Mühlenberger Loch
Coordinates: 53 ° 32 ′ 33 ″ N , 9 ° 48 ′ 0 ″ E
The Mühlenberger Loch is a river area in the course of the Niederelbe below the former Elbe island Finkenwerder at river kilometer 634, where the Süderelbe originally flowed. The Alte Süderelbe is now a still body of water and was closed in the course of dyke construction work because it was silting up more and more and was no longer needed as a shipping route since the expansion of the Köhlbrand in the middle of the 19th century. The Mühlenberger Loch is thus located as a bay south of the main river of the Elbe, which is 2.8 km wide at this point. It is 2 km behind the port of Hamburg and 93 km in front of the mouth of the Elbe. Ebb and flow affect the Mühlenberger Loch . It is considered to be one of the largest freshwater mud flats in Europe.
The village of Mühlenberg
The name Mühlenberger Loch is based on the district of Mühlenberg von Blankenese , which today is essentially marked by a street of the same name in a valley cut into the east (upstream of the Elbe) from Blankenese. In fact, there was also a “Mühlenberg”. A windmill stood on an elevation down the Elbe from the valley. There was also a water mill at the mill pond. Mühlenberg used to be a small settlement of its own, which was probably originally built around the landing site of the formerly independent village of Dockenhuden , which is now “divided” between Blankenese and Nienstedten . Around 1850 there was a Blankeneser and a Dockenhudener part of Mühlenberg.
Emergence
In front of Hamburg , the 400 m wide Upper Elbe fans out into a widespread inland delta into which the Port of Hamburg was built. The north and south Elbe take far separate paths and only flow together again below Hamburg. The reunited river reaches a width of up to 2.5 km and is subject to the tides , so that it is shallow and interspersed with numerous shoals, mud flats and islands.
"Mill Loch" was originally the name of a fairway than from Blankenese to Cranz used Priel through the sandbanks opposite the Mill Mountain.
At the beginning of the 1940s, the aircraft works of Blohm & Voss , Hamburger Flugzeugbau GmbH , built a harbor basin on the island of Finkenwerder , which separates the North and South Elbe, as a water surface was required for testing the take-off and landing of flying boats . The bank was straightened and fortified, the water surface dredged. Since then, the entire large area of water that borders Hamburg-Finkenwerder downstream has been referred to as the “Mühlenberger Loch”.
The excavation was deposited next to the pig sand and gave rise to the island of Neßsand .
After the old Süderelbe was dammed as a protective measure after the storm surge of 1962, the Mühlenberger Loch silted up more and more.
In the course of the expansion of the Airbus site and the associated extension of the runway of the company's own airport , in order to enable the construction of the Airbus A380 in Hamburg as well, one fifth of the Mühlenberger Loch was filled in. The newly filled area was named Mühlenberger Sand .
Flora and fauna
See also: Mühlenberger Loch / Neßsand nature reserve
The area is characterized by its abundance of fish such as pikeperch , smelt , flounder (locally called butt ) and eel ; when there is a lack of oxygen in the deepened Elbe fairway in summer, it is an important retreat. It also serves as a resting and feeding area for migratory birds , especially spoonbills and teal , and is therefore recognized as a bird sanctuary of international rank according to the criteria of Ramsar . It borders u. a. to the Hamburg nature reserves NSG Finkenwerder Süderelbe , NSG Westerweiden and NSG Neßsand and is designated with the latter to form a contiguous NSG Mühlenberger Loch / Neßsand.
For this reason, too, the partial distribution met with considerable resistance from the local population.
The Mühlenberger Loch is registered both as a European bird sanctuary (DE 2424-401) within the meaning of the Birds Directive and as an FFH area (DE 2424-302) according to the Fauna-Flora-Habitat Directive . The Mühlenberger Loch was designated as a landscape protection area by the ordinance of the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg of May 25, 1982 (GVBl p. 188). By means of an amending ordinance of November 23, 1999 (GVBl p. 264) that came into force on May 4, 2000, the area of the Mühlenberger Loch that was filled in was removed from the scope of the landscape protection area.
Hydraulic situation
After the 1962 storm surge, the Alte Süderelbe was dammed towards the Mühlenberger Loch; the Mühlenberger Loch could only flow through from the Hahnöfer tributary to the Elbe. Extreme sedimentation and flattening of the Este fairway are the consequences. In 1967/68 the two islands Hanskalbsand and Neßsand were connected by a flushing dam. The resulting island was thus given the function of a tail unit. Further washings on the sands followed up to a height of ~ NN + 3.50 m.
