Officials are poisoning waterways in order to kill massive numbers of Asian carp, an invasive species that threatens the multi-billion dollar Great Lakes fishing industry. The poisoning also collaterally kills thousands of other fish species. Critics want to know if this is the right thing to be doing?

Tom Remington

I’ve heard about this action before and I still can’t believe it. In Lake Shelbyville, Illinois officials want your old Christmas trees.

LAKE SHELBYVILLE, Ill. Done with your Christmas tree? The U-S Army Corps of Engineers is asking people to donate their discarded trees so help fish in Lake Shelbyville.
The trees are bundled in small groups and submerged in the portions of the eleven-hundred acre lake in southern Illinois. The trees provide shelter for breeding fish and also give fish places to hide.

Long before we ever gave much thought to polluting waters or the air, my Daddy told me one thing that I have tried to use as a guideline concerning pollution – “If it didn’t come from there, it don’t belong in there.”

For the life of me, I don’t understand how in this day and age a federal institution can be allowed to do something like this. I agree that the sunken trees probably do provide habitat for fish but does the end justify the means?

I am now witnessing lakes that were created by the building of dams from many years ago. Often times trees that were going to be in the projected flooded areas would be cut down and left. Several decades later, officials want the trees removed because of what they are doing to the water. So, why are we dumping our old Christmas trees into the water?

Tom Remington