Midland Daily News
8 January 2014
There is currently no actual ‘threshold’ between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, but some see one — crossed — in a report issued Monday.
In it the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers outlines eight approaches to blocking threats to the two watersheds posed by such aquatic invasive species as Asian carp.
Among the alternatives, say representatives of several conservation groups, are cause for optimism: two would include complete physical separation of the two systems, connected for more than a century by the Chicago Area Waterway System.
The report, the product of a multi-year, congressionally-ordered Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study, presented alternatives ranging from continuing current efforts (apparently no pun intended — electrical current is being used to deter fish passage) to complete physical separation of the waters. Implementation of some alternatives could take 25 years, at costs of up to $18-billion-plus.