* WTTW in July…

After months of negotiations, Illinois finally signed onto a project partnership agreement this week with the state of Michigan and the Army Corps of Engineers to move forward with construction of what’s largely viewed as the last line of defense against invasive carp entering the Great Lakes.

The best chance to halt the carp’s progress into the lakes — so far the fish has relentlessly moved north up the Mississippi River — is a multi-layered barrier at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Illinois, which has been identified as a critical pinch point. […]

But the partnership agreement was needed in order to release those federal dollars and begin the actual construction phase. (Design and pre-construction has been underway since 2020.) Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker balked at signing, as previously reported by WBEZ, due to what he viewed as the state’s disproportionate shouldering — finance-wise — of a Great Lakes region-wide crisis.

“While the federal government has determined this project is of the highest priority, the taxpayers of Illinois and Michigan should not be the only states to carry the burden of the non-federal share of funding when the entire Great Lakes region will certainly experience the devastating impact of inaction,” Pritzker told the Army Corps in documents obtained by WBEZ.

* WTTW today…

On Wednesday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the project, announced it had awarded a $15.5 million contract to Miami Marine Services for site preparation and riverbed rock removal. […]

Brandon Road Lock and Dam — situated in the Des Plaines River near Joliet, roughly 30 miles southwest of Chicago — was identified as the critical pinch point where the carp could be stopped from entering the Great Lakes.

The fish have been making their way up the Mississippi into the Illinois River. Fears are that if the carp become established in the Great Lakes, they could outcompete native species, harm the ecosystem and decimate the Great Lakes’ $20 billion fishing and boating industries.

The barrier will use a multi-pronged approach, deploying various technologies to deter the invasive fish from moving closer to Lake Michigan.

* Meanwhile, Sierra Club…

Silver carp particularly represent a huge threat to the fisheries in the Great Lakes. In June 2023, 408 carp were caught in Minnesota, stunning officials. Millions of dollars a year are spent on the construction of electric barriers to keep carp from invading the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River, with a $1 billion development plan in the works from the US Army Corps of Engineers in Illinois, but it still might not be enough. […]

Researchers say just 10 breeding pairs could inundate the ecosystem.

Silver carp are coming. Barriers might slow them down, but stopping them completely may be impossible. Officials and researchers think, however, that the creation of consumer markets for silver carp could work to manage their numbers.

“If you can create a successful market around the fish, then the markets can be a tool to manage them,” said Ben Meadows, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
[…]

“A rebranding kind of campaign for them could potentially bring their price up, making it more economically viable for people to go fish for them,” he said.

One way to get the silver carp population under control seems relatively simple—eat the carp.

Thoughts?