Overview
- Hours after Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called President Donald Trump, federal officials notified state partners that a stop-work order on the Brandon Road Interbasin Project was lifted on Wednesday.
- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had issued the unexplained stop-work order in July while conducting an administrative review and has declined to publicly disclose the review’s scope or findings.
- State monitoring raised the alarm in August when the Illinois Department of Natural Resources found several hundred juvenile silver carp about 80 miles from Lake Michigan and roughly 15 miles from the Brandon Road barrier.
- The Brandon Road project, cosponsored by the Army Corps, Illinois and Michigan, would modify the Joliet lock and deploy layered deterrent technologies intended to block invasive carp from reaching the Great Lakes.
- Stakeholders including Illinois officials and conservation groups are pressing for timely oversight and uninterrupted construction because further delays could raise costs and increase the risk to regional fisheries, drinking water supplies and local economies.