By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

CHICAGO, Ill. — A hearing earlier this month could determine whether locks connecting Lake Michigan to the Chicago area’s waterway system will be closed permanently or remain open.

A lawsuit filed July 19 by the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Ohio seeks to have the locks closed in order to prevent the migration of Asian carp from Chicago area waterways into the Great Lakes. Judge Robert Dow Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois heard the case on Sept. 7.

The defendants are the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.
“I am excited that the Great Lakes will finally get their day in court,” said Mike Cox, Michigan attorney general. “Our experts will prove we face a biological crisis that will cripple the economy of the Great Lakes if not addressed immediately.

“With the discovery of a live Asian carp beyond the so-called barriers in Chicago, there is great urgency to act now because thousands of jobs hang in the balance.”

Joy Yearout, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said the judge has asked that both sides file a summary brief. In October he will call back both sides to give closing arguments and the judge will have the opportunity to ask questions.

She said the judge is planning on writing an opinion; Yearout would not speculate on how long it will take the judge to render a decision.

“He seemed to be really engaged and appears to be giving us a fair hearing,” she said.

An earlier lawsuit to have the locks closed failed; however, according to Yearout, the court did not take up the case but also didn’t rule on the merits of the issue.

Just last week Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (MDNRE) Director Rebecca Humphries met with officials from the Obama administration at the White House to discuss the Asian carp issue. Granholm has called for closure of the Chicago area locks to separate the two waterways permanently, but the White House has resisted.

“I am grateful that the Obama administration has identified John Goss as the new Asian Carp director and I implore him to bring to this position the sense of urgency required to strengthen and expedite the federal response necessary to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes,” Granholm said.

“We should not leave any options on the table in protecting the Great Lakes ecosystem and $7 billion recreational fishing and $16 billion recreational boating industries that this invasive species threatens.”

Granholm said she considers the carp issue to be an emergency and that the Army Corps of Engineers’ timeline to study a possible separation barrier is not sufficiently urgent.

“We continue to urge swift action by the Army Corps to expedite necessary studies to move to permanent separation of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watershed,” Humphries said.

“We appreciate the work completed thus far and look forward to collaborating with the Army Corps and other federal agencies on measures to achieve permanent separation.”

The Army Corps has taken the position that an electric barrier separating the Asian carp from the Great Lakes, along with other strategies such as poisoning the waterways periodically, should be enough to keep the fish from migrating into the Great Lakes.