Great Lakes measures score federal funds

A project that will boost Great Lakes shipping in a crucial bottleneck and another intended to protect the lakes from invasive carp will get big funding increases under the Biden administration’s infrastructure package, officials said last week.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it would pump $479 million into construction of a new navigational lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., expanding a complex that enables vessels to haul bulk cargo between Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes.

Additionally, the Corps will devote $226 million to the Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Ill., where plans call for the installation of obstacles to prevent invasive carp from migrating up the Illinois River to Lake Michigan.

The projects have been top priorities for members of Congress from the eight states that border the Great Lakes. The infrastructure measure, which also includes $1 billion to improve water quality, makes “the single largest investment ever in the Great Lakes,” Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters of Michigan said in a statement.

About 7,000 vessels pass annually through the Soo Locks on the St. Marys River, which connects Lake Superior and Lake Huron and has a 21-foot elevation drop. Two locks are operational but only the Poe Lock can accommodate the biggest freighters, which are around 1,000 feet long.

The industry has long pushed for another, warning that if the Poe were disabled for long, it would disrupt the transport of commodities essential to Midwestern manufacturing.

Nearly all domestically made steel used in automobiles and appliances is produced from iron ore mined in Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and shipped through the Poe Lock.

The new funding will be enough to finish building the $1.3 billion lock, Stabenow and Peters said.

The Brandon Road Lock and Dam funding will complete preconstruction, engineering and design work on upgrades to block the path of invasive carp, as well as initial construction. Electric barriers, bubble screens, noisemakers and other devices will be used.

Rivers and canals between the Mississippi and Lake Michigan are infested with carp imported from Asia in the 1960s to clear sewage lagoons and fish farms of algae and weeds. They escaped into the Mississippi River and have spread into its tributaries and are competing with native species for food.

The new funding “is an historic step forward for this critically needed project to add a chain of smart technologies to the waterway that will stop invasive carp from reaching Lake Michigan,” said Molly Flanagan, chief operating officer of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.