Responsibility to fight invasive species

A perverse spring and summer season descended on United States waters this year, spreading death and destruction like weeds choking an untended garden.

First came news that thousands of freshwater fish were bleeding internally and dying in the Great Lakes at the hands of an invasive microbe called viral hemorrhagic septicemia. And throughout the summer, defenders of the Adirondack lakes in upstate New York fought an all-out war against Eurasian watermilfoil, a "stringy herb" that is elbowing out native aquatic plants at an alarming rate.

This onslaught of "living pollution" has been particularly apparent and - in the case of viral hemorrhagic septicemia - gruesome this year. But it's not new. For decades, the people living along our coastlines have struggled to eradicate or contain foreign plants, animals and microorganisms that enter the United States by the billions each year via international shipping vessels.