good afternoon like to welcome everyone to the today's hearing and as thank you for braving the snow this afternoon i'd like to ask you as we get started i ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from wisconsin mr p try be permitted to participate in today's hearing of the subcommittee on water resources and the environment without objection thank you mr p try i'd also like to ask you an assisted consent that the following testimony be made part of the record a statement from the ranking them the subcommittee mr bush a letter from the passenger vessel association dated february fifth two thousand and ten and a letter from the conservation coalition dated february fi look forward to that i'd also like to thank our witnesses those from out of town for being here and i hope you don't have to stay longer than you originally planned i know you're all working on issue of asian carp entry into the great lakes is one that's raised great fears on the part of our states surrounding the great great lakes some predict that the population has the potential to disrupt the fundamental ecology of ecology of the great lakes resulting in tremendous economic damage to our state our fishing industry yesterday the asian carp work group  collection of state and federal agencies released their control strategy framework we all agree and i note that the framework specifically states that our goal is to prevent the introduction of car into lakes under this plan i released yesterday the opening of the locks would be minimized to all a range of approaches are used to attack the car population and prevent them from entering lake michigan much attention has been focused on a proposal originally from the state of michigan to close the chicago sagittarian shipping canal looking forward to hearing the views of the representatives from michigan your i know in my own state of wisconsin on this issue seems to me that we do want to keep the car from entering the great lake but there must be a way to do it that does not hurt the economy of one of our great lakes states neighbors iraq is left open however we have to proceed with great urgency to find effective and permanent solutions to keep the car out interested in hearing of both the short and long term strategies to prevent the introduction of the car we must have a coordinated response and a strong federal state partnership to combat this threat so i hope that this hearing will examine a range of options to keep the car out certainly with our human ingenuity and know how we should be able to outsmart this given the interest in moving this hearing forward and my statement here and express my appreciation once again to the witnesses for appearing before a subcommittee under such trying weather circumstances thank you for your work to protect the great lakes and  that i'll introduce the witnesses in the order in which we'll hear your testimony and again thank you very much for being here today and i look forward to we look forward to hearing your testimony will begin with mr cameron davis the senior advisor to the administrator of the united states environmental protection agency based in chicago illinois major general john w peabody commander of the great lakes in ohio river division of the united states army corps of engineers in cincinnati ohio assistant director john rovner illinois department of natural resources in springfield illinois director rebecca humphries michigan department of natural resources and the environment from lansing michigan secretary matt franks the wisconsin department of natural resources in madison wisconsin professor david lodge director center for aquatic conservation professor of biological sciences at the university of  dr michael hansen chair of the great lakes fishery commission in arbor michigan wilkens vice president of terminal operations and business development canal barge company shana han illinois  begin our testimony today with mr davis and thank you chairman oberstar chairwoman edwards representative peter i thank you very much members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of u s environmental protection agency administrator lisa jackson thank you for the opportunity to provide the agency's perspective on efforts to prevent asian carp from becoming established in the great lakes at alpha like to recognize that bill bowlen with e p a is here with me has put in significant work on behalf of e p a on this issue the administration continues to make restoration of protection of the great lakes a national priority as evidence by president obama's significant investment in the ecosystem under his great lakes restoration initiative e p a understands the extreme level of concern by the public and that the public feels for the great lakes ecosystem we understand the concern that the public feels for their safety while recreating and concern for their jobs we also have an urgent need to keep asian carp from becoming a stablished in the great lakes as we move forward we are working to keep asian carp from becoming established and self sustaining populations in the ecosystem but to do that we require a coordinated cooperative approach i'll address  lakes protection and restoration policies and efforts under clean water act section one eighteen and presidential executive order one three three four zero e p a has been doing this and will facilitate the integration of efforts by participating agencies and stakeholders moving forward one of the best weapons we have against asian carp is this coordinated cooperative approach through which each agency remains accountable for the work under its authorities in order to ensure the most effective efforts possible we will undercut ourselves if we inhibit such accountability integration this team approach has been successful and will continue to be successful if we give it a chance it was successful in december when you saw participating agencies come together under the leadership of the illinois department of natural resources to undertake a rapid response action the action was needed to defense the chicago sanitary ship canal against asian carp migration while the corps of engineers electric fences were down for maintenance during that rapid response action we saw federal canadian municipal state provincial binational and municipal agencies all of whom provided people funding and equipment come together in what was by all accounts a highly successful effort despite numerous obstacles this team approach also led to the to the draft framework that was released this week and i'll talk about that in just a moment that was the first role of e p a as coordination the second role of e p a is that a funding nearly a year ago president obama proposed and thanks to your help in congress passed the great lakes restoration initiative an unprecedented investment for rehabilitating the nation's largest fresh surface water system e p a is stepping up as you its use of that's funding authority as we as evidenced in december when we announced that we were working with corps of engineers to use thirteen plus million dollars for the corps of engineers to accelerate its work to help defense the chicago sanitary ship canal against car migration  that work as i'm sure you'll hear about from general peabody addresses a bypasses and other ways in which carp can get into the chicago sanitary ship canal from adjacent waterways and currently we're working with the other federal agencies in illinois to fast track additional investments under the initiative that will address asian carp populations that may be upstream of the electric barriers i thought is very important to talk a little bit about the e p a s role let me turn now to next step because using that coordinated approach that i talked about is so incredibly important using the coordinated team approach participating agencies have come together to produce this draft asian carp control strategy framework this week we want to accomplish several things with this document first we want to provide direction without restricting ideas and initiatives as we've learned over and over again in this situation the carp are not staying still this the circumstances underlying the current migration continues to evolve likewise we need to evolve with the situation so one of the one of the great benefits of this framework is a provides a unified direction for the agencies while not straight jacketing them so that they can remain deft in their responses and second with the framework we want to establish a multi tiered defense this is i cannot understate or overstate just how important this is you cannot i believe we cannot fight biology with engineering alone i don't believe we can fight biology with any other mechanism alone what this framework does is established a multi dimensional defense for the great lakes so rather than just use one tool in the tool box the framework relies on engineering approaches relies on chemical approaches biological sed managerial and operational approaches so that we have a strong vibrant effort that we're deploying to help prevent asian carp migration third we want to create space for every player to be involved in the effort it's so incredibly important to understand that no one agency has all the answers here what we've tried to do is centrally create a table around which everybody can sit and offer their most constructive recommended ition zz and ways in which they can be part of the solution in other words this framework belongs to everybody does not just belong to the agencies at this table and beyond the great lakes region must unite in this effort the december rapid response action illustrates just what we can achieve when we are working together and the framework is not intended to be final it's intended to be continually improved upon the first step is for everyone to have in hand have a hand in its development and its execution i want to thank you the members of the congressional delegation for your concern your passion for protecting and restoring the great lakes administration minister jackson our partner agencies the state and delegation all share one overriding imperative and that is to keep asian carp from becoming established in the great lakes thank you  and you get an excellent presentation morning apologize to all the panels for being delayed i had a number of other full committee activities that have been delayed because of the canal segment what is now the st lawrence seaway to the upper lakes we said then we've learned our lesson my predecessor john bloch member of congress at that time species into the lakes which are not native to the lakes or which can adapt to freshwater we are we the u s and the canadians are now spending upwards of six to ten million dollars a year and will do for ever to contain a lamprey spraying it in their spawning beds the rivers discharge into the great lakes from both canada and the us side for a while pollution of those rivers dampen the population growth of the land and the numbers decline but that's not an adequate solution we don't want polluted rivers dumping into our freshwater lakes and spreading the damage and so when the billions of dollars are spent on lake erie five billion dollars to clean up  discharges into the lake to dig dig up the bottom sediment stop the toxins from coming in airborne from as far away as central america coming into the great lakes having adverse effects on bald species we cannot allow into the lakes and and i were exchanging notes and maybe the cold fresh water will inhibit the species i've seen so many species reaction to other invasive species mr davis i greatly appreciate your comment you can't fight biology with engineering alone it's one percent of all the water on the face of here we have half of that fresh water twenty percent of that fresh water in the great lakes lakes of years half of the total great lakes water so we have a unique responsibility here we got a marshall all the resources all the brainpower all the technology we can not only to to prevent carp from  good afternoon mr chairman thank you very much for the opportunity to testify congresswoman edwards congressman de try i'm here to testify about the corps of engineers efforts to defeat the risk to the great lakes posed by the migration of asian carp through the chicago area waterway system the army corps of engineers is committed to using all available