One of the safety rules I had to follow while filming was "don't touch two different metal things at the same time", just in case of any stray voltage. That's how powerful the barrier is.
One interesting thing not mentioned: the local paramedics have been given a 'no rescue' order. If you foolishly go into or near the electrified water and become injured, no one will come save you. The risks to the rescue personnel are too high.
If you said "Guess why you can't kayak from the Gulf of Mexico to the great lakes." none of my guesses would be "because of a deadly electric fish barrier."
I work at the refinery attached to this place and Its so cool to see someone I watch regularly on UA-cam film where I work and make a video about things that actually directly impact me.
@@tangyorange6509 CITGO would definitely NOT allow that. If you want a media tour, you can call the main office and submit your credentials but I cant help you
@@scalpingsnake I think they want to show their job to a öarge amount of ppl. they know its cool, but I`d seriously doubt even many ppl in that area even know about it.
There's something magical about reading the words "US ARMY ELECTRIC FISH BARRIER" on a GUI, and also knowing that it's powerful enough for just standing near it to be at least mildly concerning for a human.
When something has enough electricity in it to hum like that, it's also very ready to arc off into your car keys, your glasses, your bone fracture plates, or just you directly if you get close enough. Why more birds don't cook from landing on wires is beyond me.
I find it ironic how the little plant behind Tom is an Ailanthus altissima (chinese tree of heaven) - an invasive species that is an entirely different problem of its own and how it isnt bothered by the huge facility for preventing IAS spread its growing on.
For anyone interested, a similar barrier has been proposed for the Suez canal in Egypt, to prevent fish from the Indian Ocean come to the Mediterranean. This migration is apparently facilitated by rising sea temperatures, and invasive species are already making a dent on the fish of the great Med. Most of them are inedible too (or even toxic to humans) so this is also a potential economic disaster for millions of people.
reading the available literature, it appears that no electric barrier is ever 100% effective. But to be effective as a fish barrier, it would have to be 100% effective. Ergo, they are all boondoggles; wastes of the taxpayer's money. At best, electric barriers can DELAY the inevitable conflict by a few years tops.
@@apetogetherstrong4243 I never really thought about it, but that is weird. Even if it was named for the Subcontinent altogether rather than the country, that's still unique since all the other oceans aren't named after landmasses like that.
@@lukeothedukeo most oceans aren't small enough to be encircled by a single land mass. It's like if we called the gulf of Mexico the Mexican Ocean instead
@@daviswhite3591 A human could go into the water exactly were the barrier is. The fish cannot, they have to swim towards it in the water which conducts and get stunned further down would be my guess.
“US Army Electric Fish Barrier” is objectively incredibly funny and just seems like one of those web titles you’d see in Futurama as a headline for a news paper
Did you not notice yet? We DO live in a Futurama'esque world. Some random wanna-be dictator was elected president of the USA, made conspiracy theories widely accepted "facts" (over 50% of the US population believes his BS), violated dozens of laws, instigated an coup d'etat, broke national security (nuclear weapons documents at home, awesome)... and has real chances of being re-elected in two years. God help us all if that happens. Greetings from Germany
I think stories like this are such good examples of unintended consequences. Both the problem and it’s possible solutions come from long lists of potentially spiraling unintended consequences
What you're seeing is if you give the US government the excuse to create something lethal that will inevitably kill people and lock down movement, they'll do it. They don't care how much it costs.
There is no rescue plan only a recovery plan. Is what I was told if we fell into the water as a sub contractor on this project. There's so much electricity pumped into the ground that the nearby railroad track crossing would open randomly. Coolest project I've ever been on.
I remember when they were setting this up. that was a scary few years. A lot of people thought it was too late. At one point they found a carp in the lake, so they literally poisoned a several mile stretch of the lake, killing everything so they could examine all the fish corpses. I dont remember if they found more. But these barriers couldnt go up fast enough. Ironically the lake is now being killed by clams. The water has never been cleaner, but they're apparently causing problems for other species As for closing the canal. It might be the right choice, but it will never happen. Chicago doesnt exist without the canal. I honestly believe they might go as far as poisoning the entire river before they closed the canal. It's that important to so many industries across multiple states.
@@TuWear in a normal stretch of water this would be true. There is no fixing the great lakes. They're simply too massive. If an invasive species gets in, we aren't what will make them leave. Even with magnitudes unrealistic effort, there is nothing we could do
Maybe they should add a locks system where barges stop in the middle and they pulse the water in that middle zone with extra voltage a few times to make sure even smaller fish are knocked out. The locks could also double as a maintenance system, allowing them to block off the waterway entirely when the electric barrier needs to be serviced.
I appreciate Tom’s professionalism. Cruising UA-cam watching funny things is nice, but every now and then these informational ones done very well are a nice refresh.
SImilar thing happened here in Australia in the 1930's, Sugar Cane farmers had problems with cane beetles, they decided to import the cane toad to deal with them. Unfortunately the toads were not interested in eating the beetles, and now we have plague proportions of cane toads that have decimated the native wildlife of the areas that they have invaded.
@@court2379 Interesting story in the paper in the last 24 hours about how most of Australia's wild rabbits have been genetically traced to a bunch of just 24 rabbits that a colonist brought over for sport.
It's a constant battle. The Great Lakes are also constantly fighting other invasive species like Zebra Mussels. They're non-native and mess with all kinds of things. I believe they arrived in the ballast water tanks of large ships.
It's true. The zebra mussels have made their way all the way down to the lakes and waterways in and around Austin, Texas. The mussels collect around water intake pipes of the municipal drinking water supply, reducing intake flow. Their microscopic eggs make it past the initial filters have to be eliminated chemically (copper) and additional filtering stages are required remove the smell of decomposing mussels
They plug up our waterlines at work all the time. Coincidentally from the location featured in this very video albeit I believe it’s a mile or so upstream
The problem with the Asian Carp and the Great Lakes is that they arent just in the Illinois River. They are also making their way upstream from the east into Lake Erie, which presently lie unprotected...
Grass carp are all over Lake Erie. They are trying to eliminating them by targeting their spawning grounds in the Sandusky and Maumee rivers. But they have nothing remotely like the insane concentration you see in this video in the Illinois.
I actually worked on this job site before. If you drop a tool on the ground you have to pick it upin a specific way to avoid being shocked by excess current.
I used to be a tour guide on the Chicago river and we would talk about these fish. The lakes also have a zebra mussel problem. Chicago's waterways and sanitation system is so interesting
Being native to the area surely means you have a higher-than-average resistance to electricity. You could probably swim around in there all day an not feel a thing :O
A perfect example of why a solution needs a FULL evaluation before putting it into place. Not the barrier - that's a bandaid to handle a problem that can't be eradicated. I mean the choice to add new species of fish without evaluating the additional effects to the ecosystem.
love that @1:22 Tom happens to be standing right in front of an Ailanthus altissima (aka Tree of Heaven) sapling, a horribly invasive tree that we brought over as an ornamental garden plant, and is currently doing much of the same as the carp he's talking about
I've actually gone hiking many times right by the Illinois and Michigan canal, sometimes starting in Romeoville, Illinois. I never knew about invasive carp or the electrification of the canal, but I will say I did consider tresspassing and swimming in the canal for fun with the ships. I'll definitely be rethinking that idea. Great video.
That electric grid in the water is terrifying and I'm sure effective. I say terrifying because I had a friend years ago killed by being electrocuted in water. Faulty wiring on the boat dock, he dropped something in the water, went in to get it, horrible way to go. I wasn't there but I still get emotional thinking about that whole mess.
I'm an electrician. All my bosses and most of my friends are gone, I've seen many men die. This is 6 volts. Your buddy was killed with as low as 120 volts, or 208, 240 volts maybe as high as 277/480 volts. All are lethal. We try really hard to make sure what happened to your friend doesn't happen, but it's a matter of budget and will. The owners or operators don't usually understand the risks, become complacent, fail to test and maintain, and people die or get severely burnt or disfigured. 50,000 electrical fires in the US each year, 135 a day, not including electrocutions.
i imagine this river as a kind of urban legend shared amonst fish families,all sit around their fish table "fish dad? why dont we go past the barrier of no fish return?" "son, there was once a story of the barrier of no fish return, nobody knows if its true or not... the barrier is impossible to get past, no matter what you do, you just wake up where you started." "why does that happen? fish dad?" *fish war flashbacks*
I think the idea of adding miniature "locks" makes a lot of sense. Bring the barge in, shut the door, shock the crap out of anything in the water with EXTREME voltages, the open the other door and send it on it's way. If power goes out, the door is still there. A few strategic high pressure pipes/gates will keep things out of the lock area when not open and maintain water flow.
@@oaktadopbok665 Many canals use locks, the Panama Canal for instance, and the Grand canal in china. The amount of time spent in these places is not much more than at a regular checkpoint. It would slow things down a little bit, but not that much, especially if they set up multiple locks to deal with multiple barges at a time (which probably isn't even needed for this particular canal)
I work on the Illinois River pushing barges, for the same company that owns the towboat in this video. I am actually sitting just a few miles from the electric barrier right now. We have to lay grounding wires between the barges and the boat pushing them. The voltage is enough that a loose connection can cause an arc strong enough to weld the wire to the deck fittings. A connection with an inadequate wire such as car jumper cables can actually melt the wire.
