(Image from the Fox River Navigational System Authority)
There’s a proposal to put an electric barrier at the Menasha Lock, and it comes after studies of different ways to reopen it.
The Menasha Lock was the busiest along the Fox River Locks system, before the DNR closed it in 2015, because of an invasive fish called the round goby. Since then, the Fox River Navigational System Authority has been trying to figure out how to move forward.
CEO Jeremy Cords says the barrier is the best option that’s available today. He says there are similar systems in place in Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan.
The system would run an electrical current to create a barrier that’s one-to-two feet high, at the bottom of the river. Cords says that would block the goby and other invasive fish.
The barrier would cost about $3 million, and it could be open in the spring of 2021.
The DNR has to sign off on it.
