It's possible - just possible - that the Mountain State's rivers are too short or too swift to allow invasive silver or bighead carp to reproduce. According to Phil Moy, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, the two species require some pretty specific conditions to spawn successfully.

"They seem to need large, deep-channeled rivers with flow volumes of at least 10,000 cubic feet per second," Moy said at a recent invasive-species seminar in Rochester, Minn.

"Their eggs drift with the current as they incubate. If they settle to the bottom, the silt suffocates them and they die. We estimate that in rivers with current speeds of 1 to 10 miles an hour, Asian carp would need a dam-free stretch of water at least 63 miles long to spawn successfully."

Let's see.

Of all the rivers that drain the West Virginia hills, only three meet Moy's flow criteria: The Ohio, of course, with an average flow of more than 60,000 cubic feet per second at Huntington; the Kanawha, which averages 15,200 cfs at its mouth; and the Monongahela, which averages 17,900 cfs.

"Wait!" I hear you cry. "That doesn't sound like good news. Those are three of our most important fisheries, and their volumes make them prime candidates for an Asian carp invasion!"

Their volumes do, but their dam-free distances don't.

All three rivers are stair-stepped by navigation dams. The longest unbroken stretch on the Ohio - at least the largest unbroken portion that touches West Virginia - is the Greenup Pool, which stretches 62 miles between the Greenup Locks near Greenup, Ky., and the Robert C. Byrd Locks near Point Pleasant.

The rest of the "navigation pools," as they're called, are significantly shorter - 30 to 42 miles on the rest of the Ohio as well as the Kanawha and the Monongahela.

Bret Preston, head of warm-water fisheries for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, said Moy's findings are welcome news.

"It wouldn't break my heart at all to know that Asian carp might have trouble adapting to our waters," Preston said.

Why? Because one species has already been found in the Ohio, and it has been found as far upstream as Wheeling.

"A few bighead carp have turned up [in DNR surveys], but never in significant numbers," Preston explained. "So far we haven't seen any silver carp."

That's really good news, because of the two species the silver variety is significantly more troublesome. It tends to jump when startled by passing boat traffic. Hundreds of fishermen and pleasure boaters throughout the Midwest have been clobbered by airborne silvers, which can weigh 30 pounds or more and can leap up to 10 feet clear of the surface.

Preston hopes the relatively short distances between West Virginia's navigation dams might prevent Asian carp from reproducing. He doesn't know for sure, but he also hopes that current speeds in the Ohio, Kanawha and Monongahela will prove too swift.

"We have higher river gradients here [than in the Midwest], but we don't know how our current speeds compare," he said. "Without knowing the exact current speeds we have, we remain concerned."

Preston said DNR officials would further investigate Moy's research and try to determine how it applies to West Virginia's rivers.