authorities capabilities and resources to combat to combat this invasive species because the court cannot do this alone we are working intensively as part of the federal state prevention binational and municipal agency team through the asian carp work group we are actively exploring all options to defeat the threat we're working with in the asian carp control framework and using a strategy that has four prongs to it for the corps of engineers the course principle role has been to prevent or reduce migration of asian carp by building operating maintaining and improving the electrical dispersal barrier system in chicago sanitary and ship can the fish barrier is the largest fielded operational electrical dispersal barrier in the world and constitutes a complex and dynamic project with significant research in components any assertions that the barrier system is or has been ineffective in restricting upstream movement of bighead and silver carp are speculative the facts are that the fish barrier system has been in continuous operation since two thousand and two and has performed as designed as far as we can tell monitoring asian carp migration is an essential second part of the inner agency effort as part of a comprehensive review of the fish series effectiveness in late two thousand and eight the core recognize that we did not have adequate information about the location of asian carp migration as a result of canvassing academic and scientific communities we learned of the environmental d n a research being conducted by the university of notre dame's dr david lodge in association with the nature conservancy we have been actively collaborating with him and his team ever since environmental d n a is an important emerging technology that is providing additional information to indicate the possible presence of asian carp but because asian carp e d n a has not yet undergo complete scientific independent peer review the revolt the results should be considered preliminary at this time we are coordinating with dr lodge and his team to execute the needed independent external peer review which we hope to complete by june this approach is consistent with the core policy of ensuring that its technical engineering and scientific work undergoes an open dynamic and vigorous review process to ensure confidence in our decisions and policy recommendations however we are not waiting to take action even in the face of these uncertainties along with our partner agencies the corps is working to address the potential threat in a variety of ways using the efficacies study authorized in word two thousand and seven we are constructing emergency measures recommended in approved through an interim report that will be initiated this spring and completed this fall these measures are designed to prevent fish bypasses via the flanking waterways of the does plains in illinois display is river and illinois and michigan can is also working to develop additional measures to apply in the chicago area waterway system this spring once warmer weather prompts increased fish activity these measures are under study and so have not been defined but main clude modified operations at existing locks and controlling works installing other types of barriers near the locks controlling ballast water and assessing options to block the alternate pathways of the grand and little calumet rivers to be effective any measures we take would have to be done in concert with actions by other agencies on matters within their expertise and authority to eliminate or reduce the numbers of any asian carp that may be in the vicinity the fourth element of our strategy is to build on of these efforts with a long term focus on the inner basin control study the corps is undertaking this congressionally authorized study formally called the great lakes and mississippi river inner basin study to explore options and technologies that could be applied to reduce the risk of aquatic invasive species of any type that might transfer along multiple points between the great lakes and mississippi river basins this study will be developed in coordination with all interested stakeholders and will be based on science leveraging the latest technology in the best available information mr chairman this concludes my remarks i look forward to answering the committee's questions thank you especially want to thank you gen peabody for coming such a great p try and i chose a different route rather than going back to the safety of minnesota wisconsin where it's only below zero we chose to stay here in washington and risk life a limb where they don't know how to remove it they don't know what to do with it they just walk on it take out on the sun to melt they're counting on global climate change to melt this down it's not happening i've seen this for forty years out here i just don't know what to do with snow  when i grew up we had a snow a sidewalk snow plow because people didn't have cars but we know how to handle that you're awfully good to have made this journey and i and all of you i thank you very much for this  state legislature and elsewhere as a member of this committee have marked you as an advocate for the environment wherever it happens to be thank you  give us the illinois viewpoint resources testified on the role of the illinois d n r in battling the asian carp invasion since the early one nine hundred ninety s we've been fully engaged in this effort first mention a couple of the recent actions we've taken and then outline our action plans for the immediate future as we work with our federal state and local partners to prevent the spread of asian carp into the great lakes but first i want to be absolutely clear on one point point the illinois d n r has a firm commitment to this task and we remain unwavering in that we we've been working very closely with our partner states including michigan and wisconsin and also the federal agencies to develop effective control strategies illinois has also contributed significant resources to controlling asian carp premier example is that we served as a local sponsor for the corps of engineers electric barrier system contributing one point eight million to this effort most recently illinois d n r serv agency for the successful rapid response effort last december to prevent the upstream movement of asian carp when the electric barrier system was shut down for maintenance the unified response of the great lakes states and provinces i believe was a shining leadership moment for our region and a prime example of how a small group of committed people can really make a difference this unparalleled effort demonstrated that federal provincial state and local partners can work together to help ensure that this invasive species does not establish sustainable populations in the great lakes and threaten this globally important ecosystem over four hundred people work together with contributions of supplies and equipment and crews from partners throughout the basin the rapid response team safely applied wrote known to a six mile stretch of the chicago sanitary and ship canal the corps of engineers performed critical maintenance on the electric barrier system and then we led the cleanup and removal of eighteen thousand fish including one big bad car that one fish documented in asian carp were at the barrier and could have moved past the barrier in potentially large numbers had we not conducted this action it's important to note that as we consider additional operations the cost of this single action was over three million dollars and would not have been possible without the substantial donations of equipment and labor from the state from the other states and provinces and financial support of our federal partners to thank everyone here at this table today for that critical support several lessons that we learned from this experience that i would like to share with the committee first meeting this challenge will require even greater collaboration and levels of partnership we must enlist the scientific and communication resources as well as the political leadership of every state and province in the basin to join in this effort second early and sustained outreach to key stakeholders proactive communication strategies and operational transparency must continue to be maintained as we move forward with our framework strategy and operations finally the collaborative approach that has been developed with our local state and federal partners is working very well and we believe represents the best model for future efforts i now wish to outline the actions to control asian carp that the illinois d n r proposes to begin immediately or as soon as funding can be secured these actions will be conducted as part of the asian carp work group that's already firmly in place first we will conduct a targeted asian carp removal operation throughout the entire chicago area waterway system this includes the identification containment and removal of car using standard fisheries gear including netting electro fishing contract commercial fishing and and the use of toxic and such as wrote known these priority actions we've focused above the barrier in locations most likely to hold carp we propose to begin these operations next week the owner idea in our will contract with commercial fisherman to operate below the burial barrier system to reduce populations and prop your pressure on the barrier system below it third informed by corps of engineers e d n a monitoring will conduct sampling and removal in hotspots of the cow say channel this includes the entire length of the cow say below the o'brien lock and dam as well as the north shore through shore channel below the wilmette pumping station we w participate with the corps of engineers efforts to refine the d n a technology so that it's a better predictor of both location and population size of asian carp in the next ninety days the illinois d n r will conduct a survey of all retail live bait locations to ensure the libation current minnows are not being sold in chicago area bait shops something that's currently unlawful in illinois and this effort is already under way we have also identified several longer term actions that we're proposing we will prepare for rapid response contingency operations including training advanced per curiam and of supplies and necessary equipment we will leave the asian carp management and control implementation task force along with the u s fish and wildlife service this plan outlines one hundred thirty three different actions that will be deployed nationally and all watersheds were asian carp are a problem we will participate in additional research into barrier effectiveness using tags fish and advanced sonar technology and then finally we propose to work with our sister state agency the department of commerce and economic opportunity to enhance commercial markets for asian carp and investigate requirements for the use of asian carp products for humanitarian relief purposes these efforts will promote commercial fishing on the illinois and mississippi rivers and help reduce population pressures on the electric barrier system this is a problem that's not going to be solved by one state or one agency as a region we have a long established history of using a proactive and collaborative approach when we're divided solutions to our problems can remain elusive we believe our great lakes region a stronger when we work together in partnership to solve common problems and asian carp will not be an exception to this the only d n r looks forward to working with the other great lakes states and federal agencies in preventing asian carp from establishing sustainable populations in the great lakes and in the larger problem  zebra mussels along reaches one hundred million dollars each year the great lakes fisheries commission report the program requirements are in the order of thirty million dollars per year invasive species have profoundly changed the ecosystem of the great lakes significantly impacted the great lakes sport and commercial fisheries and hampered recreation all of which have a negative effect on michigan's economy let me give you one example a little more recent example than we heard earlier like  once had a vibrant salmon sport fishery with hundreds of charter boats stretching thousands of anglers each year to ports up and down the long coastline fishing derby attracted angle additional