Beat time to do your welding repairs on the boat then, free electricity 😁 If only one could use it… But seriously: Wouldn’t it do any damage o on-board electronics?
@@demil3618 good question, but no. The hull and bulkheads of work boats is made out of 1/4" to 1/2" steel. All electronics and personnel are protected from electrical currents while inside. Any electronics on the exterior of the boat such as the radar and radio antennae are appropriately grounded. Smaller pleasure craft are not as adversely affected because they are not exposed to as much of the current due to their size, so it is safe for families to pass through the fish barrier, so long as they remain in the passenger portions of their vessels and do not make physical contact with the hull.
@@mark7362 the carp are rarely seen above Ottawa, but they are dealt with by the work boat crews with varying degrees of ruthlessness. Some guys simply kick them back in the water or blast them off the decks with a fire hose. Some use a sledgehammer to knock them off. I've seen one guy use a fire axe after a carp jumped out of the water and stole his cigarette out of his hand.
My dad was part of the crew that built that pipeline in the background, one carries product and the other is for support. Pipefitters Local 597 Chicago, probably over 40 years ago.
Nice! We've got invasive carp here in Australia as well; it's on a smaller scale, because our rivers are smaller and more isolated from one another, but it's still bad. There's a control & eradication program running, and as a by-product of that you can get carp-derived plant fertiliser for quite cheap. That part is nice, at least.
As a habitat ecologist, I HATE those 20th century American planners for their arrogance and hubris. They introduced countless invasive species as “solutions” to solve simple problems they were too lazy to deal with responsibly. So many amazing ecosystems across America have been utterly and irrevocably destroyed because of invasive species introduced by 20th century planners. My local ecosystem here on the Texas coast is Gulf Coast Tall Grass Prairie. There used to be 6.5 million acres of it here in Texas. Now over 99.9% of that habitat is lost, thanks in no small part to invasive species such as the Chinese tallow tree and various South American grasses.
Well they took the fastest and cheapest method, im not sure if they could even really know what would happen to the ecosystem 100ish years later. But hey it’s politicians who most of the time worry more about the next elections than about the future of the country so who knows if they would even care if they would have known it back then.
Uncaring hobbyists introduced crayfish into our stocked and controlled fish ponds and now it's at the point where you can just stand on the side of the pond and haul out dozens and dozens of them. It's at the point where there's no rules about how many you can capture, just so long as you kill them on sight. You could sit on the shore with a hammer and just mush them up and fish n wildlife would just ask if they could bring you some water or coffee. It's revolting how shitty some people can be
Finally someone of decent size commented on this. Believe it or not, my father got knocked out from an Asian carp jumping out of the water on the Illinois around the time this started. The things can get huge (by Midwestern standards).
I was the engineer on a boat that regularly passed through here while the barrier was being built and later while it was in 24/7 operation. The narrator is telling it like it is; we were not allowed on tow or on deck while transiting the barrier. I understand that a second barrier is to be built on the downstream of Brandon Road Lock in Joliet, as well. They have highway style programmable warning signs above and below the barrier, my crew wanted to hack the signs so that the last line it displayed was "FISH FRY TONITE!" 🙂
I wonder why everyone acts like no one will ever maliciously transplant these fish? Some people get enjoyment out of taking power from actions like that. The whole nation is desperately trying to keep these fish out, and one person with a cooler and a fishing rod could undo that? I’d be surprised if someone doesn’t do that by the end of the decade. The more you publicize this, the more likely it is.
There's koi that got lose into lake Michigan when the barrier failed. This happened a couple of years ago. We have Japanese carp running around the lake. Plus idiots went down to the lake and dumped the tropical fish in or flushed them.
It's so sad the damage that invasive species can cause because they were introduced as a quick fix to a problem. I'm sure that most Aussies know about Cane toads, but they were introduced to deal with cane beetles. Unfortunately their toxins kill a lot of native animals and they now can be found all over eastern Australia. Humans can make such a huge impact with small decisions.
There's tons of stories of Australia completely screwing up their wildlife. The U.S. has sent over 20k people to Antarctica and they've harmed nothing.
@@raphaelrodriguez2774 I don't think they sell them in Walmart, I think dandelions are sold by packets of seed on the market stalls of Istanbul. I wouldn't bother trying that again until November because the rat traps won't be in force yet. Thank you though for your help, it really is appreciated still to this day, I'll never forget you.
As a Peorian, these carp are fun to watch when eating at the Steak and Shake in East Peoria, but I’ve heard stories of people being knocked unconscious from them. A few personal boats that go fishing in the Illinois have to have cages around their boats so that you don’t get knocked out yourself.
@@Direblade11 wouldn’t recommend it, had a buddy of mine get fish scales deep in his knuckles from punching a fish that his buddy threw at him while fishing.
This reminds me a little of the buffelgrass problem facing Arizona these days. It was bought from Africa to the area in the 1970s as a drought resistant grass for cattle and for erosion control. This grass seemed ideally suited to the area as it can go for 8 months in searing heat and rebound with a little water. Fire can't destroy it as buffelgrass roots rebound quickly in charred soil. No one considered how its introduction might effect other plants and animals. Because part of buffelgrass' annual process is to become dormant and dry out, the areas where it is introduced become tinderboxes. When fires occur, it kills the other plants in animals in the area, leaving the buffelgrass to grow even stronger the following year. Fast forward to today and buffelgrass is everywhere. Its introduction is now effecting Arizona's iconic saguaro cactus. The only way to get rid of buffelgrass is to pull it up by its roots and volunteers have been going into the desert and doing just that for decades. This has slowed the spread but unfortunately there's no way to eradicate it completely.
Lion fish in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Pythons in Florida. Both Asian species, that got brought over as pets, and escaped, and exploded, in recent years.
It's simple! Just introduce another species that eats the buffelgrass! Don't look into _that_ species' environment impact. If the next thing becomes a problem, we'll just introduce another to take care of it. Easy! No consequences whatsoever.
I worked for the illinois department of natural resources in 2009-2012 when the carp problem was at a fever pitch. Charters and recreational boating was at an all time low because the carp would jump into boats and injure passengers
From what i know carp is just an invasive species, which is why people can overfish them, but at the same time they build lakes and breed carp in there specifically for fishing
I work on a river boat and pass through there on occasion pushing barges. When we pass through, we have to run a steel wire from our boat to the barge that we're faced up to because there is a layer of rubber between the boat and the barges. This is to provide continuity of the electricity. When we pass through the arch that is behind Scott in several of the shots, you can see the electricity arcing between the boat and the arch.
@@abnormal_asian5320 A potential can build between the two structures. You, as a human, have a chance to be the electrical conductor in that scenario. Good luck!
@@PiperDougherty the WIRE is the conductor-it connects the steel of the boat to the steel of the barges. It is a braided cable over an inch in diameter. Also, we stay inside the vessel during passage through the electrified area. The purpose of bonding the vessel to the barges(to my understanding) is to prevent a pocket between the bow of my vessel and the stern of the barges that would allow the fish to pass through the zone unscathed.
12 years ago one of my Biology professors left mid-semester to take a position in Oklahoma to work on solutions to the carp invasion... while I continued in school I was surrounded by students and professors all studying and moving either up or down the river to work on it. Here we are. Interesting.
@@examtime2180 last ti.e we build an acme 5x24 series time transducing capacitor with built-in temporal displacements and AMD dimensional warp generator modules containing the grc79 induction motor...we have seen electrifying moments
The Great Lakes have already taken a beating from invasive species. In fact, the sport fishing industry on the Lakes developed in part as an effort to restore the ecosystem after previous invasions destroyed the commercial fisheries. The book "The Death and Life of the Great Lakes" by Dan Egan covers it very well.
One possible extreme measure not yet taken is a full on dry span with conveyors, dragging barges out of the water, over a mesh barrier and through pressure jets, into the other side
Hi Tom Scott, We have something similar but different in the Netherlands. There is a sluise or lock between a saltwater and freshwater that is supposed to stay separated. They originally pumped the salt water out of the bottom and pumped freshwater back in before opening the lock, but now they use bubble walls too keep the water separated. It looks really cool, and can be another interesting place video.
Unforutnately those aren't perfect (of course) either; the freshwaters are getting more and more saline which is a huge problem for many species. I wonder what they will do to prevent this from getting out of hand!
Someone stated that Egypt also has a problem, but their invasive fish are inedible. Carp are edible. So promoting carp as a food source and increasing fisheries harvesting these fish can also help to reduce the invasion. Large mouth bass which also live in chicago river consume juvenile carps, so increasing adult bass during times soon after hatching season for the carps, could also be helpful. Invasive snake haunt some areas when exotic pets escape and breed, so some area have snake hunts that those that kill and bring in invasive snakes get a reward per snake, this method may also be used. Using nets that catch the big carp and returning more desirable fish would be good too.
the problem with snake hunts and things like that is unscrupulous people will start breeding said snakes or other animals to then turn in for the reward, hell its happened with invasive plants/trees and farmers doing it
@@21warmasters It's already happened multiple times in history and has been dubbed the "Cobra Effect" because this is exactly what happened to Delhi when the government had a bounty for snake skins.
