Water We Doing?

Deep Dive: Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers

April 08, 2021 David Evans / Chuck Shea Season 1 Episode 4
Water We Doing?
Deep Dive: Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers
Show Notes Transcript

Invasive species are a huge problem around the world. Asian Carp are most well known for flying through the air, striking anyone out for a pleasure cruise on the river, but they have completely changed the ecology and ecosystems they have taken over. They have taken over the Mississippi river and they are headed for the Great Lakes and Canadian Waters!

What are we doing to stop them?

In this episode you will hear from the experts about why Asian Carp were brought to the United States, how they escaped, why they are flourishing and what we are doing to limit their spread.

You will hear from Andrew Reeves, Author of the book "Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis", Kevin Irons, Assistant Chief of the Fisheries Division from Illinois Department of Natural Resources, who runs the fishing program to keep asian carp away from the Great Lakes, and from Chuck Shea, US ARMY Corps of Engineers who man the underwater electric barricades keeping fish from the Mississippi river basin out of the Great Lakes.

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David Evans:

On today's deep dive episode, we're talking with Chuck Shea from the US Army Corps of Engineers. He is in charge of the underwater electric barriers that are really the last last stop before Asian carp could potentially get into the Great Lakes. We'll learn why we use underwater fences to keep out fish out of a certain area, and what other strategies they're using to monitor and make sure that Asian carp don't get anywhere near the Great Lakes. So sit back, relax and get ready to learn a little bit more about Asian carp. That's their g

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David Evans:

water we doing? And how can we do better? your one stop shop for everything water related from discussing water to use and the organisms that depend on it for all the global issues that you really never knew all had to do with water. I'm your host, David Evans from the aquatic biosphere project. And I just want to ask you something. What are we doing? How can we do better? Hi, and welcome to today's deep dive episode. Today I'm talking with Chuck Shea from the US Army Corps of Engineers about the work that they're doing to prevent Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes. So Chuck, do you mind introducing yourself and giving us a bit about your history?

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

Oh, sure. My name is Chuck Shea. And I am a project manager with the Chicago district of the US Army Corps of Engineers. I've been a project manager here at the Chicago district since 2003. And I have worked on our Chicago sanitary and ship canal barriers that entire time. So I've now been working on the project over 17 years. And it's a very interesting and rewarding project to work on.

David Evans:

Yeah, I bet. Can you just I guess start off with a bit about? I mean, I'm not from the United States. And I don't know too much about the US Army Corps of Engineers but explained a little bit about the history of it. Is this a branch of the US military? And if so what does the US military have to do with invasive species control?

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

Well, we are a branch of the US Army. And and yes, that does strike a lot of people is strange, even even here in the US. It's it's regarded as somewhat unusual. But the history behind it is that if we go back into the 19th century, the 1800s, the majority of the people who practice engineering in the US were in the US Army. In fact, I believe it's true that the first place in the US to grant engineering degrees was the US Military Academy at West Point. And so there was a lot of skill and in the, in the 1800s, within the army, with engineering, and given that that skill set existed in the army, and given the importance of maintaining the waterways, and the ports and harbors of the country properly, because of the importance they have for the economy and for national security. The federal government gave the responsibility for maintaining the waterways of the US to the US Army, and specifically within the US Army to the US Army Corps of Engineers. And although of course, times have changed and the number of engineers have has vastly expanded that's still remained a part of the US Army Corps of Engineers portfolio to be the the federal agency basically responsible for for the inland waterways in the ports and harbors of the US in terms of maintaining them for navigational purposes. And for flood and Storm Damage risk reduction and and for environmental improvements in those waterways. and what we do now is referred to as the what i do now and things like the fish barriers are referred to as the civil works program of the us army corps of engineers and the majority of the staff are civilians but we are civilians who are employees of the us army and there are all of our top levels of leadership our army officers and there are always a few soldiers who are part of the projects in the project teams as well

David Evans:

that's so interesting i guess starting off engineering yeah they would have started with the military being that kind of basis and expanding from there it strikes me as a little crazy how expanded engineering has gone from just being a part of the military that's that's really interesting i'd like to talk to you a little bit about asian carp in the work that your team is doing with asian carp so could you start off i guess with a bit of your first introduction to asian carp and in what was kind of your first reactions

