Boker Heide Canal
The Boker-Heide-Kanal (also called Boker Kanal for short ) is a 32 km long artificial water channel between Paderborn and Lippstadt in North Rhine-Westphalia . The irrigation canal, which went into operation in 1853, is an important technical cultural monument in Westphalia .
The canal owes its name to the Boker Heide , the heathland around the village of Boke , which is a western branch of the Senne .
course
The canal begins west of Paderborn- Neuhaus Castle , where it branches off 150 m after the confluence of the Lippe and Alme in a north-westerly direction from the Lippe.
The canal flows around the Lippesee and the Paderborn district of Sande to the north and then turns west to south-west towards Lippstadt. In the further course - parallel to the Lippe - it passes Delbrück , Boke , Hagen and Lippstadt and flows west of the Lippstadt district of Cappel into the Glenne , which itself flows into the Lippe shortly afterwards.
history
The Senne region with its barren sandy soils has always been the poor house in Westphalia . As early as the 11th century, the Paderborn Bishop Meinwerk had plans to irrigate the Senne while simultaneously draining the numerous swamps. The area Boker Heide between the Ems in the North and the lip in the South was dominated by lush heath vegetation, skinny pines on hand and sedge areas and served as a commons of the population and sheep pasture of the Lords of Boke. The common land division following the peasant liberation at the beginning of the 19th century led to the settlement of new farmers who broke and cultivated the sandy soils . The soil yields were very low, however; the peasants lived in poor conditions.
In 1834 the first President of the Prussian Province of Westphalia , Ludwig Freiherr von Vincke , who was familiar with the local conditions, suggested the construction of a Lippe canal to irrigate the Boker Heide. In 1849, the building officer Hermann Theodor Reinhard Wurffbain began to implement Bishop Meinwerk's old plan to transform the Boker Heide into cultivated land through artificial irrigation by presenting the project to the government in Berlin . Law No. 32 passed by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV on July 24, 1850, created the Boker Heide Melioration Society .
After the establishment of the cooperative and the approval of the loan of 324,000 marks by the Prussian state , the large number of property owners in the 5425 acre area had to be won over to the plan. Not all joined voluntarily, as many - partly out of peasant mistrust, partly out of lack of capital - rejected the structural changes on their land. After three years of construction, the canal was put into operation in 1853 and handed over to the firm in 1855. The total costs amounted to 537,000 marks, which is over 200,000 marks higher than originally estimated.
In the first few years there were great doubts about the project's success. The channel often led enough water because it through wild Berieselungen , so watering the Meliorations left without parent returns lost territory. The canal also regularly led to flooding in various places due to insufficient drainage ditches . After the construction of the Lippe dam, these shortcomings were remedied by the construction of return pipes and the granting of the right to unlimited water abstraction from the Lippe in 1865. However, this right led to legal disputes with the Lippeschifffahrt and the Lippstädter mills . The discharge right was limited so that a minimum discharge of 2.6 m³ / s had to remain in the Lippe and 1.9 m³ / s in the months of July, August and November.
With the start of artificial fertilization with Thomas slag around 1900, the profitability of the canal was finally secured. The total cost of construction had risen to a total of 1.5 million marks in 1898 and to almost 1.9 million marks in 1915, primarily due to constant new building measures to improve the system.
The predominant use of the irrigated areas as grassland was given up after the Second World War in favor of arable farming . This also required a change in the form of irrigation; the original surface irrigation was replaced by the groundwater and, to a lesser extent, by irrigation . As a result, the water demand of earlier times is no longer given. The old right of withdrawal is still valid, but can no longer be exercised in full, as the structural condition of the sewer no longer allows this. Regardless of the time of year, around 1 m³ / s of water is now channeled from the Lippe into the canal.
The current operator of the canal is the Boker-Heide water board in Delbrück.
Technical specifications
The Boker-Heide Canal is diverted from the Lippe at Paderborn- Schloß Neuhaus about 150 m behind the confluence with the Alme , in order to use the natural gradient at this point and thus increase the flow speed in the canal. The inlet lock is located about 380 m below the water intake, so that the sediments carried along by the Lippe can be deposited before they reach the lock.
The canal runs partly on an artificial dam . On its 32 km stretch of the canal, the canal passes 16 weirs , a bedrock and three water overpasses , for example over the Thune at the level of the Lippesees. Originally there were many other components, such as underground pipes and return locks, many of which no longer exist.
Today's meaning
The Boker-Heide Canal is an important Westphalian cultural monument and, with its lock systems and the long rows of trees that accompany it, has a significant impact on the landscape. Bike paths invite you to cycle along the canal. The canal has lost its importance as an irrigation and amelioration canal; today it is mainly used for groundwater regulation. Two canal keepers operate the 16 functional weirs, through which the water is fed or diverted to the meadows and fields as required.
Incidents
- Fish deaths on June 13, 2018: Due to a breakdown in construction work, too little water was fed into the canal, causing the canal to dry out in areas. This led to extensive fish deaths.
literature
- Klaus Tiborski: The Boker Heide Canal (technical cultural monuments in Westphalia; H. 6). Münster, 1986.
- Josef Tönsmeyer: The Lippeamt Boke. Published by the Salzkotten-Boke administration, 1968, pp. 188–191.
- Rita Gudermann: Dat offer waater . Published by Wasser- u. Soil association Boker Heide, Delbrück 2000.
- Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , 6th year 1856, columns 7–48 ( digitized version at the Central and State Library Berlin ).
- Atlas for the journal for building industry , 6th year 1856, plate 7ff. ( Digitized version at the Central and State Library Berlin ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.nw.de/lokal/kreis_paderborn/paderborn/22164792_Zu-wenig-Wasser-Fische-sterben-im-Boker-Kanal.html
- ↑ https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/fischsterben-boker-heide-kanal-100.html
Coordinates: 51 ° 45 ′ 9 ″ N , 8 ° 34 ′ 18 ″ E