Milwaukee Riverkeeper has recently learned about the new plan unveiled by the White House to stop the Asian Carp. The proposal contains many methods (several already in use), but does not call for the closure of the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal, in which the fish can enter the Great Lakes.

If you haven't done so already, please sign the petition urging the Federal Government to close the locks and stop the threat.

More information about the White House's plan can be found below.

[excerpted from the Journal-Sentinel]

Washington - Almost three months after learning that Asian carp had breached the last line of defense for the Great Lakes - an electric barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal - the federal government has put together a plan to try to do something about it.

It calls for tens of millions of dollars to be spent on new barriers, new studies and more fish poison, though much of that money had already been committed for those projects.

Significantly, the plan does not call for an emergency closure of two navigation locks, something politicians outside Illinois have been advocating. The plan will, however, consider periodic lock closures ranging from three or four days a week to week long shutdowns a couple of times each month.

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox is again asking the Supreme Court to order the locks closed full time until the government can figure out how to beat back the voracious fish, which have advanced past the electrical fish barrier on the Illinois canal about 20 miles downstream from Lake Michigan.

The court declined a similar request last month, but Cox, who is running for governor, is repeating the request because of recent news that carp DNA had been found in the open waters of Lake Michigan, adding another layer of urgency.

The idea that the carp can be stopped from swimming into Lake Michigan by shutting the locks for days on end and then periodically reopening them for barges does not sit well with him.

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