I did some school projects (for my major in college) on this and other invasive species. It’s very interesting, but there are still some evidence of asian carp in the lakes already, mainly due to temporary barrier outages
They have been in the great lakes for years. Here on the Canadian side its against the law to release an asian carp if you catch one, You have to eliminate it. The damage is done, Only getting worse. Its what happens when you play mother nature and make rivers and canals joining 2 separate ecosystems.
@Mark Michon that would take insane expenses and it'll probably not work anyway. The population could restart from a couple fish. That is not possible to account for. No matter your resources. Even if you get the entire chinese rural population to do it.
From my college days gone by, it's not the voltage that will kill you; it's the amperage! As said by an instructor, and I somehow remember to this day!
Same thing happened here in Australia with the Cane Toad being introduced to control Cane Beetle and the same with so many other human interventions that have gone awry...
They done the same thing in Florida in the 1930s in an effort to control sugar cane pests. Dogs can die from putting them in their mouth. People have been known to lick them to try to get high.
I've been working on barges for 17 years. The amount of carp jumping behind your boat was nothing compared to how crazy they go when a big boat goes by. Also, those jerks hurt when they hit you.
I actually worked on the barrier with USACE to help them transition from a privately ran electrified barrier to one ran by USACE themselves! I created a blueprint of the whole electrical barrier and of all the equipment that’s there. I focused mainly on the printed circuit boards that powered and talked to the barrier, while my coworkers worked with the code that was sent from the computers to the barrier itself.
@@xerofire818 bc he didn’t, why would u Need a blueprint to work on circuit boards. And it was already built, already had a blueprint, how else would it have been constructed
@@dzookie1 Nobody wires electronic circuit boards by hand. You have to blueprint them so they can be etched by chemicals and light layer by layer automatically. PCB design is a a vital process for the design of embedded systems like those used for specialized equipment like this.
If you want to learn more about this, I read a cool book on it. (And other ecological issues in the great lakes, and even the rest of the US) It's called "The Death and Life of the Great Lakes," very interesting and presented in an attention-grabbing way.
I love that book. Another great book about the great lakes is The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas. it also goes into great detail about the environment of the lakes.
Great book. Almost wish I hadn’t read it / knew so much about all the ecological disasters, I live in Michigan in the summer and I try to talk about the stuff and most people don’t care or don’t believe it. It’s very sad and disheartening but we see it all levels from local dumping to global climate change. We are killing the planet and fast.
UA-cam needs to recommend more educational and informative videos like this to EVERYONE. Although this particular one would not relate to audiences across the board, but the human mind is curious. I think the population would benefit greatly.
That’s been my problem with UA-cam for a little while. I could spend a week or two watching more educational stuff or long form discussion. After that I’ll watch garbage stuff for 1 day. After that one day my options will overwhelmingly the garbage stuff. I wish we could adjust the algorithm to seek out more educational stuff.
It's all about ad revenue, if you watch something that tends to keep people watching UA-cam will always prioritize that, and entertainment will always be what keeps most people watching. Sadly, the massive majority don't find as much entertainment in educational and informative things as they do in hundreds of millions of other things they could watch or listen to. Which is a damn shame cause this really was a good watch and videos like this almost always have so much more effort and care put into them.
I’ve lived in IL for most of my life, and I NEVER knew how invasive the carp were, nor did I put two and two together that there are tons of carp in the rivers, but none in the Great Lakes. this is so interesting!
I live in a tiny village in the Scottish highlands and there’s a water treatment station next to my Croft, (a small farm that’s common in the highlands). The water there is treated the same way and thankfully the company have put up strong, tall fencing and have signs plastered all over it telling folk that they’ll die if they enter the water. Scares the crap outta me even though I know they’ve taken as much caution as possible.
I assume they must have standby diesel generators, but you are right - there are always vulnerabilities. I wonder how long the barrier could be down for without creating irreversible damage. A week? A day? An hour? Scary thought.
Thank you, Mr. Scott! BTW, there is a way the fish could bypass the barrier. Here in the deep south, particularly the low country, we see many borrow pits. They were open pits dug beside roadways for fill material but rainwater filled them. Whether by flooding or by water birds we're not certain. But the pits often begin to contain fish. Some think water birds, wading in one pit collect fish eggs on their feet. They fly to another nearby pit and begin wading in it. If just a few fish eggs are transported this way it could explain how fish appear in a 'land locked' borrow pit. Just an idea, eh? Have a GREAT day, Neighbor!
The fish could hold on to a barge where the voltage is weak and let it carry them through. Even if it stuns them if they wake up on the other side they have a huge rich territory all to themselves.
Somebody explained it to me this way - a bird swallows a fish whole. The fish gets partially digested, but a bird's tract is short. Bird then poops over a different lake - fish eggs deposited.
@@tacoandurmom It means the total area of springs , creeks , rivers and runoff that feed a given body of water. The reach of rivers that feed the great lakes is truly massive.
People are fishing the carp now but due to how much they affect the ecosystem. Some have suggested to just completely purge all fish and repopulate it with native species. Due to the carp affecting more than just the fish at this point
The sad part about this is that it is only delaying the inevitable because no barrier is perfect. One day a few fish will get past the barrier in a bilge or even because some idiot releases them into the Great Lakes and then the barrier will be pointless and the Great Lakes will be irreversibly changed.
its already happened in lake Erie. (but I don't believe its inevitable, I think we could get rid of them, however the effort would be monumental, it would probably cost billions and could fail)
@@scintilical9442 That's...not actually possible? There's no good way, *at scale*, to 'just get the species that they want to keep'. Additionally, you want to kill everything else......any idea on how to accomplish that? Also, what are you going to do with the carcasses left over? Not to mention that anything you do is going to have a failure percentage, just like the method they have now. So even if it *could* happen, unless it's somehow a lower failure rate than what we already have, you're still sunk. TL;DR: It's just not simple to do what you're describing *at scale*. Maybe in your local pond, but definitely not on a river that's huge.
Well, time to go fishin' boys! Get the dynamite! They ain't Native! They can't be protected by silly federal laws! Can they? I mean it is for the environment.
Asian carp have ruined the fishing and water quality of so many lakes around where I live, I shudder thinking of how catastropic it would be if these fish get to the great lakes. Thanks Tom for helping to raise awareness about this huge issue!
the solution is simple: bears! lots and lots of bears! and then chimps to befriend the bears and groom them to remove any eggs in a symbiotic relationship! what could go wrong? nothing, I tell you!
If anyone wants to read a really interesting nonfiction book on invasive species in the Great Lakes, I highly recommend "Death and Life of the Great Lakes" by Dan Egan. It covers the carp and other threats in great detail but is very engaging.
@@hyperfluous4751 the but is appropriate because they are saying that it's engaging despite going into great detail on something most would consider mundane.
European carp entered Australia's outback waterways in the 1970s and devastated the native biota fish crayfish and most of the river vegetative species. It took nearly fifty years for any sort of correction to take place leaving the whole system today completely corrupted
European common carp didn't "enter" Australia, people took them there, same as they did in the USA as far back as the 1800s. Carp have been reared as food in Europe for centuries and misguided businessmen thought breeding and selling them was an easy way to make money. What they didn't take into account was that in warmer waters they spread like wildfire.
Thank you for bringing more attention to this! I'm from Michigan and I don't feel enough people know about this, even many locals to the Great Lakes region
In my country, northern Italy, Louisiana shrimps have been imported for local commercialization, but some of them escaped. They are much bigger and more aggressive than our native shrimps and they are becoming the dominant species.
Nice to see the issue of the Asian Carp being brought back up, invasive species have a huge impact on the ecosystem so keeping the Carp out of something as important as the Great Lakes should be a priority.
I studied public policy in University and I wrote a report on Asian carp in the great lakes and it actually managed to keep me up a few nights because of how utterly terrifying they are. They're a massive risk to the Great Lakes ecosystem, the damage would cost billions each year.
I have a professor who is working on the CO2 barriers that were briefly mentioned. They're attempting to maintain a high enough concentration of dissolved CO2 in the water to deter the fish. Gaseous CO2 is pumped into the bottom of the canal through special nozzles to make more of the CO2 dissolve and less form bubbles.
I would think they would need a continuous process to pump water into a tank where CO2 can dissolve into the water faster. Then the carbonated water is pumped back out to the canal. Boom, I'm a consultant. 😂
I'm curious as to how CO2 barriers would work. I don't see it being very good in the long run due to the acidity of dissolved CO2 (acid rain, mineral deterioration, making nearby bodies of water uninhabitable, soil pH). Do you know if there any solutions to these problems? :0
One of the safety rules I had to follow while filming was "don't touch two different metal things at the same time", just in case of any stray voltage. That's how powerful the barrier is.
Rules huh
3 weeks ago?
