People worried about Asian carp infecting the Great Lakes have been anxiously awaiting a long-overdue carp "battle plan" from the Army Corps of Engineers — a report held up for six months by the Trump Administration.
Now the Army Corps is free to talk details, and as it does, the reaction among some in Michigan is disappointment and disbelief.
That's because the Army Corps says it will take eight years — until 2025 — to get this fix in place.
Details of the plan were unveiled at a recent meeting in Muskegon.
Jon Allan, director of Michigan's Office of the Great Lakes, joined Stateside to discuss this proposed plan.
“Of the 180 some invasive species in the Great Lakes now, none of them have ever been removed and we want to keep one out so we don’t have to figure out how to manage it or remove it once it gets into the system,” Allan said.
However, one Asian carp was already found this past summer within 9 miles of Lake Michigan.
Allan made it clear that this is a tentative plan that still needs to go through another set of reviews before it is finalized. Then it heads to Congress in 2019 where funding and timeframes will be discussed.
“The plan, as presented, we’re thinking of as something of an interim solution,” Allan said.
Listen above for the full conversation about the future of the Great Lakes waterways.
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