SAMPLE RESOLUTION
RESOLUTION
___________
Resolution to support all federal
and state efforts to prevent the Asian carp from infiltrating the Great
Lakes.
WHEREAS,
Michigan is home to one of the world’s largest freshwater coastlines
in the world that supports a thriving tourism trade, fishing industry,
and provides the State a unique competitive advantage in attracting
jobs and investment.
WHEREAS,
the Great Lakes provide 20% of the World’s freshwater;
WHEREAS,
recent studies have tied more than 800,000 jobs to the Great Lakes and
estimated the Great Lakes fishery economy at $7 billion;
WHEREAS,
a lack of action and understanding regarding the fragile nature of the
Great Lakes eco-system has allowed numerous invasive species to enter
the Great Lakes with harmful impacts;
WHEREAS,
the Asian carp has proven to be highly detrimental to the safety of
people and the health of eco-systems in the United States where the
fish are now established;
WHEREAS,
the Asian carp can grow up to six feet and one hundred pounds, some
are easily frightened by boats and personal watercraft, which causes
them to leap as high as eight feet into the air injuring boaters by
collisions with the fish.
WHEREAS,
the Asian carp is considered to be voracious plankton feeder, eating
up to 40% of its body weight per day, that could breed quickly, and
dominate food supplies within the Great Lakes harming precious gaming
fish;
WHEREAS,
two species of Asian carp have now spread through
the Mississippi River basin into the Chicago Waterway System that connects
to the Great Lakes and have been detected at
the edge of Lake Michigan;
WHEREAS,
Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox and numerous elected officials have
sought comprehensive action to close connections in the Chicago
Waterway system to Lake Michigan in order to create a permanent separation
between the waterways that have already been invaded by the Asian carp
and the Great Lakes, an action that is supported by the states of Ohio,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania and the Canadian Province
of Ontario.
WHEREAS,
further inaction could have extreme and detrimental consequences on
the ecology of the Great Lakes should the Asian carp enter the lakes
system and begin to breed.
Now,
therefore be it resolved that the board of __________________________________,
urges Congress and the President of the United States to take all necessary
precautions to protect the Great Lakes from the Asian carp and the eventual
economic and ecological disaster that an invasion of Asian carp would
pose to the Great lakes ecosystem, and ultimately, the economies of
the Great Lakes States.
RESOLUTION
DECLARED AND ADOPTED.
DATED:
___________________, 2010.
________________________________
Name
_____________________________
Clerk
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