3w ago , nice
That's cool tom
:)
One interesting thing not mentioned: the local paramedics have been given a 'no rescue' order. If you foolishly go into or near the electrified water and become injured, no one will come save you. The risks to the rescue personnel are too high.
so basicly this deters hopefully even more people because if you try it you will die and we wont save you.
they should have possibly also added the recording of your death will end up on liveleak
Woah that's insane
Good to remember when im old and its time to go 😂
@@phantomsticc3685 It's like the great filter
If you said "Guess why you can't kayak from the Gulf of Mexico to the great lakes." none of my guesses would be "because of a deadly electric fish barrier."
I mean you could still do it, youd just have to go the long way down the St.Lawrence river
How about finding a way to keep snakes from the Amazon from swimming to the Everglades?
@@rcschmidt668 😂
You’d wanna start at the Great Lakes. Otherwise your paddling up stream
The guy said it only stuns the fish so how would it kill a human
I work at the refinery attached to this place and Its so cool to see someone I watch regularly on UA-cam film where I work and make a video about things that actually directly impact me.
Hey anyway I can get into that refinery I’m a photographer that’s been wanting to take photos in there for ages
The fact you have a stalker pfp makes it even more fitting lmao
@@tangyorange6509 CITGO would definitely NOT allow that. If you want a media tour, you can call the main office and submit your credentials but I cant help you
How do the birds not get electrocuted but humans do?
@@UnseemlyGenie00 Birds do get electrocuted. Theyve learned not to land in that water. Its also a sanitary canal so not much swims in there.
Tom has found the greatest niche. Interesting things are everywhere. I'm just glad someone interesting finds these interesting places
I wonder how he is able to get access to all these areas. I would guess in a similar way a documentary or news crew would?
@@scalpingsnake I think they want to show their job to a öarge amount of ppl. they know its cool, but I`d seriously doubt even many ppl in that area even know about it.
i haven't found any of these
His niche is quirks of civil engineering.
@@KrackerUncle funny word
I hope the carp don't figure out how to dig a tunnel past this. Those carpal tunnels can be wicked.
Username checks out.
Baha classic! 😂
I've heard carp'll tunnel, but it can be prevented with a wrist-rest.
Booooooo
Don’t be koi, Max.
There's something magical about reading the words "US ARMY ELECTRIC FISH BARRIER" on a GUI, and also knowing that it's powerful enough for just standing near it to be at least mildly concerning for a human.
2:20 if anyone wanna missed it
A greater than 50% chance of cardiac arrest is more than "mildly concerning"
@@nowandaround312 the cardiac arrest thing was when someone entered the water. The "mildly concerning" part was clearly not referring to that.
I hope whoever designed that GUI was giggling inside while writing that
When something has enough electricity in it to hum like that, it's also very ready to arc off into your car keys, your glasses, your bone fracture plates, or just you directly if you get close enough. Why more birds don't cook from landing on wires is beyond me.
I find it ironic how the little plant behind Tom is an Ailanthus altissima (chinese tree of heaven) - an invasive species that is an entirely different problem of its own and how it isnt bothered by the huge facility for preventing IAS spread its growing on.
Could be a sumac
Funny enough the two trees look very much alike. @@uberLejoe
I feel that way about eucalyptus trees 🌴
stop making stuff up. ppl are too dumb to look things up, so they will just blindly believe a comment on youtube
For anyone interested, a similar barrier has been proposed for the Suez canal in Egypt, to prevent fish from the Indian Ocean come to the Mediterranean. This migration is apparently facilitated by rising sea temperatures, and invasive species are already making a dent on the fish of the great Med. Most of them are inedible too (or even toxic to humans) so this is also a potential economic disaster for millions of people.
@@mdrafiqul2898
You are so funny that I threw up…
@@mdrafiqul2898 The ocean being named after a country is still bizarre to me despite being indian.
reading the available literature, it appears that no electric barrier is ever 100% effective. But to be effective as a fish barrier, it would have to be 100% effective. Ergo, they are all boondoggles; wastes of the taxpayer's money. At best, electric barriers can DELAY the inevitable conflict by a few years tops.
@@apetogetherstrong4243 I never really thought about it, but that is weird. Even if it was named for the Subcontinent altogether rather than the country, that's still unique since all the other oceans aren't named after landmasses like that.
@@lukeothedukeo most oceans aren't small enough to be encircled by a single land mass. It's like if we called the gulf of Mexico the Mexican Ocean instead
Loved how he explained how a fish could get knocked out and essentially wake up like someone would in a ditch after a bender.
Fish get a nap but people get dead?
My lily white ass!
@@daviswhite3591 what
Found the Redditor
@@daviswhite3591 A human could go into the water exactly were the barrier is. The fish cannot, they have to swim towards it in the water which conducts and get stunned further down would be my guess.
Dude, where's my carp?
“US Army Electric Fish Barrier” is objectively incredibly funny and just seems like one of those web titles you’d see in Futurama as a headline for a news paper
I asked
Did you not notice yet?
We DO live in a Futurama'esque world.
Some random wanna-be dictator was elected president of the USA, made conspiracy theories widely accepted "facts" (over 50% of the US population believes his BS), violated dozens of laws, instigated an coup d'etat, broke national security (nuclear weapons documents at home, awesome)... and has real chances of being re-elected in two years.
God help us all if that happens.
Greetings from Germany
@@thomaskositzki9424 ok
objectively incredibly funny... poor guy...
@@woodywood1951 rude
I think stories like this are such good examples of unintended consequences. Both the problem and it’s possible solutions come from long lists of potentially spiraling unintended consequences
What you're seeing is if you give the US government the excuse to create something lethal that will inevitably kill people and lock down movement, they'll do it. They don't care how much it costs.
I'm loving this "Tom Scott tours the midwest" series!
Same actually 😭
I know, I feel like he is following me everywhere ago
yes living in minneapolis it has been fun to watch
And I thought he was touring the US since he also visited NYC, Yellowstone, and some town in Idaho in addition to the Midwest
same
There is no rescue plan only a recovery plan. Is what I was told if we fell into the water as a sub contractor on this project. There's so much electricity pumped into the ground that the nearby railroad track crossing would open randomly. Coolest project I've ever been on.
Wow that’s crazy about the railroad track
so how does this crossing then operate? And if someone fell in, well maybe briefly switch the thing off?
@@RandomUser2401 the risk to the ecosystem is too great for the recovery of 1 person.
@@RandomUser2401I was told they would look for your body down the canal. Everyone was extra careful near that railing tom was near.
@@BrandosRides and the RR crossing?
I remember when they were setting this up. that was a scary few years. A lot of people thought it was too late. At one point they found a carp in the lake, so they literally poisoned a several mile stretch of the lake, killing everything so they could examine all the fish corpses. I dont remember if they found more. But these barriers couldnt go up fast enough.
Ironically the lake is now being killed by clams. The water has never been cleaner, but they're apparently causing problems for other species
As for closing the canal. It might be the right choice, but it will never happen. Chicago doesnt exist without the canal. I honestly believe they might go as far as poisoning the entire river before they closed the canal. It's that important to so many industries across multiple states.
Clams are far easier to deal with than massive jumping Carps, so that is a close victoy.
@@TuWear in a normal stretch of water this would be true. There is no fixing the great lakes. They're simply too massive. If an invasive species gets in, we aren't what will make them leave. Even with magnitudes unrealistic effort, there is nothing we could do
zebra mussels are (getting) in(to) the great lakes too, aren’t they?
@@m0rg4n1sm yes they are!
@@TuWear how do they get rid of the clams?
Maybe they should add a locks system where barges stop in the middle and they pulse the water in that middle zone with extra voltage a few times to make sure even smaller fish are knocked out. The locks could also double as a maintenance system, allowing them to block off the waterway entirely when the electric barrier needs to be serviced.
And you don't think they considered that?
@@StanSwan Maybe they have considered it.
@@StanSwan it's probably the usual and they don't want to spend the money.
I would imagine they considered that but it was too much money
they talk about that at 6:30-this passageway has become too important in providing barge traffic to the great lakes to. even temporarily close it
My dad and I canoed through a school of these on the Fox River in illinois, we were both hurt by fish jumping. They were everywhere!
That’s terrifying 😕
fishually assaulted
There's a reason Tom's boat is surrounded in netting.
And that is just at canoe speed. When going at speed in an average personal craft, it can be lethal 🤷♂️🤯
That'd be enough to put me off wanting to canoe there again in the future...
As a person who lives 5 miles away from this I did not know this was in fact electrified. Thanks Scott!
I mean, if you went there, there would be signs and stuff.
@@SushiVolcano If you went there, I'd imagine it would be quite shocking.
I live in Lemont IL and I’ve been along the canal bank. There is a sign that says “NO HUMAN BODY CONTACT OF ANY KIND ALLOWED”
Go dip your toes and tell us what it's like.
*goes for a swim*
Thanks for letting the engineer do the talking...he was very good in his explanation. Definitely deserves the job...
yes...he...does...why...am...i...adding...dots...
The Internet has spoken, and so the humble engineer gets to keep his job for another day.
Paid actor.
@@toxicvillain ?
