INDIANAPOLIS | Officials from eight states and two Canadian provinces are meeting in Indianapolis to discuss challenges confronting the Great Lakes.

Leaders hope to protect the world's largest source of freshwater from Asian carp, zebra mussels and other invasive species while promoting responsible water consumption by municipalities and industry. Both topics are driving debate at the Great Lakes Commission's semiannual meeting in Indianapolis, a two-day event that opened Monday.

Commission members are keeping an eye on the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and Environment Canada. The agencies are reviewing a Great Lakes water quality agreement last updated in 1987. They are expected to issue recommendations later this year.

Environmental advocates continue to press Congress to approve funding for a Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal barrier to protect Lake Michigan from Asian carp, voracious eaters capable of starving off native species.

The commission also is touting the Great Ships Initiative, a $3.5 million plan to research better ways to treat the ballast water international ships use to balance cargo. The water is released in harbors, sometimes carrying in and contributing to the spread of invasive species.

On the water-use side, the Great Lakes Commission is pushing Congress and state legislatures to adopt the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact signed in late 2005 by the governors of Illinois, Indiana, six other states and the premiers of Quebec and Ontario. The agreement would prevent Great Lakes water from being shipped or piped outside the region.

"We have a game plan to get it passed in Indiana -- 2008 is our goal," said Lee Botts, a Gary environmentalist who helped found the Great Lakes Commission in 1970. "We had hoped we might be the first state to do it, but Minnesota beat us to it."

The compact would update an earlier agreement preventing communities outside the watershed area, including Lowell, from tapping Great Lakes water.