Kaptur Demands Stronger Federal Response to Asian Carp Threat

Small Asian carp shown to find ways around existing preventative measures

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-9) challenged representatives of federal agencies testifying at a meeting of the Great Lakes Task Force to redouble their efforts to block invasive Asian carp from reaching Lake Erie. Kaptur, a Great Lakes Task Force co-chair in the House of Representatives, has repeatedlycalledfor complete hydrologic separation as the best and only permanent solution to address the threat posed by the invasive species.

“Invasive Asian carp are on Lake Erie’s doorstep,” said Rep. Kaptur. “I am concerned that our federal agencies are failing to mount a sufficient response. We know juvenile Asian carp continue to advance in the tributaries that feed the Great Lakes. And our government still can’t even tell us, after years of research, how many Asian carp we’re dealing with and where they are. Recent analysis has shown those same small carp could be carried through electric barriers between or beneath traveling ships. It is increasingly clear that complete hydrologic separation is the only long-term solution that can stop the advance of this invasive species. Our federal agencies have a responsibility to the public to accept this reality and respond decisively and with dispatch.”

The meeting included testimony from all federal agencies in the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee: JoEllen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Cameron Davis, Great Lakes Senior Advisor at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Charlie Wooley, Midwest Deputy Regional Director at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, Dr. Leon Carl, Midwest Regional Director at U.S. Geological Survey, Rear Admiral June Ryan, Commander of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Ninth District, and Deborah Lee, Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

Other Great Lakes lawmakers at the event included Senators Kirk, Stabenow, Portman, Klobuchar, Baldwin, Franken, Durbin, Peters as well as Representatives Levin, Kildee, Lawrence, Moore, Dingell, Joyce, Benishek, Dold, among others.

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