Camo At The Capitol

Dave's primary task at MichiganOutofDoors and MUCC is lobbying the Michigan Legislature to conserve Michigan's natural resources and protect our outdoor heritage. He'll take any decent opportunity to flee Lansing in order to wet a line or get in the woods, but especially prefers his native U.P. waters for fly fishing and jigging for walleye on the ice.

White House threatens Carp with $78 million but will leave the door open to Lake Michigan

February 9th, 2010 by Dave Nyberg.

Yesterday's "Carp Summit" between White House environmental officials and Great Lakes governors revealed that the federal government is willing to spend a ton of money on measures that are supposed to stop Asian Carp from devastating the $7 billion Great Lakes sportfishery, however, it is not willing to take tough political stands to implement the best preventative measure available: the immediate closure of Chicago navigational locks.

The Detroit Free Press yesterday reported that the feds plan to spend $78 million to implement action on Asian Carp, including an idea that would close down the locks for three weeks per month. Unless that funding will develop research to train Asian Carp not to swim upstream during the remaining one week per month, it sounds like White House officials are content with throwing money at the problem in an attempt to passify political upheaval without making the right decision. Regardless of the disappointing news, kudos is owed to Governor Jennifer Granholm for arranging the "summit" in the first place, bringing national attention to this important issue.

Meanwhile, the the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee to the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a hearing on February 9 on the issue, which we're hopeful will lead to tougher Congressional action. MUCC submitted testimony along with fellow Michigan sporting and conservation groups urging the Subcommittee to take action on immediate and long term preventative measures, including the CARP ACT legislation introduced by U.S. Representative Dave Camp and U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow. For those interested, you can watch the recorded hearing online.