One stretch of the Chicago Sanitary and Esthen ExchangeShip Canal near Joliet, Illinois, is what freshwater biologists call a pinch point. Here, at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam, workers are preparing a site for barriers to keep invasive bighead and silver carp from infiltrating the Great Lakes. If enough of them slip by before the project is complete, the fish could cause irreversible damage to the largest freshwater system on earth. 

After years of negotiating and planning, Michigan and Illinois officials reached an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last year to build the $1.15 billion project at Brandon Road. But Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced earlier this year that he would delay construction. He would wait, he said, until the Trump administration assures the states that it will provide the promised federal funding. 

Pritzker was reacting to the administration’s freezes and cancellation of funding around the country. But the move concerns Great Lakes advocates and freshwater biologists. 

“Any delay to the project means more risk for the Great Lakes, and that’s the bottom line,” said Joel Brammeier, president and CEO of the nonprofit Alliance for the Great Lakes. “The state of Illinois needs to find a way to stop the delay as fast as possible.”