Army Corps Being Sued To Close Carp Canal
With the largest body of fresh water in the world and the whole Canadian Great Lakes water shed on the verge of utter destruction because of the onslaught of the rapacious Asian carp, we have not heard a peep out of anyone in Washington, D.C. about the looming devastation. The terrorists that we are most concerned today about are Asian carp and they have no natural enemies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who are more worried about currying favor with shippers, barge companies, and cement businesses than they are in protecting wildlife as we have know it. Only one man that we know of is taking proactive steps to stop the madness of permitting the Chicago Sanitary &Ship Canal to stay open – and that is Mike Cox, the Attorney General of Michigan who wants to run for Governor. He is suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to permanently separate the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River’s watershed.
 Asian Carp being shocked by F&W officers in order to count the invaders in a stretch of river leading to Lake Michigan. |
See local TV News video of whining businessmen…
Dec 7 (Reuters) - The waterway that allows invasive Asian carp into the Great Lakes should be closed, Michigan's attorney general said on Monday as the state prepared a lawsuit to protect its fishing and tourism industries.
"Asian carp must be stopped now because we will not have a second chance once they enter Lake Michigan," Attorney General Mike Cox said.
His office said it would file suit soon against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state of Illinois and Chicago's sewer authority. It would ask a judge to order the separation of the Mississippi River's watershed from that of the Great Lakes, at least temporarily, to protect Michigan's $7 billion lake-related leisure and tourism industry.
Authorities fear that if the carp swim up to the Great Lakes, which supply water for tens of millions of people, they would ruin the lakes' $7 billion fishery and disturb the environment by consuming the bottom of the food chain and crowding out native species.
Business is Whining
Shippers have said closing the canal leading to the lakes could be disastrous for them, and would require 15 million tones of commodities that travel by barge annually to move by rail or truck instead. Leisure boaters could also be affected.
A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers had no comment on the pending lawsuit. The Army Corps is supposed to be analyzing the feasibility of permanently closing the link, which was created more than a century ago in a massive engineering project that included reversing the direction of the Chicago River.