The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking public comment on a draft environmental assessment (EA) that lays out a plan to repair the sea lamprey barrier on the Miners River in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC) and the State of Michigan built the barrier on the Miners River as an alternative method to control lamprey in the Great Lakes.
The EA considers three alternatives, including removal of the fixed-crest lamprey barrier, and a “No Action” alternative required under the National Environmental Policy Act. The preferred alternative is to repair the barrier and eroding stream banks.
The preferred alternative will block spawning migrations of invasive sea lampreys in the Miners River, a tributary to Lake Superior in Alger County, Michigan. The primary goal of this project is to deny sea lamprey access to spawning habitat, about half a hectare of preferred larval habitat in the river, and a 10-hectare lake that serves as a sanctuary for sea lamprey during lampricide treatments.
Currently, an eight-inch diameter jet of water flows from under the concrete footing of the barrier. The proposed action would seal the undermining, or piping, beneath the barrier on the northwest corner where it intersects the bridge abutment. Specifically, the base of the barrier would be excavated and voids would be patched with portland cement concrete grout.
Additionally, grout would be injected to fill voids under the lamprey barrier, a modular block retaining wall would be placed along the stream bank, and eroding riprap would be removed and replaced.
This alternative would require minimal foundation excavations within the riverbed to remove unsuitable, loose soils. Re-routing or use of a cofferdam and short-term construction dewatering within the excavation area would likely be required.
The sea lamprey is a parasitic fish that entered the Great Lakes when the Welland Canal was built to pass cargo ships around Niagara Falls and into the upper Great Lakes. Mortality caused by the sea lamprey, combined with intense fishing pressure and spawning habitat destruction, resulted in the decline of native fish species in the lakes such as lake trout, and significant damage to fish stocks.
For more than 50 years, GLFC has contracted with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans to deliver a Sea Lamprey Control Program. GLFC was formed in 1955 as a coalition between the United States and Canada to rehabilitate the Great Lakes native fishery and coordinate research and control efforts for sea lampreys.
The primary sea lamprey control method relies on applying the lampricide TFM to streams to kill larval sea lampreys before they transform, enter the Great Lakes and feed on fish. GLFC’s strategic vision milestone calls for reduced reliance on TFM through alternative control techniques. Repairing and replacing barriers on key sea lamprey producing streams is targeted to play a major role in achieving this milestone.
The Miners River is a major contributor of sea lampreys to Lake Superior. Without an effective barrier, lampricide treatments would be required from the falls to the mouth of the river, a total of61 kilometers.
Treatments are not 100 percent effective and lampreys often survive. This is particularly true in the Miners River where the 10-hectare lake, less than a kilometer downstream of Miners Falls, provides sanctuary for sea lampreys during stream treatments. Were it not for the lamprey barrier, larvae and transforms that drift into the lake prior to and during treatment would not be subjected to lethal concentrations of lampricide during treatments and would survive.
Lamprey populations in lakes and estuaries are usually treated with 3.2 percent granular baylucide broadcast from a boat. Miners Lake could not be treated because it can only be accessed by foot trails, and the National Park Service restricts motorized vehicles on foot trails in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
As a result, there is a high probability that a lampricide treatment would leave residual larval lampreys in the system that would metamorphose into the parasitic life stage, enter Lake Superior, and feed on and kill fish.
Based on 2006 survey data, an estimated 2,316 transforming lamprey would be produced above the barrier from 2007 to 2009 if the river did not rank to be treated. These transformers have the potential to enter Lake Superior and destroy an estimated 92,640 pounds of fish with a value of more than $250,000.
Repairing the barrier on the Miners River would deny adult sea lamprey access to spawning habitat upstream of the barrier and completely eliminate larval recruitment and subsequent transformer production. This would preclude a $62,361 TFM treatment every three to four years and a possible annual treatment of the river between the Miners Falls and Miners Lake.
Copies of the draft EA on the Miners River sea lamprey barrier repair may be obtained by contacting Cheryl Kaye, Marquette Biological Station, USFWS, 3090 Wright Street, Marquette, MI 49855; phone 906-226-1217; e-mail: Cheryl_Kaye@fws.gov.
Written comments on the EA will be accepted through October 5, 2007. Written comments should be submitted to Cheryl Kaye at the above address, or they may be faxed to 906-226-3632. When faxing a comment, a copy should also be mailed to ensure that a complete version of the text is received.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 97-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which encompasses 547 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resources offices and 81 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign and Native American tribal governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Assistance program, which distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.
