21 Wednesday, June 30, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Invasive carp passes barrier 'U' endowment could post 11.5 ;percent growth Potential influx of Asian carp threatens Great Lakes industries By SUZANNE JACOBS Daily StaffReporter Though efforts have been made to keep the Bighead Asian carp at bay and out of the Great Lakes, the recent dis- covery of a carp beyond the electrical barrier system in place at the Chicago Area Waterway System has left many wildlife experts uneasy. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service reported the dis- covery of an Asian carp - an invasive species that has ravaged the Missis- sippi and Illinois river systems - about 6 miles downstream of Lake Michigan, according to a press release issued last week. The IDNR has been sampling the Chicago Area Waterway System since February in search of both Bighead and Silver Asian carp. The fish caught in Lake Calumet on Jun. 22 by a com- mercial fisherman contracted by the IDNR measured 34.6 inches long and weighed 19.6 pounds. John Rogner, assistant director of the IDNR, said no additional Asian carp have been found after further net- ting and electrofishing in the area. He said fishermen will continue to survey Lake Calumet and the Calumet River leading to Lake Michigan through this week, but even if no Asian carp are found, the threat of the invasive spe- cies' northern migration will remain. "One fish doesn't necessarily mean there are more fish, but it certainly rings the alarm bell," he said. "We will never become confident that there are none in the system. We don't see an endpoint actually. I think (the search) will continue for a good long while." In the event that fishermen find more of the foreign species, Rogner said the IDNR may pursue intense fish- ing and adding Rotenone - a chemical toxin - in the water. He said that if implemented properly, Rotenone can effectively kill the Asian carp, while sparing other fish that are more toler- ant of the toxin. Charlie Wooley, the deputy regional director for the USFWS in Minneapo- lis, Minn., said it's too soon to specu- late what the IDNR and the USFWS will do if more Asian carp show up. "If there are additional fish found ... we would reconvene the technical experts, and we would design another ... kind of control action in that area. What that would be, it would be too early to conjecture that right now," he said. Wooley did warn, however, that if there are more Asian carp above the U.S. Army Corp of Engineer's Electri- cal Barrier System and they become established in the Great Lakes, there would be disastrous ecological conse- quences. "They have left a trail of devasta- tion behind them as they've moved through the river system. We just do not want to see that happen in South- ern Lake Michigan," he said. The only other Asian carp found in the CAWS was caught on Dec. 3 of last year in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Unlike the first fish, the specimen caught last week was found above the electric barrier, which was designed specifically to keep inva- sive aquatic species from entering the Great Lakes Basins from the Missis- sippi River. According to Rogner, the electric barrier has three parts but only two of them are currently fully functional. Construction on the third will be com- pleted in the fall, at which point, he said, the barrier will be a "very effec- tive system." Although this is the first fish caught above the barrier, a research team led by David Lodge, a professor of biologi- cal sciences at the University of Notre Dame, found environmental DNA of Silver Asian carp in the Calumet River and Calumet Harbor last year, which at the time indicated the presence of the invasive species. Last week's catch validated Lodge's findings and has caused great alarm among state officials. A report from the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, a group dedicated to the control and management of Asian carp in the U.S., said fish farmers in the south imported the species in the 1970s to keep aqua- culture facilities clean and provide fresh fish for markets. The destructive path up the Mis- sissippi River of the invasive spe- cies began in the 1980s when the fish escaped into the wild, and they have since dominated the Mississippi and Illinois river systems and continue to move northward. See CARP, Page 3 CFO Slottow cautions projection may change By KYLE SWANSON Daily News Editor Despite a significant drop in its overall investment portfolio last year, top University officials are say- ing publicly that they expect to see above-average returns this year. The University's endowment fell more than 20 percent last year, leav- ing its market value down $1.6 billion. However, a communica- tion to the University's" Board of Regents earli- er this month projected that the endow- KYLE SWANSON ment would o Cvngthe grow by 11.5 percent by the end of the year. If reached, the growth would put the University's endowment to $6.7 billion - an increase of nearly $700 million. Such projections are not typically released by University officials, who carefully guard detailed information about the true market value of the endowment until investment returns are formally released at the October Board of Regents meeting. However, the estimates given by Tim Slottow, the University's execu- tive vice president and chief financial officer, appeared in a communica- tion sent to the University's Board of Regents earlier this month. The communication was a propos- al Slottow had submitted to lower the University's endowment annual pay- out rate from 5 percent to 4.5 percent. However, the proposal was tabled during June's lengthy meeting which focused on the University's budget. Despite the technical withdrawal of the proposal, Slottow verified in an interview with The Michigan Daily that the projection of an 11.5-percent return on the endowment was still accurate for this year. However, Slot- tow cautioned that the estimate will likely not be exact and could end up being different depending on market performance. If the projected performance does hold true, it would outpace the aver- age return realized on the Univer- sity's endowment, which has seen average growth of nine percent each year over the last decade. Such growth outpaces the S&P 500, which lost an average of 2.2 percent per year over the same time period, and the average university endowment, which earned 4.2 percent per year over the last 10 years. And while the University's endow- ment has consistently outperformed many other universities across the country, Slottow's proposal to the regents to lower the endowment pay- out rule could help the University to increase its annual returns further. In his proposal to the regents, which may be brought before the regents in July since it was not dis- cussed at the June meeting, Slottow outlined that the change could help to further insulate the University's endowment from market volatility by providing a more consistent, posi- tive return on the University's invest- ments. The result would minimize chances that the University would see major positive or negative swings in the market value of its endowment. If the proposal is approved by the Board of Regents in the upcoming months, the change would be the fourth time the regents have changed the endowment spending rule since implementing their first non-absolute return endowment spending policy in 1986. University leaders have also said that any change to the endowment spending rule would be implemented slowly to ensure funds are more con- sistently distributed to units within the University than in prior years. Online at MichiganDaily.com 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 weww.m~iehigandaily.com ANDREW LAPIN BRAD WILEY Editor in Chief Business Manager r..in ~nih..d dv rbusinss.. '.0 c CONTACT INFORMATION Newsroom Officehours: Sun.-Thurs. 11a.m. -2 am. 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