Institute for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene

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The Institute for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene (“WaBoLu”) was the first and therefore the oldest research institute for environmental hygiene in Germany and even in Europe. WaBoLu was one of seven institutes of the Federal Health Office and after its dissolution in 1994 it was affiliated to the Federal Environment Agency as Department V. As part of several reorganizations, it lost its name and its independence within a few years, shortly before its centenary. The task of "health concerns of environmental protection " is performed today in various specialist areas of the Federal Environment Agency. The headquarters of WaBoLu had been the institute building on Corrensplatz in Berlin-Dahlem since 1913 . An office of the Federal Environment Agency is located here today.

Tasks and organization

The task of the Institute for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene was to scientifically research the connections between environmental quality and human health and to advise and educate politicians and the population in this regard. The WaBoLu was the oldest and for a long time the only state institution in the environmental sector.

In terms of organization, the institute was recently divided into five departments with subordinate subject areas:

history

On April 1, 1901, the Royal Research and Testing Institute for Water Supply and Sewage Disposal was founded and housed in rented rooms in the center of Berlin ( Kochstrasse 73 ). The rapidly growing importance of issues relating to drinking water and wastewater hygiene in particular, as well as the increasing number of orders and samples, made it necessary to move into a new building in March 1913 at Corrensplatz 1 in Berlin-Dahlem. This building remained its headquarters until the institute was dissolved in 1999.

Prussian State Institute for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene (effects of poison on cockroaches) July 1928

In 1913 the name of the institute was changed to the Royal State Institute for Water Hygiene . The expansion of the area of ​​responsibility also to the areas of air and soil led on April 25, 1923 to another renaming in the Prussian State Institute for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene . In 1934 the institution was incorporated into the Reich Health Office. At the end of the Second World War and the first few years afterwards, the work of the institute came to a complete standstill.

On the orders of the occupying powers, the institute resumed work and was initially subordinated to the City of Berlin's magistrate in order to be active in the field of Berlin's water supply and sewage disposal. The Institute for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene, the Robert Koch Institute and the Max von Pettenkofer Institute were then merged into the Federal Health Office (BGA) in 1952, the presidential department of which was initially located in Koblenz and from 1958 in Berlin.

The political situation in West Berlin , the increasing importance of environmental hygiene issues and the need for studies outside Berlin led to the establishment of branch offices of the WaBoLu. In 1960 a branch was set up in Düsseldorf , in 1970 a test field in Hattersheim near Frankfurt am Main to investigate the effects of air pollution and in 1973 a branch in Frankfurt am Main for questions about groundwater recharge and bank filtration . All three branch offices were combined in a new laboratory building in Langen near Frankfurt from 1983 . In 1979 a test field for special questions of environmental hygiene was opened in Berlin-Marienfelde , on which large-scale tests for water extraction and wastewater treatment could be carried out. After reunification, the Bad Elster research center finally joined WaBoLu in 1991 , a research institute that had dealt with drinking and bathing water hygiene issues in the GDR .

When the Federal Health Office ( higher federal authority of the health ministry) was dissolved in 1994, the WaBoLu, together with its branches in Berlin-Marienfelde, Langen and Bad Elster, was affiliated to the Federal Environment Agency ( higher federal authority of the environmental ministry) and the task of "health issues of environmental protection" per Transfer the amendment to the “Act on the Establishment of a Federal Environment Agency” to the Federal Environment Agency.

Reorganization within the Federal Environment Agency due to savings in personnel and reduced budget, but also because of partly duplicate and different approaches to environmental issues (Federal Environment Agency: How must people behave so that the environment remains clean ?, WaBoLu: How must the environment be designed so that people stay healthy?) and the resulting controversies led in 1999 to the complete integration of the WaBoLu work units into the Federal Environment Agency and thus to the loss of identity and the institute's name.

Institute director

  • 1901–1910: Adolf Schmidtmann
  • 1902–1920: Carl Günther
  • 1910–1915: Rudolf Abel
  • 1915–1917: Otto Finger
  • 1917–1921: Max Beninde
  • 1921–1934: Karl Thumm
  • 1934–1938: Hans Lehmann
  • 1938–1945: Friedrich Konrich
  • 1945–1949: Ernst Tiegs
  • 1949–1950: Herrmann Helfer
  • 1950–1957: Erhard Nehring
  • 1957–1959: Walther Liese
  • 1960–1965: Erich Naumann
  • 1965–1975: Fritz Höffken
  • 1975–1983: Karl Aurand
  • 1984–1987: Giselher von Nieding
  • 1988–1999: Henning Lange-Asschenfeldt

Publications

  • Environmental survey
  • Series WaBoLu books (since 1970)
  • Cooperation with the Association for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene: Series of publications by the Association for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene

literature

  • Engelbert Schramm: Municipal environmental protection in Prussia (1890–1933): Narrowing down to enforcement through scientific advice? In: Jürgen Reulecke and Adelheid Countess zu Castell Rüdenhausen (ed.): City and health. On the change in “public health” and local health policy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Stuttgart 1991, 77-90
  • Reinhold Zilch: Health care and environmental policy - the state, local authorities and associations on the founding of the Royal Research and Testing Institute for Water Supply and Wastewater Disposal in 1901. In: Bärbel Holtz u. a. (Ed.): Prussia as a cultural state. The Prussian Ministry of Culture as a state authority and social agency (1817 - 1934). Case studies. Acta Borussica - New Episode 3.1 (2012), pp. 245-300

Web links

Commons : Institute for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene  - Collection of images, videos and audio files