By John Flesher
AP Environmental Writer
TRAVERSE CITY (AP) — Legislation proposed recently in Congress would give federal engineers 18 months to devise a plan for severing ties between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River systems around Chicago to prevent Asian carp and other potentially destructive species from moving between them.
Democratic Sens. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Dick Durbin of Illinois introduced the measure, bringing together lawmakers from states that have quarreled over how to stop the unwanted carp from using Chicago-area waterways as a path to Lake Michigan, where they could destabilize the food chain and endanger native fish populations.
Rep. Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican, is sponsoring an identical bill in the House.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last year began studying how to stop species migrations between the Great Lakes and Mississippi basins — in the Chicago area and more than 20 other locations.
But it’s scheduled for completion in 2015, which critics say is too slow.
“We don’t have time to lose,” Stabenow said. “We need a comprehensive action plan to stop Asian carp and we need it as soon as possible.”
Significantly, the bills do not call for closing Chicago navigational locks that have been a sore point between Illinois and some of its neighbors.
Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania are suing in federal court to close the locks, which could provide an entryway to the lakes for the carp but are important to freight shipping and tour boat traffic around Chicago.
Stabenow said she would introduce a separate bill to shut down the locks, although previous legislative efforts to do so have failed.
The House soundly defeated Camp’s recent attempt to attach a closure amendment to a spending bill.
With that issue sidetracked, supporters said they hoped the Great Lakes region would unify behind an accelerated timetable for hydrological separation of the two water systems.
They were linked more than a century ago with a massive construction project that reversed the flow of the Chicago River and built a canal steering the city’s wastewater south toward the Mississippi.
Bighead and silver carp, Asian varieties that escaped decades ago from Southern fish farms and sewage plants, have migrated northward and reached the canal.
An electric barrier about 25 miles south of Chicago is designed to block their path, but scientists have discovered Asian carp DNA in numerous spots beyond the device.
In a phone conference with reporters, Stabenow said separating the two watersheds is the only sure way to plug the pipeline.
“We are anxious to light a fire under the Army Corps of Engineers,” she said.
The bill would give the Corps 30 days from enactment to begin studying how to achieve separation and require progress reports after six months and a year.
The plan would have to be finished within 18 months.
Although severing the linkage “would require a complex feat of engineering, we need to understand the costs and benefits and whether this method offers the best hope for a
long-term solution containing not only the carp, but other invasive species,” Durbin said.
The Army Corps recently hosted the last in a series of public meetings to gather feedback on its study, which will examine separating the watersheds and other possible
actions.
Dave Wethington, the project manager, acknowledged in a phone interview this week that participants have complained repeatedly about the deliberate pace.
He said it cannot be accelerated because of the study’s broad scope, including legally required economic and environmental analyses of any proposed steps.
“We can’t be biased,” Wethington said. “We are stewards of taxpayer dollars so we must be open to all potential options. We can’t pre-determine the solution.”
The Great Lakes Commission, representing the region’s eight states, and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative have begun a privately financed study of
separation methods.
The information it develops could help the Army Corps meet the 18-month deadline, executive director Tim Eder said.
“We have every confidence that the Army Corps of Engineers can do this,” said Marc Gaden, spokesman for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
UnLock Our Jobs, a Chicago-area business coalition, said any study of separating the watersheds should honestly assess the logistics and price tag.
“At the end of the day, it’s going to be clear separation isn’t possible for decades — and the costs are completely prohibitive,” said Mark Biel, the group’s executive director.
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