anglers who lost their boats and kept their boats a local marin aggressive steps to stop the further spread of these foreign invaders including requiring great ships to adhere to bell's water management practices annexing legislation requiring all ocean going ships chain a permit for  taking legal action to address water issues including successfully defending our state laws in federal court and challenging federal agencies for their failure to appropriately use existing regulatory authority to act and by administering state regulatory programs control can aquatic species in our lakes and our rivers including restrictions on the transport of invasive species of fish establishment of a list of invasive species prohibited in michigan and participation in actions to control in the great lakes and tributaries despite our best efforts michigan has its own steps taken the steps prevent asian carp from entering the great lakes we've contributed financially to the construction of the electrical barrier in chicago sanitary and ship canal and we prohibited the possession of live asian carp in the state we also purchased the actions this past december that treated the canal to remove asian carp prior to the maintenance of the electrical barrier  the following in simpler terms we cannot eradicate the threat of asian carp must be treated as a crisis and steps must be implemented immediately to address as early as two thousand and three scientists government officials of stakeholders were calling for ecological separation of the great lakes in the mississippi watershed but we did not quickly enough short term fixes the become long term projects for example the installation of the second electrical barrier took over six years and is still not fully operational it took several years to ban the importation of black and silver carp and to the late big are still not covered under that  by saying that we must cooperatively and wisely to address the threat posed by asian carp her my recommendations to meet those objectives we must immediately take all of bailable measures consistent with protection of public health and safety to prevent the migration a big carp in the lake michigan including closing unceasing operation of the o'brien lock in the chicago lock until ecological barrier is constructed between the great lakes and the mississippi watershed the army corps of engineers must have the authority to close the locks on the emergency basis and also permit if necessary we must initiate studies to begin to be completed by the end of this year to examine the feasibility of transferring cargo via other transportation system we must operate other water control structures michigan the o'brien lake controlling works and the willmott pumping station in a manner that will not allow fish to pass into the lake watershed we need to complete additional studies related to biology and ecology of carp and predictive models to determine the areas highest risk for colonization within the great lakes we need to provide additional dollars for continuous monitoring of car based on risk analysis with funding in reserve for chemical treatment as a rapid response mechanism is warranted and we must communicate the states in actions and data in a timely manner operating electrical barrier to optimum voltage in completing electrical barrier to be this year is important and developing and implementing plans for a permanent solution to the problems that would ecologically and physically separate the carp and festive waters of the mississippi we all share a commitment to continued vitality now we must share in a similar commitment more aggressively move forward to stop the spread of i have additional attachments i've included testimony i'd like to thank you and i'm available to take any questions you might s we really appreciate you putting the attention it to this issue that it truly deserves i want to start out by thanking this committee and acknowledging the congress and the president's initiative on the great lakes restoration initiative i can't tell you how excited we are by that initiative you know we've been talking about these issues of as you pointed out mr chairman for a long time this unprecedented opportunity we have i want to let you know that we're all working hard together to make sure that that money is put to good use it is long overdue and we are committed to improving the great lakes with the resources that congress and the president have set aside so that is a very positive  thing you eloquently set forth the history of how we've been dealing with and bases in the great lakes from the lamprey eel dizzier and quad muscles to the around go b to v h s i can tell you all of our agencies have been struggling with these issues for some time and there is a great deal of frustration that we all have and that the people of our states have to cut off the flow of these and bases into the great lakes and this is a threat not only to our great lakes but as a threat to all our inland waters once they're in the great lakes they move inland and this becomes a problem not just in our states but then throughout the united states whether it's the vector the mississippi river or the great lakes this truly is a national issue before i talk about the specific issue at hand i do want to follow up on director humphries comments about ballast water because this is an incredible opportunity i think to  to really reemphasize how important is to deal with that issue as well the congress last year the house of representatives straw passed a strong ballast water measure passed overwhelmingly in the house it did not get passed through the senate and that was following on years of inaction by federal agencies a new administration is in town the coast guard is taking a close look at this issue wisconsin and some other states have submitted comments of the coast guard about regulation we're glad to see that the coast guard is taking this issue more seriously but we are concerned that we need we need to get strong action on ballast water and we would welcome this committee's oversight of what is going on with the ballast water issue so that we can finally move on that issue we know that ballast water continues to dump new invasive into our waterways and we need to deal with that we need to do with it effectively wisconsin pass very strong ballast water permit recently but we still think the best solution is a strong federal standard that goes beyond i am all to make sure that we are treating this ballast water so we are not continue  doing vases it's a critical issue and i appreciate having the opportunity just to raise that as another important issue we're dealing with right now now as the asian carp there's a lot spend said i'm going to try not to reply i'll ground there's been a lot of important points that have been made we do think it's important that there is federal agency coordination and again i applaud the white house for their leadership we had a summit yesterday the governors came in to meet with federal agencies  encouraged that this is being taken seriously we are encouraged that there are resources being devoted to this serious issue having said all that we have a sense of real urgency and concern about where this is all going  we can all think that we're doing as much as we can but the fact is we may not have much time and we really need to make sure that we're looking at all or turn it of i think expanded media expansion of monitoring and fish control efforts in the chicago waterways system are absolutely critical we need as has been said to get that barrier the second barrier up we share michigan's frustration that we a little different perspective on that issue than  other folks do it's long overdue it's taken too long and we were pleased to hear yesterday that the course said that it would be up and running this year that needs to get done but having said all that we need to look at  ecological separation between the chicago waterway and the great lakes there are a number number of factors we agree it's a complex issue there's another number of vectors that have to be closed off we think there is good initial work that's being done but we need to move faster and the issue of the locks what to do with the locks is certainly out there it's an easy call from wisconsin's perspective we are concerned about commerce in the health of the great lakes we think the law should be closed we recognize that that we hope that people don't see that as some sort of simplistic answer that even in closing the locks you don't guarantee that fish don't get through there they were designed for navigation not as a fish barrier also there are other vectors that have to be dealt with so in advocating for that we do not mean to demean all the other things that are in some of the federal planning that we've seen so far we really have to work together on this and it is i can't stress enough how urgent this is and that we need to move from talk to action thank you mr chairman thank you very much secretary for your splendid presentation of your research work on d n a lab for great interest your testimony thank you very much draw your attention to the power point that i this afternoon chairman over star ms edwards is to be tried thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about what my collaborative team and i have learned in the last few months about asian carp and the chicago waterway and for the opportunity to share our perspectives on what that what that means i was last before this subcommittee about two years ago to testify about the impact of ship borne i that mr frank was just talking about and in that testimony i pointed out to the subcommittee that while ships were a major contributor of alien species to the great lakes they were not the only one and in fact that canals  like the one that we're here to talk about today are a major pathway by which harmful alien species gain access to the great lakes and indeed by which other species leave the great lakes in my written testimony i outlined a nswers to six questions and for the sake of brevity i'm going to focus only on four questions in my verbal testimony this afternoon and the first question i want to answer which stems directly from work that the army corps has supported and the general peabody referred to as our work in the canal in the last few months on how close are the carp to lake michigan now before i really answer that question i need to  say a few things about the method by which we've learned where silver and big head carp are in the canal system we've used some very standard technologies from molecular genetics but we've combined those  protocols into a unusual combination and new application to surveillance of asian carp in the canal and you can think about what we've done as the environmental protection equivalent of what forensics experts do every day and what our justice system has many ways come to rely on for example to determine whether a suspect was at a crime scene we and asian carp leave a trail of d n a behind us and it's that trail that we've been detecting in the chicago waterway and what we have we have invited and an audit review  in many ways a more rigorous peer review than is typical for scientific work that review was completed by the e p a an independent audit team and they issued their final report on our work this past week and i've  provided that to the committee to become part of the permanent record of this hearing the conclusion of the e p a audit team i put one summary statement up here on this slide the bottom line is that it's it's uncontroversial that we are detecting the d n a of only silver and big head carp and secondly this a p a audit team including experts in molecular genetics concluded that our results are actionable in a management context so with that as a background and i'm happy to address any question you may have more of a more detailed nature about that what we have discovered unfortunately in recent months is that both silver and begad car are in the waterway north  electric barrier i just indicated with these read blogs on that map where we have detected either silver or big head carp and you've got a more detailed map in my written testimony the most troubling result is that silver carp are not only at the doorstep of the lake up in wilmette in northern chicago but in fact appear to be in lake michigan or at