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

well i came to the corps of engineers from the private sector where i worked in a engineering consulting firm and i did work primarily in civil engineering and related fields of environmental engineering a lot of work related to water pollution and groundwater pollution and contamination in particular and how to remediate it how to clean it up but i thought it was it was really neat the way that the us army corps army corps of engineers had such big projects and such important projects for the whole community and the the whole nation and i occasionally worked on projects as a contractor for the corps and i thought it would be neat to get in you know the top level of those big projects and not just be seeing a piece of them and so i applied for work at the core and i and i was lucky enough i was lucky enough to get hired there and i came on board with the idea that i would do some type of environmental work with the corps but no specific projects assigned to me and they said you know we've got this interesting project that's just started called the electric fish barriers and i said what the heck is an electric fish very high i did not have any experience and at that point in time we had one barrier and it was a demonstration project literally just a full scale field experiment to see whether or not this idea would work and so i got that in my portfolio portfolio of of several projects certainly an environmental project but an environmental project of a different kind than i had ever worked with before

David Evans:

yeah for sure

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

and the project has just continued to grow we found out that it was a very effective way to try to stop the movement of fish and and we started building more of them and it's become most of what my job has been for the last decade is working on the invasive species control barriers and of course the asian carp are our public enemy number one right now these these barriers that i'm sure we'll talk more about later are effective on on all species of fish all types of fish but the asian carp are the primary one that that we're concerned about you know because they're they're big they're ugly they jump out of the water and they're just they attract a lot of attention as an invasive species and not long after i started working for the corps i had an i was had an opportunity to go downstream on the illinois river where there the asian carp are present in much larger numbers and go out on a boat motorboat with some people and see the carp and see them jumping and flying out of the water and it was quite an impressive sight is really something and it certainly drove home the the importance of of trying to control these fish and make sure they don't reach the great lakes and have a chance to take over or become well established at any rate there it's it's a it's a scary thing actually when you're out on the boat and those of those big fish are chopping so you do have to protect yourself

David Evans:

yeah i haven't i haven't had the pleasure yet

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

pleasure is a relative term yeah

David Evans:

exactly it is it is a scary scary sight and not a yeah not a pleasant thing to experience at all so yeah you mentioned a little bit about these electric underwater barriers which i think is such an interesting term because i mean i'm in alberta i as a field biologist i experience a lot of electric fences and cattle fences and and so i'm much much more familiar with that but underneath the water that's a whole other ballgame so could you kind of touch on how that works and how that prevents fish from passing through and why that's not an issue for boats going through

