A toxic site complicates Illinois’ rush to stop invasive Asian carp todayheadline

Last week, Illinois officials took possession of a 50-acre stretch of riverbed in Chicago’s shipping channel in a last-ditch effort to prevent an ecological disaster from reaching Lake Michigan.

It is there, on a sliver of land where a coal-fired power plant once stood, that the state plans a last stand against the invasive Asian carp. It wants to build a $1.1 billion barricade, called the Brandon Road Interbasin Project, to keep the particularly voracious predator from muscling past the channel that connects the Mississippi River Basin with the Great Lakes.

But to keep the fish from breaching the divide, the state needs more land. It has a couple of acres in mind, but there’s a catch: The ground is contaminated by coal ash, the carcinogenic byproduct of burning that fossil fuel to generate electricity. 

No one knows for sure the extent of the pollution or its implications on public health because Midwest Generation, which ran the power plant, has refused to let anyone on the site before a deal is signed. But Illinois must remediate whatever land it acquires before turning it over to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to break ground on the project. 

Now Illinois is caught in a bind: Officials must stop the invasive carp from swinging an ecological wrecking ball into the Great Lakes with potentially grave implications for a multibillion-dollar fisheries and recreation economy. “I do not know why Illinois is holding out on transferring the rest of the lands,” said Don Joddery, director of federal relations for the nonprofit Alliance of the Great Lakes. “Those lands are needed right now.” 

Joddery’s urgency reflects a grim calculus. The longer the state waits to secure and clean up the site, the longer the carp have an opportunity to infiltrate Lake Michigan and the waterways beyond. Just 40 miles separate the fish from the largest freshwater ecosystem on the planet. But stopping them means coming to terms with a legacy of toxic pollution that almost certainly leaves taxpayers, not Midwest Generation, to reel in the mess it left behind.

Midwest Generation declined to comment on discussions regarding the property per an agreement with the state of Illinois, said company spokesman Erik Linden.

Last week, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker praised the company, which declared bankruptcy in 2012, for its “generous donation” of the 50-acre parcel, a critical piece of the first phase of the Brandon Road project. The governor had put the barrier on hold in February, worried that the Trump administration would kill federal funding for it. 

But the White House expressed wholehearted support for the effort earlier this month. A letter obtained by Grist disclosed that on May 8, the Army Corps assured Illinois officials it had secured $100 million for the first phase of construction. The donated parcel, officials confirmed, is not subject to remediation — only the remaining land remains locked in negotiation.

Pritzker’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but told Grist last year, “We are concerned that Illinois taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill for environmental remediation associated with construction of the Brandon Road project. There are many unanswered questions regarding the ultimate scope and cost of this work, and we would like to finalize a remediation plan before committing to pay for it.”

The term “invasive carp” is shorthand for four species native to China: bighead, black, grass, and silver carp. They were introduced to fish farms in the southern United States in the 1970s to control algae. They escaped confinement about a decade after arriving and have since infiltrated the Mississippi River Basin. Research has shown that there are now more silver and bighead carp in stretches of the Illinois River than anywhere else in the world. 

“It’s a carp factory,” said Cory Suski, a biologist and environmental scientist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who has studied the carp for more than 10 years. “It’s hard to really put into words until you’ve seen thousands of carp in the air jumping out of the water.” 

Silver carp, known for their 10-foot leaps when disturbed, have made stretches of the river dangerous for boaters and anglers alike. Below the surface, the fish — silver and bighead carp in particular — are wreaking havoc. The hardy critters are voracious and grow quickly, leaving little food or habitat for native species like gizzard shad and bigmouth buffalo, both of which are now in decline. 

Yet, the carp’s once inexorable northward progress stopped about 40 miles from Lake Michigan. “They’ve stalled,” said Suski. Scientists suspect pollutants in Chicago’s wastewater effluent — though within legal limits and safe for humans — may be repelling the fish. “There’s something in the water,” said Austin Happle, a research biologist with Shedd Aquarium. “There’s likely something unaccounted for that is keeping this specific group of fish from migrating further.” 

Previous studies have detected pharmaceuticals and volatile organic compounds in the area. Scientists have found that Chicago-area water leaves the carp stressed and lethargic, and in some cases brings some individuals to a complete standstill.

Illinois officials have gotten creative as they’ve tried to curb the carp since they arrived in Illinois back in the 1990s. They have rebranded the swimmers as “copi” to spur demand among anglers and cooks. They have sponsored a program that pays commercial fishing operations an extra 10 cents per pound for the animals, and have even funded all-out harvests, one of which removed as much as 750,000 pounds of the pescine pests on the riverfront of Starved Rock State Park. 

The Brandon Road project is the most elaborate deterrent by far. The underwater fortress exploits a narrow stretch of the Des Plaines Rivers where engineers want to install a suite of four barricades aimed at repelling the carp via electric shocks, acoustics blasts, bubble curtains, and a lock that can flush out the aquatic annoyances. 

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Beyond the fact the project’s ideal site is heavily polluted lie other concerns. Documents obtained by Grist reveal bipartisan concerns about its cost that go back years. A 2018 letter from Republican Governor Bruce Rauner warned the Army Corps, “If hazardous materials are eventually detected on the subject property, this will create potentially astronomical and unacceptable project right-of-way expenses for the state of Illinois.” Pritzker expressed similar fears last year. 

Last year, the corps worked out the agreement to build the barrier with support from Illinois and Michigan. The federal government agreed to cover 90 percent of the project’s long-term costs. Michigan even pledged $30 million toward remediation. That money, however, is to pay for cleanup at the project site — a fraction of Midwest Generation’s Joliet property.

The state has been aware of the contamination since 2010, when Illinois regulators started requiring groundwater monitoring of coal ash deposits. That oversight led to the discovery of groundwater contamination at all four of Midwest Generation’s coal plants: three in suburban Chicago, including the Joliet site slated for the Brandon Road project, and one in central Illinois. 

The Sierra Club and several other organizations have waged a 13-year fight with the Illinois Pollution Control Board to compel Midwest Generation to remedy the situation. Those proceedings reached a critical phase about a year ago. “The Illinois Pollution Control Board indicated that Midwest Generation is indeed violating Illinois law at these four sites with its ash management and ash disposal practices,” said Faith Bugel, an attorney with Sierra Club who has worked on the case for over a decade. “Now we are in the remedy phase, where the board is deciding what remedy to put in place in response to the violations.”

In light of the state’s recent transaction with Midwest Generation, Bugel remains concerned with the pending litigation and who will be left to clean up toxic pollution — and what it’ll cost them. Meanwhile, the project’s timeline remains tight. Preliminary site preparation kicked off in January and is expected to wrap up by the end of June. 

For now, Illinois is stuck between two crises: The carp are perilously close to Lake Michigan, and the best chance of stopping them requires dealing with toxic pollution. The only question is who’ll be on the hook for cleaning it up.