The Army Corps of Engineers released a report on Monday saying that the efforts to keep the Asian carp off the waters of Great Lakes may cost the government up to $18 billion.
The 232- page report, called the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study focused not only on the Asian carp, but also on other species which are disrupting the natural food cycle in the area such as other species of fish, bloody red shrimp, grass kelp and red algae, the tubenose goby and more.
Reports claiming that the DNA of the Asian carp has already been found in the Great Lakes have surfaced, along with other pressing concerns about the electronic barriers being unable to stop the carps from traversing into the waters of the Great Lakes.
Seven years ago, the Congress has required the Corps to start a study and recommended solutions on how to keep the Asian carp off the Great Lakes. Now that the study was finished, the report failed to come up with any concrete plan of action, much of to the dismay of the Congress members who called for the study.
However, the study suggested one solution, the establishment of waterways to physically separate the Asian carp and to prevent them from contaminating the Great Lakes. This solution might require at least $18 billion in funding and may take up to 25 years to be completed. One option, which may take less time and money costing only $10 billion, is to use chemical treatment in the waters on top of physical barriers.
"There's an urgency to this," said Camp, a member of House leadership who has been pushing for controls on the spread of Asian carp for years, to Detroit Free Press. "Clearly, 25 years is not the time frame that we're looking at."
