The state of Illinois on Friday finalized its acquisition of a 50-acre piece of land needed for a project to protect the Great Lakes from invasive carp, construction that has drawn the support of both Gov. JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump.
“This is something that we’ve been waiting for for over a decade,” Marc Smith, policy director for the National Wildlife Federation, said. “It’s very good progress.”
The state earlier this year postponed construction on the Joliet-area project, with state officials saying they didn’t want to move forward because they anticipated a federal funding shortfall. Then, two weeks ago, the Trump administration announced it supported the project and that funding was available, though Pritzker and Trump still managed to snipe at each other at the time.
Midwest Generation, an energy company that had owned the parcel, donated the land after the Illinois Department of Natural Resources approached the company about acquiring the property. Midwest Generation donated the land “in support of the project,” company spokesperson Erik Linden said.
Acquiring the land, which includes riverbed access for the Brandon Road lock, will help enable construction at the lock and dam there. The work is intended to stop the spread of invasive carp, which could pose a significant threat to the Great Lakes region’s native species, ecosystems and billion-dollar fishing and boating industries.
The property transferred Friday is needed to complete the first part of a three-phase project, according to IDNR spokesperson Jayette Bolinski. Additional upland property will eventually also need to be acquired, Bolinski said.
The land transfer that was finalized Friday “enables ongoing construction to proceed on schedule,” said Don Jodrey, director of federal relations at the Alliance for the Great Lakes.
Trump earlier this month blamed Pritzker for not allowing the project to start, while the federal government, he said, has already begun work on it. The Pritzker administration said it halted the work earlier this year in part because it was worried needed federal funding wouldn’t come through, as the Trump administration had pulled back on unrelated projects.
The land had previously been a key sticking point for the project, with some advocates worried it might be contaminated as it’s the site of a former coal plant.
The agreement reached on the project included assurances that the land will be safe, Smith said. And the Pritzker administration last year said the state negotiated a deal ensuring taxpayers would not have to pay for remediation costs.
So-called Asian carp, which are invasive across the United States, include silver, bighead, grass and black carp. Silver and bighead carp are particular threats to native species as they have no natural predators in American waterways and likely never will, meaning their populations can grow uncontrollably.
Invasive carp were introduced in the 1960s to get rid of chemicals in aquaculture and other facilities without using chemicals. But after flooding in the 1980s and ‘90s, they escaped into the Mississippi River basin and spread to 31 states.
Progress on the project has been a long time coming, Smith said. Congress identified the site as a place to deter invasive species in 2015, according to IDNR.
“We’ve had three presidents, multiple Congresses … two, three governors from Illinois, multiple governors from Michigan” as well as several project managers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he said. “With this property secured, construction can move forward.”