Chalk pit Saturn
The Saturn chalk pit in the area of the communities of Breitenburg and Kronsmoor ( Steinburg district in Schleswig-Holstein ) is a disused area for chalk mining owned by Holcim AG . The pit has a length of about one kilometer and a width of about 700 meters.
history
The mine was operated until 1916 by the company "Portlandcementfabrik Saturn" from Brunsbüttel, founded in 1898, which has only made losses since it was founded. The company was later bought by Kali Chemie AG from Hanover. The factory was the first chemical factory in Brunsbüttel to be demolished in 1981. The area was chosen for dismantling because the nearby sturgeon could be used for transport.
Dismantling until the first flooding
In 1898 the "Portlandcement factory Saturn" from Brunsbüttel bought two farms. The pit was approx. 200 m wide, approx. 600 m long and 20 m deep. Over the chalk lay a 3 to 8 m thick layer of overburden, which at the thickest parts consisted of 3 m of bog, 3 m of sand and 2 m of marl (a chalk and clay mixture). The overburden was digested with muscle power and Loren moved out of the pit area. The chalk was mined down to −20 m with bucket chain excavators , and truck trains were driven over a railway embankment to a pier on the Stör, of which two wooden beams still exist. At the northeastern edge of the pit stood a boiler house with a steam engine that pumped the pit empty.
In 1916, as a result of shifting moorland and the breakage of a dike at the edge, more water entered the pit. The steam-powered pump could either no longer pump out the water or the pumps were switched off. The pit overflowed with water. All the machines could be fetched from the pit in time. Only a steel lattice tower remained. The tower was used between 1939 and 1944 for the training of divers and as a steel reserve. The flooded pit was used as a swimming lake until 1965 . There were few fish in the pit.
Dismantling after the Second World War
On September 27, 1965, the Portland Cement Factory in Breitenburg began pumping out the pit. A pump with an elastic hose installed on a barge was used for this. The pumping out of the water led to a lowering of the groundwater level , and the bog and peat around the pit dried up. As a result of the drying out, some nearby houses sagged and had to be bought and demolished by the successor company Alsen .
In 1967 the pit was pumped out and the construction of the conveyor belt "KS2" from the edge of the pit to the cement factory in Lägerdorf began. A small bucket wheel excavator was reassembled in the pit (the excavator came from the Schinkel pit , west of Lägerdorf) to do the necessary work. A transformer house was also built to supply the machines with electricity. The power line was attached to the conveyor belt, and a social building was built on the edge of the pit.
On May 8, 1968, a large bucket chain excavator was used in deep cutting by the LMG company in the chalk pit. When the Schinkel mine was closed, a small bucket chain excavator was exposed in deep cut. After conversion to high cut (the excavator works upwards), it could be used in the Saturn chalk pit from mid-1969. After the first bucket chain excavator was dismantled and scrapped, a few years passed before Krupp's SH 400 bucket wheel excavator was brought into the pit as a replacement. After a while, the conveyor belt was extended from −8 m to −22 m.
The overburden was first removed and sold by the Kurt May company and then by the Ernst Karl company from Westerhorn. Since mining was carried out first in the south (to the Breitenburger Moorkanal ) and later in the direction of Stör, a mountain was created in the middle of the pit by turning the large bucket chain excavator.
By removing the moor, 42 natural compensation areas had to be created. Drainage ditches were filled in in the Tütigmoor, fields were planted and a maintenance plan was drawn up. Many animal and plant species have settled in the renaturalized areas.
In 2002, mining in the pit was stopped. Mining to the north was no longer possible and mining into the depths is too expensive, as the salt content (under the chalk is salt, which contaminates the chalk; see Münsterdorfer Geestinsel ) increases in the chalk. Until then, there were three shifts five days a week with a total of 15 workers. Approx. 600 tons of chalk were mined every hour. Around 2,000,000 tons of chalk were mined each year. The large bucket chain excavator and the SH 400 excavator were the last excavators that were in the pit. The bucket ladder excavator was dismantled and scrapped. The SH 400 excavator was dismantled and taken to the Heidestrasse pit (a chalk pit west of Lägerdorf), where it is still in operation (as of 2016). The two conveyor belts at the edge of the pit were torn off. The transformer house and the social building were also demolished. In autumn 2009 the pump house was demolished because new submersible pumps were being installed.
Future usage plans
In May 2011 it became known that the energy company E.ON and Holcim, as part owners of the Saturn pit , would like to build a pumped storage power plant, the upper basin of which would be the Saturn pit. However, according to the current plans of the state government, the project cannot be implemented - at least in the form originally planned.
Individual evidence
- ^ NDR: Pumped storage plant in Lägerdorf ( Memento from May 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Chalk hollows are to be used as storage facilities for wind energy
- ↑ Feasibility study of the pumped storage power plant ( Memento from April 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Rejection of the wind pumped storage power plant ( Memento from August 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
Web links
- Chalk pit Saturn
- Mineral Atlas - Chalk pits near Lägerdorf near Itzehoe
- Location "Lägerdorf limestone quarry"
Coordinates: 53 ° 54 ′ 7 " N , 9 ° 35 ′ 7" E