Governor Says Carp Plan Isn't Tough Enough

(Feb. 9) -- Obama administration officials today are discussing their proposed $78.5 million plan to block the invasive Asian carp from the Great Lakes -- but the plan isn't tough enough for Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Granholm called for the closing of Chicago-area waterway locks to prevent the hungry, non-native fish from moving from patches of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers and into the Great Lakes, where they could put the $7 billion-a-year fishing industry at risk. She is backed by the governors of Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

"We strongly urged them to close the locks," Granholm told the Detroit Free Press after a White House summit on carp Monday. "This is urgent."

Carp have been called the "nuclear bombs" of American waterways, sometimes growing up to 100 pounds and 4 feet long. The dangerous breed is setting off a fish fight that is not only environmental but economic and, inevitably, political.

Both the federal government and the Great Lakes governors favor a carp crackdown -- especially after traces of their DNA (though no actual carp) were found in Lake Michigan behind multimillion-dollar electric barriers built to contain them. But the conflict hinges heavily on the locks: To close or not to close?

The federal plan would be funded by millions already promised for Great Lakes restoration. The proposal would shut down the Chicago-area locks for a few days to a few weeks per month. It would also amplify electric-shocking, netting, carp-specific poison and faster DNA testing to track infiltration.

It's a level of action described as "unparalleled" by the Council on Environmental Equality, even without a complete shutdown of the waterways. Illinois officials argue that closing the locks would hurt Chicago's barge business, preventing the shipping of millions of tons of gravel, coal, cement and salt.

But Granholm and other state leaders say that protecting Chicago's shipping industry, estimated between $70 million and $190 million, doesn't compare to the multibillion-dollar Great Lakes fishing business.

"President Obama proved today that he'll do anything to protect the narrow interests of his home state of Illinois," Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican running for governor, told The New York Times.

The Supreme Court has declined a request from Michigan and other states to close the Illinois locks; Cox is asking them to reconsider.

Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, told the Detroit Free Press that shutting down the Chicago-area locks wouldn't prove a cure-all for the Asian carp woes.

"That closes only two pathways for this fish to get into Lake Michigan," she said, leaving three others, where there are no locks to address, wide open.

As elected officials and government agencies debate how best to protect the Great Lakes, the source of 20 percent of the world's fresh water, Michigan residents have launched their own online campaign, www.noasiancarp.com.