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

well certainly maybe maybe i should start by explaining why we have the barriers where we have them i don't know yet if that's a topic covered before in any in any of your other stories or not but up here in the chicago area we sit in a very unique place well there's the only continuous waterway connection between the great lakes and the mississippi river basin specifically a connection between the illinois river system and lake michigan and that that that system it and that connection is a man made one called the chicago sanitary and ship canal and this story there is that as the city of the city of chicago was founded of course in the 1800s and by the mid to late 1800s it was growing into a rather large city the chicago river which runs through downtown chicago right in the loop for those of you who've been you know right right in the main downtown area for folks who have been in chicago that the chicago river flowed out into lake michigan and further south there's a river called the calumet river that is also within the boundaries of the city of chicago and that also flowing float out into lake michigan the problem was the rivers were where the wastewater was being dumped there weren't wastewater treatment plants the way they the way that there are today with the with advanced engineering techniques and technologies to treat the wastewater so wastewater was just being dumped straight into the waterway which float out into lake michigan like michigan is where the drinking water came from and still comes from for the city of chicago and in fact still comes from for the majority of the scotland area including all the suburbs and at first the fact that so much wastewater was being put into the chicago river and going out into the lake wasn't that big of a problem because dilution is the solution to pollution to some extent if you've got a big enough body of water to do to do the diluting and like michigan of course is a huge body of water so there was a period of time when the city was small enough that that that wasn't a problem but as the city grew and grew dumping that pollution directly into lake michigan was was not was not enough you know there wasn't enough dilution going on and the city of chicago started to have more and more problems with people catching diseases and and colorado colorado i have hepatitis all kinds of bad things and so they realized they had to do something about it about how to deal with wastewater and so they came up with a rather bold idea that they would dig a canal to connect the chicago river to another river to the west of the city called the desplaines river and the desplaines is as a major tributary to the illinois river the illinois is then a major tributary to the mississippi so that they went ahead and they executed this plan at the time the local governments here in the in the struggle area and they dug this canal and and sloped it so that it was a lower than the lake michigan and created a a gravity chat fed channel that the chicago river instead of flowing out into lake michigan flew down into the illinois river system and away from the city of chicago so then when the wastewater was dumped in that flowed away from the city of chicago a major engineering achievement at the time it's still a major engineering achievement to reverse the flow of an entire river and it works for its intended purposes quite well it did clean up the water quality in lake michigan in the in the area of the of where the city was and it also the name is the chicago sanitary and ship canal it created a waterway connection that allowed boats loaded with goods to to move from the mississippi river system directly up into the into lake michigan so there was a there was a commerce aspect to it too so for its intended purposes at the time it worked very well it was a success allowed chicago to grow into the major cities that it is today but there's always there's always a catch right there's no such thing as a free lunch at what people realized over time well at first frankly the canal was was the canal itself was polluted because now that was the the main wastewater conduit and not much lived in it over time you know we had the the environmental movement really take hold the waterway was cleaned up much more and more and more life began to be able to live in the scarborough sanitarian chip canal and as that happened people realized that there was actually now a new environmental problem which is the river system and the lake was connected in a way that mother nature never originally intended and so there's the possibility that fish in the lake can move down into the river system we're fishing the river system could move up into the lakes and now we have a mixing of species in that in an in an unnatural way so people were aware of this as a concern for a while but it really became highlighted and much more of a cause that a lot of people were interested in with the emergence of the asian carp as such a a species of concern such as threatening invasive species and that put a lot of emphasis on on trying to find ways to stop fish from being able to have free movement from the misfits the mississippi river system up into the great lakes system the demonstration barrier was actually started before our first barrier was actually started before the asian carp were as well known of an issue because the idea that we should be looking at it making some kind of a separation in the canal was already being thought about but it became much more of a priority and got more focus more funding etc as the asian carp issue grew and grew so that's that's why we have a barrier system in the chicago sanitarian ship canal there is a stretch of that canal where our barriers are located where there is no there are no other waterways coming in and out of the canal we have about a 10 to 15 mile stretch where it's just like a chute there you know there's nothing that you could call a tributary branching off in any way so that that that's a pinch point where if something a boat or a fish is going to make it from lake michigan down to the illinois river system or vice versa they have to swim through that point and so that gave us a pinch point to try to make a stand and stop the movement of species through the canal so the way we the way we tried to do that the way we've done that is is through this electric barrier system it took a bit to get to the electric barriers in the first