Court won't close locks; carp DNA found in lake

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to order the immediate closure of shipping structures near Chicago to contain the ravenous Asian carp, before authorities said DNA from the invaders had been found in Lake Michigan for the first time.

The court rejected Michigan's request for a preliminary injunction to shut the locks and gates temporarily while officials and interest groups debate a long-term strategy. The one-sentence decision included no explanation and didn't say whether the justices would consider the case on its merits.

Hours later, federal officials said two DNA samples taken beyond the final barriers between Chicago-area waterways and the lake had tested positive for Asian carp — including one in the lake's Calumet Harbor. They insisted it was far from certain that carp have actually reached the lake, however, saying no live or dead specimens had been spotted there.

"We feel confident that despite this new information, we still can and will win this fight," Gen. John Peabody of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a teleconference.

Authorities consider DNA testing "an early warning device where Asian carp may be present," Peabody said. Agencies will use netting and electrical stunning to search for live or dead fish while continuing to process hundreds more DNA samples taken last fall, he said.

Peabody said the discovery did not change the Army Corps' view that the locks and gates on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and other waterways should remain in operation. Closing them would be "totally inadequate to the task" of blocking the carp, he said. "The locks are leaky, and there are alternate pathways around them."

No actual carp have been found north of an electronic fish barrier in the canal. One dead carp turned up just south of the barrier — more than 25 miles from the lake — after officials poisoned the canal in December.

But Lindsay Chadderton, an invasive species specialist with The Nature Conservancy and a member of the scientific team analyzing the DNA, said the positive results likely mean at least some live Asian carp are in the lake. "What we can't tell you is how many," he said.

Several hundred probably would be needed to confirm that an established, breeding population has taken hold, said Charles Wooley, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's deputy regional director.

Govs. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Jim Doyle of Wisconsin requested a meeting between White House officials and the Great Lakes governors.