least in calumet harbor opening to lake michigan bighead carp are not yet  at least we have not yet detected and i hope we do not detect begad carp d n a in the lake however my inclusion from these data is that it is not inevitable that an invasion of the species either species is underway and i believe that an invasion of that is us stablish one of a self sustaining reproducing and spreading population is still possible to prevent that begs the question however about how many carp will it take to launch an invasion the short answer is i don't know and no one knows the slightly longer and more helpful answer is that it's a numbers game and if the goal is to prevent invasions in lake michigan then the proximate management goal has to be to prevent additional individual fish of either species from entering lake michigan it is not inevitable that an invasion by either one of these fishes will occur and our most recent results finding silver carp in the lake make it even more urgent that steps are taken to prevent additional fishes from entering the lake the third question i want to address is is this issue only about asian carp and the answer to that is no and i think that's a very important point for the committee to consider this can now has already been a pathway by which very harmful species which chairman oberstar referred to earlier on zebra mussels and quad muscles this canal is how those species have gotten for example to california it's how they first escaped the great legs and then  way across the country by other means but their escape of the great lakes was made possible by this can now this canal is a two way highway for many species so these species that i picture already used it there are many other species poised to use that canal they either are or are poised to do so and i highlight just a few of those on this slide spiny water flea already mentioned by chairman oberstar water chestnut a highly damaging aquatic we are a variety of parasites and pathogens that can be deadly to a variety of fish species new zealand mud snail the bloody red tramping all of these species are in the great lakes but not yet in the mississippi river basin and of course going the other way i don't need to tell you about begad and silver carp but don't forget there are other species waiting to go in the same direction brazilian water weed a very expensive water we need further south could use the canal to go north and a final example would be the northern snakehead present in the mississippi basin but not yet present in the great lakes so it's very important that you look at this can now as not just about a conduit for asian carp but a conduit for many species past and future and therefore any management actions will bring benefits far beyond the benefits  preventing damages by the asian carp so i'll just finish by suggesting what i believe are some of the management implications of this and i won't go through this in fact many of the previous speakers have already addressed these and the new framework that came from the administration yesterday includes many but not all of these points and i draw your attention in particular to the last one which i think mr braemar also addressed which is that especially when you consider this whole suite of species that i mentioned it's very important to think about the benefits of the canal being far beyond management taken with respect to asian carbs thank you thank you very very much dr lodge for that a inviting me to discuss asian carp and the threat they pose to the great lakes i am i can send chair of the great lakes fishery commission i'm also a professor of fisheries at the university of wisconsin stevens point the commission understands the destruction that invasive species ecosystems since the one nine hundred fifty s the commission has been responsible under a treaty between the u s and canada to control the sea lamprey an invasive species that destroyed fisheries after invading the upper great lakes in the one nine hundred twenty s the great lakes are tremendously valuable and worth protecting annually great lakes fisheries are worth more than seven billion dollars and have enormous cultural value to the diverse peoples who live and fish in the region global as i globalization and trade provided more species more opportunities than ever to invade waters of the united states currently more than one hundred eighty non native species have entered the great lakes and harmful species across the region billions of dollars per minute impact on the environment and benefits our children will never see our unquantifiable we are concerned about asian carp because we have seen with these fish have done to the mississippi in illinois rivers asian carp spread rapidly by reproducing in large numbers to become the predominant species in an ecosystem asian carp eat plankton that is the foundation of food webs once loose in the wild where plankton is abundant the predators are few asian carp proliferated strong dietary overlap between asian carp and native fish is suggest that asian carp could outcompete native fish for food especially because an asian carp can eat forty percent of its body weight each day between one thousand nine hundred one in two thousand bighead carp increased exponentially in illinois river so by fall of one thousand nine hundred nine asian carp made up ninety seven percent of the bio mass of a fish kill a national wildlife refuge near st louis today commercial for issues in the illinois river regularly catch  twenty five thousand pounds of big head and silver carp each day an amazing amount of fish the silver carp as a unique characteristic that makes it particularly dangerous to humans the sound of a motor boat startles the fish into leaping up to ten feet out of the water these flying fish some weighing more than twenty pounds or projectiles that land in water and land in boats damaged property and injure people to understand potential risks of asian carp to the great lakes the department of fisheries and oceans canada and the s geological survey assess the risk of invasion by asian carp specifically these risk assessments tell us the following first asian carp are likely to tolerate the climate of the great lakes because the basins climate is within the fish's natural range second asian carp and plankton the low end of the food web so they eat the same food that most other fish eat for their own growth and survival third the great lakes basin contains numerous tributaries with suitable spawning habitat and large areas of vegetat shorelines which they need particularly in large bays river mouth's connecting channels and wetlands silver carp will likely be harmful because nearly one million votes and personal watercraft operate in the lakes thereby placing millions of people in potential contact with silver car overall people of the great lakes basin should be deeply concerned about the possible negative effects of asian carp let me conclude with some thoughts about policy responses other witnesses during today's hearing describe actions to prevent asian carp from entering the great lakes the great lakes fishery commission has been a supportive partner in all of these efforts i liked especially think cameron davis for his determination to coordinate a multi agency response to the crash the question remains however what can be done if asian carp enter the great lakes unfortunately the answer is not much at least not much at the moment because control mechanisms do not currently exist for asian carp while current work to prevent asian carp migration is appropriate the only solution to this problem is to achieve what is called ecological separation by altering the canal system to prevent species of any kind from moving between the mississippi and great lakes basins we appreciate the work which we co founded that mr bram irenaeus colleagues conducted to take a good hard first look at ecological separation he'll describe that more detail shortly but this is just the start of the water resources development act of two thousand and seven authorized the us army corps of engineers to conduct a full scale engineering analysis to identify and propose ways to achieve ecological separation we urge congress to clearly express that the end objective is ecological separation not to reduce the risk or try to achieve separation while maintaining the status quo the goal must be ecological separation we also urge congress to provide the corps with adequate resources and authority to accelerate development and implementation of solutions to achieve ecological separation the great lakes cannot wait mr chair i again thank you for holding this important hearing i appreciate the committee's interest in taking steps necessary to protect the great lakes from asian carp another invasive species but you're so right dr hansen the great lakes can't wait as i said at the outset we thought we learned that lesson fifty years ago we're learning it all over again for every one of these new species that come into the great lakes on behalf of the american waterways operators the national trade association for the tugboat boat and barge and just three i am vice president for canal barge company a family owned business headquartered in new orleans that's been in business for seventy six years and now protect israel our great lakes from the spread of asian carp as we put these protections into place we must also protect human health and safety and maintain the free flow of water borne commerce that is critical to our economy our fundamental message is this the choice whether to protect the environment or ensure the continued flow of vital maritime commerce as an unnecessary one and quite frankly a choice our nation cannot afford to make we are confident that the progression of leadership coupled with administration has to go to cooperation will lead us to a sustainable long term solution that protects the great lakes eco system without sacrificing critical jobs and the environmental transportation with the smallest carbon footprint of any mode marjan plays a key role in the transportation system by reducing congestion on our overcrowded highways and rails and as commercial use of the and while away and don't want to reverse coastal waterways and great lakes are and st is and has a deep commitment to the environmental stewardship since two thousand and four our industry has cooperated with federal and state agencies concerning the safe operations of the electric fish barriers currently on the chicago center and ship canal our issue has also promoted the recovery of threatened and endangered species and established practices to reduce emissions from tank barges co operative and balance solutions to the problems of invasive species are in fact achievable and then degraded approach can arrest the advance of the asian carp protect the great lakes eco system and maintain safe efficient and reliable navigation on vital commercial waterways my testimony will given and now address what we feel are nine specific actions as part of an integrated strategy first expedite construction of barrier to be which is on the chicago center and shipping now secondly design and implement bubble and acoustic fish barriers to prevent asian carp from moving into the great lakes as calmly done in europe thirdly he merely complete structure to stop carbon from entering the great lakes during floods fourth conduct to fish research to validate the effectiveness of all primary and secondary barriers including electric mobile and acoustic barriers fifty employed consistent measures to identify the location of this invasive species such as a letter fishing or electric fishing netting and commercial fishing that do not delay the movement of commerce six to fund research on asian carp specific biological control agent which has proven to be an effective strategy with other invasive species on the great lakes seven sample barges and other vessels for juvenile carp and their eggs we are currently serving on a public private sector working group to conduct such sampling and ensure that our entry is not a vector to move this invasive species eight impose further restrictions on the importation of aquatic invasive species and finally conduct more scientific studies about the ability of carb to survive within the great lakes echo system richard sherman proposals have been made recently and both legislation and litigation to permanently close the locks in the chicago waterway system we strongly oppose lock closures recent proposed by federal agencies to implement a program of scheduled law closures are equally troubling because they will impede essential commerce without stopping the advance of the car let me make that a repeat that and underscore that closing the locks just will not stop cars speaking personally closing logs would also be devastating to illinois marine towing company and may even put that company out of business with the loss of one hundred or more jobs for our store side and also operations other vessel operators who work in the feel that we can develop effective solutions to stop the asian carp and a way that doesn't sacrifice jobs at a time when jobs are in such short supply mr chairman this prestigious committee has a history of leadership and finding solutions to complex and challenging public policies without bringing them as either or decision the american want to as operators as committed to working cooperatively to ensure a balanced approach to environmental st and economics sustainability for the great lakes and the western rivers were convinced that both goals can be realized but thank you for the opportunity presented a and we certainly are here to answer any of your questions and concerns thank you very much waters coalition and dozens of dedicated citizens and experts have for more than a decade via federal agencies and the state of illinois on how to stop asian carp from establishing in the great lakes and many of those folks are in this room today as d lodge said we can accomplish that task but only if every choice we make today is dedicated to the permanent prevention of a live asian carp invasion behind nearly every invasive species of the hands of human intervention the noble intent for the artificial connection to the mississippi river and chicago was protection of the city's drinking water as the nineteenth century city grew sewage laden rivers flowed into lake michigan the state of illinois reversed the rivers and binding the ecology of the great lakes and the soupy river and ultimately leading this potentially devastating invader to the shores of lake michigan now one hundred twenty years and we've added layers of complexity to that system two point one billion gallons of water streams pass those channel walls every day the system allows more than thirty five thousand recreational boat movements and supports a slowly declining traffic of twenty to twenty five million tons of commodity movements every year the city is built itself with pride on the backbone of a nineteenth century engineering marvel this connection open the continent to trade and it kept the city's rivers from reverting to open sewers but the stark reality that the system created an aquatic superhighway for asian carp and other invaders calls the question of whether it is as critical today as it seemed one hundred twenty years ago on the thread itself others have spoken to that and i'll only say that the only reasonable response to the biological pollution of a species is zero tolerance there is no diluting their impact to some unnoticed back ground level and even if the electrical barriers operate as designed they will not last forever and they will not achieve one hundred percent effectiveness the permanent solution is not technology but what we call ecological separation or simply no movement of live organisms between the great lakes and the mississippi river via the canals up to and including permanent physical barriers now the simple idea seems audacious a close look alumina it's that sewage treatment upgrades over thirty years have dramatically reduce the need for a direct connection between chicago and lake michigan commodities deliveries unloading are clustered in specific parts of the waterways with comparatively little traffic moving through downtown chicago or into lake michigan itself in fact less than one percent of freight mov metro chicago moves between the mississippi river and lake michigan barely more than a thousand recreational boats move through lock or lock annually we can simply no longer afford to assume that seventy one miles of century old canals are required to get the job done if the job creates a massive liability for the great lakes now a feasible separation scenario can accommodate the vast majority of commodity traffic that can provide new methods of moving recreational motors and most importantly to this committee it can serve as a one time payment for one hundred percent effective permanent protection now this is not a new concept the two thousand and three gathering of experts from around the world in chicago set an agenda beyond the electrical barriers and agreed that stopping water was the only way to stop the stream of invaders now we are encouraged that the corps has committed to an interface and feasibility study but we're concerned that a few steps have been taken besides agency coordination nearly two years after original authorization the unclear analysis by the core of the economic impact of short term changes to the waterway does not herald a good start to this process a rapid transparent process it stands up to citizen experts scrutiny is the only way to yield meaningful results to that end the federal agencies should do three things immediately execute a short term contingency plan with a clear and singular goal of no establishment of asian car take all action necessary including temporarily altering to prevent movement of existing car populations and probably most importantly expedite the chicago portion of the authorized interface and transfer study to be completed by september thirtieth two thousand and eleven with a clear goal of one hundred percent prevention we understand the damage that's already occurred we can predict irreparable harm to the great lakes if we fail we have the tools in the knowledge in hand to stop this problem before it starts but a solution is being held hostage by outmoded infrastructure and assumptions that how business has been done is the way business has to be done the engineering feat of the chicago waterway protected lake michigan but it transferred costs to others cos they were not appearing in eight hundred ninety but are a hole in the wallet today this backbone of the largest great lakes city must either stretch and strengthen with time or it will collapse under its own weight i look forward to working with the subcommittee and everyone engaged on this matter to create a legacy for the waterway that outlasts both me and the original project chairman thank you for holding this hearing and i look forward to assisting on any actions the committee can take to support this effort thank you very much mr brown myron and to all of the witnesses that afternoon i would say that were it not for the storm of the half century most of the chairs here would be filled with the level of member interest  are very very deeply concerned they're hearing from their constituents hearing seeing the news reports this this carpet has galvanized public concern like no dark and less he being and mysterious dark it certainly is so is lake superior on its worst days heaving in the midst of storms typhoons hurricanes we're beginning to unlock the mystery of the oceans going deeper than ever before going down to the bottom of the trough finding vents in the ocean that have temperatures of seven hundred degrees plus with creatures still living there but endless the oceans are not  was a form of image coverage in either of the great lakes and plus we have a lot of all of the mysteries but we're getting there but faster than we can address those mysteries the species that don't belong there we're not there to begin with are getting ahead of us and our challenge and in the lake can't the lakes can't heal themselves the native species can't protect themselves against these invasive creatures or plants like purple loosestrife and others made to find something to do with the lamprey catch them smoke them export them to sweden swedes had an appetite for them for a while and then that when the norwegians  thought that might be a delicacy but soon they abandoned that favorable  found that the united states that banned d d t after rachel carson and yet it was being exported to central america sprayed on banana plantations and caught in the air of the the bald eagles were eating the fish that absorbed the d d t in the fit and the bald eagle eggs weren't forming and the hatchlings died and something far from our shores we have no way of controlling except prevent we just think about the wolves and it's at our doorstep and that's why the carp is at our doors in the great lakes can't wait said the secretary frank i thought it was carp control strategy framework we have the language of the water resources development act to thousand and seven which took a great deal of bipartisan effort i must say  bring a bill in a way that had never been done before openness transparency and bipartisanship and we override a presidential veto to get that bill passed but it had this particular language in debase and study a long term action to address the problem of the car so all the authority necessary exists to bring all of you and all of the other entities together no i want your commitment and your expression of how you're going to do this both in the short term in the long term we have an immediate issue to be addressed we have a longer term we waterway users the barge operators they didn't bring this escaped as we all know from of fish farm a catfish farm and belong there in the first place the lacey act this is  whales and yet if you don't enforce the act you don't impose the penalties we see we have and penalties on and whaling in our territorial waters but if it isn't enforced the whaling continues same here if these laws are enforced if we don't have multi disciplinary strategies we don't engage the province of ontario the canadian national government and all the states and the federal agencies together are not going to be effective so first of all what you're thinking about that what you're going to do and how you're going to continue how you're going to really be grossly implement the authorities unveiled the general people to tell me and thank you again for making the long journey for each of you for making the extraordinary effort to be here we worked out the funding of the a shift of  timeline to meet the completion goal of fall twenty ten for this second bigger more robust electric barrier yes sir thank you sir originally barrier to be which is affectively a better looking twin to barrier to a is the way i think of it will be executed thanks to seven million dollars from the american recovery and reinvestment act by september of this year if we can pull that to the left once the final design for the all the electronic components which is underway right now if there is a way for us once we have awarded the contract and examine the schedule to pull that any further to the left we will do that this barrier gives us redundancy in the sanitary ship canal which although there are other vectors remains the primary avenue of approach for asian carp up into the chicago area waterway system  barrier one as a reminder as a demonstration barrier which has lower operating parameters than barrier to a barrier to a as a result of the information that dr lodge and his team provided to us  this past summer was taken to higher operating parameters what we know to be based on laboratory testing of asian carp of all sizes juvenile an adult in in tanks to be the optimal parameters for the barriers so the barrier is operating today at its optimal parameters barrier to be will give us that redundancy so we don't have to go through the intensive  application that cam davis talked about during his testimony ever again we we would probably have to do a minor application but it would be in a very short narrow stretch of the canal just a few hundred feet as opposed to nearly nearly six miles does that mean september of this year sir the construction will be done in september it will take about a month for us to do the operational testing that we need to do to turn it on and make it effective so we expect by the end of october that it will be operating as an effective barrier against i want to emphasize once i have a construction schedule i can put that schedule