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Feds to spend $13 million to fight carp invasion

By AP

TRAVERSE CITY, MI –
Federal officials say they'll use $13 million in Great Lakes restoration funds to step up the fight against invasive Asian carp.

Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said Monday 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 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.

Funds to battle the carp will be taken from $475 million appropriated recently by Congress to improve the lakes.

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