Ronsdorf dam
| Ronsdorf dam | |||||||||
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| Coordinates | 51 ° 13 '14 " N , 7 ° 11' 1" E | ||||||||
| Data on the structure | |||||||||
| Construction time: | 1898-1899 | ||||||||
| Height above valley floor: | 19.26 m | ||||||||
| Height above foundation level : | 23.50 m | ||||||||
| Height of the structure crown: | 266.08 m | ||||||||
| Building volume: | 18,000 m³ | ||||||||
| Crown length: | 180 m | ||||||||
| Crown width: | 3.60 m | ||||||||
| Data on the reservoir | |||||||||
| Altitude (at congestion destination ) | 260.00 or 265.28 m | ||||||||
| Water surface | 2.47 or 4 ha | ||||||||
| Storage space | 0.119 or 0.300 million m³ | ||||||||
| Catchment area | 0.8 km² | ||||||||
| Design flood : | 1 m³ / s | ||||||||
The Ronsdorfer Talsperre (also Saalbachtalsperre ) is a dam of the formerly independent city of Ronsdorf , today a district of Wuppertal . It is a popular local recreation area in Wuppertal on the border with Remscheid .
Description and history
On March 24, 1897, the city council, headed by the then incumbent mayor August Staas of the then independent city of Ronsdorf, decided to build a dam in the Saalbachtal to supply the city with drinking water.
The Aachen professor Otto Intze was commissioned , who then planned a gravity dam made of rubble according to his Intze principle with a height of 19.26 meters and a crown length of 180 meters with a crown width of 3.60 meters. Construction began in 1898, and the dam and the associated waterworks were officially commissioned on November 11, 1899.
In the early days of dam construction from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, it was customary in Germany to name dams not after their dammed up water , but after the town they were built to supply. Hence the name “Ronsdorfer Talsperre”, which, contrary to the later naming convention, has remained until today. Other dams in the nearby region were renamed.
The storage height is 19.26 meters, while the storage area amounts to 40,800 m². The barrier held a maximum of 300,000 cubic meters at the time of construction. It is mainly fed by the Saalbach (or Salbach), a tributary of the Gelpe , and is located on the edge of the historic Gelpe valley . Today it is owned by the Wupper Association .
On the north side of the dam, a restaurant was built in 1900 by the building contractor Benscheidt, which opened in 1901 and was leased by the Lücke family until it was closed in 1957 .
In 1911 the owners of the Hammerwerke am Saalbach below the dam complained about the changed water supply for their water wheels . After lengthy negotiations, they were compensated with a one-off payment. In the summer of 1944, anti-aircraft guns were set up at the dam .
According to an administrative report from the city of Wuppertal, the annual water withdrawal in 1938 was around 403,750 m³, in 1940 around 465,470 m³, in 1944 around 497,300 m³, in 1945 around 642,280 m³ and in 1946 around 460,325 m³. In 1947 the extraction sank to 330,000 m³ due to the drought, with the dam being almost completely emptied. Due to a lack of material, the opportunity for the urgently needed rehabilitation of the dam was not used.
In 1957 the drinking water supply through the Saalbachtalsperre was given up and the restaurant closed. Refugees were temporarily housed in it. In 1970 the building was closed and a playground was later set up on the site. The pumping station was demolished in 1975.
From 1961, due to structural deficiencies, damming was only carried out to a maximum of six meters above the bottom of the valley, so that a storage volume of 47,000 m³ remained. In 1993, the district government ordered the complete emptying of the dam for safety reasons. As a result, a Ronsdorfer Talsperre association was founded on January 13, 1994 , which campaigned for the preservation of the dam, which was in danger of being demolished. Previously, 9,419 Ronsdorf citizens had voted against the demolition in a signature list. In 1995 it was placed under protection as an architectural monument and included in the list of monuments of the city of Wuppertal under the number 3500.
Lord Mayor Hans Kremendahl was open to the concerns of the development association, and in cooperation with the responsible authorities, the city and the Wupper Association, an expert opinion on the necessary renovation measures was drawn up, which was presented on February 13, 1998. The public relations work of the association includes so-called dam festivals, the first of which took place on September 20, 1998.
On December 3, 1998, the Wupper Association agreed to take over the dam from the city and undertook to plan and finance the renovation of the dam. The transfer contract was signed on April 28, 1999 on the dam. After the renovation, which began in 2000 and was completed in 2004, it has a capacity of 119,325 m³ and an area of 2.47 hectares. This makes it one of the smallest dams in the Bergisches Land , with an operating water level of eleven meters and a total water level of 13 meters.
For nature conservation reasons, direct access to the largest part of the bank area of the reservoir is not possible, this was fenced in as part of the renovation. The endangered European crayfish ( Astacus astacus ) lives in the reservoir .
In cooperation with the Erich Fried Comprehensive School in Ronsdorf, a small hydropower plant was built in the dam wall as an exemplary demonstration object for the prospects for the use of regenerative energy .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Ronsdorfer Heimat- und Bürgererverein e. V .: Wuppertal Forest Experience Trail .
- ^ Angling club Nienborg Dinkel e. V .: Carsten Burk: Edelkrebs, from Angler heute, 13/1998.
Web links
- Entry in the Wuppertal monument list
- Ronsdorf dam. In: Structurae
- Wupper Association
- Dams directory NRW (PDF; 122 kB)
- Dams in North Rhine-Westphalia; State Environment Agency NRW (PDF file; 121 kB)
- the dams of the Wupperverband