The state of Illinois received two small parcels of land near the Brandon Road Lock and Dam on the Des Plaines River in a donation earlier this month that advocates and officials are calling a positive step to continue building the last, multipronged line of defense against the upstream move of invasive carp into the Great Lakes.
The 2.75 acres of Will County property were donated to the state by Midwest Generation, an Illinois-based electric power company. It’s the second donation from the company after it gave the state a nearly 50-acre parcel in May. The more recently donated land will allow for construction staging — otherwise, a barge would have been needed to continue building the project’s first phase, experts said, which could have increased costs and led to more delays.
“Closing on another key piece of property … moves us another step closer toward completion of this important project,” Natalie Phelps Finnie, director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, said in a news release.
The state will need to enroll the property in the Illinois Site Remediation Program within 30 days, and test the parcel’s soil and groundwater for possible contamination in order to determine remediation needs, as it’s part of the site of a former coal plant.
The land acquisition is part of decadeslong efforts between Illinois, Michigan and the federal government to stop the invasive fish, which pose a significant threat to the native species and aquatic ecosystems of the Great Lakes, as well as its billion-dollar fishing and boating industries. The fish are currently held back by unreliable electrical barriers near Romeoville.
These efforts, however, have not been without challenges; earlier this year President Donald Trump and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker clashed
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over its funding. And the donated land was also previously a key sticking point for the project, since officials and advocates had concerns about possible contamination. NRG acquired the Midwest Generation fleet in 2014 and converted the coal plant in Joliet to one for natural gas.“Midwest Generation recognizes the importance of this project, and we are very pleased to have been able to work closely with the IDNR,” said Brad Kranz, president of the company, in the news release. “We’re proud to be a part of this exciting partnership.”
The first property closing with Midwest Generation included assurances that the land was safe, Marc Smith, policy director at the National Wildlife Foundation, said in May. And the Pritzker administration last year said the state had negotiated a deal ensuring taxpayers would not have to pay for remediation costs.
Advocates had previously said that having the federal or state government be responsible for cleaning up pollution from a private industry could set a “bad precedent.”
Smith called the most recent property closing “another good step in the right direction.
“Progress is slowly happening,” he said. “This is another puzzle piece getting toward the final (product).”
Smith still expressed concerns about the rate of that “slow but steady” progress if a new governor’s administration in Michigan after next year’s election does not prioritize the project the same way as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Michigan and Illinois are contributing $64 million and $50 million, respectively, toward the project total. In May 2024, members of Congress from both states secured an increase in the federal cost share for operations and maintenance after construction to 90%.
The federal government will also cover 90% of the project’s construction costs, with $274 million funding the first phase, which started in May, and $765 million going toward the next two phases. The latest estimates from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Rock Island District — the project’s main federal sponsor — set the price tag for the next two phases at $646 million.
Phase one of the Brandon Road project involves site preparation and bedrock removal, as well as the installation of some of the multilayered technologies, which include a bubble barrier that removes small fish trapped under barges or carried in their wake and an acoustic deterrent that creates painful sound waves. The second and third phases will include an electric barrier and more acoustic deterrents. At the end, a flushing lock will send any remaining larval fish and eggs back downstream.
Invasive across the United States, these carp include silver, bighead, grass and black carp. The fish were introduced in the 1960s to get rid of seaweed without using chemicals in aquaculture facilities and sewage ponds in Arkansas.
But after extreme flooding events in the 1980s and 1990s, the carp escaped into the Mississippi River basin — the third largest in the world — spreading to 31 states. Some were also released after breeding experiments failed.
Silver and bighead carp are particular threats to native species as they have no natural predators in American waterways and likely never will, meaning their populations can grow uncontrollably.
Additionally, they represent a challenge since they can’t be easily caught as they don’t care for bait; they are filter feeders and eat plankton from the base of the aquatic food chain. Because of their large numbers and reproductive capacity, silver and bighead carp can eat faster than and starve native fish and mussels.
In the Great Lakes, invasive carp could threaten billions in tourism dollars. And loud boat motors can scare silver carp into jumping up to 5 feet in the air, sometimes leaving recreational boaters with bloody noses, black eyes and bruises.
“This is the first type of river system barrier, invasive species barrier, with these control technologies,” Smith said. “Nowhere else can (it) be found. … This is a pilot that’s going to be potentially duplicative in other areas across the country. Could you deploy a Brandon Road-type of system in North Dakota or in Florida?”
It’s this possibility for replication and national value, he said, that makes the project worth the investment from the federal government.
“It just so happens to be in Illinois,” Smith said.
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Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated which agency would be responsible for testing the donated parcels for contamination. The Illinois Site Remediation Program will test the land.