Their appetites are ferocious and they can leap up to ten feet. They can ravage a waterway’s ecosystem in a matter of weeks and their next feeding frenzy could take place in America’s Great Lakes.
No, these cold-blooded creatures aren’t alien invaders from the latest Roland Emmerich movie. They’re a type of fish called Asian carp that Civil Engineering and Geosciences student Jeroen Roest focused on for his MSc project.
The carps have been used for food and medicinal purposes in China for thousands of years but they’re considered an invasive species in many parts of the United States. In addition to their tendency to eat anything that’s smaller than them, their remarkable jumping abilities have caused numerous accidents involving boaters. These are among the reasons why American officials are desperate to keep them out of the Great Lakes.
“Research has been done that concludes that if nothing happens, it will lead to economical damage of millions, maybe billions, of dollars per year,” Roest said. “Fishing, hunting, waterlife and many others are all affected by this. The fishing industry of the Great Lakes alone is already in the order of 7 billion dollars per year.”
Unfortunately, the fish are clever and they’ve managed to overcome electrical barriers and other attempts to thwart them. They’re currently causing plenty of havoc in the Mississippi River as they make their way north. Roest thinks that the construction of a water-free boat lift could stop them in their tracks.
The lift would allow boats to enter the Great Lakes while keeping the fish out and posing a limited risk to other aquatic species. It would temporarily move them to a storage chamber before they’re later released back downstream. There remains, however, the question of where to build the lift.
“A surroundings and stakeholders analysis showed that the best location for such a solution will be in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal,” Roest wrote in his abstract. “This design can be combined with the renovation/renewing of the current Lockport lock in the canal.”
Only time will tell if officials decide to build the lift or use another strategy to fight the fish.
Roest, Jeroen, Chicago Fish Barrier: The Design of a Fish Free Passage for Vessels Between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, Supervisors S.N. Jonkman, A. Van der Toorn, J.G. De Gijt, C.R. Braam and R. Abspoel, Defence: March 15, 2016.
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