Will Asian Carp assault Chicago, Lake Michigan similar to the way Godzilla terrorized Tokyo in the movies?

It has long been the fear of environmentalists that Asian Carp, a breed of fish considered particularly devastating to our ecology, is someday going to manage to work its way into Lake Michigan and the surrounding of the Great Lakes.

Have Asian Carp arrived at Lake Calumet? Photos by Gregory Tejeda

So it is with much trepidation that there is now evidence indicating that the Carp have made it past the electronic barricades further south near Romeoville (which the Army Corps of Engineers installed thinking that was the absolute solution to keep the Carp out of Chicago) and are now in existence in Lake Calumet.

FROM WHICH, IF they really have made it that far along the path, only now have to swim upstream through the Calumet River for about seven miles through Chicago’s South Side and will then be in Lake Michigan proper.

The Asian Carp, who initially were released accidentally into the Mississippi River somewhere down near New Orleans have managed to make it up across the nation, and across our state through the Illinois River and could now be about to take over the lake that is pride and joy to our Chicago.

Which, of course, will have many people eager to blame Chicago for letting the Asian Carp loose – even though one could claim it was the ineptitude of those who initially let the Carp loose down south who are truly to blame.

From Lake Calumet mouth to Calumet River … 

But the reality is that there’s nothing that can be done to undo the damage in the mighty Mississippi. But we can still hope that our officials can act in ways to bar them from Lake Michigan.

SO WHAT’S THE big deal about the Asian Carp? The fact is that the Asian Carp feed on anything and everything in their paths.

In doing so, they’ll devastate the ecosystems of whatever water supply they manage to get to. In a sense, everything that is alive and thriving now in Lake Michigan could wind up becoming barren, if the Carp make it that far.

And the reality is, we may well find there’s nothing we really can do to stop the Asian Carp from making the final stretch of their journey to Lake Michigan and all the other Great Lakes.

and up the river, past the Chicago Skyway bridge

If they’ve managed to work their way north from New Orleans to Chicago this far, what’s to make us think there’s anything that can be placed in their way during the final seven-mile stretch of the Calumet River?

NOW IT SHOULD be noted that the Asian Carp proper have not been found in Lake Calumet itself. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said last week that traces of DNA from Asian Carp have been found in the lake’s water.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the DNA could consist of evidence of skin cells, secretions and feces (just think, fish poop), and that those substances could well have been in the bilge water of the ships that pass through the area – if not the Asian Carp themselves.

Too bad the Asian Carp can't read signs!

It could be just genetic junk, and not the fish themselves that have made the lengthy journey from down south. Which means that rather than blaming Chicago for letting the Carp into the Great Lakes, we ought to be thinking in terms of whether or not Chicago will be “heroic” enough to prevent the trip from being completed.

I suppose we’re now on the lookout for the Asian Carp, which have been sited by the T.J. O’Brien Lock and Dam – located just south of the lake – to see if they’ve made it a few miles farther north to the lake proper, then well on their way to the “big” lake itself.

IT WILL BE intriguing to see what kind of last-ditch measures our federal and state officials (Gov. J.B. Pritzker has written to the Army Corps of Engineers offering whatever assistance the state can provide) can concoct to try to keep the Asian Carp out of the Great Lakes.

Will we see some new sort of technology devised to try to barricade off Lake Michigan? Or are we destined to see the same kind of electronic barricades erected at the mouth of the Calumet River headed into the lake as one last-ditch attempt to kill off any sort of creatures?

Will the Asian Carp be reminiscent of Godzilla films?

Is it inevitable that Lake Michigan (and the other Great Lakes) as we now know them are doomed? Or can they be saved?

It makes me wonder if we’re destined for some sort of story in our future resembling the old Godzilla movies – with the Asian Carp being a threat to our ecological well-being and threatening Chicago similar to the way the cinematic dragon-like creature used to terrorize Tokyo!

