An invasive carp deterrent is possible if Minnesotans play their cards right

The actor Paul Newman earned his nickname in the flick “Cool Hand Luke” by deluding his fellow prison inmates in a game of five-card stud. Holding only a king-high “hand of nothing,” our hero bluffed others at the table into folding, with Newman declaring afterward that, “sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.”

The reference is timely, because Minnesotans are at a poker table just now, and the cards they’re holding are pretty good — good enough to raise and call. But others in the game — in this case the Department of Natural Resources, key legislators and the governor — are bluffing, a trick that’s worked for them before.

At issue are invasive carp — some silvers, others grass and bigheads — outlandishly ugly fish that are inexorably moving up the Mississippi River to Minnesota rivers and lakes. Late last year, 323 carp, including 296 silvers, were rounded up in Pool 6 of the Mississippi, primarily by Minnesota DNR field staff, the largest number gathered to date.

This followed the ghastly appearance in June last year of hordes of silver carp frolicking in midair beneath Lock and Dam 5 on the Mississippi, which is about halfway between Winona and Lake City, Minn.

Never before have so many of these finned creatures been found so far north, though their appearance has been long predicted by experts who worry that Lake Pepin and the Minnesota and St. Croix rivers, as well as their tributaries, are next on the invaders’ hit list.

Should these carp reach Minnesota’s home waters and establish reproducing populations, there goes the farm, as they say. No more gamefish, and no more tubing, boating or other water sports — unless, of course, you wear a helmet to brace for inevitable smacks in your noggin by gill-plated missiles that can weigh 40 pounds and more.

No one in Minnesota has more experience with carp of all kinds than Peter Sorensen, a professor at the University of Minnesota, and Sorensen’s opinion is clear-cut, especially in light of the record number of silver carp spotted and caught last year in Pool 6:

These fish are coming. No one knows how soon they’ll breach waters north of Lock and Dam 5 and begin breeding. But if past is prologue — for evidence, see the Ohio and Illinois rivers, among many others — their appearance upstream is inexorable, a nightmare that forever will haunt Minnesotans, their children and their children’s children.

“No one in the world has ever eradicated these carp once they’ve started reproducing,” Sorensen warns.

In the last legislative session, the Twin Cities-based group Friends of the Mississippi River joined with other conservation outfits to offer a bill to fund a $15 million deterrent at Lock and Dam 5. In combination with the DNR’s ongoing capture efforts, the deterrent, its supporters believed, would give Minnesota its best chance to remain invasive carp-free for the foreseeable future.

The proposed legislation had a key weakness, however: It didn’t directly benefit any individual or state agency. You couldn’t smoke weed if the carp bill passed, and you couldn’t get a deal on child care. All you got was a good-faith effort, based on best-available science, that Minnesota — alone nationally among states threatened by these fish — would act decisively to preserve the water-based lifestyles and economies that anchor what it means to be a “Minnesotan.”

Unfortunately, the carp proposal died by a thousand cuts, some from Gov. Tim Walz, who didn’t include the deterrent in his budget, and some from Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul (whose constituents, ironically, reside hard by the banks of the carp-vulnerable Mississippi) who wouldn’t give the bill a hearing in his House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee.

The bill’s deathblow laceration, however, was wielded by the DNR itself. Bob Meier, assistant commissioner, was dispatched to the Legislature by his boss, Commissioner Sarah Strommen, to protect the $308 million in goodies the agency eventually got for its projects, including new bathrooms at boat landings, in the process ensuring the Lock and Dam 5 carp deterrent was lost in the process.

In the coming legislative session, another deterrent bill will be offered by Friends of the Mississippi River, among others, and Sen. Foung Hawj, DFL-St. Paul, assistant majority leader and chair of the Environment, Climate and Legacy Committee, has said he will carry it. Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, chair of the Capital Investment Committee, has said money is available for the deterrent, whether the cost is $10 million or a number marginally on either side of it.

Details remain. A more complete deterrent design study will be necessary. Army Corps of Engineers permits will be required. And engagement of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a must.

But Sorensen already is studying the carp passage rate at Lock and Dam 5. A preliminary deterrent design has been completed by a reputable engineering company. A similar deterrent is being tested successfully by the U.S. Geological Survey in Iowa at Lock and Dam 19. And the Fish and Wildlife Service is operating a deterrent in Kentucky like the one proposed here.

These are the cards Minnesotans hold — a cool enough hand to win the pot, and a deterrent.

But Hansen, the legislator, is also at the poker table, and he’s called the deterrent idea “bogus.” The DNR, which has proposed no funding for a deterrent this session, is holding cards as well, as is Walz, whose budget is similarly deterrent silent.

Given these players, adept as they are at sleight of hand — witness last legislative session — Minnesotans in coming months would be wise to recall Paul Newman’s other card-playing admonition:

“If you look around the table, and you can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.”