Ideas to Stop Asian Carp Could Work with Brandon Road Plan
Over two late March days in Detroit, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources hosted a “Carp Tank and Summit,” both to award innovative ideas to stop Asian carp from all over the world and to share information between the agencies, innovators and organizations working to stop Asian carp. The winning idea of a cavitation barrier, as well as the second-place idea for an aquatic invasive species chlorine treatment chamber, could both be configured to fit in the engineered channel that is part of the Army Corps of Engineers plan for the Brandon Road Lock and Dam, south of Chicago.
Cavitation is what happens when water undergoes rapid changes in pressure; low pressure moves into high pressure, creating vapor bubbles which violently implode and make shockwaves, like the channel behind a mistimed boat motor propeller. And unlike air bubbles, cavitation vapor bubbles don’t change the buoyancy of the water. The cavitation barrier would take large propellers, install them on the bottom of the channel, and create vertical columns of cavitation vapor bubbles which would repel Asian carp acoustically, visually and physically. The estimated construction cost of the cavitation barrier is $2 million (in addition to the Brandon Road plan cost), with an annual operating cost of $400,000. This idea was presented by Edem Tsikata, a software consultant from Boston with a Ph.D. in experimental atomic physics from Harvard and experience as a researcher in NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory.
Governor Snyder announced the Great Lakes Invasive Carp Challenge in February 2017 and opened the challenge from August 1 to October 31, 2017. The global challenge, administered through the firm InnoCentive, netted 352 submissions from 27 countries. A panel of four judges -Gov. Snyder, Professor David Lodge of Cornell University, Dr. Denice Shaw of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Jeff DeBoer Sundberg-Ferar, Inc. and the Michigan Design Council — selected the winning designs from among four finalists and awarded a total of $500,000 between them.
“This work matters because we need to find and show what solutions look like,” said Jon Allen, Director of Michigan’s Office of the Great Lakes. “There are solutions to these intractable problems, and the Carp Tank shows that solutions exist.”
Another awarded solution was a chlorine-based aquatic invasive species treatment chamber, earning Michigan’s David Hamilton second-place. Hamilton, who works for The Nature Conservancy, explained that the treatment lock is “a novel application of a proven technology.” The chamber could be installed either in the lock or the engineered channel approaching the lock in the Brandon Road plan. Once the chamber was closed, chlorine would be pumped into the waters of the chamber to kill any aquatic invasive species within it, then dechlorinated before opening so that no chlorine was released into the river. The expected cost would be $44 million for construction and $6–9 million per year for operations and maintenance.
The other final entries included ideas for an adjustable physical velocity barrier, which adds adjustability to the flushing lock system proposed in the Brandon Road plan; and an artificial intelligence (AI) camera scanner that would identify invasive fish forced through a narrow channel and automatically divert them for removal. Runner-up entries included a carbon dioxide treatment, resonant sound barrier, mechanical fish-herder, a “fish fence,” and system which would stun — or “narcotize” fish with an acoustic pulse and retrieve them with an underwater drone.
Informal conversations during the summit included ideas on how some of the concepts could be combined or used in different parts of the Chicago Area Waterway System.
At the same time, Governor Snyder announced that the City of Chicago is joining the Great Lakes Basin Partnership to Block Asian Carp. The partnership also includes Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Ontario, which will provide strategic and financial resources in support of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Brandon Road plan. The support from the City of Chicago is especially important, since Illinois has been opposed to it thus far.
“Chicago takes our responsibility to preserve and protect the Great Lakes seriously, and we are proud to stand with our regional partners in the fight against the threat of invasive species,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel, in a statement. “Chicago will always do our part to safeguard the future of the Great Lakes for future generations, and we hope other Illinois leaders will step up and join us in this essential effort.”
The Army Corps of Engineers is currently reviewing public comments on the Tentatively Selected Plan, with a final plan expected in August 2019, while the U.S. Congress urged the Corps to finish it by February 2019 in its 2018 budget, signed into law in March.
Help stop Asian carp! The National Wildlife Federation Great Lakes Regional Center has teamed up with RepYourWater to support work to stop Asian carp. Learn more here.
