Posted on 06/22/2015 1:04:19 PM PDT by Theoria
It's late on a Tuesday morning and — as it's done every day for decades — the Patrick Gannaway towboat pushes its two barges up the Mississippi River right through downtown Minneapolis.
To get its 2,400 tons of sand, gravel, and limestone past the river's only waterfall, the barges take a five-story vertical ride inside the Upper St. Anthony Falls lock.
Deckhands squeeze everything into the narrow chamber and use a winch to take up the slack in the boat's steel cables.
In a control room above, a lock operator closes the chamber's enormous gates before opening a valve and letting in 10 million gallons of rushing water.
The towboat and its fully-loaded barges rise quickly, 49 feet in just 10 minutes. Doors at the other end of the chamber open, and the Patrick Gannaway continues its journey upriver to a concrete plant.
But that was the boat's final trip through Minneapolis. Concerns about the spread of Asian carp led Congress to mandate the permanent shutdown of the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock & Dam. It brought an end to 52 years of commercial barge navigation on the northernmost stretch of the Mississippi River.
Environmentalists and the tourism industry are hailing the move. Christine Goepfert with the National Parks Conservation Association says the carp — which can leap into boats —- pose a big threat to the food supplies of other fish.
"They have disastrous consequences," she says. "They out-compete our native fish populations like our prized walleye. They vacuum up everything in their path. So now we know that the waters north of that lock will be protected from that threat."
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
I’ve ridden through that lock in a chartered boat. It was kinda cool.
How do they taste?
I hear they taste carpy.
Yet Obama has stood directly in the way of shutting down the Chicago “shipping” canal.
How do they taste?
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You gotta cook ‘em right. Lay the cleaned carp on a board, bake in oven at 325 degrees for 1 hour, take them out of the oven, throw away the carp and eat the board.
Nothing to carp about.
I wonder how sure they are that they closed the locks (for good) before the carp could get through. It looks like there was only another 12 miles of navigable river - so while a loss to shipping to the northern suburbs, it probably won’t have a huge impact on shipping.
Sounds like it is worth it if they can keep those nasty carp out of the hundreds of mile of river (and thousands of miles?) of tributaries to the north.
That good, huh?
There’s a neat lock in Canada that’s like an elevator. Peterborough?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough_Lift_Lock
Someone will transport by design or accident to other lakes and rivers.
Recipe for planked shad is very similar. Only way to avoid all those bones.
;^)
What is absolutely totally stupid about this whole article is the fact that Asian Carp are already in the headwaters of the Mississippi and more are to follow as eggs carried on the feet of waterfowl as mud is transferred from one pond to another.
It is an unstoppable thing and these are the same fools that believe in changing climate of the earth and think they can change it.
However, it makes them feel good and think they accomplished something important so they can have their 15 minutes of fame and destroy the financial lives of hard working people who use that portion of the river for their lively-hoods while these “save the earth” bums receive government financial support and support from many other slimy forms of “save the earth” zealots.
There’s another smaller lift lock not far from there. Both are part of the Trent-Severn Waterway, an inland route from Lake Huron to Lake Ontario used primarily by pleasure craft. Pretty impressive to see in operation.
” Pretty impressive to see in operation.”
I rode it on my way to Rice Lake. Nifty ride!
Asian carp taste just fine. The meat is white and flaky, with a mild flavor and aroma.
The trouble is all the dang bones running every which direction. It is virtually impossible to get rid of them all prior to cooking.
One of these days I’m going to try cooking some in the pressure canner.
But until then, when they jump in the boat with us, they get the billy and go back in the river to feed the turtles.
Had to see what the carp population was like. The silver carp are the flying ones. “No established populations of bighead or silver carp are known to be in Minnesota...individual invasive carp have been caught...” A more recent article (below) indicates five were caught on the St. Croix river this year.
As a kid we would spear carp in Minnesota. They are all over the place. So that must have been another species - but they still seemed to be a trash fish and people said they mucked up the lakes. Not sure how bad they really are though.
http://www.startribune.com/minnesota-vs-asian-carp/145238045/
The above link is to an article about the asian carp, and how things are probably not as dire as it sounds. Nature, given a chance, can keep a balance.
Like anything, follow the $$...or, in this case OFFER the $$
$X for Y lbs/ton/etc.
Let the Free Market take over and...problem solved.
We have nothing like the Falkirk Wheel here in American.
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Falkirk_Wheel
Here’s a asian carp processing plant in Kentucky that flash freezes the asian carp and sends them to China. The Asian Carp from American waters tastes better to Chinese than asian carp from their own waters—maybe because of pollution. The wild caught asian carp from American waters also tastes better to chinese than their own farm raised carp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHkM1LQosFs
Still, the Asian carp industry is still in its infancy. There are a few other plants, mostly in Illinois. There is even one that makes Asian carp hot dogs. And fish research biologist Duane Chapman, with the U.S. Geological Survey in Columbia, Mo., says commercial fishermen have to catch a lot of Asian carp to make ends meet.
http://harvestpublicmedia.org/article/chinese-market-could-help-rid-rivers-invasive-asian-carp
Here’s a utube for how to cook and eat asian carp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faZqIdGi87k
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