States want Asian carp blocked by locks

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- U.S. states bordering the Great Lakes say they are taking their fight against the invasive Asian carp to a new battlefield -- a federal courtroom.

Attorneys from Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota hoping to block the carp are expected to argue in court that the federal government should have the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers barricade the locks on shipping channels between the Mississippi and Lake Michigan.

"If they get in here, it would just wreak havoc on these jewels we call the Great Lakes," John Rogner, assistant director of Illinois Department of Natural Resources, told ABC News.

The invasive species threatens the $7 billion a year fishing industry in the lakes.

Asian carp spawn three times a year and consume 40 percent of their body weight in food every day, often overwhelming the local ecosystem.

But open waterways are vital to hundreds of businesses that say closing the locks could ruin them.

"What they're talking about is shutting down the avenue to get any business up here," Jacque Kindra, co-owner with her husband John of a small tug boat company, said. "There is no way to survive that. They're closing the path that all our business comes from."

Asian carp were imported from China decades ago for Southern fish hatcheries, but flooding washed them into the Mississippi River where the population exploded, spreading upstream year by year.