Power Outage at the Only Barriers Holding Back the Asian Carp

And this is why an electric barrier is no match for a brick wall.

I mean, who could have predicted this:

This week a power outage shut down electric barriers that are the one thing keeping the invasive asian carps from crossing over from the Mississippi basin to Lake Michigan. The invasive species are predicted to throw the entire managed Great Lakes ecosystem into chaos and potentially killing the 7 billion dollar a year Great Lakes fishing industry.

An electric barrier network near Chicago designed to prevent Asian carp and other species from migrating between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River systems had a 13-minute power outage this week, officials said Friday.

The outage began at 12:58 p.m. Wednesday, said Lt. Col. James Schreiner, deputy commander of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Chicago district. Two of three barriers were operating at the time and both failed. Backup generators were activated, but a power surge prevented them from immediately delivering electricity to the barriers. Personnel at the site manually reset a circuit breaker to get the generators working.

The Army Corps of Engineers has been studying long term strategies for keeping asian carps out of the Great Lakes and holy mother of f*** have they been taking their precious sweet time. While asian carps are knocking at the doors of the Great Lakes, the Army Corps of Engineers will release its report...in 2015.

How's that saying go? Politics is the art of delaying a decision until it's no longer relevant.

Many groups and US representatives from Great Lakes states are pushing to speed up the report and get on with the solution before it's too late.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) -- Legislation introduced in Congress would force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to speed up a study of how to prevent Asian carp and other invasive species from reaching the Great Lakes.
 
The corps has identified 18 locations where fish and other organisms could migrate between the lakes and other watersheds, including an artificial linkage between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River basin in the Chicago area.
 
Corps officials say they'll release their recommendations by late 2015.
 
Michigan's U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and U.S. Rep. Dave Camp say that isn't soon enough. They're sponsoring bills to require the corps to submit a progress report within 90 days of the legislation's enactment and a full plan within 18 months.
 
Scientists say Asian carp could starve out native Great Lakes fish.

The electric barriers are a joke.