A billion-dollar project to stop invasive carp from entering the Great Lakes is back on after a nearly three month pause. Earlier this week, the Trump administration assured Illinois and Michigan it would prioritize the project and fund its part.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker halted major parts of the Brandon Road Interbasin Project in February, citing concerns that the federal administration would not appropriate its portion of the funds, which amounted to about 10%. Earlier this week, President Donald Trump released a memo directing the administration to move expeditiously on the project.
Don Jodrey is the Director of Federal Relations at the Alliance for the Great Lakes. He said he’s looking to the next four years as an opportunity to unlock funds for the next phase.
“Given that we have a Republican-controlled House and a Republican-controlled Senate, I expect to see the Congress follow-up with appropriations or funding that's needed to do the planning and design for the second increment of construction, because they have to do that as well as [to] start stockpiling federal money for increment two.”
Jodrey also commended the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for working to pull off a project at this scale and novelty.
“They're doing a great job with doing something that they haven't done before," Jodrey said. These underwater fish deterrent technologies [include] the bubble curtain, the acoustic array, the electric barrier, [and] they're all underwater. They have never built anything like this. So this is novel. It's unprecedented. It's something that's really unique. And I think that if it goes well here, the technology can be used elsewhere in the country where we have invasive aquatic species of fish.”
The Trump administration gave Illinois until July 1, 2025 to complete the next part of the project, which is for the state of Illinois to acquire the property where the project will be built.
