News

Attention remains focused on the Chicago Waterway System where fear continues that the Asian carp could be making its way through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to Lake Michigan via the Chicago and Calumet Rivers.

The first live Asian carp was found in late June in Lake Calumet. Carp can grow up to 4 feet long and over 100 pounds, devastating native fish populations.

In late June, Milwaukee Riverkeeper and other partners were guests on an Asian Carp tour of the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canals. The tour included the Lockport Lock, a promising site for ecological separation of the Great Lakes Basin from the Mississippi River system, and the electric fish barriers intended to keep the fish out of Lake Michigan (thankfully, no Asian Carp were spotted on the tour).

Historian John Gurda recently wrote an editorial memoir about the many transformations the Kinnickinnic River has taken throughout Milwaukee's history.

Most recently, MMSD is in the process of buying up homes around the KK and plan to remove the concrete from the riverbed and begin to restore the river to a more natural state.

Gurda wrote, "Urbanization soiled it, Charles Whitnall saved it, city engineers denatured it, and now we're returning to Whitnall's vision."

The rest of the article is below:

Last week, a 3-foot-long bighead Asian carp was found in the Chicago waterway system about six miles south of the Lake Michigan shoreline.  If these invasive fish establish in the Great Lakes, they risk destroying our way of life -- threatening fishing, boating, native species, and our ability to use and enjoy the lakes.

Milwaukee Riverkeeper is part of a coalition of environmental organizations asking President Barack Obama to take control of the Asian carp fight. 

Please help us in urging the President to act swiftly and appoint a "federal incident commander" to coordinate the federal agencies' responses, ensure accountability, and hasten action.

Milwaukee Riverkeeper is pleased to report that the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board took an important step toward reducing unsightly algae blooms and cleaning Wisconsin’s lakes, rivers and streams by voting to strengthen rules that reduce phosphorus pollution from farms, factories and sewage treatment plants.

Nearly one-half of Wisconsin’s waterways are so polluted due to runoff that the federal government lists them as impaired, and reports of human illness and dog deaths resulting from blue-green algae blooms have been rising in recent years.

For more information see the recent Journal Sentinel article below: