Bergheim opencast mine

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Rhenish lignite district
Summit cross at Bethlehemer Höhe, former Bergheim opencast mine

The Bergheim opencast mine is a recultivated open-cast lignite mine in the Rhenish lignite mining area in Bergheim in the Rhein-Erft district . The recultivation was finished in 2012.

The open-cast mine was located in the middle of the urban area of ​​the city of Bergheim and has thus formed an obstacle between the large Bergheim districts of Niederaußem and Oberaußem on the one hand and the city ​​center and Quadrath-Ichendorf on the other since it was exposed in the 1970s .

history

Spreader in the Bergheim opencast mine
The B 477 moved to areas that have already been recultivated on the edge of the mine near Niederaussem

In the beginning of the 19th century, a farmer from Niederaussem came across lignite while working in the fields . He opened up small pits for mining . Other landowners followed his initiative. It was not until the end of the century that lignite was industrially developed. In the vicinity of the town of Oberaussem, a briquette factory was initially built and, from 1910, the Fortuna power plant to supply the city of Cologne with electricity . The numerous workers found a home in the Fortuna colony . With the Fortuna-Garsdorf opencast mine, the era of large opencast mines began after the Second World War . It was also the end of the Fortuna power station and the settlement of the same name.

Exploration work on the Bergheim opencast mine began in the late 1970s. Coal was mined from 1984. The Fortuna power plant, the village of Fortuna, the Bethlehem monastery , the Bethlehem forest, as well as a country road and the railway lines from Niederaussem to Bergheim / Quadrath-Ichendorf disappeared by the opencast mine by the early 1990s . The B 477 had to be relocated over the already recultivated area of ​​the Fortuna-Garsdorf open-cast mine. At times, up to six bucket wheel excavators were in use.

View over the recultivated areas of the Bergheim opencast mine towards Glessener Höhe

In 2002 the last lignite was mined in the comparatively small Bergheim open-cast mine. The pit has been backfilled with overburden from the Hambach opencast mine since 1991 , supported by a 15-kilometer conveyor system from 1996. Production ended on April 16, 2009, the last working day of the 4500-tonne 756 spreader , the last of four machines originally used. After being overhauled, it was driven to the Hambach opencast mine and used there from September 2009.

Recultivation resulted in around two thirds of the 640 hectare area being agriculturally usable and around one third forest area. The forest area was thus slightly larger compared to the state before coal was extracted, but the relative proportion of the area remained largely unchanged, as the entire area no longer contains any residential or commercial space. It is still very uncertain whether a connection between Bergheim and Oberaussem via the former state road (now Kreisstraße 22) will ever be realized. An initially planned new settlement area is no longer to be implemented.

Operating data

  • Operator: RWE Power (formerly Rheinbraun )
  • Running time:
  • Amount of coal extracted: 240 million tons
  • Overburden:

See also

Web links

Commons : Bergheim open-cast mine  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.eifelmomente.de/sommer/95
  2. ^ Norbert Kurth: Weapon 756 blurs the traces , in Kölner Stadtanzeiger, Rhein-Erft, April 17, 2009, p. 29
  3. ↑ Fortuna Feld (former Bergheim opencast mine)
  4. ↑ http://www.ksta.de/region/rhein-erft/bergheim/ehemaliger-tagebau-in-kerpen-rwe-baut-zufahrt-fuer-die-bauern-154250
  5. ↑ to Kurth

Coordinates: 50 ° 57 ′ 35.6 ″  N , 6 ° 39 ′ 55.9 ″  E