As an engineer, being able to actually explain what we do to people outside of our profession is a skill that not a lot of us have.
In just four months, this has become one of Tom's most popular videos. Good Job.
I appreciate Tom’s professionalism. Cruising UA-cam watching funny things is nice, but every now and then these informational ones done very well are a nice refresh.
I agree!
Get reported
SImilar thing happened here in Australia in the 1930's, Sugar Cane farmers had problems with cane beetles, they decided to import the cane toad to deal with them. Unfortunately the toads were not interested in eating the beetles, and now we have plague proportions of cane toads that have decimated the native wildlife of the areas that they have invaded.
i cant emotionally handle stories like this
What about the rabbit problem too
@@court2379 Interesting story in the paper in the last 24 hours about how most of Australia's wild rabbits have been genetically traced to a bunch of just 24 rabbits that a colonist brought over for sport.
We just couldn't use nature against itself
@@court2379 I've not seen too many rabbits in the wild since the calicivirus was 'accidentally' released.
It's a constant battle. The Great Lakes are also constantly fighting other invasive species like Zebra Mussels. They're non-native and mess with all kinds of things. I believe they arrived in the ballast water tanks of large ships.
Zebra mussel has been plague for at least 30 years as far as I’ve known.
It's true. The zebra mussels have made their way all the way down to the lakes and waterways in and around Austin, Texas. The mussels collect around water intake pipes of the municipal drinking water supply, reducing intake flow. Their microscopic eggs make it past the initial filters have to be eliminated chemically (copper) and additional filtering stages are required remove the smell of decomposing mussels
They plug up our waterlines at work all the time. Coincidentally from the location featured in this very video albeit I believe it’s a mile or so upstream
I think we have bigger issues to worry about. Social justice for one, diversity and inclusion another.
@@fjb3544 did you know that it is possible to care about multiple issues at the same time?
This is really informative. I'm amazed this channel are both interesting and documentative.
The problem with the Asian Carp and the Great Lakes is that they arent just in the Illinois River. They are also making their way upstream from the east into Lake Erie, which presently lie unprotected...
From what I've heard, they're already a problem in Lake Erie.
They've been in Lake Erie for a long time.
Yup, already been in here. Most fisherman know if they catch one, they kill it on the spot.
I like fish, so many I should take up fishing as a hoby.
Grass carp are all over Lake Erie. They are trying to eliminating them by targeting their spawning grounds in the Sandusky and Maumee rivers. But they have nothing remotely like the insane concentration you see in this video in the Illinois.
Just stuns them. For a minute, I thought the Army Corps of Engineers had actually created the world’s largest fish fry .
They already did by testing hydrogen bombs
Welll
It is the Midwest, after all
Allll that money spent making 100% sure poor people go hungry
@@michelifig6356 Feeding that carp to the poor would be torture
I actually worked on this job site before. If you drop a tool on the ground you have to pick it upin a specific way to avoid being shocked by excess current.
What specific way? I'm curious
Is it picked up like from the tip to bottom instead of all at once in the center?
Making sure you're touching only ONE metallic object?
That's shocking.
@@mahoganywood6468
Rubber gloves
Well spoken man about this barrier. Enjoyed this presentation !
I used to be a tour guide on the Chicago river and we would talk about these fish. The lakes also have a zebra mussel problem.
Chicago's waterways and sanitation system is so interesting
Don't forget about the Goby's. Those little fish are voracious.
Blame the freighters
Blame Obama
Blame Biden
@@jfrog1979 Why? He doesn't even know he's President.
Never thought Tom Scott would be visiting my town, I didn’t realize the electrified waterway was such a big deal until a bunch of videos got posted.
Same, my dude
Same I pass over the 135th street bridge every day!
@@horrorland11 I go over that bridge all the time and I had no idea!
@@SVTKing1908 I was there for the commemoration of that bridge!
Being native to the area surely means you have a higher-than-average resistance to electricity. You could probably swim around in there all day an not feel a thing :O
A perfect example of why a solution needs a FULL evaluation before putting it into place.
Not the barrier - that's a bandaid to handle a problem that can't be eradicated.
I mean the choice to add new species of fish without evaluating the additional effects to the ecosystem.
love that @1:22 Tom happens to be standing right in front of an Ailanthus altissima (aka Tree of Heaven) sapling, a horribly invasive tree that we brought over as an ornamental garden plant, and is currently doing much of the same as the carp he's talking about
good eyes! :D
A good idea for the next video maybe?
Spotted lanternflies love Trees of Heaven. 😬
bruh
TREE LOCATED!
I've actually gone hiking many times right by the Illinois and Michigan canal, sometimes starting in Romeoville, Illinois. I never knew about invasive carp or the electrification of the canal, but I will say I did consider tresspassing and swimming in the canal for fun with the ships. I'll definitely be rethinking that idea. Great video.
I would never wanna swim in this canal lmao. The water is so nasty
Swimming with ships is a bad idea whether the water is electrocuted or not
Trespassing and swimming with ships are unwise decisions regardless of any other factors.
Trespassing and swimming with ships can be a very enjoyable, safe experience. Try it after dark, you'll have a great time
@@23Butanedione Oh ya! Also add an electric eel to your party to counter the electric barrier🤣
That electric grid in the water is terrifying and I'm sure effective. I say terrifying because I had a friend years ago killed by being electrocuted in water. Faulty wiring on the boat dock, he dropped something in the water, went in to get it, horrible way to go. I wasn't there but I still get emotional thinking about that whole mess.
I’m sorry about your friend, I hope that in time, you can heal. ❤️
Sorry for your loss🙏
🙏
not an electrical grid
I'm an electrician. All my bosses and most of my friends are gone, I've seen many men die. This is 6 volts. Your buddy was killed with as low as 120 volts, or 208, 240 volts maybe as high as 277/480 volts. All are lethal. We try really hard to make sure what happened to your friend doesn't happen, but it's a matter of budget and will. The owners or operators don't usually understand the risks, become complacent, fail to test and maintain, and people die or get severely burnt or disfigured. 50,000 electrical fires in the US each year, 135 a day, not including electrocutions.
i imagine this river as a kind of urban legend shared amonst fish families,all sit around their fish table
"fish dad? why dont we go past the barrier of no fish return?"
"son, there was once a story of the barrier of no fish return, nobody knows if its true or not... the barrier is impossible to get past, no matter what you do, you just wake up where you started."
"why does that happen? fish dad?"
*fish war flashbacks*
"We came here generations ago from waters far away, brought in by the land giants..."
I think the idea of adding miniature "locks" makes a lot of sense. Bring the barge in, shut the door, shock the crap out of anything in the water with EXTREME voltages, the open the other door and send it on it's way. If power goes out, the door is still there. A few strategic high pressure pipes/gates will keep things out of the lock area when not open and maintain water flow.
Good idea, and give cathodic protection to the metal pipework
Those barges can't afford to stop for a do-nothing lock, let alone a bunch of them. Your idea makes zero sense.
It would be too slow for trade. In the world, USA especially, time is money.
Locks like that are in the great lakes, sure to hight changes Lake too Lake.
Wouldn't be too much of an issue to add the electrification.
@@oaktadopbok665 Many canals use locks, the Panama Canal for instance, and the Grand canal in china. The amount of time spent in these places is not much more than at a regular checkpoint.
It would slow things down a little bit, but not that much, especially if they set up multiple locks to deal with multiple barges at a time (which probably isn't even needed for this particular canal)
I work on the Illinois River pushing barges, for the same company that owns the towboat in this video. I am actually sitting just a few miles from the electric barrier right now. We have to lay grounding wires between the barges and the boat pushing them. The voltage is enough that a loose connection can cause an arc strong enough to weld the wire to the deck fittings. A connection with an inadequate wire such as car jumper cables can actually melt the wire.
Daaaaang!
Beat time to do your welding repairs on the boat then, free electricity 😁
If only one could use it…
But seriously: Wouldn’t it do any damage o on-board electronics?
Dont let any magic carp get onboard
@@demil3618 good question, but no. The hull and bulkheads of work boats is made out of 1/4" to 1/2" steel. All electronics and personnel are protected from electrical currents while inside. Any electronics on the exterior of the boat such as the radar and radio antennae are appropriately grounded. Smaller pleasure craft are not as adversely affected because they are not exposed to as much of the current due to their size, so it is safe for families to pass through the fish barrier, so long as they remain in the passenger portions of their vessels and do not make physical contact with the hull.
@@mark7362 the carp are rarely seen above Ottawa, but they are dealt with by the work boat crews with varying degrees of ruthlessness. Some guys simply kick them back in the water or blast them off the decks with a fire hose. Some use a sledgehammer to knock them off. I've seen one guy use a fire axe after a carp jumped out of the water and stole his cigarette out of his hand.
My dad was part of the crew that built that pipeline in the background, one carries product and the other is for support. Pipefitters Local 597 Chicago, probably over 40 years ago.
Respect and salutations to your father and his crew!
Dude I didn't know you were in Peoria. I live here. That's awesome. Hope you had a good time.