place the corps was actually assigned a law was passed that asked the corps to create a project to examine how to stop the movement of fish through this canal and that was a that was a new one to the core being asked to to create a fish barrier system and so the corps pulled together a group of other agencies other federal agencies like the us environmental protection agency or the us fish and wildlife service the us geological survey and and state and local government agencies and people in academia that studied invasive species and people in the private sector who were involved in trying to promote invasive species technologies in this group met off and on over the course of a few years talking about what would be the best way to try to stop invasive species movement through the canal and ultimately the electric barrier was chosen for for three reasons really first of all that it was a proven technology albeit on a much smaller scale people have been using these type of electrical barriers in smaller water waste streams and things like that to to stop the movement of fish and to try to or at least to try to direct them for to go one way or the other um secondly it's not actually fatal to the fish at least it's very rarely is fatal to the fish i don't know if i can say it's 100% non lethal but it's it's very high percentage non lethal and that's a good thing because that's a good thing because we don't want to kill more desirable species of fish that might be in the area and we don't want to create an ongoing permanent fishkill which would just be a logistical nightmare to to manage and handle and third and perhaps most importantly when you have this type of techniques It doesn't interfere with the flow of water, or the movement of vessels in the canal. So by implementing the electrical barrier approach, we were not interfering with the purposes of this canal to pass away to provide a channel to move, wastewater, wastewater, most of the wastewater from the scrub wherever it still goes through the canal, it is now treated, but those wastewater treatment plants are emptying out into the canal. And also a lot of stormwater is shunted through through various storm sewer systems into the canal. So it's still a very important waterway from a water management perspective to the to the Chicago area. And by using this type of technology, which isn't a physical barrier, the canal was able to stay open. And this is a that's that's a very big deal and a very important thing. Yeah, that's one of the questions people often ask is, well, why don't you just build a dam that's problem solve, try to just put up a physical barrier that the fish will not get through period. But that's that creates the need to basically that would recreate a need to basically replumb the entire way wastewater and stormwater is managed exactly in the city of Chicago and surrounding area, which would be a huge project. So this provided an opportunity to keep the canal open and flowing while stopping spaces. So with all that said, what are the barriers actually doing various work? The there's the short version is that we have a steel bars on the bottom sitting on concrete supports on the bottom of the canal. Those steel bars are connected by electrical cabling to an electrical generating system on the shore of the canal. The electricity that goes under water is actually not just continuous alternating current electricity, like you would get from plugging into the outlet since your home is direct current electricity that is posted into the waterway. This is done because the direct current is less damaging to fish and less likely to be to have lethal effects on the fish. And also because the rapid pulsing that the D that we can do with the direct current is shown to have a better deterrence effect on fish. And so there is a bunch of expensive electrical equipment on land, that the electrical engineers spent a lot of time perfecting how to how to rapidly pulse this electricity on and off. It's a very, very, very rapid pulse and going on at our at our newest barrier systems. The barriers post 34 times each second, and each pulse is five milliseconds long. So as is no actually let me correct that we're we're operating now let me back up, we're operating now 2.3 millisecond pulse duration. So this this electricity is very, very rapidly being turned on and off and post it to the water, it's then fed down into these steel electrodes underwater. The electric the steel is very conductive, the water itself is very conductive. And so these these rapid pulses of water emanate out into the waterway and create a pulsing electrical field in the water itself. The fish, as they as they're swimming in the waterway, they can feel this electrical field, they don't like the feeling of the electrical field as you can imagine. And in fact, when the electrical peak is high enough, there is actually a physical effect where where the fish can actually be immobilized. So if they were to push through to the, to the highest peaks of the electrical field they would, most fish would be immobilized. This is something this is the principle that's behind electrofishing which is which is something that some people may be familiar with, certainly their work with fish that you can mobilize fish and they will float to the surface. And this is the way sometimes people do fish surveys to determine what type of fish species are present in an area. But we've basically created a permanent, stationary electrical field in the water that the fish don't want to don't want to swim through. In fact, the electrical field in the water is is basically constant wall to wall in the canal perpendicular to the to the direction of the flow. But from upstream to downstream. The electrical field builds to a peak in the middle. It's a bit of a bell curve, type of a shape not perfectly a bell, a bell curve, but that that type of shape. And so as a fish swims into the electrical field The further they go into the electrical field, the greater the electrical shock they're experiencing. And they realize it's bad to go forward. And so they turn around and then and they move out of the field, and it becomes an effective barrier. Some people will compare it to like an invisible fence that people put up for something like a like a dog. But it's not it doesn't really work quite Yeah, but he has a similar effect that as they approach, they get a shot, they get a shock, and they want to stay away from that area. Yeah.

