AP FILE - Floodwater continues to carve a channel around the Rapidan Dam, June 27, 2024
MANKATO, Minn. – A southern Minnesota dam and nearby bridge that almost collapsed last month after heavy rain and prompted a federal emergency declaration will be torn down.
The Blue Earth County Board of Commissioners voted to remove the Rapidan Dam near Mankato and replace the County Road 9 Bridge, both of which were at risk of crumbling.
The Blue Earth River’s water levels rose dramatically in late June and early July after heavy rain pummeled the Midwest for days. While the structures held up in the end, floodwaters forged a new river channel around the dam and cut deeply into a steep riverbank, toppling utility poles, wrecking a substation, swallowing a home and forcing the removal of a store.
“We know that this is a rural community and they use (the bridge) for getting farm to market, and we know the fall harvest is coming up and it’s going to be inconvenient,” said Jessica Anderson, a spokesperson for Blue Earth County. “But safety has been our priority from day one. And we cannot afford to jeopardize that.”
Vance Stuehrenberg, a Blue Earth County commissioner, said farmers might have to travel upwards of 45 minutes around the bridge to reach their fields.
It was also unclear how much the rebuilding will cost. Studies commissioned by the county in 2021 found repairing the dam would cost $15 million and removing it would cost $82 million, but Anderson said environmental conditions have changed since then.
The Rapidan Dam is over a century old, finished in 1910. While it was built to generate electricity, it has been damaged by several rounds of flooding in recent decades and has not been producing electricity.
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