The State of Michigan is battling to keep the Asian Carp out of the Great Lakes, and the City of Chicago is in the middle.

The carp have already infested waters in the Mississippi River Basin, including the Illinois River.

In order to reach Lake Michigan, the carp would have to come through Chicago.

“Literally we have this water born alien tied up outside Chicago and we’re trying to keep him tied up outside Chicago so that they don’t move into Lake Michigan, don’t move into the St. Joe’s River (St. Joseph) and the Manistee and the Muskegon,” said Republican Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox.

Cox has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court asking for an injunction that would close the locks of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

“The big head carp wipe out ecologies, by that they eat so much plankton and algae that other fish can’t compete,” said Cox.

Cox today held an Asian Carp Summit in the beachfront community of St. Joseph. The event drew a standing room only crowd of about 150 spectators.

“It’s about jobs,” Cox said. “You know we have four billion dollars in the Michigan economy generated every year from commercial and recreational fishing.”

Dennis Eade of the Michigan Steelhead and Salmon Fishing Association also addressed the crowd. “If they (Asian Carp) get into Lake Michigan we can really say goodbye to salmon fishing, or even perch fishing, because they zero in on plankton which the small fry use to grow and develop.”

Eade says the fight to close the locks has been an uphill battle. “The Supreme Court refused to take the case. The President of the United States feels that there’s time to find mitigating solutions, which there’s not. So it’s going to be up to the U.S. Congress and Mike Cox and other attorney’s general throughout the Midwest who are affected.”

Thomas Marks with the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council came all the way from New York to attend today’s event. He has been working to keep the carp out of the Great Lakes for ten years.

“At least now, everybody’s talking about it,” Marks said. “I think the political will has been generated to do everything and anything it takes to stop Asian Carp from expanding beyond where they are right now.”

Attorney General Cox admits that closing the canal in Chicago would cause economic hardship of its own. “The City of Chicago cites an economic impact and they’re right, but it would be a very small economic impact, compared to the economic impact on the rest of the Great Lakes region.