David Evans:

Yeah. That's because that, sorry, go for it.

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

No, I was just gonna say we now have multiple barriers of this type, up and up and operating. And that's because redundancy is very important, it doesn't do much good to have this type of barrier, and then you have to turn it off for maintenance. And then while you're down, you could be letting things through. So we have a series of barriers, for redundancy sake. And also just to just kind of make it a gauntlet for the fish that that if somehow they slipped through one, there's there's yet more to come. And so we actually have two barriers in place. And each barrier has has two sub parts at this point in time operating in the canal.

David Evans:

That's absolutely fascinating. I think it's, it's so interesting, as you're saying the direction of flow is going from Lake Michigan south. So the fish, the Asian carp are that are trying to expand their range, they're trying to swim upstream. So if they it's not, if they become immobilized, they wouldn't just somehow end up in like Michigan, they're gonna get pushed downstream with the direction of the flow of that channel as well.

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

That's correct. That's correct. Yeah,

David Evans:

that's, that's, that's really interesting. I've been paying some attention to to some of the work on some of the projects that are ongoing. And I heard that there's some other technologies that were also being evaluated and potentially implemented, as well as other potential barrier systems for Asian carp. Could you could you touch on some of those? I think I heard about bubble fences and and sound barriers as well.

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

Um, yes, those those are, those are being actively investigated. We have another project that is that is just entering the design phase by we I named the US Army Corps of Engineers at a lock and dam that is downstream from the barriers it's about 1011 miles downstream of where these electric barriers are. And we're looking at putting an electric barrier at the in the approach to that dam, as well as adding some of these other technologies. One potential technology is sound a lot of research is being done right now on basically putting speakers in the water and, and projecting sound out and looking at what sounds the Asian carp do not like to hear, they apparently have a better hearing than then then some other types of fish, they're affected by different different ranges and frequencies of sounds, then then other types of fish. So it seems like there is a possibility that you can you can tune that a sound barrier to make it more annoying to the carp. Another thing that folks are looking at, that are looking at his mobile screens, or even water jets. So similar idea, the way the difference would be classified is the water jets are much higher velocity, whereas the bubble screens would be as you can imagine, more more like a wall bubbles, but there's some theory that they may not want to swim into swim into a wall of bubbles, that it's kind of disorienting and perhaps just you don't know what's on the other side or what you're getting into. And and in fact, there's also some talk also about using lights that that strobe lights or some type of bright flashing lights would also annoy the fish and and they wouldn't want to swim in that area. We sometimes call a look at look at a combination of lice and bubbles and the sound barrier and say we've got a disco barrier. That's this just just a strobe lights and loud sounds and impulsing down there that in my driveway the fish that so those type of things are being considered their work is still being done on on the effectiveness of those. One of the advantages of the electric barrier is that there is a physiological response they will get an electric shock. If they penetrate to a point where the electrical field is high enough they will be immobilized. Some of these other ones rely more on behavior. Yes, they may not like sound but could they could they put their head down so to speak and just pull through and then just push through. Even though it's not their preferred thing to do. They cannot just you know avoid Getting shocked? they will they will they will get that electrical shock.

David Evans:

They are called Big Head carp.

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

Yeah. So so there's a project to that's underway. The design phase was just recently funded here in the US, too. Look at outfitting the brand and roadblock and dam with a wide array of deterrence features, including electrical barrier, but likely including some of these other things as well. That's still several years away from actually being more than several, we're probably I couldn't tell you honestly. But I would say well, you're talking five to 10 years away before any construction would be would be done on that. Oh, so that would be another tool in the, in the stopping invasive fish fish movement toolbox along this stretch of the waterway. We have yet other yet other barriers in place.

David Evans:

Awesome. Sounds like there's quite a lot of work being done in this area. But Asian carp are, are something to be taken seriously. And they are being taken seriously by the US Army Corps of Engineers. And that's, that's really a great thing to hear. So I have to ask it, have any Asian carp actually gotten through these barriers? And are Asian carp getting? Have they gone into the Great Lakes?

