For the past year, Ohio has been putting pressure on federal officials to deal with the threat of Asian carp working their way up the Mississippi River toward the Great Lakes. Local wildlife experts claim that this invasive species would eat all of the plant life that sustains Lake Erie's fish population --- effectively killing them off. Other Great Lakes states have echoed these concerns, but they haven't gotten much traction in Washington.
RICHARD CORDRAY: "We've been after this for months and months."
Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray says the latest strategy is a lawsuit filed in an Illinois federal court by Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The suit charges that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Chicago water officials have created a public nuisance in their maintenance of the canal that links the Mississippi with the Great Lakes.
CORDRAY: "We do think that legal pressure is necessary for us to jolt people like the Army Corps --- which is used to building things, but not used to thinking about things like habitats, and species and natural resources --- to take a broader view of the situation and understand that the threat to the Great Lakes is a multi-billion-dollar threat, just from an economic standpoint."
At the same time, Cordray and Governor Ted Strickland are calling for a national summit on this issue, to bring together federal officials and state leaders to explore all possibilities in blocking the carp. The Attorney General says there's been no concrete federal response to that proposal.