Geesthacht barrage

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Geesthacht barrage
Lock gates from the northwest

The Geesthacht barrage , which was put into operation in 1960, is located southwest of the Schleswig-Holstein town of Geesthacht and dams the water of the Elbe at 4 m above sea level. NN . This limits the tidal influence of the North Sea upstream. In addition to the Cracauer waterfall , a permanent low-water weir on the Old Elbe near Magdeburg , it is the only barrage along the river in Germany. The barrage consists of a weir with a fish pass and a lock channel with a double lock . Another fish pass was completed in September 2010.

geography

map

The barrage was built on the German Elbe kilometer 585.9 southwest of Geesthacht and 142 kilometers above the mouth of the Elbe. It separates the Lower Elbe, which is influenced by the tides, from the middle course. The difference in height between the upper water and the tidal underwater is normally between 1.3 and 3.5 meters. With higher storm surges, the water can run further upstream; this is intended to avoid an additional rise in the storm surge peak in the upper tidal Elbe and near Hamburg. The Elbe forms the state border between Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony . The first fish pass is on the Lower Saxony side, the lock channel on the Schleswig-Holstein side.

The communities Drage and Marschacht are located on the south bank of the reservoir .

The Elbe stream has a catchment area of ​​135,013 km² up to the weir and at this point an average discharge of 728  cubic meters per second (m³ / s). At mean water , the backflow affects 31.4 kilometers upstream as far as the Radegast area , which results in a storage volume of 8.2 million m³ and the Elbe Lateral Canal and the Elbe-Lübeck Canal can be reached with a full ship all year round. The Krümmel nuclear power plant , which draws cooling water from the Elbe, and the Geesthacht pumped storage power plant , for which the dammed Elbe is the lower basin, are also located in the storage area.

On the weir bridge and on the lock bridge over the Unterhäupter the federal highway 404 crosses the Elbe.

The weir in Geesthacht is, besides a fixed low water weir near Magdeburg, the only barrage in the course of the Elbe on German territory. The next weir is on the Czech side in Ústí nad Labem / Střekov, seen from Geesthacht 622.1 kilometers upstream.

buildings

Weir in Geesthacht: the adjustable weir lock can be easily recognized through maintenance work
Lock system in the lock canal
Service bridge with control devices in the fish pass
Second fish pass under construction, July 2010

Weir

The water is transported through movable sealing bodies (steel sectors) in four weir openings, each with a clear width of 50 meters, to a storage target of 4 m above sea level. NN held. Depending on the amount of water, the four closure bodies can be raised or lowered. With a discharge from 1,200 m³ / s all openings are completely released. The weir system is a total of 220 meters wide and raises the water level of the Elbe two meters above the previous mean water level. The defense pillars are each five meters wide.

Locks

A lock canal with a double lock, built north of the weir, is used to overcome the barrage. The two lock chambers with a length of 230 meters and a width of 25 meters each hold four large motor ships or a corresponding push convoy . The four lifting gates are moved electromechanically and with counterweights in the lock towers with little effort. The lock is usually operated as a twin lock: the empty basin is initially filled with a third of the full content through a filling channel in the wall between the two chambers. The chambers are then completely filled or emptied without gushing by gently lifting the respective upper or lower gate.

In 2010, 24,042 vehicles were smuggled, of which 16,270 were goods ships, 4,778 pleasure boats and 231 passenger ships. The volume of goods amounted to 8.96 million tons , of which 5.65 million tons in the mountains and 3.31 million tons in the valley, the container traffic comprised 44,372 standard containers in the mountains and 43,017 in the valley. The goods groups with the largest volumes were crude oil (2.01  megatons (Mt) ), coal (1.75 Mt), food and feed (0.46 Mt) as well as building materials (0.46 Mt) in the valley - and forestry products (1.14 Mt) and building materials (0.79 Mt). In the upper water, the traffic flows of the goods volume of the Geesthacht lock mainly lead through the Elbe Lateral Canal and vice versa. Most of the destination and exit ports are on the Mittelland Canal .

Fish ladders

Fish ladder for smaller fish

In order to enable fish to move despite the difference in height, a 216 meter long and 11 meter wide fish pass bypasses the weir on the southern bank of the Elbe. The Raugerinne, an artificial rapids, comprises three slopes with water depths of 80 cm and two 1.2 meter deep relaxation pools. In the course there is a service bridge with eight riflemen and six control traps .

The downhill stretches are equipped with sturgeon stones that are intended to create a strong lure current for fish. 6.3 m³ of water flow off every second through the artificial torrent. The system from April 1998 replaced the previously existing fish ladder and a fish passage, which were not fully functional.

The fish pass was studied from May 1998 to March 2000. Instead of the 27 fish species found in the old system, 32 were found, but there were no pike , silver carp and brown trout . On the other hand there were the species grass carp, vendace, hazel, gudgeon, barbel, catfish, flounder, bleak and bream. Despite the established functionality, there is still room for improvement.

In particular, the spokesman for the Elbfischer community initiative considers the existing fish ladder to be insufficient for reintroducing the sturgeon , which has been extinct in Germany since 1968, in the Elbe because it is too small.