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On Asian carp issue, does Illinois really have faith? Or is state just cheap!

The Asian Carp, a species of fish that devours everything in its path and whose presence in the Great Lakes would likely kill off all the species of fish and plant life that are native to our area, are an issue that we’re supposedly desperate to find a solution to.

Army Corps of Engineers has new plan for Asian carp

For we have evidence that the carp have managed to creep their way up into the Calumet River and are extremely close to the mouth of Lake Michigan – which would feed them into the Great Lakes as a whole.

CATASTROPHE TIME, OR at least that is what we’ve been led to believe.

Yet I find it interesting that Illinois government officials, or at least those in positions of authority within the governor’s office, are skeptical of the latest proposal by the Army Corps of Engineers meant to keep the carp away from the lake.

They talk about an upgrade of the Brandon Road lock and dam near Joliet to include high-power water jets and loud noises – all of which would create enough of a barricade to keep the carp who have swum up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers to be up around Joliet from getting any closer to Chicago.

Currently, officials have relied upon electrifying the area on the Des Plaines River so that any carp who try to swim through the area get killed – thereby preventing them from getting any closer to Chicago than they already are.

YET ILLINOIS OFFICIALS made it clear Monday they don’t think much of the Army Corps of Engineers’ proposal.

In a prepared statement that state officials say is to be attributed to Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti (she doesn’t do much else), “this new approach is neither cost-effective nor environmentally sound.”

Illinois officials go so far as to say, “Science tells us our comprehensive strategy is working.”

SANGUINETTI: Gets to make carp stance for state

Although I’m sure those people who found evidence of the carp existing in the waters of the Calumet River (which puts them within the Chicago city limits – much too close for comfort to Lake Michigan for some people) don’t have the same faith in the existing measures.

I’M GUESSING WE have to figure out just how much faith do we have in Gov. Bruce Rauner and the judgment of his people to not want to consider taking the additional measures to try to keep the carp out of Chicago.

Because I am fairly certain that if the carp do manage to get to the Great Lakes, there are many people across the region who will be more than eager to blame Chicago for the mess. There are those who always like to bring up the late 19^th Century reversal of the flow of the Chicago River as somehow being responsible.

Because if we had let Mother Nature exist as she intended, we might not have such problems. A though of which I’m skeptical.

The point being we probably can’t rule out any solution, although I also appreciate much of the reason for Illinois’ official skepticism is the cost.

THE ARMY CORPS of Engineers’ plan has a $275.4 million price tag – of which Illinois would be on the hook for $95 million in construction costs and another $8 million per year for operations and maintenance expenses.

Could Asian carp have already made it to waters of Calumet River? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

I know Illinois government is not flush with extra cash these days. Yet there are some expenses we’re probably going to have to just knuckle down and accept. Could this be one of them?

Because while Illinois talks about the disruption of native fish migration patterns that would be caused by noise barriers and water jets, I’m wondering.

How much more will it wind up hurting Illinois financially if the carp do wind up making it all the way into the Great Lakes? A whole lot more than some dead fish carcasses washing ashore on Oak Street Beach!

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Meigs Field (finally) to become park

The remnants of Meigs Field remain in place. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

I used to mock Detroit because of what became of Tiger Stadium.

The ballpark where the Detroit Tigers played for nearly nine decades until 1999 remained in place for another decade.

IT WASN’T UNTIL 2009 that the building finally was torn down. While there are some groups that like to go out and play ball on the old infield, Detroit still doesn’t have any official plans for what to do with the site at Michigan and Trumbull avenues.

Pretty pathetic. Except that I’m not sure Chicago is any better. Just look at the saga of Meigs Field – the air strip that for just over a half-century allowed private airplanes to land their craft within a short cab ride of downtown Chicago.

I’m not here to rehash the politics of how former Mayor Richard M. Daley wanted to shutter the air strip on Northerly Island, and finally overcame the opposition of just about everybody by having bulldozers demolish the runways during one overnight in March 2003.

