Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced he was holding up the Brandon Road Project. It’s a billion-dollar project to hold back invasive carp from entering Lake Michigan. The plan is to stop the carp’s movement at a critical lock and dam using a series of electric, sound and bubble gates.
The Project is funded primarily by the federal government, and Pritzker says he’s worried the administration will pull their end of the funding.
Don Jodrey is the director of federal relations for the Alliance for the Great Lakes. He says Pritzker’s reasoning doesn’t align with the bipartisan support the project’s seen in Washington.
“I think he's trying to say, I'm worried about future appropriations for the remainder of the project's cost," Jodrey said. "Okay. If that's the case, then the answer to that is, well, the entity that provides the funds is the U.S. Congress, and you have had major success in the last several years in terms of getting Congress to be supportive of this project.”
Jodrey also says any delay in finishing this project could increase the risk of carp entering the Great Lakes.
Jodrey also there has been bipartisan support for this project from the beginning.
“There's a lot of interest in Congress in the Great Lakes delegation to trying to stop invasive carp from getting into the lakes," he said. "And you see that reflected in these sorts of actions, which have basically had to be encapsulated into federal law. So, this is not something that's easy to do, but the Great Lakes delegation is really behind this 110%.”
It’s unclear how long the project will be paused. The first phase has been fully funded, and Jodrey says he doesn’t believe Congress will let a project this important go unfinished.