Illinois fighting invasives on two fronts

Illinois is interesting among the Great Lakes states - the Chicago River was reversed to flow out of the Lakes over a hundred years ago, taking much of the Illinois coast out of the watershed. But Lake Michigan is a big part of Chicago's identity, and invasive species don't stop at state lines, so the Illinois table was well populated with passionate folks gearing up to lobby their congresspeople. The Illinois delegation has Great Lakes champions in congressmen like Democrat Rahm Emanuel and Republican Mark Kirk, but not everyone is on board yet, so there's some work left to do.

I spoke with Melanie Napoleon, Elizabeth Latener, and Sandy Somodi from Chicago's Shedd Aquarium. The aquarium is very involved in lake issues - housing an exhibit featuring the dreaded Asian Carp and maintaining the site Listen to Your Lakes, which features educational materials and the Waterblog.

I asked the crew from Shedd about what Lakes issues affect Illinois the most and how they communicate them. They're focused on ballast water legislation that will keep more invasives from coming into the Lakes, and eventually further inland. Illinois is also important on another front in the battle against invasives, being home to the electric barrier keeping the leaping, freaky big Asian Carp from invading the Lakes from the southern and western waters where it was introduced. The Carp barrier is one of the only Lakes programs in President Bush's 2008 budget that didn't get cut.

While Illinoisan Lakers fight invasives and care about the ecology of the systems, Melanie made a good point:

I make sure to point out that it just isn't about fish. It's also about people. We aren't just getting involved because we want to save the brown fish or the silver fish - we want people to have clean water to drink and nice beaches to play in.

A good thing to remember when reaching out to a person who may not be the biggest fan of fish.