Bolmentunnel

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The Bolmentunnel is an 80 kilometer long drinking water tunnel in southern Sweden. It leads from Lake Bolmen in Småland to Äktaboden in the municipality of Klippan in Skåne län . The tunnel is operated by Sydvatten and supplies around 700,000 people in Skåne with drinking water .

background

In the 1960s the population of the southern Swedish cities of Malmö , Lund and Helsingborg increased sharply. This population increase was viewed with concern as the drinking water supplies in these cities were insufficient for the growing industry and population. To remedy the water shortage, it was decided to build an 80-kilometer-long water pipe from Lake Bolmen. At the end of the line in Äktaboden, near Perstorp , the water is distributed to the rest of Skåne. The tunnel has a gradient of 90 meters over the entire route and only transports the water by gravity. The tunnel cross-section is 9 m². As the tenth largest Swedish lake, the Bolmen has sufficient reserves of fresh water, which, unlike that of the southern Swedish lakes, is clean and poor in lime.

In 1966 the cities of Malmö , Helsingborg , Lund , Landskrona and Eslöv merged and founded the joint stock company Sydvatten, which operates the Bolmentunnel. In the following years other cities joined Sydvatten.

In 1975, construction of the actual tunnel began. When it became clear that population growth was less than expected and when the geological conditions turned out to be worse than expected, the project came to a standstill.

After modifications to the original plans, the tunnel was put into operation in 1987 and the connected cities could be supplied with fresh and soft water. In 2011, around 800,000 households were supplied with water through the tunnel.

Currently, around 2500 liters per second flow through the tunnel, which has a capacity of 6000 liters / second.

The water from Lake Bolmen has a hardness of 3–4 ° dH. In contrast, the water resources in Skåne have a hardness of around 5 ° dH.

future

Sydvatten is currently investing in a new pipeline network and expanding the network to the connected locations. Vellinge was connected to the network in 2006. Other places will follow, as stricter EU regulations no longer allow several places to be self-sufficient.

In 2009 the tunnel had to be shut down due to urgent renovation work after it threatened to collapse in various places and there were already 2 collapse sites. The renovation costs were estimated at around SEK 35 to 40 million . The affected communities took the lack of drinking water from Lake Ringsjön during the period of closure . Due to delays and further renovation needs in the southern part, the tunnel could only be put back into operation on March 29, 2011.

In the meantime, there were legal disputes between Sydvatten, the operator of the tunnel, and the municipalities of Ljungby and Markaryd, as considerable amounts of groundwater seep into the tunnel, which in some cases leads to problems in the areas of the route. The basis of the lawsuit is the question of whether Sydvatten is even allowed to use the groundwater without a permit. In a first case before an environmental court (Miljödomstolen), the municipality of Markaryd was right. Sydvatten then applied for a revision to the highest court with a new report.

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