Governor Jim Doyle is being urged to join a legal effort that seeks to slam the door on invasive Asian Carp, which could enter the Great Lakes. Thom Cmar, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, notes that the Illinois Department of Natural Resources poisoned fish in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal last week. “That poisoning didn’t deal with the larger problem,” said Cmar. “The Asian carp have breached the barrier and are in the waterways in Chicago. Unless those locks are closed, there’s really nothing to prevent them from entering Lake Michigan.”
That’s something which advocates for the Great Lakes maintain would be a disaster for the lake’s fisheries, and for recreational boating. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has asked her state’s attorney general to get a court order to close the locks which connect the canal to the lake. “We’d urge Wisconsin and all the other Great Lakes states to support what Michigan is doing, and to take all appropriate legal steps to protect the Great Lakes from the urgent threat of Asian Carp,” said Cmar. A spokesman for Governor Doyle said last week that he’s looking at the action by Michigan and considering what Wisconsin’s next step will be.
There’s also talk of reopening a case before the U.S. Supreme Court – the name of the case is actually Wisconsin versus Illinois – which seeks to permanently sever the canal link between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds.
Bob Hague (:60) AUDIO: Bob Hague reports (:60 MP3)