We still tell jokes about the “X” shaped gouges in the runways – making it dangerous for aircraft to try landing on them.



No more need for control tower on Northerly Island. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda



BUT IF ONE happens to drive (or walk) through the area near Northerly Island, it isn’t blatantly apparent that the air strip is long gone.

The old terminal building is still in place, along with the air traffic control tower. Even though it has been just over nine years since the last aircraft left the airstrip.

I realize that part of the reason nothing was able to be developed on the site were lawsuits that were pending by groups wishing to challenge the city’s ability to shutter an airport overnight – and without getting Federal Aviation Administration permission first.

Although it has been about six years since the last of those lawsuits were resolved.



Tiger Stadium is no more, yet its remnants won't wither away



YET WE STILL sit. It’s like Meigs Field has become Chicago’s version of Tiger Stadium.

Which is why I was intrigued by a Chicago Journal report that says work on revamping Northerly Island could begin come autumn.

The newspaper reported this week that the Chicago Park District (which owns the land) and the Army Corps of Engineers have plans to turn the flat layer of grass into a varied nature preserve with various ecosystems.

Almost like we can take the airstrip desired by business interests because of its proximity to downtown Chicago and turn it into a nature preserve whose biggest benefit is its proximity to downtown.

WITHIN A SHORT cab ride of the skyscrapers, one could see what the Midwest used to be like before all the European settlers arrived just over two centuries ago.

And at only $6.65 million, it probably is one of the cheaper projects undertaken by government – particularly since the bulk of the money will come from federal grants.

This may be one of the most cost-efficient projects the Chicago Park District takes on – especially since it won’t cost them more than $1.5 million in local funds.

Of course, I realize that a project hasn’t begun until work on it actually begins. Who knows what could come up between now and September (when officials supposedly will start looking for a construction company) that could delay the project’s beginning?

EVEN ONCE WORK begins, it could take up to five years before we can seriously think of walking through the nature and assorted grasses native to our region – because officials believe it would take up to five years for the grasses to be fully grown.

There also would be one other benefit to having this project in place – it would bring an end to the talk in some quarters that the best future for Northerly Island is to develop a casino on the lakefront site.

I comprehend that a casino is going to go somewhere in Chicago. I just don’t think the gaudiness of a flashy casino needs to be so close to downtown and the lakefront.

If you need bright lights on the lakefront, go watch that giant Ferris wheel at Navy Pier!

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Will we react in time to save Cairo?

Will a modern-day image of this old postcard depicting Cairo, Ill. and its position along the rivers be nothing but a sea of light blue?

I have never set foot in Cairo, Ill. That town at the far southern tip of the state where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers converge and where one literally is seven miles closer to Jackson, Miss., than they are to Chicago.

And now, I’m wondering if I’m never going to get the chance.

WILL IT TURN out that the time I was in Tamms, Ill., (about 12 miles to the north of Cairo), I will be able to claim I was in what will become the far southern tip of Illinois?

The aging southern city that resembles a ghost town in many parts is getting hit with heavy rains that are causing the two rivers that are the sole justification for its location to rise higher and higher.

The Ohio River at Cairo reached record-high levels on Sunday, and officials say it will continue to rise. Which has people thinking it is just a matter of time before the levees will give way and the rivers will wash away the city of some 2,800 people.

That has the Army Corps of Engineers thinking that the solution to the problem is to blow a hole in the levees that protect the Missouri side of the river from flooding. By letting farmland along the river overflow with water, they think it would ease pressure enough on the Cairo levees so that they will hold – and Cairo will continue to exist.

THE PROBLEM IS Missouri political people, who are determined to drag this issue out in the courts – even though the federal district and appeals courts have both upheld the desires of the Army Corps of Engineers as being justified and, quite possibly, the best way to cope with an ugly situation.

