Anticipating a lack of federal funding under the new presidential administration, Illinois has postponed construction in a long-awaited $1.15 billion project to stop the movement of invasive carp up Illinois waterways and into Lake Michigan. A groundbreaking ceremony had originally been scheduled for Tuesday.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has halted a key project meant to defend the Great Lakes from invasive carp, citing federal funding uncertainty.

Anticipating a lack of federal funding under the new presidential administration, Illinois has postponed construction in a long-awaited $1.15 billion project to stop the movement of invasive carp up Illinois waterways and into Lake Michigan. A groundbreaking ceremony had originally been scheduled for today.

Planning for the Brandon Road project began in 2019. Construction, once it starts, is expected to take six to eight years.

Illinois Department of Natural Resources Director Natalie Phelps Finnie on Monday wrote in a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the state will be postponing a “property rights closing” on Tuesday,

In a social media post, Governor JB Pritzker announced the changes come after decades of studies. “I’m here today to make an important announcement,” Gov. Pritzker started. “The world’s finest geographers,