By Stuart F. Gruskin, Joe Martens, and Kathy Moser
Millions of New Yorkers do their part to prevent the spread of invasive species — from using local firewood to washing their boats. It’s time for the state to do its part and stop invasive species from spreading through the New York canal system.
Right now, a destructive invasive fish called round goby is poised to enter Lake Champlain from the Hudson River. The state can prevent that before it’s too late. All it would take is to keep one canal lock temporarily closed. If the state fails to do this, the ecology of the lake will be permanently harmed, and the communities, families, and businesses that rely on the lake will pay a huge price.
The state’s canal system is a mighty engineering feat that transformed New York’s economy and culture. 200 years later, however, our needs are different. The “Re-imagine the Canals” initiative is already prompting new canal uses and approaches to tourism and recreation. But what we have not yet seen, and urgently need to see, is a commitment to protect New York’s incredible waters from the scourge of invasive species at the same time that plans advance for a thriving, forward looking canal system.
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The state’s canal system artificially connects New York’s lakes and rivers, creating a ‘superhighway’ for the almost 200 invasive species in the Great Lakes to spread first to the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers, and then up to Lake Champlain. This is not news. For decades, study after study has warned that invasive species travel through the canals and wreak havoc on water quality, fisheries, and local economies. We’ve seen this happen with zebra mussels, it’s happening right now with round goby, and scientists tell us that the very destructive Asian carp is waiting on deck.
The detection of round goby in the Hudson River is only the most recent incident and is a dramatic wake up call. Although it’s now too late to protect the Hudson from round goby, there’s still a chance to protect Lake Champlain — but time is running out.
In this case, there is an immediate way to prevent irreparable harm. Over the winter, the canal system is closed and the natural physical barriers among the Great Lakes, Mohawk and Hudson Rivers, and Lake Champlain are restored. When the canal system opens in May, however, those waters will once again be connected. By keeping one guard gate on the 500-plus-mile barge canal, and one lock on the 50-plus-mile Champlain Canal closed, new invasive species will be blocked from using the canal to travel from the Great Lakes into the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers, and from the Hudson into Lake Champlain. These closures would be temporary as permanent solutions that are under consideration are finalized and implemented. Between now and then, however, to ensure that we don’t end up with more destructive species entering our beloved waterways from the Great Lakes, it’s imperative we don’t reopen a superhighway for invasives.
Gov. Kathy Hochul can help ensure a thriving future for both the canal system and New York waters. She has been an advocate for upstate New York, our great natural resources, and a reimagined canal system that honors the past and serves the future. She well understands how harmful invasive species are to the environment and the economy. We’re counting on her to act swiftly and decisively to protect Lake Champlain and the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers from new invasive species before it’s too late.
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Editor’s note: This first appeared in the Albany Times Union. Used by Permission.
Yes, reasonable, effective, and timely efforts should be made to keep the round goby out of Lake Champlain. Unfortunately this alarmist and ill considered plea for our political leaders to peremptorily close a 200 year old important commercial and recreational waterway meets none of these criteria..
The round goby has taken a decade to migrate down the Erie Canal/Mohawk River to where it was found in the Hudson last year near Troy. I have yet to see any scientific analysis that explains how this small bottom feeder is expected to move 40 miles north against the fast flowing Hudson to where it could first enter the Champlain Canal this year such that shutting down the canal now would be a reasonable preventative action.
The reduced traffic in the Canal during the past two years was due in large part to the closure of the Canadian border to such boat traffic, thereby starnding many Canadian “snow bird” in the American south. Those boats are no dobt alrwady heading up the Intercoastal this spring anticipating passage through Lake Champlain. There are also indications of increased commercial traffic on the Canal this year. Arbitrary closure of “the Great Warpath” to commercial and recreational boat traffic would arguably cause as much suffering as would a round goby invasion.
Furthermore, it is by no means clear that the Canal is in fact the primary route taken by such invasives as zebra mussels and spiny waterfleas. Bait buckets and bilge water in trailered fishing boats are well known routes for such invasives – routes unaffected by canal closures.
Finally, the proponents of Champlain Canal closure have yet to address the equally likely route of the round goby from the infested St Lawrence River to the Lake via Canada’s Chambly Canal. Have letters been written to Pierre Trudeau?
The DEC and Canal Corporation have promised to bring the best available science to bear on this issue. Governor Hochul should give them time for this important work and not be stampeded into such a harmful action as blocking navigation on the Champlain Canal.
Pierre Trudeau has been dead for twenty years.
Here in Cayuga Lake, in the Seneca Canal in Seneca Falls as well as the Seneca River we already have a very “healthy” population of round goby. How did they come to be here??? The Finger Lake empty into Lake Ontario so it seems that the goby must have come from Lake Ontario, via the St. Lawrence River.
We must not forget that waterfowl can & do carry unwanted invasives & diseases of various kinds.
The author wrote: “By keeping one guard gate on the 500-plus-mile barge canal, and one lock on the 50-plus-mile Champlain Canal closed, new invasive species will be blocked from using the canal …”
Allow me to translate that- “No more through traffic on the Erie or Champlain Canals.” Thus spoiling most of their value to outside boaters. And just where would these barriers to navigation be located might I ask?
Allow me to remind readers that the maintenance of New York’s canals is enshrined in the State’s Constitution.
Article XV – Canals
Section 1
The legislature shall not sell, abandon or otherwise dispose of the now existing or future improved barge canal, the divisions of which are the Erie canal, the Oswego canal, the Champlain canal, and the Cayuga and Seneca canals, or of the terminals constructed as part of the barge canal system;
I’m pretty sure that “closing” a lock is interpreted as abandoning that section’s navigation.