Garzweiler opencast mine

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Garzweiler opencast mine (I and II)
General information about the mine
Garzweiler surface mine Bucket-wheel excavator 2019 2.jpg
Garzweiler opencast mine
other names Neurath mine
Mining technology Open pit mine on 30.96 km²
Overburden 175–225 million tons per year
Funding / year 35-40 million t
Information about the mining company
Operating company RWE Power
Employees 1,725
Start of operation before 1940 (Neurath mine), 1987 (merger to form the Garzweiler open-cast mine), 2006 (Garzweiler II)
End of operation 2038 (planned)
Successor use Recultivation, residual lake
Funded raw materials
Degradation of Brown coal / brown coal / brown coal
Brown coal

Seam name

Garzweiler
Mightiness 9 m
Brown coal
Degradation of Brown coal

Seam name

Frimmersdorf
Mightiness 10 m
Brown coal
Degradation of Brown coal

Seam name

Morken
Mightiness 11 m
Greatest depth 250 m
Geographical location
Coordinates 51 ° 3 '50 "  N , 6 ° 30' 7.3"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 3 '50 "  N , 6 ° 30' 7.3"  E
Garzweiler opencast mine (I and II) (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Garzweiler opencast mine (I and II)
Location of Garzweiler opencast mine (I and II)
Location Garzweiler
local community Bedburg , Grevenbroich , Jüchen , Erkelenz and Mönchengladbach
District ( NUTS3 ) Rhine district of Neuss, district of Heinsberg
country State of North Rhine-Westphalia
Country Germany
District Rhenish lignite district

The Garzweiler is a lignite - opencast mine of RWE Power (up to 2003, the RWE Rheinbraun AG ) in the northern Rhenish lignite mining area . The mining area extends between the cities of Bedburg , Grevenbroich , Jüchen , Erkelenz and Mönchengladbach in North Rhine-Westphalia .

Panoramic photo of the Garzweiler opencast mine with various excavators in action and the power plants in Grevenbroich-Frimmersdorf (left) and -Neurath as well as Bergheim-Niederaußem (right) in the background, a wind farm to the left of the Frimmersdorf power plant

history

Garzweiler opencast mine
Rhenish lignite district
Bucket wheel excavator 258 in an open pit
Bucket wheel excavator 288 in the Garzweiler opencast mine

The large open-cast mine Garzweiler (later called Garzweiler I ) was created in 1983 through the merger of the mining fields Frimmersdorf- Süd and Frimmersdorf-West. Frimmersdorf-Süd emerged around 1960 from the merger of the Neurath and Heck pits , whose mining history dates back to the early 20th century. The dismantling by the RWE subsidiary Rheinbraun initially took place in the first of two sections designated as Garzweiler I and II. Garzweiler I concerns an area of ​​66 square kilometers east of the original route of the A44 motorway , the Garzweiler II mining area concerns an area directly west of Garzweiler I including the original motorway route and is 48 square kilometers in size.

On March 31, 1995, the North Rhine-Westphalian state government ( Cabinet Rau IV ) approved the Garzweiler II lignite plan. Six weeks later, the state election for the 12th electoral term resulted in a loss of the absolute SPD parliamentary majority . As a result, a coalition of the SPD and B'90 / The Greens ( Cabinet Rau V ) was formed for the first time in the country's history . In the meantime, the formation of a coalition with regard to lignite mining and power generation should lead to major problems.

Due to rework, the planned Garzweiler II opencast mine has been reduced in size by the mining operator: Originally, a space requirement of 68 square kilometers was planned, i.e. H. Dredging to the A 46 at Erkelenz and Hochneukirch , later only 48 square kilometers were claimed. The villages Venrath , Kaulhausen , Wockerath and Kückhoven in the Erkelenz area and the Mönchengladbach district of Wanlo are therefore not dredged.

The coalition agreement between the SPD and B'90 / The Greens from 1995 left the final decision on Garzweiler II open until 2000, thus establishing the status quo despite resistance from the numerically smaller coalition partner against this project.

While B'90 / Greens was the only parliamentary group to oppose the project in unison during the 12th parliamentary term, Garzweiler II was highly controversial within the CDU and SPD parliamentary groups. However, the resistance within the CDU parliamentary group was never articulated during committee meetings or even in plenary. The then deputy chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalian SPD, Christoph Zöpel , a member of the Bundestag at the time, opposed the project and said: "Garzweiler II is an anachronism"; Representatives of SPD-affiliated industrial unions supported the Garzweiler II project. The parliamentary group of B'90 / The Greens failed in 1997 with a constitutional complaint against the approval of Garzweiler II during the 12th electoral term.