Missouri officials on Sunday tried unsuccessfully to get the Supreme Court of the United States to take the case under advisement, which meant that the Illinois attorney general’s office was busy this weekend trying to fight off the legal stalling tactics so that preventative action can occur.

There are those who are trying to portray this as selfishness by Missouri, trying to protect farmland instead of a city with actual people – even though Cairo officials this weekend gave the evacuation order and are trying to get everybody out of the area so as to reduce the potential for casualties should the river overflow.

I’m not quite sure I see it that simple.

BUT THIS COULD be a case where Cairo’s history, particularly from the late 1960s when racial tensions related to the demise of segregation as an acceptable policy for life in this society, is continuing to linger in its own weird way.

The historic fact is that when it became apparent that the old ways were gone and that the white and black populations of Cairo were going to mix (actually, Cairo proper was white, while black people were expected to stay in the unincorporated community of Future City located just up U.S. Route 51), many of the white people fled the area.

That is what gives us a modern-day Cairo that is overwhelmingly African-American, and ONLY 2,831 people in size. I’m sure there are many people who are fighting the Army Corps of Engineers’ desires who simply think that the people who remain in Cairo just don’t matter.

Or that we’re doing them a major favor by encouraging them to leave and letting the river overflow into Illinois – thereby forevermore eliminating the city that once was supposed to be a major shipping port in the United States because of its location on the two major rivers.

THE NATION'S HIGH court wound up deciding not to hear the case, letting the lower court rulings remain in place and allowing this to become an issue to be considered by the Army Corps of Engineers. Let's only hope the legal nonsense ended in time – because we really don’t know how much time there is left.

Various reports coming out of Cairo indicate signs that water is somehow seeping underneath the levee, which could weaken the structure and cause it to collapse. It is totally possible that the courts could make the proper rulings to give the Army Corps of Engineers the authority to decide for themselves how to fix this mess (which is one of their reasons for existence), only to have the levee collapse just before the court ruling is made public.

Will our political people get their act together in time to fix the disaster-in-the-making at Cairo? If they don’t, I’d think it is the kind of mess that is worthy of bringing down someone’s political career – and not just Missouri House Speaker Steve Tilley, R-Perryville, for bluntly saying that Missouri farmland was worth more than Cairo people.

Because someday I’d like to be able to go down to that part of Illinois (about the only part of the state I haven’t been to) and see where the rivers come together. I’d rather be surrounded by people when I do so, and NOT the ghost town-like remains of the city that so many of us became confused about when pronouncing.

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Eco-terrorism? Somebody’s prank? Or is the “Calumet Asian carp” nature’s fluke?

Excuse me for finding it very believable that an Asian carp found earlier this summer in Lake Calumet was likely planted there by another human being.

It just always struck me as being very unlikely that one of the carp had managed to make it so far north undetected past all the security measures that the Army Corps of Engineers put in place to keep the invasive species away from Lake Michigan.

NOT THAT I’M saying I have complete faith in the federal government’s efforts to control the Asian carp’s movement. I’m sure anything is penetrable.

But it just struck me as completely odd that the Asian carp went from being seen out around Will County, then suddenly was discovered within the Chicago city limits only six miles from the Great Lake (which is the target that the environmentalists are dreading that the carp will get to someday).

So reading the reports this week about how it is suspected that somebody deliberately put the Asian carp into Lake Calumet is reassurring. In addition to scary.

It is reassuring in that it means the security measures – including those electronic barriers that are supposed to keep the carp back – didn’t necessarily fail. It may turn out that it won’t be a federal government failure that prevents the Asian carp from someday getting through the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal to Lake Michigan, from where they could eventually spread throughout the Great Lakes.

BUT IT SCARES me that, despite all the word that has gotten out about the potential threat from the Asian carp, someone would think so little of the concerns that they would go so far as to put a carp into Lake Calumet on purpose.

