Fishermen along this side of Lake Michigan were hauling in good-sized salmon last week. It’s been that way most of this summer as sportsmen and women, along with dozens of charter boat captains, seek Big Lake lunkers.
Fish are being caught daily, report captains out of Waukegan Harbor and Winthrop Harbor’s North Point Marina, the largest on the Great Lakes. Flasher flies have been producing better than spoons as boats reel in bumper crops of fish, they say.
All that could end if invasive Asian carp enter Lake Michigan and spread throughout the Great Lakes, a possibility as bureaucrats in the administration of President Donald Trump recently ordered work stopped at a project near Joliet to keep bighead and silver carp out of the ecosystem.
The species already is rife in the Illinois River. According to one report, more than 78 million pounds of carp have been pulled from the Illinois and Mississippi rivers.
Environmentalists have feared for some time that the carp are closing in on Lake Michigan. That happening could deeply affect the $20 billion fishing and boating industry on the Great Lakes.
Stopping the carp is the idea of a $1.15 billion project along the Des Plaines River in Will County, building a barrier to stop the voracious carp from entering Lake Michigan. Some $2 million of work has been completed before an “administrative review” stoppage was submitted by the Trump administration.
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It’s a narrow-minded decision, one which could endanger not only the health of drinking water for most of Chicagoland — across the Great Lakes, an estimated 40 million rely on the fresh water — but the economies of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. The action continues the Trump administration’s assault on our environment.
Such as the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to gut protections from toxic coal ash, a leftover from coal-fired power plants, like the one along Waukegan’s lakeshore. Some 196 public interest groups, including Clean Power Lake County, have strongly urged the EPA to reverse course in dismantling the coal-ash regulations.
Regulations governing disposal of ash produced by burning coal were strengthened during the administration of President Joe Biden. The Trump administration proposals ease standards for monitoring and protecting groundwater near coal-ash sites.
Under the Biden rules, the cleanup of entire coal properties, instead of just places where the ash was dumped, would have to be mitigated. The old Waukegan power plant has two ponds full of toxic sludge from when coal was burned for decades.
Local and state officials want that coal ash removed from the site off Greenwood Avenue and Pershing Road. They are fearful the noxious soup could leach into groundwater and eventually into Lake Michigan, where it might also harm bird and fish species, just as piping plovers are making a comeback along the Waukegan shoreline.
Which brings up another anti-environment Trump decision: Rolling back protections for endangered species. The president contended last week the Endangered Species Act restricts the nation’s economy with “complete and total regulatory overreach.”
Yet, we can have a 250-foot-tall gaudy and gilded memorial arch in Washington, D.C., mimicking France’s Arc de Triomphe, which could cost more than $15 million, pushed by the president and his minions. According to an assessment by the National Park Service, the arch could disrupt the historical significance of dozens of memorials near its proposed site, which has been given preliminary approval.
While President Trump and President Richard Nixon, both Republicans, usually rank as two of the worst presidents by historians, at least Nixon signed into law what Trump has decided to attack: Environmental protection. Before his fall from grace over the Watergate scandal, Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973, both endorsed by Congress.
“The great question of the ’70s is, shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land and to our water?” Nixon said in one speech proposing the new environmental agency and wildlife protection. Many forget he was a surprising champion of our environment and apparently knew better than his current predecessor.
Which was before elected Republicans took a hard right turn and became hooked on President Trump’s anti-environment agenda. Which now includes the distinct possibility of Asian carp threatening Lake Michigan.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor. [email protected]. X @sellenews
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