Fischer landfill

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Fischer landfill (1989)

The Fischer landfill - Lower Austria's contaminated site   N1 - was an 800,000 m³ landfill in Theresienfeld in the Vienna Basin , in which, among other things, dangerous industrial and commercial waste was illegally dumped, despite its location in the middle of a huge groundwater reservoir . During the 1980s and 1990s, the Austrian courts and media repeatedly concerned themselves with its renovation, which ultimately cost 140 million euros.

The landfill was redeveloped from 2001 to 2008 as the largest contaminated site remediation project in Europe at the time.

location

The landfill was created from a gravel pit in the well-drained gravel bed of the Mitterndorfer Senke , one of the largest water reservoirs in Central Europe. Although the bottom of the pit was in the area of ​​the groundwater fluctuations, no technical precautions were taken to protect the groundwater .

Operation of the landfill

In 1972 the Waxina company began to deposit barrels in the abandoned gravel pit. The later tenant Johann Fischer , from whom the landfill got its name, used it, among other things, to deposit industrial and commercial waste. Whether poison barrels were also deposited there under his responsibility and with his knowledge, could never be finally clarified, in any case far more was deposited than was permitted, including excavated earth and household waste contaminated with oil.

In 1982 it was found that chlorinated hydrocarbons , especially perchlorethylene , from the landfill were contaminating the groundwater of the Mitterndorfer Depression.

Several proceedings were pending with the responsible authorities, which repeatedly found irregularities in the following years, so that in 1985 and 1986 over 500 barrels containing, among other things, solvent and synthetic resin residues were finally removed from the landfill . Since the operator was able to have already existing clearing deadlines lifted several times in a legal dispute with the responsible authorities, he was able to bring material into the landfill until 1987.

Refurbishment / clearance

Nevertheless, the authorities were able to enforce the final closure and subsequent rehabilitation of the landfill in 1987, albeit only after decades of legal dispute.

The clearing of the landfill, officially known as contaminated site  N1 , was completed at the end of 2005, with almost a million tons of construction waste and commercial waste removed from the landfill, including over 40,000 tons of hazardous waste. A further 900,000 tons of contaminated ballast were then disposed of. The material was classified on site according to landfill classes and taken to appropriate, organized landfills. The project is considered to be the most complex and expensive single project for remediation of contaminated sites in Austria to date.

The renovation was finally completed at the end of June 2005, with the embankments exposed again from the period of use as a gravel pit being covered with fresh gravel and the remaining pit / tub being planted again. A backfilling to the original site level (before the start of the ballast removal) was not carried out for cost reasons.

Overall, the three-year renovation / clearing, during which an average of 160 truckloads of landfill material was removed daily, resulted in costs of € 130 million. A large part of the costs were accounted for by the landfill fees incurred in those regulated landfills to which the material was brought. The Republic of Austria bore the costs.

The refurbishment of the Fischer landfill was the first major pilot project for landfill mining in Austria.

See also

Web links

Commons : Fischer-Landfill  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mitterndorfer Senke: Poison from back then threatens drinking water . derstandard.at, March 1, 2006, last accessed December 25, 2015.
  2. ↑ Antonia Bernhard, Manfred Domenig, Hubert Reisinger, Birgit Walter, Thomas Weißenbach: Landfill dismantling: economic efficiency, resource potential and climate relevance. Report REP-0378, Federal Environment Agency, Vienna 2011, 2.1.2 Fischer-Landfill , p. 18 f ( full article pdf , bmnt.gv.at).

Coordinates: 47 ° 51 ′ 36 ″  N , 16 ° 16 ′ 0 ″  E