under a microscope and if there's a way for us to accelerate that in any way we will do so but we've got to get the design pieces right you know and that as the electrical current power of the stepped up version been tested on critters that size i don't know if they were that large sir but that think they were as large as a foot and a half and like that can get you the exact dimensions well if if the sound of a motorboat can stimulate those size fish on display here and realize for the record you can't record can't see my finger pointing over to these  models but you can scare them to jump out of the water right then how much electrical current is needed to do that yes or great question the original dispersal barrier the demonstration barrier was built based on information generally available at the time about other dispersal barriers that had been built and the information indicated that fish responded to one bolt branch which is the primary but not the only parameter as a result of studies dr mark pig did in two thousand and four  he indicated that the voltage required to repel the specific species of asian carp could be as high as four volts branch subsequently we did additional studies and what we found was dr pigg had at least partly right one vote prince n not seem to be adequate but in fact it was a combination of three variables the voltage in this case two volts branch the frequency or how how fast this pulse rate goes out because it's not a constant  c current that goes out in fifteen hertz is the frequency and then the period is a city of the pulse which is six point five milliseconds in other words the duration of the poles those are the parameters that we are currently applying in barrier to caution these are parameters that have shown to be effective in the laboratory tank tests where fish cannot escape the electricity one of two things happens the fish either attempt to swim away or they swim into the current at these parameters and their rendered unconscious they're stunned they float to the surface and they flow away we need to do additional testing using flume tests with our and engineer research and development center that will replicate field conditions right now we don't have films that are large enough to replicate those conditions that is being built this spring and over the course of the summer will execute those additional tests and that will further inform our optimal  parameters research that includes testing this volume of current against juvenile fish as well yes yes or all sizes fish all size fish it's interesting one of the things we just we were going to start testing smaller flumes this week and we were unable to do so because when we went out to our research involvement lab folks went out to the laboratories that farm these fish for testing purposes there were not enough fish available to do the tests and so we've had to go to alternative sources but we'll start that next week the small flume test thank you kam davis what about my question no speak for the whole group here what's it going to take to keep this group together under the existing authority legislative authority is provided and what about funding to sustain this effort in the short term the long term thank you mr chairman what's it going to take to keep this group together i've been so impressed by how it actually hasn't taken much every single agency around this table has come willingly and very helpfully in terms of helping with the rapid response action that we saw in december terms of the drafting of this framework we've seen everybody drop everything and push really hard to get this document and in front of you that you see  now so i don't see any of that commitment wavering from where i sit and that is something i can say for the whole group there's not a lot i can say for all other agencies because i just don't i don't represent them but that is one thing i can say and the corps the lead agencies here the e p a has a coordination role we facilitate the integration of the various steps and actions that you see in this document we for example  do not have authority over the locks we do not have fishery management authority with any one of these states certainly illinois and in terms of the lead we consider ourselves the lead for purposes of making sure that our actions are integrated that we're taking a coordinated approach to solving this problem general how how is this going to work do we have a two headed leadership here or do we have one single source of direction and i see the opportunity is greater than we've ever had before we got a president from the great lakes wonder stans the bad view of this great resource  have the funding in place we have mechanisms to be able to as the scientific community alerted the public is anxious there's never been a better time than now so i don't want to lose solutions that are effective the challenges that we have going forward are can we get adequate information upon which to make the best informed and reasoned decisions in a timely manner that is that is the fundamental challenge i give an example  one of the things that we are examining is whether we can apply acoustic and double barriers and whether we can apply c o two in or near the locks to use the locks as an effective barrier to the migration of asian carp but this is just a concept these are just ideas we need to go from ideas to drawing board to execution and so we don't know all the stumbling block blocks that we may encounter to execute the engineering that will take these ideas and and implement them but i can assure you that we intend to implement them as fast as possible and that in coordination with the e p a and our other agent agency partners we'll try to make these measures as effective as possible as well you i can assure you that there will be vigilance from this committee beginning with mr b try who is has long been a protector of the great lakes didn't sound like you were talking about same world because you were talking about the volume of commerce going through the locks and the importance to the local community and he was saying it's only one percent that goes all the way through and it really would be not particularly destructive to figure out strategies to put in the physical barrier between the great lakes and the mississippi and the other is the long term and in my comments i'm speaking to the long term need to separate the mississippi river from the great lakes which is going to require significant investment new authority and a change in the way we think about the system  just to clarify the data the numbers that i cited were reflective of the volume of commodities moving through the o'brien lock on the south side of chicago relative to the total volume of freight moving in the chicago metropolitan area annually and that is one percent of the total movement less than one percent yes and that's that's that's those are the best numbers we have reflective of how much of that cargo actually moves from the mississippi river into the lake michigan basin now to be to be frank even even less of that actually requires a trip into lake michigan and so my point here is that the volume of traffic that needs to move from the mississippi river to the great lakes  on the waterway is is a is a very small number relative to the total amount of movement on the waterways and certainly to the total volume moving through the chicago metro area so most of the movement is going all all mechanisms through the chicago metro area yes well first i would say ecological separation is a huge game changer nationally the power that would become a policy judgment which says navigation may not be important and i don't think that's the answer  tonne basis when compared to other modes it's very green very environmentally friendly so i don't look at it as a dying business or a business that is still not viable today and in the  future i wish i had more time to go further but this is an area that i think will be a considerable discussion and we can try to come up with a purchase solution not just for this problem but for other invasive species  i guess i wonder if there is no magic bullet probably in dealing with the range of possibilities for species getting from the lake from lake from the mississippi basin into the into lake michigan but i just wondered if you would could comment on that over tibet and secondly talk about the habitat is it really conducive to these fish i mean there seem to be bottom feeders and and river and pond type fish the great lakes are colder and vast how realistic is the possibility that they will in fact  maybe a few but really multiply and dominate the food food chain given the new different natures of the of the habitat thank you mr peter i think what i hear is two different  questions one is about what are the pathways and the relative importance of the pathways by which fish might get into the canal system above the electric barrier and the second is about potential impact in great l at a time it seems quite clear that the largest potential source of individual asian carp into the canal system cost like michigan is  the canal we know from lots of lines of evidence from many state and federal agencies now that the silver and big carbs are both very abundant south of the electric barrier so those fish are if you will stacked up down there spreading and and pushing if you will against the electric barrier if the electric barrier is less than one hundred percent effective or fails on occasion or can be circumvented during floods from the that unite the display ends and i am going out with the chicago canal then that is a large potential source so it is reasonable to put the greatest attention on the canal and the barrier system and the steps that have already been outlined in the framework for preventing additional fish from south of the barrier from joining the north of the barrier having said that there clearly are other potential pathways one and you've mentioned both both of the ones that i see as being potentially important bait and mr rovner is already talked about a survey that the illinois d n r is going to do to try to assess that i think that's possible i think that's probably i mean we'll have to see what the what the data say say but i think these fish i think particularly juveniles are unlikely to do very well in a in a bait store kind of setting so i doubt that's go critically important but it could be of some importance the thing that i think is has in the past at least been clearly more important is the intentional release of adult carp there are several if not many pond in the chicago area that we know are inhabited by big head and or silver carp those card didn't get there from from the canal they got there because individuals bought them and released them there are some cultural practices that have encourage people to do that in the past now in chicago in the last few years that it was outlawed and i think ms humphreys suggested and that's not illegal in michigan anymore but it could be that that is still happening illegally it could also be that some of those fish know they're either been there for a long time they live ten years or more so that was perhaps a two long question answer to your first question second question about impact in the great lakes i think none of us know for certain what the impact would be in the great lakes there's only one way to find out and i don't think any of us want to want to try that way i think what i would say is that it's very hard to imagine the result of an invasion by either silver or big head carp being positive very difficult if not impossible to imagine a net positive outcome and on the other hand it's very easy to imagine  catastrophic outcome so somewhere in between those two perhaps is the most likely outcome if either silver or big were to invade i don't see a metaphor we're playing russian roulette with the with the environment and the economy of the great lakes systems when we allow access to those species and the other ones that i outlined in fact probably russian roulette isn't a very good metaphor because it's not like there's only one chamber loaded we've got it loaded with two chambers full of asian carp silver and begad and then we've got all those other species so it's not even a good metaphor we know that these invasions will happen if additional management steps are not taken