A new Project Partnership Agreement (PPA) aiming to prevent the spread of invasive carp to the Great Lakes was announced earlier this month. The Rock Island District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the states of Michigan and Illinois signed the PPA, a type of legally binding agreement for the development of a water resources project. The agreement will allow construction of the first increment to begin on the Brandon Road Interbasin Project.
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Located in Joliet, Illinois, 35 miles southwest of Chicago, the project will be at a lock and dam along the Des Plaines River, a critical choke point for stopping the invasive fish from moving upstream to Lake Michigan. It will implement a series of barriers including a bubble curtain, acoustic deterrent, and electric current. The layered use of these defensive technologies makes the Brandon Road Project the first of its kind.
Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Molly Flanagan, chief operating officer and vice president of programs at the Alliance for the Great Lakes, said the agreement unlocks the federal funding necessary to begin building the project.
“We want construction to begin as soon as possible,” she said. “The ultimate goal is to get these protections built at Brandon Road to keep invasive carp out of the Great Lakes.”
While the $114 million needed from Michigan and Illinois have already been acquired, the agreement secures $274 million from the federal government to begin construction, including $226 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The problem with invasive carp
While common carp aren’t new to the U.S., four species of Asian carp – bighead, silver, black and grass – pose a serious threat to other fish, as well as to people and Great Lakes industries. Introduced to North America in the 1970s to aid pest control in aquaculture facilities, the carp escaped into the Mississippi River Basin.
Invasive carp grow to large sizes and lay hundreds of thousands of eggs at a time, meaning populations balloon rapidly. According to Flanagan, invasive carp dominate ecosystems by comprising up to 90% of the biomass in the waters they inhabit.
“They eat a lot of the food that native fish depend on,” she said. “They essentially destroy the food web.”
Invasive carp also monopolize the habitat native fish need, contributing to further decline.
“We’ve seen the extreme devastation that invasive carp can have on ecosystems. We want to keep that from happening in the Great Lakes,” Flanagan said.
Beyond threats to native wildlife, invasive carp can harm humans. Silver carp leap out of the water when startled, injuring boaters or damaging equipment. Flanagan said this could impact recreation and tourism in the region. Experts worry the spread of these fish could harm the Great Lakes’ $7 billion fishing industry as well.
Silver carp jump out of the water. Photo: Jason Lindsey, Prairie Rivers Network, Courtesy of Alliance for the Great Lakes
Collective efforts towards a solution
“We really want to keep invasive carp out,” Flanagan said, “to protect the ecology of the Great Lakes, but also to protect the economy of the Great Lakes region.”
The Brandon Road Project will prevent invasive carp from invading Lake Michigan and eventually reaching other Great Lakes including Lake Erie.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re [in] the city of Chicago, where they might enter the Great Lakes, or near Erie, Pennsylvania,” Flanagan said. “No one wants invasive carp in those places.”
Experts across the Great Lakes regions have been monitoring invasive carp for years, preparing strategies to protect their waters.
She said the project partnership agreement represents “a good example of the Great Lakes states coming together … There’s this joint understanding that there’s a real threat to communities, [but] also a joint understanding that there is a real solution that people can rally behind.”
