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Great Lakes
Article:
Critics say carp barrier proposal
is all wet
Associated Press
10/24/03
ST. PAUL - An underwater electric barrier across the
Mississippi River to stop the northward spread of Asian
carp would cost $15 million to $25 million, according
to a preliminary report, and some experts doubt it would
even work.
The report was presented Wednesday to natural resource
officials from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and several
federal agencies.
Jeff Smith, president of Smith-Root Inc., a fisheries
technology company in Vancouver, Wash., which prepared
the study, cautioned that the construction price is an
early estimate.
No decision has been made on whether to build the barrier,
said Mark Holsten, deputy natural resources commissioner
for Minnesota.
Two dozen officials at a four-hour meeting in St. Paul
formed a steering committee to look at ways to block the
carp and to pay for a comprehensive study.
The underwater barrier would be similar to one that Smith-Root
built last year in a canal near Chicago that connects
Lake Michigan with the Illinois River. The barrier's underwater
electric cables send out shocks that repel fish.
Some raised concerns about the feasibility of any electric
barrier in a river as large as the Mississippi. Sediment
and debris could cover the electric cables or damage them,
they said, and high water might interrupt the curtain
of electricity. Other officials said that a barrier would
prevent native migratory fish from moving upstream to
spawn.
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