Todd Spangler

Detroit Free Press

Report looked at Asian carp and 11 other aquatic threats that could cause damage to Great Lakes

Congress requested study to keep non-native fish in Chicago waterways from reaching Lake Michigan

Report outlines options for physical separation%2C special locks and gates%2C and chemical agents

WASHINGTON — The Army Corps of Engineers released Monday its long-awaited report on options for keeping Asian carp out of the Great Lakes, with some of the most potentially effective alternatives possibly taking decades to implement and costing up to $18 billion.

The Corps' 232-page report — formally the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study — took an exhaustive look not only at two species lumped together as Asian carp, but at 11 other aquatic nuisance species of fish, grasses and other threats that could cause damage by spreading from the river watershed to the Great Lakes or vice versa.

Congress first asked the Corps for a study into how to keep voracious species of non-native fish known as Asian carp, found in Chicago-area waterways, from reaching Lake Michigan seven years ago. But the report, while outlining options for physical separation, special locks and gates, and chemical agents, stopped short of recommending one.

That left members of Congress who had called for the report disappointed amid reports that Asian carp DNA has already been found in Lake Michigan, and ongoing concerns that existing electronic barriers in Chicagoland waterways aren't secure enough to keep the fish from spreading and devastating the food chain for local species.

"We don't need more studies," said U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who along with U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, a Republican from Midland, Mich., got legislation passed requiring the report be completed. "The threat is real. ...We know that electronic barriers are not enough."

Speaking to reporters Monday, Stabenow and Camp said at least the report gives federal, state and local governments, as well as concerned environmental groups and businesses, a chance to coalesce behind one option.

But with the Corps saying the option officials seem most interested in — physical separation of the waterways — will require 25 years and $15 billion to $18 billion, moving forward quickly may be politically and financially impossible.

Only one option considered effective at controlling Asian carp would take less time — 10 years — and cost $8 billion: relying largely on a new kind of lock, chemical treatments and more, but with limited physical barriers.

"There's an urgency to this," said Camp, a member of House leadership who has been pushing for controls on the spread of Asian carp for years. "Clearly, 25 years is not the time frame that we're looking at."

The Corps not only looked at the spread of Asian carp, but also the possibility of invaders in the Great Lakes making their way into the Mississippi watershed, including bloody red shrimp, grass kelp and red algae, the tubenose goby and more.

Prevention efforts are complicated by water and flood systems in the greater Chicago area and an intricate series of waterways, both man-made and natural.

Jo-Ellen Darcy, the assistant secretary of the Army who oversees the Corps, said the report should help decision makers make up their minds on a path forward, which will begin with a series of public meetings beginning in Chicago on Thursday.

The Corps also has meetings scheduled in Ann Arbor, Mich., Cleveland, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, St. Louis and Traverse City, Mich.

The options range from taking no new action — a suggestion Stabenow and Camp rejected out of hand — to those creating a physical separation at the edge of Lake Michigan, which the Corps estimates would take 25 years to complete and cost as much as $18 billion in its most drastic form. It also would cause the greatest cost impact on commercial cargo.

Much of the overall cost — $14 billion — would be tied up in flood management basins and miles of runoff tunnels which would have to be built to reduce increased risks of flooding in the Chicago area, however.

While Stabenow and Camp, as well as other elected officials, have urged a physical barrier, it represents a tough political battle with business interests lining up against it because of concerns it would hurt shipping. Mark Biel, executive director for the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois, called physical separation "too expensive, too slow and too uncertain to be a viable solution."

Environmental groups saw it otherwise.

Marc Gaden, with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, noted that much of the costs are associated with flood and wastewater controls in the Chicago area that need to be undertaken no matter what is done about Asian carp. Interim protections would continue until a permanent solution is implemented.

"Any plan that falls short of permanent ecological separation leaves Michigan's economy and ecology at risk," said Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.

The Corps laid out several other options. One, which included using herbicides to prevent the transfer of species, could cost as little as $68 million a year, but wouldn't necessarily reduce the risk of Asian carp spreading into Lake Michigan.

Other options included various configurations of electronic barriers, screened sluice gates and physical separations at different choke points in the watershed — all of which would take at least a decade to put in place and cost anywhere from $8 billion to $15.5 billion, with varying degrees of protection and impact.

The Corps also said it is looking at a specially designed lock system that would pump clean, treated water in and untreated water out.

Used in tandem with electronic barriers, the lock also could stop Asian carp, the Corps said — but it could still take 25 years to put in place and cost $15.5 billion.

One other option, with limited physical barriers, would cost $8 billion, relying largely on electronic barriers and the new locks, but would send treated wastewater and stormwater runoff into Lake Michigan.

How the costs of any option would be split between federal, state and local governments is yet to be seen.

But environmental activists said it is vital that after years of study, officials take the documentation from the Corps' study and move toward a coordinated plan of action to keep the carp out of the Lakes, where they could destroy a multibillion-dollar fishery.

"The Great Lakes need additional protection right now," said Joel Brammeier, president and CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. "That's not something we see yet mapped out in this report."