The Army Corps of Engineers is proposing a combination of old-style concrete and new style high-tech to keep Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes.
Asian carp, a non-native species, are already in the Mississippi. They’ve spread to the Des Plaines River in Illinois, where a dam south of Chicago is all that’s between them and Lake Michigan. The Army Corps of Engineers was assigned to keep them from getting by. Allen Marshall a spokesman for the Corps’ Rock Island District says a just-completed study includes improving physical impediments, and more: “A technology alternative, with electronic barrier and complex noise…that is the tentative selected plan.”
Marshall says a new “engineered channel” in the Damn’s lock system will divert fish, but also looks ahead. “My understanding is that it is going to provide a platform to install future technologies.”
Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman have been calling for action on the carp. Both applauded the report.
