Environmental officials warned carp were found alarmingly close to Lake Michigan
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lifted an unexplained stop-work order on the Brandon Road Interbasin Project near Joliet, Illinois, on Wednesday, hours after Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, telephoned President Donald Trump. The state-federal project is designed to prevent invasive carp from reaching the Great Lakes.
The Army Corps had paused construction on the barrier in July without explanation, according to the Associated Press, leaving officials in Illinois and Michigan struggling for answers while environmental authorities warned that invasive carp were being found alarmingly close to Lake Michigan.
Whitmer’s Wednesday call preceded by hours the Army Corps’s rescission of the stop-work order. The Associated Press described the reversal as a “surprising intervention” in what it called an “unusual relationship” between Whitmer and Trump, a Republican who had been among her fiercest political foes.
The Brandon Road project carries implications for Illinois and Michigan, both of which border the Great Lakes waters the barrier is intended to protect from invasive carp. State officials in both states had pressed the Army Corps for an explanation during the months the work remained on hold.