Nice! We've got invasive carp here in Australia as well; it's on a smaller scale, because our rivers are smaller and more isolated from one another, but it's still bad. There's a control & eradication program running, and as a by-product of that you can get carp-derived plant fertiliser for quite cheap. That part is nice, at least.
Just don't go to war with them. Really wouldn't help your track record.
@@AtaraxianWist That emu thing wasn't a "war". Just a UA-cam trope.
@@thursoberwick1948 You speak of lies and utter horrible falsehoods.
@@DvH_2 You sound like a bot.
@@thursoberwick1948 based bot
As a habitat ecologist, I HATE those 20th century American planners for their arrogance and hubris. They introduced countless invasive species as “solutions” to solve simple problems they were too lazy to deal with responsibly. So many amazing ecosystems across America have been utterly and irrevocably destroyed because of invasive species introduced by 20th century planners. My local ecosystem here on the Texas coast is Gulf Coast Tall Grass Prairie. There used to be 6.5 million acres of it here in Texas. Now over 99.9% of that habitat is lost, thanks in no small part to invasive species such as the Chinese tallow tree and various South American grasses.
Kudzu and ice plant also spring to mind.
the native americans probably strongly agree with you, those invasive species ruined the place.
USA!!!!! USA!!!!! USA!!!! USA!!!!
Well they took the fastest and cheapest method, im not sure if they could even really know what would happen to the ecosystem 100ish years later. But hey it’s politicians who most of the time worry more about the next elections than about the future of the country so who knows if they would even care if they would have known it back then.
Uncaring hobbyists introduced crayfish into our stocked and controlled fish ponds and now it's at the point where you can just stand on the side of the pond and haul out dozens and dozens of them. It's at the point where there's no rules about how many you can capture, just so long as you kill them on sight. You could sit on the shore with a hammer and just mush them up and fish n wildlife would just ask if they could bring you some water or coffee. It's revolting how shitty some people can be
Loved listening to the engineer who works at the fish barrier, he really knows his stuff and explained it well.
Tom really did show us all the world
...enjoy your break mate but your content deserves the label
...blod-ey brilliant!
Finally someone of decent size commented on this. Believe it or not, my father got knocked out from an Asian carp jumping out of the water on the Illinois around the time this started. The things can get huge (by Midwestern standards).
Size matters not.
Wrong boyo. Size matters in everything.
@@TheRealSkeletor welll, in this case, size x speed is what matters.
Ik someone who has a broken arm from Peoria area 🤦
@@TheRealSkeletor keep telling yourself that buddy....
I was the engineer on a boat that regularly passed through here while the barrier was being built and later while it was in 24/7 operation. The narrator is telling it like it is; we were not allowed on tow or on deck while transiting the barrier. I understand that a second barrier is to be built on the downstream of Brandon Road Lock in Joliet, as well.
They have highway style programmable warning signs above and below the barrier, my crew wanted to hack the signs so that the last line it displayed was "FISH FRY TONITE!" 🙂
is it really that interesting? 🤷
Making the signs say Fish Fry would be hilarious.
Did you read Captain Underpants growing up? This strikes me as very George and Harold.
I already had my USCG engineer's license before Captain Underpants came out!
Anyway, we had a lot of fun joking about it. :-)
@@domingorodriguez3077 yes it is, unlike you
I wonder why everyone acts like no one will ever maliciously transplant these fish? Some people get enjoyment out of taking power from actions like that. The whole nation is desperately trying to keep these fish out, and one person with a cooler and a fishing rod could undo that? I’d be surprised if someone doesn’t do that by the end of the decade. The more you publicize this, the more likely it is.
There's koi that got lose into lake Michigan when the barrier failed. This happened a couple of years ago. We have Japanese carp running around the lake. Plus idiots went down to the lake and dumped the tropical fish in or flushed them.
Since they're invasive you should be legally allowed to catch and cook them, right? Koi anyone?
At least nobody has purposely dumped these wild carps into the great lake. I mean, not yet right haha?
@@Mephitinae don’t give them ideas
@@Mephitinae time to do a bit of trolling :D
*loose
Electrifying water feels like some strange newly added video game mechanic
go outside more
Another Tom Scott production on a subject I did not know existed, that I am delighted to have spent 10 minutes of my life - thanks Tom
I be making entertaining videos as well🤠
Yes, time spent watching Tom's videos never go to waste.
"The US Army Corps of Engineers has built a wall of automated gun turrets to engage any hostile carp that attempt to rush the checkpoint"
"if that don't work, use more guns"-Engineer probably
@@then00brathalos To be fair, it is the *US Army*
Now, what people don't know is that they also have a gun range there for shooting carp a bit away from the automated defenses.
'murica
@@thatmukundbalaji ‘murica
It's so sad the damage that invasive species can cause because they were introduced as a quick fix to a problem. I'm sure that most Aussies know about Cane toads, but they were introduced to deal with cane beetles. Unfortunately their toxins kill a lot of native animals and they now can be found all over eastern Australia. Humans can make such a huge impact with small decisions.
I remember the Simpsons episode, but never looked into what it was really about
There's tons of stories of Australia completely screwing up their wildlife. The U.S. has sent over 20k people to Antarctica and they've harmed nothing.
@@raphaelrodriguez2774 I don't think they sell them in Walmart, I think dandelions are sold by packets of seed on the market stalls of Istanbul.
I wouldn't bother trying that again until November because the rat traps won't be in force yet.
Thank you though for your help, it really is appreciated still to this day, I'll never forget you.
Just another example of a long list of government failures...
The Australians have experience also with rabbits.
Very interesting segment. I had no idea electric barrier existed.
As a Peorian, these carp are fun to watch when eating at the Steak and Shake in East Peoria, but I’ve heard stories of people being knocked unconscious from them. A few personal boats that go fishing in the Illinois have to have cages around their boats so that you don’t get knocked out yourself.
Never been, but I kinda want to stand on a large boat and try to punch fish
@@Direblade11 wouldn’t recommend it, had a buddy of mine get fish scales deep in his knuckles from punching a fish that his buddy threw at him while fishing.
In a way it's rather satisfying that the fish actually get to beat up the fishermen. It's been one-way traffic for too long!
Good fish are fishing back
@@Direblade11 perhaps a baseball bat?
This reminds me a little of the buffelgrass problem facing Arizona these days. It was bought from Africa to the area in the 1970s as a drought resistant grass for cattle and for erosion control. This grass seemed ideally suited to the area as it can go for 8 months in searing heat and rebound with a little water. Fire can't destroy it as buffelgrass roots rebound quickly in charred soil. No one considered how its introduction might effect other plants and animals.
Because part of buffelgrass' annual process is to become dormant and dry out, the areas where it is introduced become tinderboxes. When fires occur, it kills the other plants in animals in the area, leaving the buffelgrass to grow even stronger the following year. Fast forward to today and buffelgrass is everywhere. Its introduction is now effecting Arizona's iconic saguaro cactus. The only way to get rid of buffelgrass is to pull it up by its roots and volunteers have been going into the desert and doing just that for decades. This has slowed the spread but unfortunately there's no way to eradicate it completely.
We have kudzu in the South. Originally brought in for erosion control. You can see it literally completely covering whole stretched of woodlands.
Lion fish in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Pythons in Florida. Both Asian species, that got brought over as pets, and escaped, and exploded, in recent years.
It's simple! Just introduce another species that eats the buffelgrass! Don't look into _that_ species' environment impact. If the next thing becomes a problem, we'll just introduce another to take care of it. Easy! No consequences whatsoever.
Butterfly effect wild af
*affect
I worked for the illinois department of natural resources in 2009-2012 when the carp problem was at a fever pitch. Charters and recreational boating was at an all time low because the carp would jump into boats and injure passengers
Fish jumping into you boat is a problem? Isn't that catching lunch without even trying?
@@zapfanzapfan the carp taste bad tho
@@zapfanzapfan carp is gross plus i dont think a concussion or whiplash is worth a fish dinner
@@ThimbleFox350 Really? I haven't eaten any. Does it have any caviar?
@@zapfanzapfan Nah, just Grey Poupon and ham.
From what i know carp is just an invasive species, which is why people can overfish them, but at the same time they build lakes and breed carp in there specifically for fishing
I work on a river boat and pass through there on occasion pushing barges. When we pass through, we have to run a steel wire from our boat to the barge that we're faced up to because there is a layer of rubber between the boat and the barges. This is to provide continuity of the electricity. When we pass through the arch that is behind Scott in several of the shots, you can see the electricity arcing between the boat and the arch.
What happens if you don’t provide continuity of the electricity?
@@abnormal_asian5320 probably fish can get through
@@abnormal_asian5320 A potential can build between the two structures. You, as a human, have a chance to be the electrical conductor in that scenario. Good luck!
@@PiperDougherty the WIRE is the conductor-it connects the steel of the boat to the steel of the barges. It is a braided cable over an inch in diameter. Also, we stay inside the vessel during passage through the electrified area.
The purpose of bonding the vessel to the barges(to my understanding) is to prevent a pocket between the bow of my vessel and the stern of the barges that would allow the fish to pass through the zone unscathed.
