Asian-carp threat stirs rethink of century-old feat
Great Lakes States Want to Effectively Undo a Historic Project and Cut Link to Mississippi River to Fend Off Invasive Fish 
By DOUGLAS BELKIN CHICAGO—More than a century ago, this city reversed the flow of its eponymous river, connecting the Great Lakes with the Gulf of Mexico and defining itself as the can-do capital of the American heartland. Today, that engineering feat is coming under growing scrutiny, as scientists and politicians intensify their battle against a voracious flying fish that has been traveling up the Mississippi for 20 years. Amid signs that Asian carp have breached the last defensive barrier, calls are mounting for a massive do-over. “We know these barriers aren’t working,” said Joel Brammeier, president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes and the lead author of a 2008 report that laid out how this project might look. “An ecological separation is the only permanent solution.” Six Great Lakes states and the Canadian province of Ontario have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to separate the water basins in a last-ditch effort to prevent the Asian carp from decimating the $7 billion Great Lakes fishing industry. The Army Corps of Engineers has launched a $10 million, five-year feasibility study of the idea. The plan became the focus of a hearing on the Asian carp problem on Capitol Hill last week. Any effort to cut ties between the waterways faces big hurdles. The shipping industry says closing down locks that grant access from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi would be a devastating blow to the local economy. And flood control in Chicago, which currently involves dumping large amounts of water via Chicago waterways into Lake Michigan on a semi-regular basis, would require a huge, multi-billion-dollar infrastructure fix. Back in the 1870s, the Chicago River was the dumping ground for the city’s considerable industrial refuse. The river resembled pea soup, stank and was “greasy to the touch,” wrote Donald L. Miller, author of “City of the Century,” a history of Chicago. Since the river drained into Lake Michigan and the public drinking water supply was drawn from the lake, the water was often contaminated. Cholera, typhoid and dysentery killed thousands almost every year. With the city teetering on the brink of disaster, leaders set in motion a 50-year project that reversed the course of the Chicago River by dredging it, installing massive pumps and building more than 70 miles of canals to channel the water away from the Great Lakes and into waterways that connect to the Mississippi. The result was hailed as a modern miracle. Chicago was transformed from a fetid, disease-ridden city of 300,000 to the business and cultural capital of the Midwest. But the unintended consequence of the project, along with the completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, was that this new water superhighway became a conveyor for invasive species between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. A series of critters, including Zebra mussels and round goby, have spread to waterways across the country, causing billions of dollars in damage to local ecosystems. …
