The Army Corps of Engineers has determined that adding zip to the zap of their anti-Asian carp electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal will not blow up barges passing over it. Yay! more ›

The record rainfall has had some unintended consequences for tour boat and water taxi traffic along the Chicago River. more ›

The latest flare-up of our apparently never-ending Asian carp infection brings new evidence the fish are swimming in Chicago on the same day as officials leading the fight say otherwise. Oops. more ›

Fear not, the Army Corps of Engineers thinks it will only take "a generation or two" for a permanent Asian carp solution to swing into action on Chicago's waterways. more ›

The press took an Asian carp cruise to hear about how the invasive fish have been kept at bay, but the New York Times and a leviathan netted in the Ozarks make clear what's at stake if they are wrong... more ›

Cue the Led Zeppelin. The Army Corps of Engineers blew up a Missouri levee last night that resulted in flooding miles of evacuated Missouri farmland but helped ward off flooding in downstate Cairo. The record rain we received last month has been particularly persistent downstate, swelling rivers and testing levees. Cairo is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and it's expected that blowing a two-mile wide hole in the Birds Point Levee in Mississippi County, MO will reduce river levels in Cairo by four feet. more ›

We aren’t sure when the Trib got to be such a “glass half full” kind of operation, but the headline on their coverage of the latest chapter in the Asian carp saga is oddly positive. Yesterday, the Army Corps of Engineers admitted they are only sure that their electric fish barrier is effective with carp 5 1/2 inches or larger. While the headline “Electric barriers stop big Asian carp, tests show” is technically right, it does seem to miss the big news…after all, any little fish that happen to slip through will eventually become the big jumping demons that plague Great Lakes advocates’ nightmares. more ›

The U.S. House of Representatives have blocked a measure introduced by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) to indefinitely shut two area shipping locks in order to block Asian carp from entering Lake Michigan. more ›

Carpgate 2009 carries on, with the Michigan state legislation passing a resolution calling on the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take immediate and drastic action to prevent Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes. The fish, which can weigh up to 100 pounds, would destroy the lakes' ecosystem, and jeopardize billions of dollars in annual fishing industry revenue. Michigan Rep. Kevin Elsenheimer, who sponsored the measure, says, "The Asian carp is perhaps the largest threat to the Great Lakes in our generation. This is something our economy, our lifestyle and our culture cannot sustain." more ›

Is it any surprise that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers couldn't properly maintain a levee to hold up against a hurricane when they can't even seem to keep a fish out of Lake Michigan? New word from the Corps in the fight against the Asian carp is that they've discovered the fish's DNA beyond an electronic barrier that was set up along the Illinois River to keep the fish out of the Great Lakes. The new evidence was found a mere 7 miles from Lake Michigan, and at this point if the carp makes its way through a navigational lock it's home free from there, and its feeding habits will wreak havoc on the Great Lakes native species. Cameron Davis, from the Environmental Protection Agency, said that the DNA evidence is "very accurate" in terms of indicating the fish's presence. more ›