12 years ago one of my Biology professors left mid-semester to take a position in Oklahoma to work on solutions to the carp invasion... while I continued in school I was surrounded by students and professors all studying and moving either up or down the river to work on it. Here we are. Interesting.
That’s really cool
do you like hamhocks or neckbones with your collard greens 🤔
@@sisigpapi super cool 😎
@@examtime2180 last ti.e we build an acme 5x24 series time transducing capacitor with built-in temporal displacements and AMD dimensional warp generator modules containing the grc79 induction motor...we have seen electrifying moments
@@examtime2180 lots of atomic weight in there waters...Xtra dimensional, isotopic matters...3 phase carp
The Great Lakes have already taken a beating from invasive species. In fact, the sport fishing industry on the Lakes developed in part as an effort to restore the ecosystem after previous invasions destroyed the commercial fisheries. The book "The Death and Life of the Great Lakes" by Dan Egan covers it very well.
and some people don’t know Carp are already in the Great Lakes. this definitely helps the influx, but they’re here already.
So fishing sport is helping the restore ecosystem?
And why not make it legal for everyone to fish theme and discard theme as they wish ?
@@predatorrt5632 Its a different kind of carp, but you are right.
Zebra mussels have invaded the Great Lakes and caused a ton of damage.
One possible extreme measure not yet taken is a full on dry span with conveyors, dragging barges out of the water, over a mesh barrier and through pressure jets, into the other side
Hi Tom Scott, We have something similar but different in the Netherlands. There is a sluise or lock between a saltwater and freshwater that is supposed to stay separated. They originally pumped the salt water out of the bottom and pumped freshwater back in before opening the lock, but now they use bubble walls too keep the water separated. It looks really cool, and can be another interesting place video.
@erik zaal; Well, I guess it would keep water seperated, but not impenetrable, right?...
Unforutnately those aren't perfect (of course) either; the freshwaters are getting more and more saline which is a huge problem for many species. I wonder what they will do to prevent this from getting out of hand!
Fish retreat from bubble curtains
Someone stated that Egypt also has a problem, but their invasive fish are inedible. Carp are edible. So promoting carp as a food source and increasing fisheries harvesting these fish can also help to reduce the invasion. Large mouth bass which also live in chicago river consume juvenile carps, so increasing adult bass during times soon after hatching season for the carps, could also be helpful. Invasive snake haunt some areas when exotic pets escape and breed, so some area have snake hunts that those that kill and bring in invasive snakes get a reward per snake, this method may also be used. Using nets that catch the big carp and returning more desirable fish would be good too.
Those are good ideas
the problem with snake hunts and things like that is unscrupulous people will start breeding said snakes or other animals to then turn in for the reward, hell its happened with invasive plants/trees and farmers doing it
Too bad they dont care about feeding people they are bent on destruction and this is more fun for them
@@21warmasters It's already happened multiple times in history and has been dubbed the "Cobra Effect" because this is exactly what happened to Delhi when the government had a bounty for snake skins.
@@InsAniTynetllMINECRAFTFORALL It’s sad to hear this solution creates another problem…
I did some school projects (for my major in college) on this and other invasive species. It’s very interesting, but there are still some evidence of asian carp in the lakes already, mainly due to temporary barrier outages
That makes me sad. That barrier is not enough, we need much more.
@@RunstarHomer yes. Close it
They have been in the great lakes for years. Here on the Canadian side its against the law to release an asian carp if you catch one, You have to eliminate it. The damage is done, Only getting worse. Its what happens when you play mother nature and make rivers and canals joining 2 separate ecosystems.
@Mark Michon that would take insane expenses and it'll probably not work anyway. The population could restart from a couple fish. That is not possible to account for. No matter your resources. Even if you get the entire chinese rural population to do it.
@Mark Michon I'm just saying, best efficient way to do it is introduce a predator. Engineer an ecosystem. Not exterminate life needlessly
From my college days gone by, it's not the voltage that will kill you; it's the amperage! As said by an instructor, and I somehow remember to this day!
Same thing happened here in Australia with the Cane Toad being introduced to control Cane Beetle and the same with so many other human interventions that have gone awry...
Like here Hawaii with the mongoose and the rosey wolf snail
@@SidVacant69 things are everywhere fr
They done the same thing in Florida in the 1930s in an effort to control sugar cane pests. Dogs can die from putting them in their mouth. People have been known to lick them to try to get high.
I've been working on barges for 17 years. The amount of carp jumping behind your boat was nothing compared to how crazy they go when a big boat goes by.
Also, those jerks hurt when they hit you.
Baseball bat. Give them karma.
You should keep a landing net handy. It's almost free fish.
@@fallinginthed33p Its really low quality fish meat, nobody wants them.
@@FrozenHaxor I'm sure they'd make great fish sticks
That's what he said.
This is one of those times where I think the over-engineered solution they've come up is STILL NOT ENOUGH. Given the risks and the weaknesses.
You have to keep in mind that this barrier was planned and created 100 year ago.
It isn't enough
@@xenitefufu1109 no. The river direction was reversed long ago to keep pollution out of the Great Lakes. The fish barrier is much more recent.
You can never over engineer for something that is irreversible.
Anyone got a spare trawler net?
I miss those videos 😢
Wow, a particularly knowledgeable and well-spoken interviewee. Good find. And overall, an excellent presentation.
I actually worked on the barrier with USACE to help them transition from a privately ran electrified barrier to one ran by USACE themselves! I created a blueprint of the whole electrical barrier and of all the equipment that’s there. I focused mainly on the printed circuit boards that powered and talked to the barrier, while my coworkers worked with the code that was sent from the computers to the barrier itself.
Yea okay 😬
So in other words you we there not doing anything while everyone else worked… got it.
@@dzookie1 he made a blueprint and equipment for it??? Did u not read it or sum
@@xerofire818 bc he didn’t, why would u
Need a blueprint to work on circuit boards. And it was already built, already had a blueprint, how else would it have been constructed
@@dzookie1 Nobody wires electronic circuit boards by hand. You have to blueprint them so they can be etched by chemicals and light layer by layer automatically. PCB design is a a vital process for the design of embedded systems like those used for specialized equipment like this.
This is one of the smartest thing I've seen since a long time, one idea that makes everyone happy
This is such a funny example for how seemingly small mistakes sometimes require literally giant solutions
No. Just stop it. No more "solutions" from you people.
@@dvvass Who took a dump in your cereal?
An entire local ecosystem being fricced up is not a small problem
@@manender1020 Small MISTAKE, not small PROBLEM
@@Wildcat12 mass populating things with fish isn't a small mistake either
If you want to learn more about this, I read a cool book on it. (And other ecological issues in the great lakes, and even the rest of the US) It's called "The Death and Life of the Great Lakes," very interesting and presented in an attention-grabbing way.
I love that book. Another great book about the great lakes is The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas. it also goes into great detail about the environment of the lakes.
Great book. Almost wish I hadn’t read it / knew so much about all the ecological disasters, I live in Michigan in the summer and I try to talk about the stuff and most people don’t care or don’t believe it. It’s very sad and disheartening but we see it all levels from local dumping to global climate change. We are killing the planet and fast.
I'll add on to the doggy pile endorsing this book, it's a great beach read for the sand dunes if lake Michigan
I have read it too.
Intresting.
UA-cam needs to recommend more educational and informative videos like this to EVERYONE.
Although this particular one would not relate to audiences across the board, but the human mind is curious. I think the population would benefit greatly.
Until the carp find out...
That’s been my problem with UA-cam for a little while. I could spend a week or two watching more educational stuff or long form discussion. After that I’ll watch garbage stuff for 1 day. After that one day my options will overwhelmingly the garbage stuff.
I wish we could adjust the algorithm to seek out more educational stuff.
It's all about ad revenue, if you watch something that tends to keep people watching UA-cam will always prioritize that, and entertainment will always be what keeps most people watching. Sadly, the massive majority don't find as much entertainment in educational and informative things as they do in hundreds of millions of other things they could watch or listen to. Which is a damn shame cause this really was a good watch and videos like this almost always have so much more effort and care put into them.
I’ve lived in IL for most of my life, and I NEVER knew how invasive the carp were, nor did I put two and two together that there are tons of carp in the rivers, but none in the Great Lakes. this is so interesting!
I live in a tiny village in the Scottish highlands and there’s a water treatment station next to my Croft, (a small farm that’s common in the highlands). The water there is treated the same way and thankfully the company have put up strong, tall fencing and have signs plastered all over it telling folk that they’ll die if they enter the water. Scares the crap outta me even though I know they’ve taken as much caution as possible.
It would scare the carp outta me too!
Just fill up a plastic bottle full of electric to save on batteries 👍
Are those Luing cattle in your profile picture?
Hopefully it scares the carp out of the water too
@@jenhofmann
Meh, always someone to take the cheap pun opportunity before me!
To hell with all this carp crap! 🤣
I'm starting to worry that a single long blackout or a powerful solar storm would singlehandedly destroy the entire ecosystem all over the Great Lakes
it would certainly make for an interesting zombie apocalypse setting
@@Romanticoutlaw Night of the Living *Carp*
This almost made me choke
I assume they must have standby diesel generators, but you are right - there are always vulnerabilities. I wonder how long the barrier could be down for without creating irreversible damage. A week? A day? An hour? Scary thought.
