Hard water

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Hardwasser AG
legal form Corporation
founding 1955
Seat Pratteln , Switzerland
management Thomas Meier
( CEO )
Roman Meury
( Chairman of the Board of Directors )
Number of employees 18 (end of 2016)
sales 6.5 million CHF (2015)
Branch care
Website www.hardwasser.ch

The Hard water AG , headquartered in Pratteln is a Swiss water production companies. It takes raw water from the Rhine and drains it into the Hardwald of Muttenz after previous filtration . The enriched groundwater is collected and treated with activated carbon filters .

Hardwasser AG produces 13.8 million m 3 of drinking water annually , three quarters of which is given to Basel-Stadt and a quarter to various municipalities and waterworks in Basel-Land ; In addition, Hardwasser supplies 0.9 million m 3 of service water for the ARA-Rhein wastewater treatment plant in Pratteln. For Basel-Stadt, the delivery by Hardwasser AG corresponds to half of the drinking water used, the rest is produced by IWB in the Lange Erlen waterworks .

history

Due to the economic boom after the Second World War , the demand for water increased, which led to a water shortage. The Basel gas and waterworks examined various options such as tapping distant groundwater. From 1950, the groundwater in was Hardwald 615567  /  two hundred and sixty-five thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine , a wooded area in the town of Muttenz, tested. The canton of Basel-Landschaft and the municipality of Muttenz had already carried out preliminary investigations. The working group for the planning of drinking water extraction in Hard was established. The project envisaged lifting water from the Rhine and thus artificially enriching groundwater. The governments of the cantons of Basel-Landschaft and Basel-Stadt approved the project. The latter canton was also the driving force behind the realization of this project. A contract was signed for the establishment of the public limited company and it was incorporated on December 19, 1955.

In the Hardwald, groundwater was extracted on a trial basis from 1951 and regularly from 1956. However, the quality of the drinking water was unsatisfactory. From 1958 onwards, the groundwater recharge through infiltration of Rhine water began, the necessary systems, ditches and ponds were built and expanded in stages until 1977.

In December 2007, chlorobutadienes were detected in the mixed water in concentrations above the Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC) . The Cantonal Laboratory of Basel-Landschaft issued an order to treat all drinking water additionally, initially with existing activated carbon filters in the IWB plant in the Langen Erlen and later in the West Headquarters of Hardwasser AG. The system was therefore expanded to include a provisional tank filter system in 2009 and the newly built Hard activated carbon filter system in 2013.

Drinking water production

The Muttenzer Hard drinking water area, where Hardwasser AG produces drinking water for 200,000 people in the city and agglomeration of Basel , is surrounded by possible peripheral influences such as chemical waste landfills, the Schweizerhalle industrial area, the Auhafen, the Muttenz freight station and the motorway. To prevent natural groundwater from flowing in from the area, Hardwasser AG has been creating a groundwater mountain for decades, in which it allows excess pre-filtered Rhine water to seep into the subsoil. In 2006 Greenpeace Switzerland detected trace contamination in the drinking water of Hardwasser AG, which could indicate a possible origin from the neighboring chemical waste landfills Feldreben, Rothausstrasse and Margelacker in Muttenz . The environmental organization as well as local environmental organizations therefore demanded the total renovation of the chemical waste dumps at the expense of the polluters, u. a. the pharmaceutical and chemical groups Novartis , Syngenta , Clariant , and BASF (ex. Ciba ). Later it could be shown that the canton of Basel-Landschaft had already detected some of the pollutants in 1980 in the drinking water of Hardwasser AG, which Greenpeace found again in 2006. It can therefore be assumed that highly toxic substances such as hexachlorobutadiene and tetrachlorobutadiene have more or less constantly contaminated this drinking water for around 30 years. Whether the pollutants in drinking water actually come from the chemical waste dumps is still a matter of dispute. Research and current measurements show that the range of chlorobutadienes comes from the Rhine and was infiltrated unnoticed into the underground of the Hard by the Rhine water infiltration in the 1970s. In 2007 the authorities of the canton of Basel-Landschaft obliged Hardwasser AG to treat their drinking water. Hardwasser AG has been operating a newly built activated carbon filter since December 2013. It successfully removes all chlorobutadienes and other trace contaminants. The municipality of Muttenz is building a multi-stage processing plant in the same area. a. with oxidation, because it is of the opinion that this is the only way to remove the numerous traces of pollutants from drinking water.