It makes me wonder if a person who would deliberately put an Asian carp into the lake is the same type of person who thinks it all a batch of hooey that man ever walked on the moon – stories about the carp killing the lake’s ecosystem are for people gullible enough to not see the “wires” on the footage that purports to be Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on a rock in the cosmos.

Although I’d have to admit that I’d rather believe it was somebody’s naïve foolishness that caused the carp to get into the lake, rather than someone’s malicious intent. Because then we’d be talking about possible criminal activity, although I can already imagine the late night TV crowd having a field day if someone were actually hit with criminal charges and brought to trial for planting a fish in the lake.

As for the conservative pundit crowd, they’ll probably decree it “God’s punishment” to Chicago for being so Democratic Party-oriented for so many years.

IN SHORT, ONLY nonsense can result from this situation.

Officials say they’re not sure of the exact motivation of whoever it was that caused an Asian carp to get into Lake Calumet. One researcher at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale said it may have been some sort of cultural ritual. Or it may have been some sort of fisherman’s accident.

The only thing those researchers are sure of is that the three-foot-long Asian carp (weighing about 20 pounds) found back in June had spent nearly all of its life on the “wrong” side of the electronic barrier that is meant to keep the carp out of the Chicago area altogether.

The only thing I am sure of (aside from the nonsense factor) is that I doubt this story will change anybody’s mind about the whole Asian carp conundrum.

PEOPLE FROM ACROSS the Midwestern U.S. who are determined to think of this situation as “Chicago’s fault” are still going to persist in thinking that, and they’re likely to continue to push for those measures that close off Lake Michigan’s access to the rivers that connect it to the Mississippi River – even though it is that access that largely drives the Great Lakes states’ economies.

Closing off that access would wind up backfiring and hurting all of the region. Unlike the way people in Michigan (which seems to be particularly nasty in the way they’re pursuing this issue) think, they’d wind up hurting themselves and everybody else around them by persisting in legal actions meant to cut off the access (which allows for shipment of goods and helps bolster the local economy at a time when we need every advantage we can get).

Officials with the Alliance for the Great Lakes went so far as to tell the Chicago Sun-Times that this latest discovery is not a “game-changer either way.” I’m inclined to agree.

But the sad part is that I almost am resigned to the fact that the Asian carp are likely to find a way to get into Lake Michigan, and the Great Lakes, eventually. It probably will be the human factor that allows it to happen someday.

WHICH MEANS I am bracing myself for the eventual trial of somebody facing charges related to the ecological devastation of the natural wildlife in the Great Lakes.

One of the first major “stories” I covered as a professional reporter-type person was the shooting rampage by Laurie Dann some 22 years ago in the North Shore suburbs. Perhaps one of the last stories I will cover will be the future trial of a “Great Lakes terrorist” whose crime was letting a fish loose into the lake when he shouldn’t have.

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Asian Carp threatens to take down those cutesy boat rides on Lake Michigan

It has been 14 years since I last got on board one of those boats that gives people a tour of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. In fact, I can only recall having been on those boats twice during my lifetime, which for all I know may be two times more than many life-long Chicagoans.

What can I say. New Yorkers have the Statue of Liberty that they take for granted. We Chicagoans have those boat rides out into the lake.

BUT LIKE MANY a Chicagoan, I am aware of those rides because I see how aggressively they market themselves to the tourists who come to our wonderful city. They do offer a unique view of the Chicago skyline.

I recall that boatride I took in 1996 (it was the Democratic National Convention, and I was on board a boat with delegates from across the nation, notebook in hand, just in case somebody said or did something significant or embarrassing that would be newsworthy).

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency put together this guide to help people identify the various species of fish known collectively as the Asian Carp.

As it turns out, I didn’t get any “news” out of the ride. But I still remember seeing the Sears Tower (as it was known then) from straight east out in Lake Michigan. That building never loomed so mightily over downtown Chicago as it did that night in my mind.

