The Waterways Journal

A fisherman blogs his battle against Asian carp in the Illinois River.

Entertaining, especially the accounts of spearing carp on the fly with pitchforks. But who made this estimate of 10 billion? And how did the blogger arrive at his other figures?

Example: “Apparently two strains of Asian Carp, silvers and bigheads have been interbreeding.  About 85% of them are now hybrids, making them bigger, maybe smarter, but less predisposed to the dramatic jumping behavior.” Whose measurements are these?

Free Flow Power, a start-up we’ve reported on extensively going back several years, announced July 13 that its first Mississippi River turbine was up and running in Plaquemine, La. Nice picture of the turbine, too.

In today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a plan to donate harvested Asian carp to the poor.

“The Illinois Department of Natural Resources … plans to process tons of the fish and donate it to food banks, including the St. Louis Area Food Bank. ‘We’ll filet them and pull the bones out and turn them into fish sticks, or the equivalent of canned tuna,’ says Tom Main, acting deputy director at the DNR. ‘The fish actually taste pretty good.’ “

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch calls for an “integrated” policy on the Missouri River that “accepts” the “reality” that Missouri river navigation is virtually gone.

“Navigation is vitally important to the agricultural community and to national commerce — but on the Mississippi, not the Missouri. The real value of the navigation argument to Missouri, the most populated state in the river basin, is as a spigot to control the water flow.”

Forbes magazine’s Joel Kotkin on the rise of the Gulf Coast.