Governor Rick Snyder says a new shipping lock in Joliet, Illinois is needed to stop Asian carp from making their way from the Mississippi River system to the Great Lakes.
Governor Snyder traveled to the Lake Michigan resort town of South Haven to make the announcement. He’s trying to create a coalition of US states and Canadian provinces to push the US Army Corps of Engineers to start the project. He says Wisconsin, Ohio, and Ontario are already on board.
Snyder says stop-gap measures like underwater electric fences won’t work forever. And he says a permanent solution will take almost a decade to complete.
“If we don’t start today, how much longer would it even be? And how much are we at risk every day we are not doing something to make this happen?”
Snyder says the states can provide seed money, and ideas. But he says it’s still up to Congress to authorize the project and provide most of the funding.