Fisheries committee  Oh, yes. He's quite aware of it already. Who knows? You may be hearing from him about it.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  I'm just trying to remember. I think they reach at least four of the five Great Lakes. I can't remember if there's one to Lake Huron as well, but they're pretty much spread from Minnesota, through Wisconsin, Illinois—with the major one being the Chicago waterway system—and then Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and I'm pretty sure Pennsylvania and New York.

Fisheries committee  My guess is that they could establish themselves there, but they would have to go a long way before they actually got there. They're not going to come up from ocean, because, to my knowledge, they're not an ocean-living species. So I think, yes, they could likely establish themselves, particularly in places like Lac Saint Pierre, which in my sense would be an ideal habitat for them.

Fisheries committee  There isn't a groundswell for public-private partnerships. Frankly, it's been the people who are working on this. Obviously, you want to look at as wide a set of sources of funding as possible. We do think that if there were some significant transportation improvements they would benefit the Chicago area and mid-west economy.

Fisheries committee  I do not. In fact, one of the real difficulties we had was getting origin and destination information on what is shipped through there. As a result, our work was a lot more difficult. Apparently a lot of this is considered proprietary information. We were able, from the Corps of Engineers, to get what's called “past the point”—what was coming in one direction or another and what was in the load—but we couldn't find out where it came from and where it was going, and that made things difficult.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  This is why getting a very detailed and comprehensive risk assessment is so important. We understand that Canada is doing some work on this right now, which we are eagerly awaiting. Actually, they're cooperating with the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Fisheries committee  There was a thought at the time that the colder temperatures would be an impediment, but from work that I've seen recently, Asian carp can survive well up into Canada as well as the northern United States.

Fisheries committee  I don't know why there isn't the level of enforcement that is needed. I am extremely disappointed that there is not more aggressive enforcement on the U.S. side. I don't know if it's an issue of resources. Frankly, the process of getting the Asian carp designated as an injurious species under the Lacey Act took way longer than it should have.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  Just specifically on aquatic invasive species, Asian carp is clearly number one. The second goes back to Mr. MacAulay's comment related to education and outreach. Certainly this is the kind of thing where cities have a real responsibility in terms of public education. Being able to do this through the school systems and other things I think is critically important.

Fisheries committee  If I am remembering correctly, I think it was a three- or four-mile stretch of the river. There was a lot of dead fish: that's how you could tell it was effective. They did find, I think, only one dead Asian carp out of all of the fish that were there.

Fisheries committee  Yes.