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Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee announces this year's plan for Illinois waters

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[May 11, 2013]  CHICAGO -- The Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee released its 2013 Asian Carp Monitoring and Response Plan on Thursday. Outlining a revised and aggressive set of actions to track and remove Asian carp in the Upper Illinois River and the Chicago Area Waterway System, the plan for this year is again designed to prevent Asian carp from establishing populations in the Chicago area and Lake Michigan.

The plan details over $6.5 million of monitoring, sampling and response activities to be conducted by multiple members of the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee. The plan outlines actions for the current field season, focused on monitoring and removal of Asian carp in the Chicago Area Waterway System and upper Illinois River; and ongoing evaluations of the effectiveness of barriers and gears used in keeping Asian carp from establishing in the CAWS and Lake Michigan.

"This year's Monitoring and Response Plan will focus on expanding those actions that have achieved tangible results. Over the past three seasons we have removed over 1.3 million pounds of Asian carp from the Upper Illinois River well below the electric barriers. We believe removal efforts are working to reduce Asian carp populations in Illinois, thanks to the hard work and dedication of our biologists, commercial fishermen and our ACRCC partners," said Illinois Department of Natural Resources Director Marc Miller.

The 2013 plan continues intensive fish population sampling in the CAWS to watch closely for the potential presence of live Asian carp, including two intense sampling events later this year. In 2012, over 100,000 fish were netted and identified with no Asian carp found between the electric barriers in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and Lake Michigan. The 2013 plan also continues sampling for Asian carp environmental DNA, known as eDNA, as a monitoring and surveillance tool; however, eDNA will no longer be used as a trigger for immediate rapid response actions until the scientific significance of results can be further refined.

In 2012 three response actions were triggered by positive eDNA detections in the CAWS, with two additional actions implemented as a precautionary measure to eDNA presence. These intense sampling events totaled more than 1,600 hours of surveillance over 27 miles of the CAWS, using 18.4 miles of gill and trammel nets and 59 hours of electrofishing. These efforts resulted in no bighead or silver carp being seen or captured. These eDNA "triggered" events were in addition to the over 7,500 hours of sampling by ACRCC crews in the CAWS in 2012 with no bighead or silver carp seen or captured above the electric barriers.

"The (Fish and Wildlife) Service has been an active partner in this tremendous effort since day one," said Charlie Wooley, deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest. "The 2013 Monitoring and Response Plan represents the highest level of cooperation for the benefit of the American public in the fight against Asian carp. The Service is proud to again offer our technical assistance in the coordinated monitoring and sampling efforts taking place this field season."

"This robust, interagency program to assess the location and abundance of Asian carp is just one important component of the Corps' prevention strategy and helps us in making effective electric barrier operation decisions," said Col. Frederic A. Drummond Jr., Chicago District commander with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "At the end of this year, we will be providing Congress a Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study Report that outlines a range of options and technologies to prevent the inter-basin transfer of aquatic nuisance species between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins by aquatic pathways."

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The 2013 Monitoring and Response Plan also is accompanied by an Interim Summary Report, MRWG 2012, containing preliminary results and analysis of actions completed for each of the 18 projects described in the 2011 plan. The interim report includes recommendations for modifications and enhancements to project plans based on past results and experiences from the 2012 plan.

In addition to several reoccurring actions from last year, new actions in the 2013 plan are:

  • Monitoring and sampling efforts below the electric barriers will be increased, while continuing to conduct electrofishing at fixed and random sampling sites upstream of the barriers on a more limited basis.

  • Two planned eDNA sampling trips above the electric barriers will be conducted in 2013. Additionally, two planned intensive monitoring events for live Asian carp will be conducted throughout the CAWS. These monitoring events will be done in coordination with eDNA sampling.

  • Testing of water guns and other control technologies (carbon dioxide, attractants and fish toxicants) will be undertaken to assess the effectiveness and impacts.

This year's plan was developed by the Asian Carp Monitoring and Response Workgroup and has been reviewed by technical experts, Great Lakes state's natural resource agencies and nongovernmental organizations. The plan targets the Upper Illinois River and Chicago Area Waterway System, the Asian carp pathway of greatest concern.

For more information and to read the plan, visit www.asiancarp.us.

[Text from Illinois Department of Natural Resources file received from the Illinois Office of Communication and Information]

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