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CLEVELAND - One by one, more than 180 fish, mussels, plants, and other aquatic forms of life that don't belong in the Great Lakes have established a stronghold, messing up the food web for native fish that drive the region's multibillion-dollar tourism industry.
The invasive species also have dealt blows to property values - and have helped to increase the cost of treating drinking water for 35 million people who live in the basin.
A new problem? Hardly.
In recent years, an average of one new exotic species has been found in the lakes every eight months. Besides causing a multitude of subtle-yet-powerful changes to the lake's biology, they have been blamed for anything from more algae to dead fish and birds washing up on beaches.
The Ann Arbor-based Great Lakes Fishery Commission was created in 1955 to combat the decline of valuable lake trout that were having the life sucked out of them by vampirelike sea lamprey.
Some lamprey managed to slip into the lake system in the 1800s. They came in droves after the 27-mile Welland Canal had been dug between Lakes Erie and Ontario so that ships could get around Niagara Falls in the early 1900s.
Zebra mussels, one of the most notorious - and costly - invaders arrived in the lakes 20 years ago this year. They alone cost Great Lakes cities and power generators some $500 million annually because of how they clog intake pipes. The cost to the ecology? In the billions, easily.
A handful of bills in Congress and an untold number of broken promises later, the lakes remain vulnerable.
At a 2002 conference in Cleveland, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared invasive species the No. 1 threat facing the Great Lakes. For the...