Somewhere between river engineering and political messaging, Asian carp have found a new audience: the White House and the Illinois governor’s office.
The dispute is centered on the Brandon Road Interbasin Project, a major barrier designed to stop the invasive fish from reaching the Great Lakes through the Des Plaines River near suburban Chicago. Asian carp were first brought to the United States some 50 years ago to control algae growth in ponds and wastewater facilities, but they escaped into the Mississippi River and have been spreading ever since. Now, as the aquatic pests threaten to infiltrate the Great Lakes, the Army Corps of Engineers has developed a $1.15 billion barricade to keep the carp out by lodging a series of deterrent technologies—including an electric barrier, acoustic blasts, a bubble curtain, and a special lock capable of flushing out the carp.
Last week, the Trump administration announced plans to put Michigan officials in charge of the Brandon Road Interbasin Project, the Chicago-area river barrier. In a statement posted Thursday on X, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Adam Telle, said the agency was “aggressively moving out on this project and moving its management out of Illinois.” The Army Corps added in a news release that it would move management of the project to its Detroit office.
“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 pushed back quickly, 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.”
A piece of the logistics here is oddly specific: 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 a 50-acre stretch of riverbed and 2.75 acres near the river 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. And when you think about it—someone has to handle both the fish and the messy history under the ground—there’s this lingering, almost metallic smell you might notice if you ever visit an industrial site. Not that anyone’s described it here, but the point is… this isn’t just “build a wall,” it’s infrastructure
on stubborn terrain.
The science behind the urgency is well-known: 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 multi-billion-dollar fishing and recreational industries.
The barrier has also had a bumpy road politically and procedurally. 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. Then, in December, the Trump administration issued a review of the project, effectively putting it on pause. And 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.”
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.
Misryoum newsroom reported that Grist and WBEZ contacted 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 for comment. And that unanswered piece—whether the money is moving again, and when the machinery restarts—is where this latest standoff may end up mattering most, even if the rhetoric is loud enough to fill the river with static.
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