Probably have back up generators.
Every day is truly a school day! Never stop learning folks!
The guy you interviewed gave a fantastic explanation and presented it really well! You lucked out by getting to talk to him. He's great.
I'm glad this story is getting publicized. It's a huge issue around here and they are a pain to fish.
Shotgun looks like it would work fine in some cases
They're invasive species they shouldn't be able to go near other places
I'm from Blono and have a lot of family that lives in Eureka. A couple of my uncles would go bow fishing for those carp on the Illinois river.
Seems easy to fish if they just jump out of the water like that. Don't even need a rod. Just hold out a net or stick out your arms
Why are they a pain to fish?
Thank you, Mr. Scott!
BTW, there is a way the fish could bypass the barrier.
Here in the deep south, particularly the low country, we see many borrow pits.
They were open pits dug beside roadways for fill material but rainwater filled them.
Whether by flooding or by water birds we're not certain.
But the pits often begin to contain fish.
Some think water birds, wading in one pit collect fish eggs on their feet.
They fly to another nearby pit and begin wading in it.
If just a few fish eggs are transported this way it could explain how fish appear in a 'land locked' borrow pit.
Just an idea, eh?
Have a GREAT day, Neighbor!
i don't see many of those up in the north in at least
The fish could hold on to a barge where the voltage is weak and let it carry them through. Even if it stuns them if they wake up on the other side they have a huge rich territory all to themselves.
You used eh wrong.
I was thinking this the whole time, fish up north have totally been know to also borough
Somebody explained it to me this way - a bird swallows a fish whole. The fish gets partially digested, but a bird's tract is short. Bird then poops over a different lake - fish eggs deposited.
Every once in a while i morn the fact that tom scott videos have stopped. Love you tom
do you watch the technical difficulties channel or follow his newsletter?
@@ShaDwbUrn im talking about these main channel videos not those
@@instakillgaming just making sure you know of those. some people don't and just miss him.
"They can weigh more than 30 kilos, and they are easily startled."
Story of my life.
As a Chicagoan, I am absolutely loving this Midwest series of videos!
Ok
@@Baloongis2 Well Ok
It's not just the great lakes at risk, imagine the entire watershed of the great lakes that will be effected.
I hate to be that guy but it is 'affected' not 'effected'. All the best.
@@kris8263 Ha! Admit that you actually love it!
What does watershed mean?
@@tacoandurmom It means the total area of springs , creeks , rivers and runoff that feed a given body of water. The reach of rivers that feed the great lakes is truly massive.
@@kris8263 You seem to be very effectionate about language.
People are fishing the carp now but due to how much they affect the ecosystem. Some have suggested to just completely purge all fish and repopulate it with native species. Due to the carp affecting more than just the fish at this point
The sad part about this is that it is only delaying the inevitable because no barrier is perfect. One day a few fish will get past the barrier in a bilge or even because some idiot releases them into the Great Lakes and then the barrier will be pointless and the Great Lakes will be irreversibly changed.
its already happened in lake Erie. (but I don't believe its inevitable, I think we could get rid of them, however the effort would be monumental, it would probably cost billions and could fail)
What it does do is allow you to section them off. You can then isolate areas, wipe out the carp in a large area, then prevent recolonisation.
It is so stupid , it is laughable
@@knyghtryder3599 your suggestion then?
@@scintilical9442 That's...not actually possible?
There's no good way, *at scale*, to 'just get the species that they want to keep'. Additionally, you want to kill everything else......any idea on how to accomplish that? Also, what are you going to do with the carcasses left over? Not to mention that anything you do is going to have a failure percentage, just like the method they have now. So even if it *could* happen, unless it's somehow a lower failure rate than what we already have, you're still sunk.
TL;DR:
It's just not simple to do what you're describing *at scale*. Maybe in your local pond, but definitely not on a river that's huge.
I’m really glad you covered this, I live on the other end of the Great Lakes and I’d hate if my favorite fish got killed off from an invasive species.
My favorite fish is the starfish ;)
@@mark7362 Chocolate Starfish
Well, time to go fishin' boys! Get the dynamite! They ain't Native! They can't be protected by silly federal laws! Can they? I mean it is for the environment.
@@entity9588 💀
This is very racial viewpoint, carp are fish too!
Asian carp have ruined the fishing and water quality of so many lakes around where I live, I shudder thinking of how catastropic it would be if these fish get to the great lakes. Thanks Tom for helping to raise awareness about this huge issue!
when they found one carp in lake michigan they dumped 3 tons of poison into the part they found it in just to be sure.
the solution is simple: bears! lots and lots of bears! and then chimps to befriend the bears and groom them to remove any eggs in a symbiotic relationship! what could go wrong? nothing, I tell you!
@@glebglubi heartily agree! there will be no long term or unseen consequences. let's get her done
Imagine some dude does a little trolling and brings the fish to the Great Lakes.
@@kingtaco1725 he would realistically go to prison for life for causing trillions of dollars of damage
What a giant load of carp
If anyone wants to read a really interesting nonfiction book on invasive species in the Great Lakes, I highly recommend "Death and Life of the Great Lakes" by Dan Egan. It covers the carp and other threats in great detail but is very engaging.
.... I would have named that book, "Carp and Crap in the Great Lakes"
E
nitpicking: "nonfiction" is implied, and "but" is out of place in the second sentence.
but good info.
@@MachineIf surprisingly yes.
but parties aren't really fun bro, they're just goofy sideways human anxiety. :P
@@hyperfluous4751 the but is appropriate because they are saying that it's engaging despite going into great detail on something most would consider mundane.
European carp entered Australia's outback waterways in the 1970s and devastated the native biota fish crayfish and most of the river vegetative species. It took nearly fifty years for any sort of correction to take place leaving the whole system today completely corrupted
inaction of Aus government they just don't give a 2 clocks about environment.
European common carp didn't "enter" Australia, people took them there, same as they did in the USA as far back as the 1800s. Carp have been reared as food in Europe for centuries and misguided businessmen thought breeding and selling them was an easy way to make money. What they didn't take into account was that in warmer waters they spread like wildfire.
I mean the murray is on its way out from all the water theft anyway... The whole country's gonna look like NT within 50 years I reckon
@@oldbloke135 and consumers gladly ate up the cheap fish ensuring the practice of said business men continued or spread and increased.
Thank you for bringing more attention to this! I'm from Michigan and I don't feel enough people know about this, even many locals to the Great Lakes region
everyone knows about it - if your entourage doesn't, get a new entourage
Carp are already in the Great Lakes….
@@terdfergeson23 never said they weren't....?
Hello
@@Frenchiezy so why are they electrocuting the water if the animal is already in the lake?
The 9 most terrifying words in the English language still are
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help”!!!
In my country, northern Italy, Louisiana shrimps have been imported for local commercialization, but some of them escaped. They are much bigger and more aggressive than our native shrimps and they are becoming the dominant species.
submissive local shrimp being dominated by the alpha chad imported shrimp
is big shrimp bad?
Oh no! This Yankee gives you permission to defend your native species.
@@dingobabyeats596 use up more resources and consumer more food than the native is what I'm assuming makes them being bigger bad.
Get some people from Louisiana down there and you’ll have no shrimp within days
Now that's place I like to swim in...
Who needs electric showers when you can have government approved electric rivers..?! 🏊🏻♂⚡
It had to be you
It’s crazy how much electricity is running through the canal. I always thought it was a load of carp
Church of progress does it again 👏🤤
Nice to see the issue of the Asian Carp being brought back up, invasive species have a huge impact on the ecosystem so keeping the Carp out of something as important as the Great Lakes should be a priority.
I don't know much about it but it makes me happy that you're passionate about it friend.👍
I studied public policy in University and I wrote a report on Asian carp in the great lakes and it actually managed to keep me up a few nights because of how utterly terrifying they are. They're a massive risk to the Great Lakes ecosystem, the damage would cost billions each year.
If there’s one thing illinois has it’s good natural resource management
Brought up to what end. Eventually, in a flood or power outage, they will get through. Yes, it's good to talk about it...but to what end?
@@TheRagingPlatypus to control them.
I have a professor who is working on the CO2 barriers that were briefly mentioned. They're attempting to maintain a high enough concentration of dissolved CO2 in the water to deter the fish. Gaseous CO2 is pumped into the bottom of the canal through special nozzles to make more of the CO2 dissolve and less form bubbles.
2122: creating a system to remove excess CO2 from the lake
I would think they would need a continuous process to pump water into a tank where CO2 can dissolve into the water faster. Then the carbonated water is pumped back out to the canal. Boom, I'm a consultant. 😂
I'm curious as to how CO2 barriers would work. I don't see it being very good in the long run due to the acidity of dissolved CO2 (acid rain, mineral deterioration, making nearby bodies of water uninhabitable, soil pH). Do you know if there any solutions to these problems? :0
I don't think they should do anything but let people fish. What about clean fresh water to drink.
Let's not interfere with nature. Just go fishing