Star Tribune
Minnesota DNR calls for stepping up battle against invasive carp, but postpones decision on barrier
Minnesota fishery managers and commercial boats will spend much more time on the water this year hunting down and fishing out invasive carp whose populations seem set to explode in the Mississippi River.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources updated its carp plan on Thursday for the first time in a decade. The strategy is more aggressive in the way the state will track, monitor and remove the silver, bighead and grass carp that have already made it to Minnesota waters.
But the plan falls short of endorsing a proposal from University of Minnesota scientists and river advocates to install permanent light, sound and bubble barriers at two lock and dam structures in the river.
Lawmakers considered the proposal last year, but opted against funding it as they waited for the DNR to update its overall carp strategy.
The agency said in the plan that it will study the cost and effectiveness of the light, bubble and sound system over the next four years.
Invasive carp have been working their way north up the Mississippi River since the 1970s, when fish farms and sewage treatment managers in the American South imported them from Asia to clean algae.
Some of the carp can grow to more than 100 pounds. They upend native ecosystems by eating up to 20% of their body weight daily. Silver carp, which grow to about 20 pounds, gather in schools and leap out of the water en masse when they’re scared, sometimes injuring boaters and water skiers.
The fish have already overtaken large portions of the Mississippi and its tributaries in Iowa, Illinois and Kentucky, where state and federal taxpayers have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to remove them.
While the DNR said there is still no evidence that the carp are reproducing in Minnesota, sightings and capture of the fish have been increasing exponentially every year since 2018. Fewer than 10 of the fish were caught in Minnesota then. More than 450 were caught in 2023, including a record catch of 323 at once in November near Winona.
Those fish were caught with a strategy that the DNR hopes to continue in the coming years. The agency put tracking devices on a small handful of the invasive carp and released them back into the river. The fish have guided DNR workers and commercial fishing operators to schools and popular gathering spots ever since.
The DNR’s plan would strengthen the agency’s tracking program and partnership with commercial fishing operations.
“Commercial fishing is currently the most effective way to capture invasive carp,” the plan states.
The DNR said it wants to spend more than 100 days a year on the water fishing out carp and sending commercial boats, with their giant seine nets and years of experience, to the small pockets of the river where the tagged fish lead them. For comparison, the agency actively fished for carp a total of 38 days in 2023.
The state would also install 30 more tracking receivers to cover gaps in the river where tagged fish currently go dark on monitors, and would put tracking devices on more individuals.
The state’s plan expresses support for a permanent light, sound and bubble system at Lock and Dam 19 in Keokuk, Iowa. The deterrent system was temporarily installed there a few years ago, while another was added to the Barkley Lock and Dam on the Cumberland River in Kentucky. Carp have already infested those areas and are reproducing on both sides of those two dams.
According to the DNR, early data shows that the systems cut invasive carp passage in half while having no effect on native species, which are less skittish around noise.
The deterrent system could cost between $10 million and $15 million to install in Minnesota. The DNR’s plan doesn’t specify how much it will cost to enhance the state’s tracking and fishing efforts. Many of its programs now have been paid with federal grants or one-time appropriations from lawmakers. The agency said it will need a reliable source of funding.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