against to make the canal less but i want to recognize words again for beginning the hearing and for being here today thank you mr chairman and as always when i show up at the hearing i learn something and then i end up with question so i appreciate the opportunity since i do come from the chesapeake bay region i mean one of the things that i've been you know trying to focus on in this hearing that areas are areas of chord nation and collaboration among the states and  federal agencies and so mr davis and general peter peabody i appreciate your indicating the level of enthusiasm that the various partners have shown at this stage and working together and coordinating but some of the experience that i think we have here with the chesapeake bay and the restoration of the coordination of efforts within the chesapeake bay watershed is that it really does require buzz presidential leadership and agency that's really designated to coordinate and of course a congress that commits the resources that it takes to match the enthusiasm of participating states and that there's a piece of that that seems lacking here in terms of really designated coordination and mr davis i'd appreciate your commenting on that because some of the things that we learn with the bay and our other other regions with invasive species you know are transferable and we don't always have to start from scratch and i wonder if e p a has some thoughts about about that and what we might gain in terms of its application with the great lakes region sure thank you very much congresswoman i think you pointed out a good trifecta presidential leadership check we it agency coordination check we have that funding check we have it what we haven't had to me in the past is a road map that clearly tells the public who has to do what by when using which sources of funding there hasn't been any one place that people can go to say ok if i'm interested in the locks issue here's where i go to find out about it if i'm interested in fishery carp suppression population suppression measures here's where i go to find out who's in charge of that when are they going to act how are they going to fund those efforts that's why the release of this yesterday it is so absolutely critical because for the first time ever what we've done is we have pulled together those answers in terms of what actions are going to taken by whom when and what the funding sources are so there nothing about the situation whereas as much as we all would love to see this where any one person or any one agency can simply pull a lever and this problem goes away or mitigate some self itself in some way but what we can do is clearly articulate what the authorities are which agencies are undertaking which actions and what the expectations are for when those actions will be started in completed so there is some sense of accountability i think that communicating that that accountability structure has been something that we desperately needed and i think we we have with this framework a very good tool for ensuring that accountability do you have any thoughts as to whether you have the tools that will be applicable across administrations and across congresses well i wish i could predict the future with a lot more clarity than i've been able to do so far so it's a it's a great question and it's a tough question to answer i do think that it is worth a try to see this this framework just came out yesterday and i think we need to give it some time to bake and for us to take action with it but you don't have a statutory for coordinating that's right under clean water act section one eighteen the e p a does have authority to coordinate actions among the federal agencies so i think that that's clear we have invoked that authority for purposes of this particular issue i think the real question on the table is and we've been able to act fast enough and i think the clear answer is no we haven't i know i've and mindful of and  n trying to draw attention to this issue for you know for more than a half a decade and now that i'm in the job now that we've invoke that authority i think we're getting some traction here do any of our other witnesses have a comment that the need for that authority more directly than through the clean water act general peabody yes ma'am thank you congresswoman let me just make clear what i understand the authorities to be and their duration the authorities that we have specifically related to this issue are derived from the authorities to build operate maintain the fish barriers first of all second the study authorities that we have which are twofold one is the so called efficacy study again authorized and o'sullivan were to which tells us to find out whether the fish barrier is effective one of the concern issues that people have articulated here we have a variety of  things that we're doing to address that to include an interim report approval that secretary darcy gave us last month to go ahead and work on these flood bypass potential the mr davis and i talked about in our testimony what we don't have is authority for execution in all cases now we have a stopgap authority that was in the two thousand and ten and energy and water appropriations act section one twenty six which gives the secretary of the army emergency authorities take on specified measures to prevent asian carp from dispersing northward of the barriers and into lake michigan that is a one year authority that expire a year from the enactment which i believe is october twenty eighth of this year we have used that authority to execute the construction of these flanking waterway barriers that i just referred to we will continue to use that the point of importance for the appropriation cycle if we need to do something further appropriations measures are an effective means of doing so if we need more funding or we need additional authority that we can include in the appropriation optimal time to do that and we'll notify you but i want all of you to be thinking about early to mid may when it's warm out would be preferable so that it's not snowing ahead of the hurricane season and after the snow habitat or are they at the top of their particular situation i think we should assume that they have no natural predators here but neither did the common carp and if you give almost any of our native predators choice they seem to like common carp so they do tend to select fish with soft rays i don't think we should persuade ourselves that the fact that other fish will eat them will actually impede them from colonizing the great lakes and doing great harm we should be pleasantly surprised that they're feeding some of our native fishes but that's really not the point is it because they're likely to do their damage  in the way that they interact in the food web and because they interact in the food web at a low level they could well have the same sort of catastrophic effects that we've seen from zebra mussels where they've essentially rerouted the food chain and led  to wholesale changes and the secretary from the state of michigan pointed out that like here on just recently underwent a dramatic shift and how that whole ecosystem was structured probably all going to how zebra mussels restructured things so the asian car isn't that a very different animal but in the same position and almost certainly it's damage will be caused through that mechanism and i'd also like to say that i agree completely with dr lodge these animals will almost certainly be harmful not helpful so we probably could see some benefits because something to lead them but it's more likely they'll be very very damaging and another point probably needs to be made the deep cold partitions of the great lakes probably aren't where these animals are going to be happiest they're going to be happiest in the near shore waters where we have an abundance of streams they can swim in to spawn or we have warmer waters that will be more suitable but those are also some of the most productive systems  great lakes and history would already show us that at that at the peak of their productive potential lake erie outproduced all the great lakes combined and one species the sysco produced more fish production than all the rest of all the species in the rest of the lakes combined so the lake area is probably the want to create a stress and the near shore waters of saginaw and green bay where we have extremely valuable fisheries those are probably the places where this animal will do its greatest damage thank you simple meant that so eagles fish hawks osprey and have no interest in the car i certainly didn't mean to say that  provide food for native fishes the problem is the size of the specimens over there and those are perhaps average size not even big ones there is no predator that's going to be able to consume an adult so from a biological perspective we refer to that as a size refuge these fish grow very quickly to a size where there will be no predator where they can be consumed you know the idea of a fish that has and and some people might need them but there are other bony they do support commercial fisheries in their native range and i guess you could always say well that would be a benefit but gosh i hope we don't go there so they're probably they're probably perfectly suitable in some forms for food and obviously they could support the same kind of economies here if we let them loose but hopefully we wouldn't one more point about their colonization ability seems to me this animal is built to colonize new habitats the these fish grow very fast and you can see how big they get those fish are probably haven't looked at you you would need to look at their ear bones to figure out how old they are but they're probably only seven or eight years old they mature at a very young age and they produce lots of eggs so they are built to colonize these habitats so if you let too many out  odds are much much better that it will that they'll get a foothold so i think you can probably rest assured that dr lodge detected fish stream of that barrier its methods are convincing and and proven the idea now is is it enough are there enough up there to start this off we hope we should hope they're not and we should probably try at least to get rid of the ones that have gotten above their i think we're all agreed on that point general pe what is the rate of flow of the current through the ship canal and and it's it's from lake michigan into the illinois river if one of these carp females can produce fifty to fifty thousand to a million eggs can those eggs make their way all by themselves against the current reference the current is very slow in the chicago area waterways system as mr davis talked about it's a very flat pod graphy and there's even though there's one billion gallons of water sounds like sounds like a lot it's it's not the with whether or not you have rains and invents picks up during that period but in terms of how the fish behaves in that i defer to the fish experts on the panel not to launch you ask us specifically about both from traditional work and from our work they seem to stack up below barriers below structures and when they are in the spawning mood they are swimming upstream and can readily do so again substantial  initiated legal action and that action was denied by the u s supreme court but the underlying issue of authority to act was not addressed by the court what motivated the state of michigan to negotiate the lawsuit will the state be satisfied now that there is enough federal state multi agency coordination concentrated program and a clear strategy to attack this issue will they be satisfied now to cooperate continue cooperating coordinating we will continue to cooperate and satisfy our legal challenges no i will turn to general office refile this case last week the decision was made before the latest d n a information was made public and so they have refiled  what is the crux of this is really where we're going with this long term is our goal biologically ecologically and physically separate these watersheds or is it not and that is what in our conversations with our other agencies and with the federal government we have tried to ascertain what is our long term goal here because it does make a difference in terms of how we approach the short term strategies we applaud the efforts have been done to coordinate activities we applaud the effort that has