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

Well, the taking those as two separate questions. First of all, we have a program where we, one of the ways we know the electrical barriers are very effective. Sometimes you can look down on the water and actually see schools of fish just lined up near the edge of the electrical field. As they were swimming along and they hit it and they're now they're milling around deciding what to do and then eventually they they move back downstream. But not first, not not Asian carp though, first of all, and this is the point I want to emphasize is we do monitoring all the time, the Corps, but also our other partner agencies that we work with, including the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. US Environmental Protection Agency, US Fish and Wildlife Service, a lot of people are looking for the Asian carp. And we have no evidence that there's a population of Asian carp, in the immediate downstream vicinity of the barriers. In 2009, we found one Asian carp, about five miles downstream of the barriers, but we've never caught any others. Immediately downstream of the barriers, there's a lock above five, six miles downstream of the barrier is called the lock port lock and dam. And that's the only time we've caught a fish between the lock port lock and dam and the fish barriers in Asian carp of any type. So we don't believe they're there in any large numbers yet. challenging the barriers, but there's always the rest of that they will they will push forward to get there. The way we the way we check the barriers for effectiveness in a quantitative way, is that we have a telemetry tagging program. So fish that are already in the area, not Asian carp, we don't want to bring them in the area and introduce them in any way. But common carp or gizzard shad are two of the common surrogates we have that are already in the canal and have populations in the canal. those fish are captured. We capture them upstream of the barriers, they have a radio tag put into them surgically put into the fish. And then they are rereleased downstream of the barriers, those fish. Now those radio tags are unique to each fish so we can track individual fish and what they're doing. And then there are radio receivers of various places up and down, up and down the canal for miles actually, but very densely placed in the immediate areas mmediately downstream around the end and in between barriers and immediately upstream of the barrier system have a sequence of barriers. And because the fish have a homing system, I guess you would call it they they prefer to try to get back to where they once were. And so when we catch them upstream and put them downstream, they they tend to want to challenge the barriers and try to swim back upstream to where they came from. And we we've tagged approximately 700 fish at this point in time since we've been operating the barriers and and if you count all of the detections of those fish because one fish can be detected detected multiple times we've detected fish over 29 million times. And we have never tracked the fish swimming directly through the barriers. Now we've had to fish to to to tag to tags show up on the other side of the barrier, not having been detected anywhere near the barriers but show up on the upstream side of the barrier. Both of those were dead fish. And so that is that is a bit of a mystery and a concern that You know, how did they get through where they somehow moved back in the water? We do have some concern that there's a lot of barge traffic because a lot of goods move into the Chicago area via via barge toes, could they have been somehow caught up within a barge tow and that, that somehow masked our, our sensors from being able to detect the tags. But if so, it also seems that that whatever they were, you know, however they got through, they didn't survive the trip. So we are doing actively actively researching ways where, where a fish might might be able to get through somehow. And are there things we can do particularly with passing vessel traffic, or the things we can do to reduce the chance that a fish might in some way, get entrained by that passing vessel traffic and move the cross the barriers, if it's happening is probably happening quite frequently, since it was only two tags out of almost near 700. But we still, we want to get that down to zeros if we can. So we're still we're still doing research on that. But we do believe that they are very highly, that these electric barriers are very highly effective at stopping fishermen.

David Evans:

Yeah, that's absolutely fascinating, adding the tags and then being able to track them up and down the entire waterway, that's an ingenious way of being able to really zero in on those, those individuals and find out their paths and, and how they're using that area.

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

And we do see the overwhelming majority of them, challenge the barriers a few times and then head downstream and stay away. And then maybe maybe a long time later, they come back up again and try again. But we don't really see them just continually pounding their head against the wall, so to speak again and again and again. And again. They answer after a while they they go elsewhere to look for food.

David Evans:

Yeah, they, they're just like, I'm not gonna beat this system. It's not it's not worth it for me anymore. For people who listen to this, and they're really interested in, in Asian carp, and what work is being done to prevent them from getting into different areas into Canada and into the other areas in the United States? How can people get involved with protecting natural waterways from invasive species?

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

Well, I think probably the best thing for folks who are out on the waterways is simply to learn the difference between native fish and an invasive species of fish, so that you're able to identify any invasive species of fish and report that you have seen them. And in particular, if somebody catches a fish and doesn't know how to identify that fish, or catches a fish, and feels pretty confident they have caught something like an Asian carp, they should keep that fish and take it into to to some type of local agency that that would, would have some whether it's a local university or a local fish and wildlife type service that would have some people with with the skills to really give it a definitive identification. Because knowing knowing where knowing where the invasive species are, is, is critical to finding them. And particular if you have a chance to stop an invasive species species invasion, the best time to do that is when you're very early on. And there's relatively small number of the of those invasive species present, the more the numbers increase, the harder it is to to stop that invasion. And you might go from trying to eradicate them to just trying to manage them and make sure they don't become too much of a nuisance. So, learning to identify invasive species such as Asian carp would be very helpful. Another thing that that we always tell fishermen is do not use wild caught bait fish in any area, other than the area where they actually came from. You don't want to catch fish in one waterway, and then take them as bait into another waterway. If they somehow get away. If someone just dumps the bait bucket at the end of their fishing into that waterway, you may have introduced something into a new area where it shouldn't be. And for boaters, the thing to do is always to drain lake or river waters from live wells and villages before leaving any water body. So they should not potentially discharge water from one water body into another. And of course this doesn't go for Asian carp but but for other invasive species like like the various mussel species that a lot of people are concerned with. Always inspect the you know the holes of the boat and make sure there's not there aren't muscles or things like that or some type of weeds or, you know, aquatic aquatic plants stuck to an outboard or something that that you could then be moving into another waterway If you win, you then wants to go somewhere else.

David Evans:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much check, where can listeners find out more about the work that the US Army Corps of Engineers is doing to protect waterways, from Asian carp and and just working in waterways throughout the United States in general?

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

Well, a very good resource for learning more about Asian carp. And what's been done in the US to try to combat the expansion of Asian carp is a website, Asian carp.us. And that's Asian carp with no space between them. And there is a a group of federal and state government agencies here in the US called the Asian carp regional Coordinating Committee, that the Corps of Engineers is part of that works together for invasive Asian carp prevention and control activities. And that's the website of this group, Asian carp.us. There is a very similar website in Canada, Asian carp.ca. Wet that a number of Canadian agencies have information about their activities and about the Asian carp themselves on. And so that's something a lot of your listeners might be interested in

David Evans:

very much so very much. So. Thank you so much, Chuck. I was I was just wondering to a, you told us a little bit about your previous experience even before joining the core, but could you just touch on a bit about what kind of life path that got you to the core. So how you found yourself in this position. Now,

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

I am a engineer by training. I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in civil engineering. And with with emphasis within that on environmental engineering issues. And as I think I said earlier, as I think I said earlier, I was always interested in doing engineering projects for the benefit of the environment. I started out mostly working on things related to pollution in a more of a chemical sense, cleaning, cleaning up industrial types of pollution. But But I found this to be a very, I guess, in some ways, you could refer to invasive species as a biological type of pollution coming into an area, and it's it's a very, it's a very interesting field to work in on these barrier projects. We've got all kinds of different types of engineers who work on them, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and and of course, on the electrical barriers, electrical engineers. And we also have a lot of work related to these projects for people who have studied biology, of course. And when I talked about tagging fish, tracking the fish were where the fish at, are they challenging the barriers actively right now, we have a team at the Corps of Engineers of people who specialize in fish biology, and fisheries biologists who are working on that. And people don't often think about that when they think about the US Army Corps of Engineers. But we, we do have a rather large team of biologists within our within our organization. Very cool. So So those are all all good fields to get into, to, to get involved in these type of things.

David Evans:

Awesome. Well, I just wanted to thank you one more time check. This has been really informative. I've learned a lot. And I think the listeners are really going to enjoy this episode. So definitely check out more about the work that Chuck is doing and his team is doing to protect the Great Lakes. And you had just thank you again, Chuck, this has been great.

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers:

Well, thank you for having me. It's been fun.

David Evans:

Thanks for tuning into today's episode about Asian carp. I just like to thank Chuck Shea for spending the time to chat with me about this amazing topic. If you want to help with the Asian carp crisis, you can do so if you live in the Great Lakes area by reporting any fish that seems a little bit strange. Kevin describes bighead and silver carp as silvery large fish that looked like they have their head on upside down. I think it's a pretty good description. I'll put links in the show notes about different websites where you can learn more about this topic. And where you can actually report potential Asian carp the might have found to local authorities so that they can take them for investigation. One thing that we can all do to prevent the spread of invasive species, especially aquatic invasive species, is Be really careful with when we move between different water bodies. So if you are moving a boat, make sure that your boat is drained and dry and doesn't have any stowaways onboard. So no muscles, no pieces of plant material, no fish and alive well and no bait that goes between different lakes. Please don't release any fish into any water body. If it's not originally from there that means i'm looking at you goldfish i'm looking at you minnows for fishing all of these types of fish can really be destructive if they're released unable to breed out of control so please don't bring anything to where it's not supposed to be and hopefully we won't have any more crisises on our hands recently it was discovered that moss balls used in aquariums across western canada by aquarium hobbyists had actually been hiding a little secret stowaway along with them zebra mussels were being brought in and were being sold at pet stores in these moss balls so these are really examples of ways that we can introduce new species unwittingly and we have to be really careful so if you have moss balls in your aquarium please let your local conservation officer know i'm the host and producer David Evans and i would just like to thank the rest of the team from the aquatic biosphere project specifically to paula pohlmann sophie cervera and a bit teeny thanks for all of your help to learn more about the aquatic biosphere project and what we're doing here in alberta telling the story of water check us out at aquatic biosphere.ca and if you have any questions or comments about the show we'd love to hear them email us at conservation at aquatic biosphere.org please don't forget to like subscribe and leave us a review it really helps us out thanks and it's been a splash