Burnsville Firm Wins $10.8 M Bid to Install Carp-blocking Gates

A contractor with a well-established presence in Burnsville will spearhead the state's efforts to curb the impending influx of Asian carp. 

Edward Kraemer & Sons. According to a recent report in the Star Tribune, this summer the firm will begin the installation of five steel gates at a Coon Rapids dam stretching across the Mississippi River. The gates are each eight feet tall and 97 feet long.

It is hoped that the apparatus will hamper the spread of the invasive fish, which were first imported from China in the 1970s. According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Asian carp were initially used by the aquaculture industry to control plankton, a biological proficiency became a major threat to U.S. waterways after the fish were released into the wild. Plankton occupies the bottom of the food chain in aquatic environments, and thus serves as food for a large number of creatures such as mussels, larval fish, and some small fish. 

Individual carp have been netted in Minnesota, most recently in the Mississippi waters near Hastings, but so far the fish do not seem to have gained a solid foothold in the state. A recent study suggests that they could be on the move, however. The DNA of silver carp was found in water samples taken from the Mississippi near Coon Rapids in September 2011, the Strib reports.

Construction on the $16 million project begins this spring.