On June 18, 2006 - a coalition of CDU and FDP had ruled under Prime Minister Jürgen Rüttgers since June 2005 - the bucket wheel excavators spread to the new area. The city of Erkelenz ( district of Heinsberg ) is affected for the first time , where almost a third of the municipal area is used with 40 square kilometers. An additional 6.5 square kilometers are in the area of ​​the municipality of Jüchen and around 1.5 square kilometers in the area of ​​the city of Mönchengladbach . For the first time, the open-cast mine has completely taken hold of the mining north.

In 2005/06 the largest geo-historical paint pull-off was carried out in the Garzweiler opencast mine .

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster had a fundamental impact on the formation of the government after the 2013 federal election . The envisaged energy turnaround and the drop in prices in electricity wholesale, and since May 2013 the almost doubled price for CO 2 emission rights, have led RWE to change its strategy. In autumn 2013, RWE publicly speculated that eleven of the lignite- fired power plant units would be shut down (a power plant has several units; for example, the Niederaussem power plant has nine units. They can be operated independently of one another). As a result, the city of Erkelenz announced on October 9, 2013 in an open letter to Prime Minister Hannelore Kraft the immediate end of the preparations for further relocations.

In March 2014 the red-green state government of North Rhine-Westphalia announced that it would reduce the future open-cast mining area. The aim is to adapt the so-called mining area 4 with the villages of Holzweiler and Dackweiler to the mining plans from now on. In July 2016, the NRW state government finally decided to reduce the Garzweiler II mining area.

Geology of the deposit

According to geological estimates, Garzweiler II has reserves of 1.3 billion tons. The lignite originated from extensive forests and moors that developed in the Lower Rhine Bay 30 to 5 million years ago. The geology of the Lower Rhine Bay is characterized by long-lasting subsidence movements in the last 30 million years, which have led to the deposition of a sediment package up to 1,300 m thick through the North Sea and through many rivers, in which today there are lignite seams up to 100 m thick .

Use of coal

Most of the lignite mined in Garzweiler is burned in the region's power plants, and it is transported from Garzweiler to the Frimmersdorf power plant and the Neurath power plant via the RWE Power AG railway line, also known as the North-South Railway, and by conveyor belt.

traffic

partially demolished A 61

There are two motorways in the planned open-cast mining area: the A 44 and the A 61 . The A 44 was closed to traffic in October 2005 and removed by June 2006. The A 61, which began traffic on the A 44, had previously been expanded to three lanes in each direction at the expense of RWE Power. Construction of the new section of the A 44 between the new Jackerath motorway junction , southeast of the old site, and the Holz motorway junction began on May 30, 2012. On July 1, 2018, the A 61 in the north between the new Jackerath junction and the Mönchengladbach-Wanlo junction was closed and the new route of the A 44 in the direction of Düsseldorf was released. The A 44 was officially released by North Rhine-Westphalia Transport Minister Hendrik Wüst on August 29, 2018, but the motorway was only opened to traffic in the direction of Aachen on September 3, and the A 61 was also closed to the south in return. Then the section of the A 61 gave way to the opencast mine. From 2035 Template: future / in 5 yearsit will be rebuilt and begin traffic next to the A 44 (n). The rest of the road network, which has given way to open-cast lignite mining, will initially not be rebuilt or replaced, so that there are only motorways as thoroughfares and cyclists will continue to have to drive around the site extensively on the side roads.

Resettlement of localities

Spenrath 2007
Spenrath 2009 in September - view from a similar point of view as in the picture above
Demolition and leveling of Otzenrath

The Garzweiler open-cast lignite mine requires the relocation of entire villages. Twelve villages and 7,600 citizens are affected by the planned Garzweiler II. The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled on December 17, 2013 : "The approval of the general operating plan for the Garzweiler opencast mine meets the constitutional requirements, but not the specific expropriation of a nature conservation association based on it."

place Residents

before the start of

Relocation

Start of resettlement Mining

Utilization

(planned)

