Abstract: The Electrical Dispersal Barrier is located on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC) at Romeoville, Illinois. It was constructed to prevent the movement of invasive fish between the Mississippi River Basin and the Great Lakes. The electric barrier operates by creating high-power pulsed direct current electric fields in the canal water. Fish penetrating the electric field are exposed to electrical stimuli, which act as a deterrent. As a fish swims into the field, it feels increasingly uncomfortable. When the sensation is too intense, the fish either is immobilized or is deterred from progressing further into the field. This presentation will cover the EMC issues related to the high-power barrier. Topics include high-voltage /high-current pulsers; stray electrical currents propagating into the surrounding soil causing shock hazards, accelerated corrosion, and EMI to the nearby railroad signaling system; sparking on metal barges passing over the barrier; the distortion of the electric field by metal-hulled vessels; hazards to a person in water; and interference due to radiated RF. This is the first time an electric barrier was constructed on an enormous navigable waterway with four separate barriers. The combination of these barriers is designed to function together to prevent inter-basin transfer of fish between the Mississippi River and Great Lakes drainage basins, particularly the northerly movement of two invasive species of Asian carp.

Mr. Michael McInerney, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Engineer Research Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL)

Michael K. McInerney is with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Engineer Research Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL), in Champaign, Illinois. He has more than 35 years of experience in the measurement and modeling of electric and magnetic properties of materials and skilled in the use of acoustic and EM techniques to nondestructively inspect materials. He is also skilled in the use of EM remote-sensing techniques to characterize infrastructure. He has been a registered Professional Engineer since 1990, an iNARTE Certified EMC Engineer since 1996, and holds two FCC radio licenses. Mr. McInerney has more than 60 technical publications in the areas of EMC, corrosion prevention, and electrokinetics. He also holds seven US patents, and has won several prestigious awards, including the 2010 USACE Researcher of the Year. Since 2005, Mr. McInerney has been co-chair of the EMC Society’s TC5 on High-Power Electromagnetics. He participates in many IEEE standards technical committees, including IEEE Std-1302 and IEEE Std-299. Mr. McInerney serves as a subject-matter expert for the USACE in lightning protection and High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP). He serves on EMC-related Department of Defense technical criteria committees such as MIL-HDBK-423 and MIL-STD-188-125. He has an MS degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois (1984), a BS in Electrical Engineering, and a BS in Mathematics and Physics from Iowa State University (both 1978).