The company today

Around 80% of the drinking water that Hardwasser AG produces is drunk in the city of Basel . In the community of Allschwil , too, people drink water from the Muttenzer Hard. Today, the communities of Aesch , Dornach , Pfeffingen , Pratteln , Frenkendorf , Füllinsdorf and Reinach are entitled to receive drinking water. Further network connections exist to the rear Leimental as well as to Augst , Schönenbuch , Liestal , Lausen and the Reinach waterworks and the surrounding area. The company, based on Rheinstrasse, a main street near Pratteln, is a stock corporation and employs around 18 people.

A bus stop on bus route 81 operated by Autobus AG Liestal is named after Hardwasser AG.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hardwasser AG annual report 2016 , p. 37. ( PDF; 0.9 MB )
  2. ↑ IWB brochure drinking water 0615: The precious elixir of life , p. 18. ( PDF; 2.1 MB )
  3. ^ Matousek, Baumann & Niggli AG: Evaluation and interpretation of new groundwater data in the Muttenz / Hardwald area, groundwater analyzes March 2004-March 2009 , pp. 6-7. ( PDF; 8.4 MB )
  4. ↑ Federal Office of Public Health : Assessment of contaminants in drinking water using the “Threshold of Toxicological Concern” (TTC) concept . Liebefeld, January 20, 2009. ( PDF )
  5. ↑ Hardwasser AG Annual Report 2007 , p. 3. ( PDF; 1.0 MB )
  6. ↑ Hardwasser AG Annual Report 2009 , p. 9. ( PDF; 1.0 MB )
  7. ↑ Hardwasser AG Annual Report 2013 , pp. 1 and 8. ( PDF; 2.0 MB )
  8. ↑ Hardwasser AG is owned by the cantons of Basel-Landschaft and Basel-Stadt
  9. ↑ Even more landfill chemicals in drinking water! Greenpeace Switzerland (PDF; 2.7 MB)
  10. ↑ Chemical landfills around Basel (map)
  11. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fachkom.ch
  12. ↑ Martin Forter: Chemical waste and drinking water in Muttenz 1957-2007, on behalf of Forum worried drinking water consumers (FbTK) and Greenpeace Switzerland, Basel, February 12, 2007, pp. 16–33  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.sp-muttenz.ch  
  13. ↑ Martin Forter: Wrong game. The environmental sins of Basel chemistry before and after "Schweizerhalle". Chronos Verl., Zurich, 2010, p. 84 and p. 91–94, ISBN 978-3-0340-1007-8
  14. ↑ http://www.grosserrat.bs.ch/dokumente/100244/000000244385.pdf
  15. ^ Verlag Chemie. 47 volume. From the water. With lectures at the 1976 anniversary conference of the water chemistry specialist group in Kiel. The behavior of organohalogen compounds in drinking water treatment. Page 347–377
  16. ↑ http://hardwasser.ch/content/hardwasser
  17. ↑ http://www.muttenz.ch/de/politik/politikinformationen/?action=showinfo&info_id=115665
  18. ↑ Martin Forter: Wrong game. The environmental sins of Basel chemistry before and after "Schweizerhalle". Chronos Verl., Zurich, 2010 ISBN 978-3-0340-1007-8
  19. ↑ Martin Forter: Play of colors. A century of environmental use by the Basel chemical industry, Chronos Verl., Zurich, 2010, pp. 173–193, ISBN 978-3-0340-1007-8
  20. ↑ http://www.wwr.ch/