photo credit: yeowatzup

Asian carp (bighead and silver)–the non-native species that have bred excessively in the Mississippi basin, feed by filtering plankton, have been declared an invasive species by the U.S. Department of the Interior, and are a general nuisance to outdoor water recreationists–are coming dangerously close to breaching the Chicago-area waterway system that links the Mississippi to the Great Lakes. Earlier this month, in fact, Asian carp DNA was found in Lake Michigan, but no actual fish have been discovered yet.

Currently, the potential environmental and economic impact of these nuisance fish finding their way into the Great Lakes (and beyond) is unknown, but many Great Lakes’ Governors, mayors, and conservationists suspect the outcome may be devastating, which is reason for the recent legal and political positioning among certain members of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative. Mike Cox, the attorney general of Michigan, has even filed a lawsuit on behalf of his state to close the locks of Chicago’s main shipping channel immediately.

“Mr. Cox, a Republican who is running for governor of Michigan this year, said hundreds of thousands of jobs in his state depended on Lake Michigan, and in December he filed a lawsuit. ‘This is an environmental and economic emergency,’ Nick De Leeuw, a spokesman for Mr. Cox, said of the potential damage the carp could inflict throughout the lakes. ‘It’s almost like a bad science fiction movie,’” writes Monica Davey of The New York Times.

Not surprisingly, the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago are being put in very tough spot politically, having to weigh concerns regarding the potential environmental disaster of a Great Lakes carp invasion on one hand, and the economic challenges to Chicago’s shipping industry (which could be severely impacted by the locks closing) on the other.

More background on the Asian carp and efforts to restrict their spread: