ASHLAND —
While stories about the invasion of Asian carp in the waters of the Mississippi River and its tributaries have largely faded from the headlines, all one has to do is look at the results of a two-day professional fishing tournament in Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake to realize the fish that can weigh more than 100 pounds remain a major threat to other fish that populate the rivers, streams and lakes in Kentucky.
Using nets, the professional anglers pulled 82,953 pounds of Asian carp from the two western Kentucky lakes during the two-day tournament in which they were vying for a top prize of $10,000. While netting more than 41 tons of Asian carp in less than two days sounds like a lot of fish — and it is — it was less than half the goal of 100 tons of Asian carp the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife had set for the tournament. Twenty fishing teams signed up for the tournament, but only 11 teams brought in fish for weighing. Whether the other nine teams failed to catch Asian carp or they did not catch enough to be competitive is not known.
The tons of fish caught were taken to a processing plant in Mississippi where they were harvested for fish oils and used in pet foods. While some claim Asian carp can be quite tasty, few are willing to try it because the river carp in this region are virtually inedible and not at all tasty. It has been suggested the best way to develop a commercial market for Asian carp is to change its name.
Asian carp infiltrated the Mississippi River in the 1970s after getting loose from fish farms. Federal officials, worried about the species reaching the Great Lakes, are conducting a study to investigate how Asian carp DNA got into rivers and canals in the Chicago area.
Ron Brooks, Kentucky’s fisheries director, said one species of the problem fish, the silver carp, is prone to leaping out of the water when agitated by boat noise, which can injure boaters and skiers. He said state officials will make tweaks to the next tournament to attract more fishing teams.
The two-day tournament “validated some of the things we had thought, that good skilled fishermen can come in there and take out 10,000 pounds a day; all you have to do is create a market,” said Kentucky Fish and Wildlife spokesman Mark Marraccini. The fish can be harvested to produce fertilizers, pet foods and fish oil products, he said. They are also edible.
State officials are concerned about the rapid spread of the Asian carp in Barkley and Kentucky lakes. The carp breed faster than some native species and eat the algae and zooplankton other fish depend on. The large carp are a threat to all other fish in the two lakes, including the ones anglers most want.
Marraccini is right. Finding a commercial market for the Asian carp may be the best way to control the population. But until that happens, the large carp will be considered a nuisance and a threat to the freshwater lakes in the state, When more than 80,000 pounds of Asian carp can be caught in nets in two Kentucky lakes in just two days, it is a clear indication of just how big of a threat Asian carp are in Kentucky.
Editorials
Still a threat
2-day tournament nets more than 40 tons of Asian carp
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Funding Rupp
The use of $2.5 million in coal severance tax revenue to help pay for renovations at Rupp Arena in Lexington has drawn the ire of some county leaders in the eastern Kentucky coalfields.
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Modest increase
Full-time students at Ashland Community and Technical College will be paying an average of $60 more in tuition this fall under a modest 2.86 percent increase approved Friday by the Kentucky Community and Technical College System Board of Regents.
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The next step
The people — or at least those who took the time to vote in Tuesday’s special election — have spoken. The issue of alcohol sales in Grayson has ben settled for at least the next three years.
In an outcome that surprised many, Grayson voters rather convincingly for the legal sale of alcohol in the city for the first time since 1937. With 511 voters answering in the affirmative to the question, “Are you in favor of alcoholic beverages in Grayson, Ky.?” as opposed to 393 voting “no,” the results were not even close. The measure passed in all seven of the city’s precincts. -
Top Father
In the Spade family, the vote was unanimous. Both 12-year-old Emma Spade, who will be a seventh-grader at Verity Middle School this fall, and Emma’s 11-year-old brother Will, who attends Hagar Elementary, both thought so highly of their dad — Ponderosa Elementary School principal Matt Spade — that they both wrote essays nominating him for the Ashland Breakfast Kiwanis Club’s annual Father of the Year award, presented annually on the Tuesday before Father’s Day.
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An unselfish act
Even before the start of the recent Boyd County Health Department’s Bicycle Rodeo, Gavin Eckard said that if he won one of the two bicycle given away at the event, he would give his new bike to someone who needed it more than he did.
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Crop still banned
When their colleagues in the U.S. Senate rejected their efforts to legalize industrial hemp production as part of the Senate farm bill, Kentucky’s two Republican senators — Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and freshman Rand Paul — reacted to the Senate refusal to include their hemp proposal in the bill by saying they would oppose the comprehensive farm bill.
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It's not the breed
Lorie Akers wants the Ashland City Commissioner to adopt an ordinance banning pit bulls in the city. Since she claimed her Chihuahua Paco was attacked and killed by a neighbor’s pit bull while the little dog was chained in the back yard, it is understandable that Akers is worried that her children and other pets could be endangered by pit bulls.
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A necessary evil
The shifting of the tax burden that began when the Ashland Board of City Commissioners first adopted the payroll tax in the 1990s continues as the mayor and four elected commissioners prepare to increase the payroll tax from 1.5 to 2 percent while at the same time decreasing property taxes.
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No time to read
The complaints of two leading legislators about a provision added to a complex pension reform bill approved by the 3013 Kentucky General Assembly points hat can happen when legislative leaders wait until the final days or even hour of a legislative session to bring major pieces of legislation. In so doing, they force legislators to vote on bills they have not even had time to read.
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To the polls
On Tuesday, residents of Grayson will discover if attitudes about the sale of alcohol in the city have changed in the past 42 years. It is an important question, and we encourage registered voters to take the time to go to the polls Tuesday.
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