Trump administration wants to cut Illinois out of Great Lakes carp plan

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The Trump administration announced plans to put Michigan officials in charge of a $1.15 billion Chicago-area river barrier designed to keep invasive carp from reaching the Great Lakes.

In a statement posted Thursday on X, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Adam Telle said the agency was “aggressively moving” on the Brandon Road Interbasin Project near Joliet. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers added in a news release that management would move from its Rock Island District to its Detroit district.

“President Trump has always been a champion of keeping invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes,” wrote Telle. “Our partners in the Great Lake states can’t allow one state to have undue influence and use it to play more games.”

Telle also accused Illinois of being an “unreliable partner, delinquent on its payments and real estate commitments.”

Governor JB Pritzker responded to the social media post, saying that “Illinois has upheld our commitments. Trump must stop this political stunt and start releasing the funds, get the project moving again, and protect the Great Lakes.” He warned that Illinois was prepared to take the issue to the court, adding that “Illinois owns the land the Brandon Road Project will be built on — Trump cannot just decide to give it away.”

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has worked with Illinois and the federal government to get the Brandon Road project “moving forward with urgency,” according to a statement from her press secretary Stacey LaRouche.

“Governor Whitmer will continue to work to get the job done so we can protect our lakes and power economic growth for generations to come," LaRouche added.

The long-delayed barricade project would lodge a series of deterrent technologies — including an electric barrier, acoustic blasts, a bubble curtain, and a special lock capable of flushing out the carp — into a crucial choke point in the Des Plaines River.

The invasive carp, particularly the silver carp and bighead carp, can out-eat and out-compete native fish and have already transformed the Illinois River and parts of the Mississippi River. Experts, industry leaders and local officials worry that if carp make it past Chicago’s shipping channel, the fish could massively disrupt the region’s mutlibillion dollar fishing and recreational industries.

Illinois, Michigan and the Army Corps signed a deal to execute the project on July 1, 2024. As part of the agreement, Illinois committed approximately $50 million which has been used for design and early construction work. The state also acquired land for the project at the request of the Army Corps. Some of that real estate may be impacted by legacy coal ash pollution, which the state will also have to pay to remediate, according to the deal.

The big ticket project has had a bumpy road. Last February, Pritzker put the project on hold citing concerns the Trump administration could not deliver on its financial commitments after it withheld funds promised to Illinois under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Later that spring, President Trump signed a memo announcing his support to keep the carp out of Lake Michigan. Shortly afterward, the Army Corps confirmed that it had secured approximately $100 million for the first phase of construction which wrapped up last July.

Last December, the Trump administration issued a review of the project, effectively putting it on pause. Then last month, Trump posted on social media that he was working with Whitmer to “save the Great Lakes,” concluding that “only Trump can do it.”

WBEZ reached out to the Army Corps of Engineers, asking if the move from Illinois to Michigan means that funds for the project have been unfrozen and if construction is scheduled to begin again. They did not respond before publication.