Roughly $13 million in federal funds will be heading toward Illinois to step up the fight against invasive Asian carp, officials said Monday.
Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the money will be used for engineering projects to prevent the carp from slipping into Lake Michigan near Chicago.
They include closing conduits and shoring up low-lying lands between the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and other waterways.
The money is part of the $475 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, passed into law in October and designed to improve the health of the nation's largest fresh water ecosystem, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The ravenous carp have been migrating northward on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers for decades. Scientists say if they get into the Great Lakes, they could gobble up plankton, interrupt the food chain and devastate the $7 billion fishery.