been done by the federal agencies to bring funding to the congress quite frankly we need to do more and we do not feel that continuing to operate the lock structure and the opening waterways are in place and poisoning off the waters on a regular basis in order to facilitate that is a sustainable strategy in short the state of michigan welcomes the efforts underway but does not consider them to be sufficient that is correct at this point in time general peabody louisiana many many years gulf outlet commonly known as mr go on the order of six or so freighters use that waterway annually what was perhaps not anticipated or for was was dismissed was that waterway would allow salt water to penetrate all the way up to new orleans in that action the area proved to be the barrier against surges in storms and hurricanes from lake borgne such that st bernard parish in hurricane katrina was it was not just hit by water it was washed away the force of the surge from lake borne with nothing standing in its way swept away i was there just six seven months after katrina and took a photograph of the first home that was the that bore the brunt of that storm all that was of st bernard parish because they were all overtopped and several i saw were lifted up with their concrete base and floated as much as three blocks away from home until they ran into another object that didn't move intruder for collision damage and i asked him why he said well there's nothing else for us to do no one is fixing our problem here so we moved in the water resource development act of seven to the buffer for st bernard parish which is the home of the slain yet people of the canary islanders who came to that area in the sixteenth and seventeenth century so is it possible is it possible the closing off navigation causing off the outlet from lake michigan would would be the definitive answer to movement of carp into lake michigan and the rest of the great lakes i think your question gets to the very heart of the matter sir if i could get the topography slide up not the structural operations right thank you sir as mr davis indicated in his testimony this is a relatively flat topography if you look it's a little bit hard to see on the slide but there are some green dots along the edge of lake michigan in the chicago area starting from north the south and you have the woman pumping station and then the heart of chicago you have the chicago locks and controlling works and then a little bit further to south of that near or near the bottom of the dark yellow aspect of the slide is the o'brien lock a little bit inland eight miles inland from the lake those are the only physical obstacles are potential physical obstacles for aquatic species to move between lake michigan and the chicago area waterway system above the fish barrier if you'll notice to the south and east of the o'brien lock and dam there's two waterways and it appears there's three egress points and lake michigan there's actually only two the grand calumet river to the north and the little calumet river to the south you're familiar with them sir i know and both of those outlet eeg rests in the lake michigan through the indiana and the burns harbor respectively so one of the challenges that we have is in addition to the the authority that the corps has to operate those locks and dams for purposes of navigation and there are some other associated purposes such as water flow management and flood damage reduction if we were to close the locks they would need to be if shown to be effective as impediments to asian carp migration we are actively studying and emphasizes actively studying whether or not we should close the locks but we need a vast amount of information to assess impacts and consequences both sides of the equation so not just impacts and consequences to the great lakes but the impacts and consequences to commerce transportation flood damage reduction and so forth in the chicago area system this is a very complex issue there are orders of magnitude and impacts second and perhaps third order impacts that we cannot yet understand until we complete our studies and we're going forward our studies to do that in the meantime we are actively studying this concept of modified lock operations which would envision operating the locks differently than we do today this concept and again it's just an idea that we're still considering i hope to give secretary darcy a recommendation early next month about a month from now but the concept would be instead of just operating the lock so whenever traffic shows up we allow it through we could do a variety of things to impede not prevent not stop but impede asian carp migration through those structures they could include such things as maximizing traffic through the locks so we do reduce the total number of openings and closings of lock gates they could include  taking actions in areas near the locks that would attack the asian carp populations that might be present so that when we do have periods where the locks are open for navigation traffic there's a lower or reduced likelihood that the asian carp might pass through and they could include putting screens during flooding events in the locks as well as the sluice gates which need to be open for reverse flows to prevent really massive flooding in the chicago land land area the bottom line is whatever measures we take they need to be effective and we definitely need to take actions along the display in the i'm sorry the little cal in the grand calumet rivers in association with any actions we're considering to take along the locks thank you for that thorough complex and response i appreciate it very much the question is a hard one it has to be asked and i ask it in the context that i did because i think it's very instructive instructive for us as the environmental importance of this we cannot balance we cannot have one instead of the other they cancel each other out i think we have to do this in the context of the way you presented it i think that's well thought out me professor lodge what a positive test for asian carp d n a means on the likelihood that a live carp is passed by the location where the sample was taken and i think that there is some variation in terms of how long that sample  last has show president and also if you could answer for me whether there's some in today that coordinates research about the biology of the carpets habitat tatt et cetera and who pulls all that together imagine a number of scenarios by which d n a might be present without a live car being present while those while there are possibilities they are not very plausible and they're certainly insufficient to explain the overall repeated spatial pattern that i showed you in the canal so when we've been back to places three or four times the result is the so while there are other possibilities they are not a plausible research i think there is no entity there may be other panel members who can speak to that better i think perhaps the framework document and the plans that were put out yesterday may be the closest thing that exists to a coordinated plan of study of asian carp but others may have a more informal answer than mine if not i mean i guess my question goes to whether for example what do we know and not about the reproductive cycle to begin to interfere with that and what research is available for example that tells us that might tell us whether we could perhaps pre treat vessels coming through so that it would potentially kill  through things like that because i mean there must be some way that either through your university research or other research that the participating states are able to identify the need to know list and then check that and check that off to get to some of the prevention efforts that i think dr hansen in your testimony you indicated a need to focus more on that prevention and i don't know how you do that with at identifying and coordinating research i agree with dr lodge i don't think any single entity coordinates all the research but the thing to remember about these animals as if they've been fairly well studied in their native range so the overall biological attributes that they have are fairly well understood in those that information was essentially assembled in the two risk analyses that were done one  and people that dr lodge mentioned in it and there's a companion or similar piece done in canada so we know quite a bit about their biology and the studies that have been done in the illinois river by researchers  illinois basically converge on the same sort of information hence we know that they have a fundamental ability to grow fast at large have lots of eggs we know approximately when you would expect them to spawn what they look for  those elements of their biology were used in the risk analysis to essentially say we we think we know where they'll live like these near shore waters or shallower cooler habitats and they're probably not going to like the really open colder waters and they would likely want to spawn in streams so we would find them in those areas i think many of the things we would want to know from control perspective we probably already know the question is what tools do we have to bring to bear on some of those control methods we studied the lamp for a very hard to find a very specific toxic and that would targeted juveniles when they were living in streams and we got maybe lucky or not but we found a chemical that that has worked and is the  primary thing that we fire against them we don't have that same sort of technology sitting there waiting for the aging car so we would have to think about this more broadly and employ of some of the things we can do like catch them  we now apparently can detect them at fairly low numbers using dr lodge's technology but what do we do to control them and that's what i meant about we don't have a lot that we have in in the gun right now that we could shoot at specifically aime obviously what the best thing would be if we had a chemical you could throw into the river and it only killed carp that would be great thank you some idea of biological control i remember at the height of the of the zebra mussels concern some researchers said oh we've found mechanisms in species that we brought in to control a runaway creature or plant that then becomes a runaway in their own and  want to ask unanimous consent for members who were not able to be present today to submit questions in writing to members of the panel and for you to submit responses for the record and secondly have a staff to work with the  arguer for the team to produce a transcript as soon as possible so we can distribute it to members who are not able to be here for them to review and on which to ask for the questions but now we've been firing at you do you have any questions for each other or for us  not like church you know you don't have to pray about this let's welcome yes mr chairman i would just come back to underscore one point around the sense of urgency and federal framework currently in place and has promised measures that we all support and i think that it comes down to looking at modified log schedules or something of this sort we would highly recommend that we exhaust long history of that type of collaboration and working together and we think we can apply that to this measure as well no question about the w o and their their participation and their cooperation two years are a tremendous opportunity you pointed out that we have a great lakes president who understands what the lakes mean to the region this is a great time to be thinking about thinking big what we need to do not just in the short term to stop these fish from getting in to morrow but how we can make changes for the long term so we don't have to be here five or ten years from now having the same discussion so now is certainly the time and this is a tremendous opportunity to think about solving this problem thank sed the house twice and is languishing over the place actually called the black hole the other body the galactic blackhole you know what happens in outer space so we will convene this group again in may in the understanding this is a continuing effort today is hearing is not definitive your work is much  the time that you put on preparing this testimony and we hope to make it safely back to whence you came yes we wish you all safe journey home despite the washington