Děčín barrage

50.8010596 14.23669875Coordinates: 50 ° 48 '4 " N , 14 ° 14' 12" O The děčín weir ( Czech Plavební stupeň Děčín ) is close to the Czech Děčín planned barrage in the Czech lower reaches of the same .

description

The planned location of the dam is to be between Děčín-Loubí (arbor) and Prostřední Žleb (middle ground) not far from the German border at river kilometer 737.02 (shipping km 98.98). It should consist of a weir with a lock , a small hydroelectric power station and two fish channels .

purpose

The Děčín barrage is part of the Czech efforts to improve the navigability of the Elbe through increased barrage regulation . The declared goal is a diving depth of at least 140 cm on approx. 345 days per year.

controversy

Opponents of the project doubt whether an appropriate economic benefit can be achieved, since the Elbe is only navigable to a limited extent (with weather-dependent interruptions) in the course of the river below. It is therefore also feared that the Děčín barrage will increase the pressure on Germany to build barrages along the Elbe.

In particular, the project has been criticized for its effects on nature , landscape and flood protection . Since 2000, there have been numerous objections, especially from the German side. The government of neighboring Saxony is against the barrage: In 2005, the then Environment Minister Stanislaw Tillich intervened with the EU to block their funding for the project, in 2010 Environment Minister Frank Kupfer (both CDU ) lodged an objection and checked whether the project could also be carried out if necessary Lawsuit can be prevented.

In October / November 2010, the documents for a new environmental impact assessment were laid out in order to implement the barrage after a change in personnel at the head of the previously negative Prague Environment Ministry. Conservationists and environmentalists criticized this objection procedure as “sham public participation” . Only an insufficient selection of documents was made available in German within the short period. As a result, an extension of the deadline for comments from Germany was granted until February 28, 2011, as the German translation of the entire documentation was not completed until January.

After the first version of the planning documents had already been rejected by the Czech Ministry of the Environment under the then Green Minister, the authority also stopped the revised version in 2012 (now under a conservative-liberal ODS minister) and referred it back to the RVC waterway office due to deficiencies.

At the end of 2019, the Czech Ministry of the Environment ( Czech Ministerstvo životního prostředí ) informed the German Directorate-General for Waterways and Shipping that the environmental impact assessment procedure had ended.