After the Hahnöfersand pre- dike and the commissioning of the sluice on the Borsteler Binnenelbe in 1973/1974, a two-stream system was created from the main Elbe and Hahnöfer Nebenelbe.
In addition to the aforementioned temporary electricity structures and changes, maintenance dredging is ongoing. In addition, morphological changes and the resulting impurities are localized and the required dredging quantities are determined. The safety of traffic is guaranteed by using suction excavators. The maintenance excavation is carried out by the Hamburg Waterways and Shipping Office, Federal Ministry for Transport, Building and Urban Development.
The Elbe islands Neßsand / Hanskalbsand , Schweinesand and Pagensand, which have been heaped up and washed up into a network over the years , are the property of the federal government.
Economy and nature protection - The Airbus extension
In order to enable the expansion of the adjacent Airbus Deutschland GmbH for the construction of the Airbus A380 aircraft , the City of Hamburg filled or flushed a 170 hectare area of the Mühlenberger Loch with sand between 2001 and 2003 . Because of this process, there were violent disputes with nature conservationists, but economic and structural objections were also voiced, as the stable construction of large factory halls on the several meters thick silt floor is very complex. The constructional objections did not come true, the factory expansion area described below was completed in August 2004. The stability of the floor has proven to be a technically solvable problem, so that the construction of the halls for the production of the Airbus A380 has been able to move forward quickly since 2002. The legal disputes regarding this construction project are being conducted before the Hamburg administrative court ; In June 2005 the Higher Administrative Court ruled that the entire Airbus project was "indirect public benefit" and thus confirmed the expansion of the plant in Mühlenberger Loch.
The site ("Mühlenberger Sand") was created by filling in order to gain additional space for the expansion of the Airbus site. On the occasion of the production of the largest passenger aircraft in the world, the A380, an expansion of the factory premises was inevitable. After years of legal dispute, an area of 170 hectares (140 hectares of usable area) of the Mühlenberger Loch was filled in opposite the district of Blankenese by backfilling with sand from dredging the jade. As a compensatory measure , parts of the Elbe island Hahnöfersand were converted into watts.
The second larger industrial company on Mühlenberger Loch is JJ Sietas KG , a special ship and feeder yard, which has its factory premises directly behind the main dike line at the estuary .
Leisure and recreation area
The Mühlenberger Loch is one of the most popular sailing and recreational areas in the region and is considered one of the most beautiful areas in Europe. The Mühlenberger Loch was and is a good usable paddling and sailing area, which can be used especially at higher water levels, so it is strongly dependent on the tide. Despite the proximity to the busy Elbe fairway with current speeds of up to 2-3 knots (approx. 1–1.5 m / s), the area is comparatively quiet and, despite the reduction in size due to the expansion of the Airbus, is still well suited as a regatta area and used intensively.
The people of Hamburg like to use the ferry connection from Blankenese to Cranz on foot or by bike to get to the other side; from there you like to walk on the dykes and enjoy the great perspective of the northern bank of the Elbe. It is also how you get to the hinterland, the old country . Since the new Elbe Tunnel existed, buses have also been very easy to get to the south side.
The hike from Altona (more correctly Ottensen ) to Blankenese along the European long-distance hiking trail is particularly popular .
Web links
- BUND: Mühlenberger Loch - Sweet Watts bitterly contested
- What's going on down there in the Elbe?
- www.rettet-die-elbe.de
- BVerfG press release "No construction stop in Mühlenberger Loch" (from May 15, 2001)
- Information on the Airbus infrastructure facilities at Mühlenberger Loch
- The Ramsar Convention
- The fight of the sailors against the sand
- Hamburg is trembling about its millions in investments
- Photo documentation of the development of the Airbus site
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schröder, Johannes von; Biernatzki, Hermann: Topography of the Duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg , 2nd edition, 1855, cited. n .: Der Heimatbote, 2006, 7, p. 6.
- ^ Nautical chart No. 250 of the Reichs-Marine-Amt in the versions up to 1929
- ↑ http://fhh.hamburg.de/stadt/Aktuell/pressemommunikations/2005/oktober/18/2005-10-18-bsu-naturschutzgebiet.html
- ↑ Hamburg Waterways and Shipping Office