The channels are on the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal, linking the Great Lakes to the Inland Waterway System (including the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers).
As alleged by Michigan (and supported by a handful of other States including New York), the Canal is a conduit for the passage of Asian Carp from the Lower Mississippi region up until the Great Lakes. Michigan’s fear was that the species could disrupt the food chain from existing fish populations, particularly trout and salmon, in the Lakes.
Less worrisome, it seemed, was that commerce (estimated to worth around $7bn per year) might have been cut off, and businesses situated near the Canal (to the southwest of Chicago) would face drastically higher costs, and inefficiencies, if they needed to rely on truck transportation.
The Obama administration said the US Army Corps of Engineers (also named in the Michigan suit) was going to issue a report on possible solutions, later this year. But, this is not stopping an influential Republican legislator from Michigan introducing a bill in the US Congress, H.R. 4472, the “CARP ACT: Close All Routes and Prevent Asian Carp Today”, that has the potential to disrupt trade. Not surprisingly, port and maritime business interests are objecting to the new bill, which could authorise circa $30m for the Corps of Engineers to work the problem.
With health care, financial regulation and foreign wars under discussion in Washington, DC it is unlikely that this bill will gain much traction – but that’s not the point. Political drama aside (and there has been plenty!), this issue is one where ports and cargo interests are being snared by a problem not of their own making.
Besides opposing this particular bill, H.R. 4472, ports have an opportunity to inform legislators and the public at large about the bigger dangers of unilateral actions by one group of States not only impacting other States, but also impeding supply chains that are worldwide in scope.
Let’s hope that business interests continue to prevail.