OLG e-News March 1 2014
According to a news article on Ohio.Com, a few individual Asian carp – four species including the silver and bighead carp – have been found in the Ohio River near Portsmouth. But breeding Asian carp are still near Louisville, Ky. Asian carp are probably 300-plus miles from Medina County, said Rich Carter, the ODNR’s top fishery expert.
The federal Natural Resources Conservation Service is looking at Dewey Hall’s 1,700-acre farm south of Lodi near the Medina-Wayne county line, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is looking at a similar potential connection from the Portage Lakes to the Ohio & Erie Canal in Summit County.
ODNR Director, James Zehringer, called Hall’s farm a “pinch point” and a place of major importance in the battle against Asian carp. The fear is that Asian carp could, at high water and during floods, move from Little Killbuck Creek to the Black River
and get into Lake Erie, where the Asian carp would out-compete local fish like walleyes, perch and bass for food.
What remedies may be needed on Hall’s farm are still unknown but could include building new berms, reconfiguring drainage ditches and eliminating or modifying pumping, the experts said. Hall has pledged to work with the involved agencies to solve the problem and to block the Asian carp.