In fact, ever since, I have wondered how catastrophic it would be to the city if something were to happen that were to knock down the Willis Tower. One blow really could take out the entire downtown business district, along with surrounding neighborhoods.

THE POINT IS that this is a thought that likely would never have occurred to me had I not gotten the lakeview viewpoint of the building and the downtown skyline as a whole.

Anyway, this is what passed through my mind when I read the Chicago Tribune account Tuesday (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-0228-tour-boat-threat-20100301,0,3085886.story) of how the boat owners are complaining about proposals by the Army Corps of Engineers to close the locks that allow boat traffic to go from the Chicago River to Lake Michigan (and back again), all in an attempt to put a stop to the Asian Carp.

Nothing is definite yet, but the newspaper reported that one proposal under consideration is to close off the access for four days per week – in hopes that such a move could slow the path of the carp (who have most recently been found in the parts of the river just outside of Chicago proper) from getting into the Great Lakes.

Making it to the lakes would cause the potential for ecological devastation represented by the carp, which eat everything in sight – thereby taking away sustenance for other species living in the water.

NOW TO SOME people, this plan is unacceptable. They want the locks closed altogether. They want to view the fact that the Chicago River flow was ever reversed by man as a serious mistake, which we are now paying for with this Asian Carp controversy.

But to the boat owners, that would take away so many days that they could offer their boat rides to the people from Keokuk, Pasadena or Paris (not the one in Southern Illinois) that they are complaining it will drive them broke.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think our company would be so severely threatened by a fish,” the owner of one company that has operated boat tours in Chicago since 1939 told the Tribune.

I don’t blame him for being concerned. His income is being threatened by something beyond his control. With the current economic conditions, finding employment elsewhere could turn out to be very difficult.

BUT I FIND it a bit flippant to dismiss this issue as being about mere “fish.”

Like I have written before, I understand the threat that the Asian Carp poses to our environment, primarily because it was a species that was never intended to be here.

The Army Corps of Engineers (which in the past has been unsuccessful in slowing up the carp’s path – they supposedly have been seen as close as 8 miles from Lake Michigan, although some say their DNA has been found in the lake itself) says it plans to make recommendations about what should be done, and hopes to implement recommendations some time about April 1.

I’m sure those who will lose economically think April Fool’s Day is a nasty joke on them. But my point in all of this is to remind people that while the potential for ecological damage is real and should not be ignored, there are the economic concerns – and not just from the companies offering boat rides.

THE REASON THE flow of the Chicago River was altered (away from the lake) was to improve the access for boats engaged in shipping. There are many goods that are best sent down the river to get them throughtout the Midwestern U.S.

Closing the locks would also close off those shipping routes.

I understand that some are angry about this situation, and it seems like they now want to use Chicago as the whipping boy, of sorts, for this issue. But it wasn’t Chicago that introduced the Asian Carp to the area, and in some ways, the city is just as much a victim of this situation as anyone else (despite all the attempts by surrounding states to file lawsuits shifting blame to Chicago and Illinois)

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Chicago vs. Midwest hurts all

If the Asian Carp makes it to the Great Lakes, this is their eventual point of entry. Image provided by http://www.chicagopostcardmuseum.org/

When Barack Obama won the presidential election, it was done in part with a uniting of the Midwestern states that comprise our region. It was evidence that perhaps Chicago and its immediate neighbors weren’t so radically different from each other.

But anyone who thinks the squabbles that have occurred in the past are a thing of the past ought to think again. Or at least that’s the impression I’m getting from watching the legal brawl that is rising from the Asian Carp situation.

FOR THOSE OF you who can’t bring yourselves to follow too closely anything involving Carp (a truly unglorious type of fish), it appears that the species with the potential to wipe out the ecosystem of the Great Lakes is on the verge of reaching that shore.

Some naysayers will claim they may already be there, but the closest confirmed sightings of the Carp have been within eight miles of Lake Michigan.