Fish ladder for larger fish

As an ecological measure to prevent and limit damage to the coal-fired power station Moorburg in Hamburg, Vattenfall has built a new 550-meter-long second fish pass with 45 basins nine meters long and 16 meters wide on the north bank of the weir in Geesthacht. The fish can get into the next higher tank through side slits in the tank. The plant was officially put into operation on September 23, 2010. This facility, which at that time was also the largest fish ladder in Europe, also allowed migrating fish such as salmon , sea ​​trout and sturgeon to reach their original spawning areas in the middle and upper Elbe. To check the functionality of the system, which had already been proven in a model test at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (University of Karlsruhe), the ascended fish were counted species-specifically from 2010 to at least 2012 and classified according to their size. Since the system was commissioned, around 500,000 fish from 43 different fish species have made the climb, up to 25,000 daily, including river lampreys , smelts, eels and sturgeons up to three meters long.

Construction planning and execution

The multiple deepening of the Lower Elbe led to an improvement in the fairway properties of the Port of Hamburg , which, however, increased the flow gradient, deepened the river bed further and caused the water and groundwater levels above Hamburg to drop. In order to stabilize the water management conditions and the driving conditions, experts planned the construction of the Geesthacht weir including a lock system in the 1950s. This was a prerequisite for further planned deepening of the Lower Elbe to initially ten and later twelve meters. At the same time, the Elbe should initially be made navigable to Alt Garge near Bleckede in Lower Saxony with 1000-tonne ships.

In April 1956 the Federal Republic of Germany and Hamburgische Electricitäts-Werke (HEW, now part of Vattenfall ) concluded a government agreement on the construction of the Geesthacht barrage. In it, the HEW was granted the right to use hydropower by building and operating a run-of-river power plant . In December 1956, construction work began to build the barrage.

Construction site in 1958

Initially, a traffic jam target of 5.65 m above sea level was planned. NN. After objections from the German Democratic Republic (GDR), on whose territory this water level would have affected, it was waived. According to the Hamburger Abendblatt, the GDR feared an increase in the water level in Boizenburg , which was directly behind the inner-German border , by 1.75 meters, which would have resulted in protective measures and the associated costs of 36 million  Ostmarks . On the German side, fishermen protested against the planned run-of-river power plant as early as 1957, which could kill a large part of the fish by the power plant turbines and result in losses in eel fishing.

When the GDR demanded a fee from West German inland navigation barges for the use of its waterways, which was justified by the expected costs of now estimated 50 million marks due to flooding and protective measures through the construction of the weir in Geesthacht, the federal government tried to lower the planned amount Traffic jam target at around three meters above sea level. NN to be able to take a more favorable negotiating position.

An agreement from April 1956 stipulated that Hamburg would cover a third of the costs and the federal government the remaining two thirds. In September 1957, the Hamburg Senate approved a state treaty that provided for a cost sharing in such a way that the Barrage Association and the HEW contributed 5.5 million marks , the federal government through loans 24 million and Hamburg likewise through loans 12 million  marks . Schleswig-Holstein committed itself to a participation of 5.3 percent and Lower Saxony with three percent of the Hamburg loan. However, the 41.5 million marks estimated for the construction of the barrage were not enough. The additional costs of nine million marks that finally arose were attributed to increased material prices and higher wages. The subsequent construction of a second lock chamber should cost six million marks. Because the water pressure was higher than expected, the drainage work on the construction pit resulted in additional costs of 5.5 million marks. In the meantime, the federal government intended to cut its grant for the planned deepening of the Elbe in Hamburg by DM 2.5 million if Hamburg does not agree to assume further costs for the barrage. After the agreement was reached, Hamburg contributed 6.5 million marks to the additional costs, which prevented the feared cessation of construction work on the large construction site.

View from the bank below the weir

The first barrage was opened to traffic on April 16, 1959. As early as June 1959, the Elbe in Geesthacht was 3.5 m above sea level. NN jammed. The plans to build a run-of-river power plant were dropped as no operator could be found. In November 1959, the operators increased the water level by another 50  cm . In March 1960, the weir went into full operation. Raising the storage target to 5.65 m was postponed indefinitely in order to avoid flooding in the Boizenburg area. By 1961, the GDR had around 65 kilometers of new Elbe dykes built near Boizenburg, some of which had become necessary due to the construction of the barrage.

A fish passage had already been created when the weir was built, and a road bridge over the weir was also planned. The defense pillars were built so wide that they could be used to build a bridge. The states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony had planned and paid for these measures with foresight. After the great storm surge of 1962 , an additional bridge over the Elbe above Hamburg turned out to be urgently needed, as the areas north of the Elbe were only connected to the rest of Germany via a road bridge that was overloaded during the flood disaster and a railroad track near Lauenburg . The new Elbe crossing was inaugurated on September 14, 1966. It consists of an approximately 175 meter long lock bridge, an approximately 550 meter long dam section and the 410 meter long weir bridge. On the Lower Saxony side, a 237 meter long foreland bridge and a dam are connected. The prepared second lock chamber was built in 1978-81 due to the increased volume of traffic.