Residents

relocated to

Rice village 69 circa 1963
Darshoven 1967
Epprath madhouse 1968 Caster
Geddenberg 1969 Bedburg West
Muchhaus 1969 Bedburg West
Overlap 1969 Bedburg West
Omagen 1976
Morken-Harff 1950 1976 Neu-Morken-Harff
Königshoven 1983 New Königshoven
Elfgen 786 1987 New Elfgen
Belmen 1988 New Elfgen
Juchen-South New Garzweiler
Priestly council 1984 1997 New Garzweiler
Stolzenberg 2000 New Garzweiler
Garzweiler 1841 1980 2003 New Garzweiler
Otzenrath 1569 1997 2006 Neu-Otzenrath
Spenrath 189 1997 2008 New Spenrath
Wood 510 1997 2008 New wood
Pesch 96 07/01/2006 2014 Pescher Kamp
Borschemich 518 2007 2017 Borschemich (new)
Immerath 939 07/01/2006 around 2020 Immerath (new)
Lützerath 74 07/01/2006 around 2020 Immerath (new)
Keyenberg 840 December 01, 2016 approx. 2023 Keyenberg (new)
Cuckum 460 December 01, 2016 circa 2027 Cuckum (new)
Oberwestrich 24 December 01, 2016 circa 2027 Oberwestrich (new)
Lesson 143 December 01, 2016 circa 2027 Unterwestrich (new)
Berverath 117 December 01, 2016 around 2028 Berverath (new)
Eggeratherhof approx. 2030s
Roitzer Hof approx. 2030s
Weyerhof approx. 2030s

Social problems of relocation

Protest sign at the entrance to Holzweiler

After the localities of Garzweiler and Otzenrath were demolished, Holz, Spenrath and Pesch were leveled . Most of the residents were relocated to new locations near Jüchen, Hochneukirch and the outskirts of Erkelenz. There new housing estates were and are still being built, to which only individual relics of the old homeland were taken. While 80% of the people of Otzenrath have relocated to the new location, this was not achieved to a comparable extent in other places. In addition, farmers cannot count on the necessary agricultural land at the new location. For the survival of the old village communities in the new place, the club system is of central importance, which is promoted accordingly by the open pit operator.

In the villages that are also to be dredged, the persistent residents are living with the negative consequences of resettlement. Homes are increasingly abandoned; the villages no longer develop and become deserted. Onlookers visit these abandoned towns .

environmental issues

Apart from the carbon dioxide emissions from burning the lignite in the neighboring lignite power plants and the lowering of the groundwater level, which leads to the damage of wetlands, the open pit mine is also held responsible for a number of other environmental problems , such as the acidification of the soil due to the tipping of overburden and for a high particulate matter pollution in the region.

The swamping measures that are required to pump out the groundwater extend well beyond the open pit. The quarry forests in the Maas-Schwalm-Nette Nature Park are also threatened by the drop in the water table. Replacement water is pumped into this area at great expense by means of a system of pipelines and septic tanks.

Post-mining landscape

Planned succession landscape in 2100, detailed planning with regard to precise mining limits and recultivation are still pending

As a post- mining landscape , the remaining hole in the western part of the opencast mine is to be transformed into a lake after the lignite has been extracted . From 2030 around 60 million m 3 of water are to be channeled from the Rhine into the loch for around 70 years . This lake will be up to 190 m deep, cover an area of ​​23 square kilometers and have a capacity of 2 billion cubic meters of water. In terms of water volume, the lake in Germany would only be surpassed by Lake Constance and Lake Starnberg . The area of ​​the lake will be almost as large as the Steinhuder Meer in Lower Saxony, but up to 60 times as deep.

Alternatively, the possibility of using open-cast mine holes as pumped storage power plants was discussed. Together with the Inden opencast mine, the Garzweiler opencast mine could have served as the upper basin and the significantly deeper Hambach opencast mine as the lower basin.

The construction of a major airport in the area of ​​the eastern mining area (which will be backfilled around 2035) was also under discussion.

Protest and resistance from opponents of opencast mining

Litigation, occupation, eviction

Protest by opponents of the anti-coal power movement on a BUND orchard at the edge of the pit

Citizens' protest from the affected districts gathered under the umbrella of the United Initiatives . Various lawsuits filed by the cities of Erkelenz and Viersen against the opencast mine between 1997 and 2001 before the Administrative Court of Aachen and in the course of instances before the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia were dismissed, as was a constitutional complaint before the Constitutional Court for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in Münster. While the communities have been concentrating on the resettlements since then, the legal disputes are not yet completely over. The appeal proceedings against the continuation of the opencast mine of an Immerath citizen and the BUND before the Higher Administrative Court in Münster were rejected on December 21, 2007. As an opponent of opencast mining, the BUND owned an orchard on the edge of the pit near Otzenrath. The plaintiffs appealed against the non-admission of the appeal. As a protest against the upcoming eviction, they had set up a camp on the orchard. After nine days of occupation, it was forcibly cleared on January 10, 2008 and the 87 fruit trees were subsequently removed by the open pit operator.

