Great Lakes Commission and Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative
Last Friday, while members of the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee were busy executing a rapid response to Asian carp eDNA hits in Lake Calumet—all told they netted close to 10,000 fish over several days, none of which were Asian carp, before tossing them all back in—I was at the first advisory committee meeting of the second phase of the Great Lakes Commission and Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative's investigations into permanent separation of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds via some sort of restructuring of the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS). The central question of the day was, "What do we do next?"
It's worth reflecting on what's been done thus far:
- Restoring the Natural Divide: Separating the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Basins in the Chicago Area Waterway System outlines three feasible scenarios for hydrological separation of CAWS, with a high-level examination of the transportation, recreation, wastewater, stormwater and land use impacts to be anticipated from each. The report is the result of a multi-year study that I had the opportunity to participate in and reflect on (see the first, second, third, and fourth parts of this series).
- Embedded deep within the recent federal transportation reauthorization package was a new schedule for the completion of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study (GLMRIS). The Corps requires authorization for everything it does, and now it is authorized to issue recommendations to release a short list of proposed alternatives for permanently preventing invasive species movement between the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River watershed in late 2013, rather than 2015 as previously planned. While largely positive, that accelerated timeline could put the squeeze on opportunities for public participation.
- The recent Binational Ecological Risk Assessment of Bigheaded Carps for the Great Lakes concluded what many people already suspected—Asian carp have a high probability of establishment, survival and spread throughout the Great Lakes, with CAWS as the primary connection of concern.
Whatever your position on Asian carp, the broader problem of invasive species movement between watersheds, and the idea of hydrological separation, the reality is that momentum continues to build in Washington, D.C., Ottawa, other Great Lakes states, and the Mississippi River basin for a permanent solution, and it looks more and more every day that the solution will be separation of the watersheds.
There were two main categories of answers given to the question of "What do we do next?" One set focused on identifying near term opportunities for using existing infrastructure to impede the movement of Asian carp from CAWS into Lake Michigan. This is an attractive option from a timing standpoint; the permanent solutions proposed in Restoring the Natural Divide were all largely contingent on the completion of the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan here in Cook County, and thus not fully achievable until 2029 or so. A "near term" means of slowing Asian carp would still take several years—my gut hunch is that it couldn't happen in less than five—and would entail using the navigation locks at Lockport and/or the Brandon Dam to somehow impede these voracious fish. Theoretically, we could design a system to poison, shock or otherwise kill Asian carp (and likely everything else) entering the lock with any given boat. Humanity has no limit to creativity when it comes to ideas on how to kill things, so this seems doable. Doable and desirable are two very different things. When the suggestion was made that these locks could become "kill boxes," more than one attendee at the meeting perked up to say, "then it could be a permanent solution, just keep killing everything in there!" I suspect most federal and state agencies, environmental advocates, and other users of the river system would not be OK with the regular application of poison, heat, or electricity to intentionally contaminate the river. The further concern is that an Asian carp-specific solution is not a broad invasive species solution. A stopgap measure for Asian carp, if effective, could quell the desire for a permanent separation. That's not to say it shouldn't be done, but it will need to be integrated into the long-term solution as one incremental marker, rather than considered a distinct initiative of its own.
The other set of answers focused on the need to select one of the three hydrological separation scenarios presented in Restoring the Natural Divide and begin a more rigorous examination of what would be entailed in actually making it happen (see the fourth part of this series for my thoughts in the same direction). I think that's where we will spend the bulk of time moving forward, and it could be a great help to the Corps—the accelerated timeline and need to consider all options may not give them the chance to dig deeply into any one option. I also suspect the scenario we'll focus in on is the so-called "mid-river" option, including a barrier in the area of Bubble Creek, one just south of Lake Calumet, and barriers on the Grand and Little Calumet Rivers. How would we continue to move economic goods most efficiently through the system? What happens to our wastewater? How much do we need to rework our stormwater systems to make this possible? Could barrier locations be opportunities for new communities, as depicted in architect Jeanne Gang's Reverse Effect? These are the questions we need answers to from the range of stakeholders active on the Great Lakes Commission and Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative's advisory committee, and I for one look forward to helping answer them.