Planned use of hydropower

In 2008, the Vattenfall company planned a hydropower plant at the Geesthacht weir, whereby a close-meshed power grid installation with a large distance to the turbines would be the only way to keep the fish population away from the turbine blades. But for a few years nothing happened in this regard. A new attempt was made in 2013.

literature

  • Wasser- und Schifffahrtsamt Lauenburg (Ed.): Lock and weir Geesthacht. Lauenburg 1982.
  • Martin Eckoldt (Ed.): Rivers and canals. The history of the German waterways. DSV-Verlag u. a., Hamburg u. a. 1998, ISBN 3-88412-243-6 .
  • R. Wildner (design and photos): Construction of the Geesthacht barrage , no year, probably 1959.

Web links

Commons : Geesthacht barrage  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Elbe ( Memento of the original from September 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Federal Ministry of Traffic, Construction and City Development. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.elwis.de
  2. ↑ a b c d The Elbe from the mouth of the Havel to the Geesthacht weir ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 9.4 MB) - International Commission for the Protection of the Elbe @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ikse-mkol.org
  3. ↑ a b c d The barrage in Geesthacht  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wsv.de  
  4. ↑ Elbe bridge with barrage, lock systems  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - geesthacht.de@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.geesthacht.de  
  5. ↑ a b c d Geesthacht lock and the fish ladder - geesthacht.de
  6. ↑ Statistical traffic report 2010 of the Wasser- und Schifffahrtsdirektion Ost ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2.3 MB). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wsd-ost.wsv.de
  7. ↑ Traffic report 2009 of the Waterways and Shipping Directorate Mitte ( Memento from February 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Functional check of the new fish pass on the Elbe rifle near Geesthacht - Working group for keeping the Elbe clean, environmental foundation of Hamburgische Electricitäts-Werke AG, water and shipping authority Lauenburg.
  9. ↑ Flow Structures: same meeting
  10. ↑ Return of a living fossil ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 11, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sueddeutsche.de
  11. ↑ Trouble-free swimming for the sturgeon. Welt am Sonntag, September 26, 2010, p. HH 2, accessed December 27, 2010 .
  12. ↑ Big stairs for small fish. Hamburger Abendblatt dated May 26, 2010, p. 7, accessed on December 27, 2010 .
  13. ↑ Europe's largest fish ladder near Geesthacht. Vattenfall, archived from the original on July 23, 2012 ; Retrieved December 27, 2010 .
  14. ↑ The new fish ladder in Geesthacht is a fish saver. (No longer available online.) Hamburger Morgenpost dated April 7, 2011, formerly in the original ; Retrieved April 9, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.mopo.de  
  15. ↑ Elbe ascent made easy. In: metropole 01/2012, p. 28.
  16. ↑ a b c Is the water level rising? ( Memento from January 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) - Hamburger Abendblatt, April 17, 1958.
  17. ↑ a b Application for the district council meeting on November 4, 2004, hydropower plant at the Geesthacht weir ( memento from February 6, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) - Greens, Lauenburg district association.
  18. ↑ The eels must die , Hamburger Abendblatt, January 10, 1957.
  19. ↑ Only at 3.05 m ( Memento from July 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Hamburger Abendblatt, July 10, 1958.
  20. ^ Hamburg pays a third , Hamburger Abendblatt, April 20, 1956.
  21. ↑ Barrage treaty approved by the Senate , Hamburger Abendblatt, September 21, 1957.
  22. ^ In Geesthacht: No break ( Memento from January 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Hamburger Abendblatt, November 20, 1958.
  23. ↑ Who should pay? Dispute over barrage in Geesthacht , Hamburger Abendblatt, April 24, 1959.
  24. ↑ Geesthacht barrage over 20 million marks more expensive , Hamburger Abendblatt, September 7, 1960.
  25. ^ An agreement has been reached , Hamburger Abendblatt, October 15, 1958.
  26. ↑ Since yesterday you only drive through the lock , Hamburger Abendblatt, April 17, 1959.
  27. ↑ The Elbe foams over wide weirs "to the valley" , Hamburger Abendblatt, 23 July 1959.
  28. ^ But the new Elbe bridge , Hamburger Abendblatt, August 14, 1959.
  29. ^ Geesthacht barrage fully operational , Hamburger Abendblatt, March 24, 1960.
  30. ^ New dykes near Boizenburg , Hamburger Abendblatt, June 21, 1961.
  31. ^ New Elbe Bridge near Geesthacht , Hamburger Abendblatt, April 6, 1962.
  32. ^ Elbbrücke inaugurated , Hamburger Abendblatt, September 14, 1966.
  33. ^ New Geesthacht disruption site. Hamburger Abendblatt dated June 3, 2008, accessed on December 27, 2010 .
  34. ^ Kai Gerullis: New start-up for a hydropower plant (complete article can only be read for a fee); at www.bergedorfer-zeitung.de, accessed on December 23, 2016.

Coordinates: 53 ° 25 ′ 31.2 ″  N , 10 ° 20 ′ 10.2 ″  E