Free Republic

CHICAGO – Illinois environmental officials will dump a toxic chemical into a nearly 6-mile stretch of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Wednesday to keep the voracious Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes while an electrical barrier is turned off for maintenance. The fish, which can grow to 4 feet long and 100 pounds and are known to leap from the water at the sound of passing motors, have been found within a few miles of Lake Michigan and there is evidence they might have breached the barrier, designed to repel them with a non-lethal jolt. Environmentalists fear the...

California Fish and Game today began poisoning a Plumas County lake in an attempt to eradicate the population of northern pike. Crews began dripping and spraying 300 gallons of rotenone on the creeks and other tributaries feeding Lake Davis. An additional 16,000 gallons of the organic poison -- deadly only to gilled creatures -- will be placed in the lake itself beginning Sept. 25. The poison will kill all the fish in Lake Davis, which will be restocked with native trout, according to Ed Pert, manager of the $16.7 million project. "If we don't get them this time, we will...