"Carp Solution Could Provide Financial Benefits"

"Proposals to block Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes have largely focused on the costs and inconvenience of closing off Chicago-area waterways into Lake Michigan. But now business and environmental groups are exploring a possible upside: a broadly based infrastructure investment that would benefit much of northern Illinois.

Construction, jobs in the freight sector and money-saving improvements in transportation networks could be among the results of efforts to create what environmentalists call "ecological separation" between Lake Michigan and the rivers and canals leading to the Mississippi River, the source of the voracious carp that have made their way nearly to the lake."

David Greising and Daniel Libit report for the Chicago News Cooperative in the New York Times March 5, 2010.