As environmentally conscious teens, they started removing golf balls from the water, one by one. By the time Alex contacted me, they had retrieved over 10,000 golf balls – more than half a ton.

Alex, her friends and her father paddled, dove, heaved and hauled. By mid-2018 the results were startling: They had collected nearly 40,000 golf balls from three sites near coastal golf courses: Cypress Point, Pebble Beach and the Carmel River Mouth. And following Alex’s encouragement, Pebble Beach employees started to retrieve golf balls from beaches next to their course, amassing more than 10,000 additional balls.

Modern golf balls are made of a polyurethane elastomer shell and a synthetic rubber core. Manufacturers add zinc oxide, zinc acrylate and benzoyl peroxide to the solid core for flexibility and durability. These substances are also acutely toxic to marine life.

When golf balls are hit into the ocean, they immediately sink to the bottom. No ill effects on local wildlife have been documented to date from exposure to golf balls. But as the balls degrade and fragment at sea, they may leach chemicals and microplastics into the water or sediments. Moreover, if the balls break into small fragments, fish, birds or other animals could ingest them.

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The species spawn in rivers and feed on phytoplankton, disrupting the food chain for younger fish. The voracious eaters can weigh as much as 100 pounds and grow to four feet.  The longer the carp remain in large numbers, the greater the chance that they could devastate the aquatic environment.

Asian carp made national headlines in 2010, when federal and state officials worked to track the fish in Illinois and the carp threatened to reach the Great Lakes via the Chicago River.  It was predicted that the carp would crush the Great Lake fishing industry and destroy the already fragile ecosystem if infiltrated.

In 2013, Asian carp DNA was discovered in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan. It can’t be determined how the DNA got into the water whether by a live fish, dead or from a bird, but the threat is real.  Last month, a joint Army Corps and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report showed fish were moving through the electronic barrier in the Chicago Waterway meant to serve as Lake Michigan’s last line of defense against the carp.

With the Asian carp within 55 miles of Lake Michigan, the Army Corps of Engineers were assigned the task of determining how to keep the carp from reaching Lake Michigan.  After seven years, the report outlines eight different options, but didn’t recommend one.

The options provided include physical separation, special locks and gates and chemical agents.  In a situation where time is of the essence, one option which relies largely on a new kind of lock, chemical treatments and more, but with limited physical barriers would take about 10 years and $8 billion to implement.

Another option would take 25 years and $15 billion to $18 billion and while may be the most effective option has now only time and cost hindering it, but would have a cost impact on commercial cargo.  This option faces much criticism from business interests.

That option would be to put a physical separation at the edge of Lake Michigan.  Not only would this keep the Asian carp out of Lake Michigan, but also prevent the invaders found in Lake Michigan from making their way into the Mississippi watershed.

While the separation is going to have a lot of opponents, it seems to be the only real solution that will truly protect the Great Lakes.  It will not only stop the Asian carp from coming into the Great Lakes, it will stop any further diversion of the Great Lakes water.

According to a 2012 study by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, it would take as few as 10 male and 10 female Asian carp to establish a reproducing population in the Great Lakes.

Read the Report https://www.lrd.usace.army.mil/Missions/Projects/Article/3646258/great-lakes-and-mississippi-river-interbasin-study-glmris/