Northwest Indiana remains free of Asian carp, federal officials told the Post-Tribune Friday.
The monitoring and rapid response work group of the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee has periodically sampled the Little Calumet River in Indiana, but so far has found no trace of Asian carp.
"The Little Calumet River is a priority area for monitoring. Over the past year, they have sampled this area frequently, usually at least once every two months, as part of the monitoring plan," said Kelly Baerwaldt of the Army Corps of Engineers in an e-mail.
An eDNA sample from the Little Cal in Illinois tested positive for silver carp, she said.
Fears are increasing that Asian carp are spreading closer to the Great Lakes. On June 22, a 3-foot long, 20-pound Asian carp was found in Lake Calumet, Ill., only six miles from Lake Michigan. It was the first time a live carp was found above the electric barriers intended to keep them out.
This week, Indiana officials admitted they found spawning Asian carp in the Wabash River.
Environmentalists are alarmed, saying spawning escalates the threat of Asian carp because a branch of the Wabash River is in the same floodplain west of Fort Wayne as the Maumee River, which ends up in Lake Erie.
Environmentalists fear Asian carp could devastate the Great Lakes ecosystem and the $7 billion fishing industry.
This week was the first time spawning carp had been found in the river.
"Now you have a spawning population some place other than the Mississippi River or the Missouri River, where there is the potential for a self-sustaining population that could get access to Lake Erie. To me, that seems like an escalation," said Josh Mogerman, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "There is a connection between these waterways. It's not a direct connection. It requires flooding. But the threat is more imminent."
He said environmental groups are frustrated with the lack of transparency, cooperation, emergency planning and action. A biologist from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources found the spawning carp in late May, but neither state or federal agencies told the public until this week. That prevents the public from helping to monitor for carp, Mogerman said.
DNR spokesman Phil Bloom said the spawning carp was found near Lafayette, 100 miles downstream from the 91-foot-high dam at Roush Lake and Huntington Lake that has kept carp from the headwaters of the Wabash.
"Nobody thinks the fish can penetrate that barrier," Bloom said. "That's as far as we know they've gone."
The floodplain near the intersection of U.S. 24 and Interstate 69 west of Fort Wayne that worries environmentalists is located northeast of the dam.
"Below the Roush Lake dam, west of the dam is the Little Wabash River, sometimes referred to as the Little River. It drains from the Fort Wayne area southwest directly through the town of Huntington into the Wabash River. There would be a potential for fish to move up that stream and in a high flood situation with high water, there is some drainage ditches where there's a potential connection," he said.
Bloom said the DNR is working with the Army Corps and the U.S. Geological Survey to determine how often flooding occurs in the Fort Wayne floodplain and how high the water would have to rise for Asian carp to be able to spread. He didn't know how long it would take to complete the study.
Mogerman said the spawning means the fish will experience pressure to move upstream.
"These fish, on a good day, can swim 10 miles. That distance is significant. But it's not like these are just fish that sit in one spot and don't move, particularly if you have spawning and a growing population," he said.
He said a plan should be in place for each waterway where carp have the potential to spread. An easy way to deal with the potential flooding west of Fort Wayne is to erect barriers to make sure the Wabash branch and the Maumee River don't mix, he said.