Specifically, they rode up the Illinois River and into the Chicago & Sanitary Ship Canal, where they have the potential to work their way up to the Chicago River and into the Great Lakes right at the heart of Chicago’s lakefront.

To listen to some people speak it these days, it’s all Chicago’s fault. Or, it’s all Illinois’ fault, and Illinois these days is overrun with all those Chicago political types.

MICHIGAN STATE GOVERNMENT is suing Illinois and the Army Corps of Engineers, claiming both are at fault for letting the Asian Carp get so close to the Great Lakes. Just this week, Indiana state government officials indicated they’re going to latch on to the Michigan lawsuit.

I think it will be just a matter of time before Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ohio (if not also Pennsylvania and New York) also join the lawsuit.

Heck, this is one instance where I suspect if downstate Illinois could break away, they’d also file suit – having the entire Midwestern region take on Chicago, which at times can come off as a pompous bully when dealing with its regional neighbors.

Of course, we could keep in mind that the Asian Carp problem began in the South when Mississippi (the state, not the river) fish “farmers” screwed up and let the species into the Mississippi (the river, not the state).

IT WAS THEN that the Carp have worked their way upward until reaching St. Louis, at which point some of them decided to cut across Illinois and head for Chicago. Should we be blaming our downstate Illinois brethren for letting the Carp come so close to Lockport, Ill.?

It strikes me as small-minded that since this truly is a national screwup cutting across our country to think that we now ought to be blaming Chicago-area officials for this. That is what these lawsuits threaten to do.

Michigan’s lawsuit seeks to have the Chicago locks that allow Lake Michigan to have a connection to the Mississippi River to be permanently closed.

Some critics also say that one of Chicago’s great engineering feats – the reversal of the flow of the Chicago River away from Lake Michigan – ought to be undone, and Mother Nature should be allowed to reign supreme with river water flowing into the lakes.

THIS IS ALL just absurd, and at times reeks just a bit much of Michigan people who for years have complained about “F-I-P’s” (Illinois people, with a profanity placed in front) now seeing a chance to dump back on the region’s dominant city.

Keep in mind that I fully appreciate the problem presented by the Asian Carp and the need to come up with a solution as quickly as possible.

But some of the rhetoric being spewed these days in legal briefs has the potential to become incredibly ignorant oral arguments made someday in various federal courtrooms. We’re all just one quirky, short-minded judge away from some serious long-term harm being caused to the region.

Realize that the reasons the Chicago River’s flow was reversed was to avoid pollution being dumped into the river from flowing into the Great Lakes. It also was the result of a cholera outbreak in the late 19th Century that motivated the expensive engineering project that reversed the flow.

DO WE REALLY think that restoring things to the old ways is the right way to go? Let’s not forget that the Chicago River in my lifetime was once classified as a “toxic” body of water. It is now merely regarded as “polluted.”

Do we want to ban the Asian Carp from the Great Lakes at the expense of dumping Midwestern pollution into them? How much would Michigan and Indiana be complaining if that were to be the outcome?

We need a serious solution to this problem, and it probably is one where all the Great Lakes states ought to be working together to try to find it rather than go to court to fight against each other in an effort to assess blame.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Chicago-area may stretch into Indiana, but there are many people on both sides who view State Line Road (http://nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/article_31366ea3-f606-577e-ab46-38ed782e3f41.html?mode=story) as some sort of impenetrable barrier. Too bad it can't keep the Carp out of Lake Michigan.

Is Chicago supposed to apologize?

It almost seemed like a double hit on the perception of Chicago, as provided in recent days by two of the nation’s prominent newspapers.

Both the New York Times and Washington Post published pieces of copy in the past couple of days that seem to put the Second City in a negative light – the Times ran a full-fledged editorial calling for the closure of the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal as the only way possible to prevent the Asian Carp from destroying the ecosystem of the Great Lakes.

