The state of Illinois received two small parcels of land near the Brandon Road Lock and Dam on the Des Plaines River in a donation earlier this month that advocates and officials are calling a positive step to continue building the last, multipronged line of defense against the upstream move of invasive carp into the Great Lakes.

The 2.75 acres of Will County property were donated to the state by Midwest Generation, an Illinois-based electric power company. It’s the second donation from the company after it gave the state a nearly 50-acre parcel in May. The more recently donated land will allow for construction staging — otherwise, a barge would have been needed to continue building the project’s first phase, experts said, which could have increased costs and led to more delays.

“Closi

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