Korneuburg refinery

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The refinery Korneuburg was one of 1927 put into operation refinery near Korneuburg in Lower Austria . It was replaced in 1961 by the larger, newly built refinery in Schwechat .

history

The refinery was located on the southern outskirts between the Nordwestbahn and Donau Straße  B3, north of the junction to the Danube bank A22 motorway  . The area is also known as Tuttendorfer Breite .

The refinery was originally supposed to be built in 1921. However, the project was initially put aside because of the feared odor nuisance. In 1927, however, it was realized.

Originally crude oil from Romania was processed . After the explorations in the Weinviertel in the early 1930s, domestic oil was also increasingly processed. After the connection , the German Gasolin plant was incorporated and expanded generously. Track systems were expanded and a tank farm was built near the shipyard , where the crude oil from Romania, which was transported across the Danube, could be stored.

Bomb hits in June and July 1944 were unsafe, while an Allied air raid in August left 72 dead. Towards the end of the war , however, the bombing was much stronger, so that in addition to damage to the hospital and the Protestant church, 132 deaths were to be lamented.

After the end of the war, the refinery was incorporated as "German property" by the Soviet occupying power of the SMV, the Soviet mineral oil administration in Austria . From this it was also rebuilt. After the State Treaty , it fell into the administration of the nationalized ÖMV . It was operated by the ÖMV until the large refinery in Schwechat was completed in 1961. Gasoline, petroleum, gas oils, oil distillates, bitumina, refined oil and heating oils were produced.

The facilities were only removed in 1973.

The refinery as a contaminated site

The area of ​​the refinery at that time has long been considered a major contaminated site due to the soil that was contaminated with oil.

Today (2008) only parts of the entire site are built. So there is a thermal power plant of EVN , and warehouses on the premises. The majority, however, lies fallow.

According to eyewitness reports, the contamination goes back to 1929, but has only been documented since 1956. The groundwater level in the Korneuburg Basin is very dependent on the amount of water in the Danube , so that the contamination with the groundwater also rises and falls. In 1965, when the Danube flooded, these impurities were washed to the surface of the earth. The wells in the area are useless as drinking water. The contaminated site also poses a threat to the 1 km of the NÖSIWAG drinking water wells .

For this reason, the aim is to start removing the pollution in 2009 under the name Altlast  N16 . For this purpose, a biological process of a size that has never before been carried out in Austria is to be used.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oil from refinery contaminated sites is removed on ORF from November 17, 2008

Web links

Coordinates: 48 ° 20 ′ 11.9 ″  N , 16 ° 20 ′ 11.5 ″  E