Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox asked the Supreme Court yesterday (Feb 4) to review its decision last month not to close temporarily the waterways in Chicago to prevent Asian Carp from entering the Great Lakes.

From the Associated Press:

"State Attorney General Mike Cox told the justices they had denied Michigan's request last month without knowing that scientists had detected genetic material from the carp in Lake Michigan for the first time.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers learned of the carp DNA find Jan. 15 but did not inform the high court until hours after the Jan. 19 ruling, Solicitor General Elena Kagan acknowledged in a letter to the court clerk."

The New York Times reported last month that SCOTUS ruled against closing the waterways:

"The court issued the one-sentence order without commenting on the case and did not address the request by Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox (R) to reopen a decades-old case concerning Chicago's handling of the waterways. The court will rule later on the merits of the Asian carp case, but no date has been given.

Noah Hall, a Great Lakes expert and professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, said the court's decision to deny the injunction may have deferred to some extent to U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who showed support for Illinois and the Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains the locks.

Kagan urged the court to deny an injunction in a friend-of-the-court brief, arguing that Michigan had failed to show an imminent threat that would justify the closing of the locks.

Michigan, along with Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario, argued that multibillion-dollar fishing industries were in danger because Asian carp had breached electric barriers in the waterways and were coming closer to the Great Lakes."

Here is a short documentary (6 min) from 2007 on the Asian Carp and efforts taken then to prevent it from entering the Great Lakes.

To read the full article on Attorney General Mike Cox's attempt to reverse the SCOTUS decision, click here.
To read the report on last month's SCOTUS order, click here.

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Photo: Sun-Drenched Lake Michigan by jimflix.