Anti-carp project at Brandon Road Lock near Joliet part of Trump funding standoff

The governor canceled a Joliet-area groundbreaking ceremony slated for Tuesday contending that President Donald Trump’s overhaul of federal spending threatens a project aimed at keeping Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.

Work already is underway on the $1.1 billion project to build a barrier designed to keep the invasive fish from wreaking havoc on native species in the Great Lakes.

But Gov. JB Pritzker took steps this week to halt further progress on the project at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam amid uncertainty over whether the Trump administration would live up to the federal government’s commitments to funding projects.

“We cannot move forward until the Trump Administration provides more certainty and clarity on whether they will follow the law and deliver infrastructure funds we were promised,” Pritzker said in a written statement, contending that Illinois could be liable for payments if the federal government does not follow through on previous commitments.

The project is largely funded with federal dollars.

But Illinois also has committed $64 million to construction, according to an Army Corps of Engineers website summary of the project. And state officials contend Illinois could eventually be obligated to hundreds of millions of dollars if the project was halted in the future.

The Trump administration has not made any specific objections to the Brandon Road project, but Pritzker pointed to federal backtracking on previous spending commitments in Illinois since Trump took office.

The Trump administration said it has tried to halt federal spending as it reviews projects, leading to lawsuits over whether the money that was previously approved will be delivered.

As of Tuesday, however, it was not apparent that the Trump administration had raised any concerns about the Brandon Road project.

Pritzker pointed to the growing unreliability of federal funding in other areas of state government.

“Since taking office, the Trump Administration has shown it cannot be trusted to legally uphold its financial commitments to the state of Illinois,” he said in a written statement.

Pritzker said he would not grant property rights, a legal procedure scheduled to take place Tuesday, to allow contractors to continue construction on the Brandon Road project.

The governor did not say when he may reconsider granting contractors the permission needed to continue construction on the project.

The groundbreaking scheduled for Tuesday was ceremonial.

Contractors already have been working on the project since January, said Allen Marshall, spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers' Rock Island District.

The contractor on the job now is removing rock from the bed of the Des Plaines River as preparation for further construction, Marshall said.

That work will continue, he said.

“The groundbreaking ceremony was to have been a celebration of the start of construction,” Marshall said.

The contract for the river bed preparation work was awarded in November and is fully funded, Marshall said.

The Brandon Road Lock and Dam project has been designed as a one-of-its kind project that would use noise, bubbling water and electric shock to keep Asian carp from moving into the Great Lakes.

The species have destroyed native water life in its migration from the South and up the Mississippi River into the Illinois Waterway System before being stopped so far at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam.