Thank you, Camille.
What I'd like to do is brief you on our efforts to develop that binational response plan and where we're at with it.
I'd like to preface those remarks by saying that the very attempt to develop a rapid response plan is somewhat controversial among Great Lakes scientists. Many of them believe that it's unlikely that a new species found in the Great Lakes could be eliminated after it's discovered. The reason is that by that time, it might well be too well established for anything to be done. And if that's the case, we'd either be learning to live with it or would be adopting another very expensive control measure, as we have for the lamprey. So everyone in the Great Lakes community, certainly in the scientific community, agrees that prevention should be the highest priority and that rapid response is a second level of defence.
However, I think it is plausible that a harmful species could be discovered at an early stage of its invasion. If we are going to have a chance to do anything about it, we need to have a plan in place. The reality is that without a plan in place, by the time a response is planned and the diverse parties that need to be consulted are consulted and resources are obtained and the like, it would be too late. We have a negative example of that already in the history of AIS in the Great Lakes.
When we talk about a rapid response plan, there are several elements of it. One is a monitoring program that will increase the likelihood that we'll detect something at an early stage.
A second element is risk assessment. Those species that are most likely to get here and damage our ecosystem will be known in advance and we will be ready for them.
A third requirement is what we call an incident command system so that we know who's responsible and who's in charge when the situation arises.
A fourth element is what we call a tool box—the methods and the materials that will be brought to bear in the case of an incident.
Last is a commitment from those agencies that work around the Great Lakes. They will be asked to drop what they're doing to meet the event and carry out the rapid response.
We've recently done some things towards this end. In our last work cycle, we did a gap analysis of Operation Silver Screen. That was not a rapid response effort. It was an international effort to remove the Asian carp from the area just downstream of the carp barrier that keeps them out of Lake Michigan. Essentially, the electric barrier had to be turned off. We wanted to make sure that there were no carp in the area, so there was an international, multi-agency effort to kill all the carp in the vicinity of that barrier. Since that has some of the components of a rapid response, we did a gap analysis, as we called it, to learn from the issues that arose during that effort.
We've also recently done an assessment of the monitoring programs around the Great Lakes, looking, again, for gaps and shortcomings. We did an assessment of the available tools to see if there were missing components that would be needed in the case of a rapid response.
The current activity we're working on is a rapid response plan for the St. Clair River and Detroit River corridor. We think that's a likely place for an invasive species to show up. It's a complex area ecologically. Of course it's international, with multiple jurisdictions in the area, including state governments, provincial governments, and tribes. It has all of those complications.
We're developing a plan in that area that we think will have all the elements to advise on plans for other parts of the Great Lakes. I think that plan will be completed in the near future, in late summer or early fall. Following that will be attempts to implement the plan. First will probably be tabletop exercises with all the agencies that will eventually be involved. Probably after that will be field exercises.
We're going to work up to it so that we don't trip too badly on our first attempt. Anyway, we hope to develop this plan and demonstrate that it can work.