Art Hackett:
We're joined now by someone we heard from in Andy’s report. Phil Moy is with the UW Sea Grant program. He joins us by phone from the project site on the Chicago canal. Good evening, Phil.

Phil Moy:
Good evening.

Art Hackett:
How are things down there on the canal right now?  

Phil Moy:
Well, we're in sort of a holding pattern right now while we're waiting for more fish to arrive. A great many fish came up to the surface as they were poisoned yesterday, but we know for sure that some sank to the bottom and we're waiting for those to come up to the top.

Art Hackett:
They found a handful of fish so far, the Asian carp, so far. I think you said three is the estimate now. But some people are saying after all that work, we only found a handful of big-head carp. What's your reaction to the results that you found so far?  

Phil Moy:
I'm not surprised at all. Considering the amount of sampling effort — and when I say sampling effort, I mean traditional fish sampling effort with nets and electro-fishing gear. That revealed no physical specimens and suggested to me that the abundance of the fish is quite low. So I'm really not too surprised that we're not seeing very many of them.

Art Hackett:
One of the things that was mentioned in the Journal Sentinel this morning was that this shutting down of the barriers for maintenance, which is the reason that they're doing this, is something that's going to be have to be done several times a year. Did you know that that was the situation?  

Phil Moy:
We learned, I say the dispersal advisory panel, learned about this at our January meeting last year. Maybe just a little bit after that, that there is this six-month recommended maintenance cycle for the new barrier. Actually, that was quite a surprise to us at that time. So, yeah, at this point barrier 2a would have to be shut down at least periodically, at least once a year, maybe twice a year, depending on how long we can go between maintenance cycles. But I do not see that maintenance as being accompanied by this enormous fish kill effort every time.

Art Hackett:
Why not?

Phil Moy:
Well, once we get barrier 2b online, it's just a little bit upstream from that, 2b should be able to run longer between maintenance cycles, so that will give us that more certain backup for the prevention of small fish movement upstream than we have right now with barrier one. So it will be less need to be treating the canal, five miles of the canal. There might be an annual treatment maybe just between the barriers or it may not even have to be annually.

Art Hackett:
One other point that came out this week in the news involving Asian carp was the Michigan governor saying, maybe this is time to seal off the locks that allow physical connection or biological connection between the Mississippi River system and the Great Lakes. Do you feel like we're at that point yet? 

Phil Moy:
Well, I guess I'd like to know — I'd like to get some verification of — that Asian carp are present upstream. So far we only have EDNA evidence. That's been a very strong test, and we've never had a false positive thus far. I would like to know how many fish are up there, that it's not just some sampling aberration, water out of a barge or slime falling off the side of a barge or something like that. Even from where these fish are now in the channel, they wouldn't have to go through the locks to get to Lake Michigan. They could go through the river through Indiana Harbor and make their way into Lake Michigan. So there would be more things to close than just closing the locks.

Art Hackett:
Well, Phil, thanks for joining us. And I hope you get a chance to warm up. I was down there myself and it was pretty cold there, and I guess it's gotten even colder.

Phil Moy:
It's been a little nippy today, that's for sure.

Art Hackett:
Thanks, Phil.