MEANWHILE, THE WASHINGTON Post (the newspaper that recently decided to recall its Chicago-based correspondents on the grounds that it could cover our city from Foggy Bottom) published a story Tuesday about the record of Education Secretary Arne Duncan back when he was in charge of the Chicago Public Schools.

Among the points made by the Post is that school systems in Houston and Miami showed higher average test scores for their students than Chicago, while places like Atlanta and the District of Columbia showed larger gains than did our city’s school system.

The Post, so to speak, is less than impressed with Duncan’s performance in Chicago. Or at least they gave credibility to the thoughts of the Chicago-based people who were glad to see Duncan leave when Barack Obama became president. The Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal has been around for more than a century, yet some out-of-towners are now anxious to give it full blame for the potential Asian Carp infestation into the Great Lakes. Photograph provided by Library of Congress collection.

The latter report struck me as a whole lot of hot air being given credence by the national capital’s local newspaper – which may reflect the mood among some D.C. insiders who are somewhat resentful these days about the degree to which adopted Chicagoan Obama chose his Chicago colleagues for several significant political positions in his administration.

LET’S BE HONEST – that’s part of the reason some people are so willing to see former Illinois Lottery Director Desiree Rogers twist in the wind because those two nitwits managed to sneak into a White House party.

So while I’m not necessarily a Duncan defender, a part of me can easily try to read through the Washington Post report’s lines to figure out how many of the educational accusations are mere political whining.

After all, I don’t think anyone seriously disputes that the Chicago Public Schools still have a long way to go in terms of improvement before they can be considered to be offering an adequate educational opportunity to city-based school children.

Somehow, it was the Times’ editorial that got on my Chicago-oriented nerves more than anything the Washington Post reported.

THE TIMES EDITORIALIZED about the Asian Carp problem – the one involving the fish that if they become a part of the Great Lakes ecosystem have the serious potential to devour the substances that other life forms in the lakes feed off of.

That would lead to a devastation of life in the Great Lakes as we have known it.

It also would be a blow to the regional economy, which relies on that canal to provide the contact between the Great Lakes (through Lake Michigan at Chicago) to the Mississippi River and which considers its construction one of the great engineering achievements of all-time.

Even the Times conceded that point, writing, “that would be hugely costly and poltiically difficult, given the importance of shipping to the region.”

NOW I’M NOT going to downplay the threat caused by the Asian Carp, which managed to get loose from Southern fish farms into the Mississippi River and have been swimming their way up north ever since.

I also realize that the electronic fences installed by the Army Corps of Engineers to try to keep the fish away from the Great Lakes are failing, and I don’t trust the once-proposed suggestion of dumping a substance that is toxic to the Carp into the canal.

Simply put, even though I’m not a biologist by profession, I’m skept ical of the claims that the substance would be harmless to human beings that came into contact with the canal.

But it just strikes me as being a little to simplistic to say that the only solution is to cut off the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds. In fact, it may be downright unrealistic to expect anyone to take such a suggestion seriously.

THIS IS A serious problem that requires more thought than just saying “close the locks” (that would cut off the two water bodies from each other).

And while I usually give some respect to the New York Times for putting together a news report that tries to keep the trivialization of public events to a minimum, this editorial just comes off as a little too smarmy.

It’s almost like someone on 42nd Street having too much trouble comprehending what is happening out in the great Midwest.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: The national newspapers are giving Chicago a touch of attention on educational (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/28/AR2009122802368.html) and environmental (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/opinion/29tue3.html) issues.

The Army Corps of Engineers offers its explanation of how it is trying to keep the Asian Carp out of the Great Lakes (http://www.lrc.usace.army.mil/projects/fish_barrier/index.html), while the Encyclopedia of Chicago recalls (http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/300018.html) the construction of the canal as part of a deliberate effort to connect the lakes to the Mississippi (while also giving us the side benefit of having our sewage flow down to St. Louis – rather than into the city’s drinking water supply.