Carp Invasion May Prompt Changes to Waterways

Barge traffic could be disrupted in the Calumet River if the Thomas O'Brien Lock and Dam is closed due to the Asian Carp. Bonnie Trafelet/Chicago news Cooperative

The battle over closing Chicago-area outlets into Lake Michigan is not only about preventing Asian carp from decimating the $7 billion Great Lakes fishing industry, experts said. It has also prompted efforts to re-engineer a century-old waterway system that Joel Brammeier, president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, has compared to “having left Michigan Avenue a dirt road while we built up a modern city around it.”

Michigan and four other states have filed suit in federal court demanding the closure of locks that connect rivers and channels to the lake. Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Monday. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce has countered that Asian carp pose no imminent ecological threat and shutting the locks would mean billions in losses for tour boats, shipping and other industries.

Urban planners and environmental groups said there is another way to deal with the Asian carp threat: separate the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins, which were joined a century ago by the man-made reversal of the Chicago River and the building of canals.

Separation could also involve overhauling Chicago’s outdated wastewater-treatment system and reduce the city’s controversial diversion of two billion gallons of water a day out of Lake Michigan into the Chicago River.

The Army Corps of Engineers is among the groups studying ways to achieve what is formally called “ecological or hydrological separation” of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Great Lakes Commission, the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence Cities Initiative and others are conducting their own studies on separating the two great drainage basins. Thom Cmar, staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said its study, which will be released this week, shows that separation is a series of engineering challenges, but they are all solvable problems. “It’s a matter of unpacking all the issues that need to be addressed and finding the political will and resources to address them,” he said.

Environmental experts have proposed building concrete walls or other means to separate the Calumet River from the Cal-Sag Channel and the Chicago River from the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. One barrier might be erected in Bridgeport, where the Chicago River meets the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Both the Calumet and Chicago Rivers might also be “re-reversed” to flow into Lake Michigan and halt the diversion of Great Lakes water.

The Metropolitan Planning Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council, among other groups, said a break near Bridgeport could still allow tour and recreational boats to move freely north of that point between the Chicago River and Lake Michigan through the locks at Navy Pier. Barges carrying coal, gravel, grain and other low-value bulk commodities could still ply most of the waterway system. Cargo could be transferred to railcars or trucks at the separation point, which the planners said could create hundreds of jobs.

In a study commissioned by the State of Michigan, John Taylor, a transportation specialist at Wayne State University, put the cost of transferring goods at $70 million a year. That could ruin river shipping, said Mark Biel, president of Unlock Our Jobs, a coalition of industry groups that use the waterway. Commodities shipped by barge have a low profit margin, and extra transportax1tion costs would probably make them unsellable, Mr. Biel said.

Other opponents of separation — including the Port of Indiana — agree that even if the canals remain open, cutting off access to Lake Michigan will change the economics of trade enough to seriously harm businesses from corn starch refineries to steel mills to chemical plants. They also said they are afraid it could set a precedent that would allow closure of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Ballast water from ocean-going ships has been a source of invasive species, and environmental groups have proposed closing the seaway unless strict ballast-treatment regulations are imposed.

“If you can shut down the Chicago waterway over Asian carp, you could shut down the St. Lawrence Seaway over an invasive species,” Mr. Biel said.

Mr. Brammeier, president of the Alliance for Great Lakes, disputed that notion. “These are completely different situations except that they both involve protecting the status quo,” he said. “The only thing that will paralyze the shipping industry is its unwillingness to talk about improvements.”

The Port of Indiana recently released a study that said the O’Brien Lock in southeast Chicago accounted for $1.9 billion a year in economic activity in Indiana. Jody Peacock, the port spokesman, said separation of Chicago-area waterways from the Mississippi would cost Indiana steel mills and Midwestern farmers access to significant portions of their markets.

But Mr. Taylor, of Wayne State, said the study exaggerated the probable impact of a separation, noting that the approximately 5,000 barges that move through the O’Brien Lock each year represent only about 1 percent of the lock activity in Illinois and barges carry only 2 percent of the region’s outbound steel.

“There are costs involved, but there are also benefits,” Mr. Taylor said. “For most companies, we don’t believe the cost increases are enough to make them shut down.”

Michigan’s lawsuit, filed in July, was prompted by findings of eDNA — bits of biological material from Asian carp — in Calumet Harbor and other spots near the lake. The suit called for the locks at Navy Pier and on the Calumet River to be closed immediately to prevent the carp from establishing a viable population in the lake. But lock closure is not considered a long-term option: closed locks still allow water — and potentially eggs and juvenile fish — to pass through screens.

Lawyers for the Army Corps of Engineers have disputed the idea that eDNA findings show that the corps’ existing electric barriers on the sanitary and ship canal have failed to block Asian carp. Separation supporters said the corps will likely eventually oppose separation as not feasible and instead favor “acoustic bubble” curtains, low-oxygen zones and other ways to kill or block species.

Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army (Civil Works), said the corps would consider all options. “We need to look not only at the aquatic and ecological impact, but also the impact on the economy and the people who depend on this waterway for a living,” she said.

Restoring the original flow of the Chicago River could mean several of the area’s northern wastewater-treatment plants would need to be improved. There are stricter water-quality standards for Lake Michigan than the Chicago River and canal system, where the wastewater currently goes, so re-reversing the river to flow back into Lake Michigan would entail a higher level of treatment.

“As the city grows we’re going to need more water,” said Josh Ellis, a water expert with the Metropolitan Planning Council. “If we clean our water after we use it and return it to Lake Michigan like everyone else does, then we can use more.”