Granholm calls Obama carp plan weak

Feds pledge $78.5M, but Granholm wants locks shut

Deb Price and Nathan Hurst / Detroit News Washington Bureau

Washington -- The Obama administration proposed Monday a $78.5 million plan to try to prevent the voracious Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes, but Gov. Jennifer Granholm said it falls short of what's needed to protect the fragile ecosystem from another threat.

"The economic damage from these carp coming into the Great Lakes system would be irreparable," Granholm told reporters after a meeting between Midwest governors and administration officials at the White House. "They should shut the locks down until they get these other measures in place, and permanently have a solution to separating these two water systems."

The meeting came on the eve of a congressional hearing on invasive carp and underscored the urgency of preventing the fish from taking hold in the Great Lakes. Granholm and other Midwest governors requested the meeting after last month's setback in the Supreme Court, which ruled Illinois doesn't have to immediately close the shipping channel locks to block the Asian carp's advance, and discovery of the fish's DNA in a portion of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal near Lake Michigan.

White House officials made it clear after Monday's meeting that the canal's locks wouldn't be permanently closed, which Illinois opposed, though their operation will be limited.

Charlie Wooley, deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the administration's goal was to make sure Asian carp aren't able to breed a sustainable population in the Great Lakes, stopping short of Michigan's demands that they be kept out of Lake Michigan entirely.

Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, insisted other methods of keeping the invasive carp out of Lake Michigan would work and that the administration would rely on "the best available science."

The $78.5 million for the containment efforts would largely come out of the $475 million Congress appropriated for this fiscal year's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. What was unclear is which lakes projects might go unfunded as money is used to fight the Asian carp. And in the fiscal year 2011 budget President Barack Obama released last week, he scaled back money for lakes restoration work to $300 million.

Shippers have opposed closing the locks, saying it would cost them close to $200 million. Opponents to a complete closure of the Chicago canal include The American Waterways Operators, a Virginia-based organization of shippers who use the Great Lakes to move cargo.

Christopher Coakley, the group's vice president of legislative affairs, said on a call after the White House meeting that his organization is in favor of many of the options outlined in the framework presented by the White House on Monday, "but we oppose a short- or long-term lock closure because that does not stop the advancement of the Asian carp, but it does stop critical waterborne commerce in the Midwest."

Granholm said the shippers' concern pales in comparison to the danger the carp pose to the Great Lakes, which support a $9 billion sport fishing industry as well as tourism.

Sutley and other senior Obama officials said the plan would reduce how often Chicago's navigational locks are opened, and rely on poison and other methods to kill any Asian carp moving into Lake Michigan.

The Army Corps of Engineers will make a recommendation on modifying the lock schedule at the beginning of March, Granholm said. About one month later, action would be taken to change the operation of the locks.

But if "there is further evidence" of carp, they are open to taking more aggressive action, Granholm said.

As part of the plan, testing for the presence of Asian carp would be expanded, including doubling DNA sampling to 120 a week.

Next month, a $13.2 million contract will be given to build barriers between the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and the Des Plaines River, the White House said, to prevent carp from getting past the electric barrier if there were a flood. Another $10.5 million will be used to build and operate a third electric barrier.

The plan also includes long-term strategies, such as $5 million for chemical treatments if the barriers fail and $1.5 million for research into controls, such as poisons and methods to disrupt spawning and egg viability.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has the authority to shut down the locks temporarily if it believes this is an "urgent matter and a threat to the ecosystem," Granholm said.

Granholm said she and the governors of Ohio and Wisconsin believe the evidence found of Asian carp DNA should be enough to take decisive action, but, she said Obama officials "are not there yet."

She said everyone agreed on the urgency of preventing the Asian carp from getting into the lakes. Granholm said she had no reason to believe Obama is resisting closing the locks because he hails from Chicago.

dprice@detnews.com (202) 662-8736