any kind by the Feds or the first boater on Lake Michigan being impaled by a jumping giant carp.