Federal and state officials in Illinois plan to announce this afternoon that they found a live bighead carp in Lake Calumet, 6 miles on the Chicago side of Lake Michigan, in an area near where a poisoning operation that ended June 4 took place.
Several members of Congress were notified today of the find. The creature, commercial fishermen looking for carp as part of wider carp hunting missions, was 34.6 inches long and weighed just under 20 pounds.
This is the first time anyone has found an Asian carp, live or dead, beyond an electric barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal near Lockport. The nearest carp to the barrier was a dead one found last December after a massive poisoning of the shipping canal.
But the Army Corps of Engineers said it has no plans to close any locks in response to the fish find. There are no locks that can be closed between Lake Calumet and Lake Michigan.
The calls for closing the locks will begin again, but in my mind, I keep seeing Newt in "Aliens" saying, "It won't make any difference."
Better find another way to deal with these things. And soon.