US Army shuts Chicago Canal to kill carp, killing barge trade too

FEDERAL authorities, responding to one state's environmental concerns in another has ordered the US Army Corp of Engineers to shut down the Chicago Canal, and with it, the barge trade moving needed household fuel and road salt.

American Waterways Operators (AWO) spokeswoman Lynn Muench said millions of tons of cargo move on the canal annually. That cargo presumably would have to be transferred to the congested rails and roads of the Chicago metro area, reported the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

But the US Army Corps of Engineers want 10 days to kill the Asia carp, a fish considered too big and dangerous for the Great Lakes, according to Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and five ecological concern groups threatening to sue if authorities did not close river locks in Chicago, Illinois, to prevent the carp's progress from the Mississippi into the Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes.

But shutting down the canal for 10 days without warning to inland mariners "shows a lack of understanding and consideration by the agencies of the economic impact of the shutdown," said the AWO.

Officials have shut down a Chicago shipping channel while they dump in poison to prevent what they say could become an "environmental disaster". Of the carp, Wikipedia says: "The Silver Carp also known as the Flying Carp can grow to 100 pounds, and jumping carp are dangerous to boaters and fisherman."

The Michigan governor wants the US Army Corps of Engineers to shut the navigational locks in Illinois, the state across the lake from her state, that are now believed to be the only thing standing between the carp and Lake Michigan. She has instructed her attorney general to go to the US Supreme Court to pursue legal remedies to force the issue.

Governor Granholm blames Chicago's construction of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal over a century ago. The canal, built to carry Chicago sewage away from Lake Michigan, created an artificial connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River.

Conservationists, however, have argued that the costs of keeping the drainages connected will also be staggering because the canal has become an open door for species to move between two of the continent's most important watersheds.

Source: www.schednet.com