In December 2008 the BUND and the citizens of Immerath continued their legal resistance and lodged a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court . On December 17, 2013, the First Senate in Karlsruhe decided that the approval of the general operating plan for the Garzweiler opencast mine met the constitutional requirements, while the BUND's expropriation of the orchard was criticized as flawed because it was not possible to appeal in time during the proceedings. (Ref. 1 BvR 3139/08 and 1 BvR 3386/08) On April 25, 2015, 6,000 participants in a 7.5 km long human chain demonstrated against climate-damaging coal- fired power generation along the edge of the open pit between Keyenberg and Immerath .

End of terrain 2015

On the morning of August 15, 2015, several hundred to 1000 demonstrators broke into the Garzweiler opencast mine and occupied an excavator during the end of the 2015 protest near Erkelenz. The police cleared the mine with 1200 officers using tear gas and batons and arrested around 100 people. 36 people were injured. According to the journalists' organization DJU, the work of the press was also hindered. RWE filed a complaint, whereupon 797 criminal proceedings were initiated.

End of terrain 2019

Protest action at the end of 2019 on the north-south runway in front of the Neurath power plant

At the end of June 2019, the end of the terrain initiative organized blockades of the Garzweiler opencast mine and the railway lines to the Neurath and Niederaußem power plants over three days with around 6,000 people . Despite warnings from RWE and the police about the dangers of unauthorized entry and the existing danger to life, demonstrators climbed the edge of the open pit. At the center of the protests were the lignite mine and the railroad tracks of the north-south railway. A house in Morschenich , threatened by the Hambach opencast mine , was also occupied. In their 48-hour continuous operation, the police removed several hundred demonstrators from the RWE premises and cleared the occupied train tracks. Police filed charges of trespassing , freeing prisoners and resisting law enforcement officers .

Protesters form a yellow line in Keyenberg for the preservation of the threatened villages.

On Friday, June 21, 2019, the Fridays for Future movement held a peaceful demonstration in Aachen with around 40,000 participants. The next day another demonstration followed with around 8,000 participants at the edge of the pit in Keyenberg , according to the organizers. The Aachen police did not comment on the number of participants.

As a result of the protests, a political dispute developed within the Union parties . While Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) reiterated his call for an exit from lignite-based power generation in 2030, thus taking the side of the protesters, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) rejected this demand. She does not want to exit until 2038.

Garzweiler as a topic in the media

The resettlement process in the village of Otzenrath in Jüchen was documented several times on film. The two documentaries accompanying the resettlement process, Otzenrather Sprung (2001) and Otzenrath 3 ° colder (2007), were directed by Jens Schanze . The first film received the Adolf Grimme Prize in 2002 , the second the Phoenix Documentary Film Prize in 2009. The film OTZENRATH, Last Day was made in 2005 and 2006 . It is Martijn Smits' final project at the Dutch Film Academy in Amsterdam and won the 2006 audience award at the Documentary and Short Film Festival in Bilbao, Spain. The documentary Last Chance for Our Climate (2016) by Christian Jentzsch asks about the responsibility of those who cause global warming for the damage caused.

In 1999 Kurt Lehmkuhl published his crime thriller Buried in Garzweiler II . In 2004 the deserted town of Otzenrath provided the backdrop for the WDR Tatort production Abrasions with Klaus J. Behrendt and Dietmar Bär ( Ballauf and Schenk ). In 2011 Die Grube by Ingrid Bachér was published , which tells the repetitive resettlement stories of Garzweiler and Borschemich using the example of a fictional family.

In 2013, the short film Good Soil , directed by Sebastian Lemke, portrayed the life of the two brothers Helmut and Joachim Meier in their small nursery right on the edge of the open pit. The film received the rating "particularly valuable" by the German film and media rating, won the West-Art audience award during the 14th Oberhausen International Short Film Festival and the editing award at the Filmplus - Forum for Editing and Montage Art 2013. In 2014 the film was for the German Human rights film award nominated.

In 2019 the Cologne director Eva-Maria Baumeister staged the music theater play Vanishing Places or What Can Save Us Now . The piece was based on research and field recordings in the villages threatened by destruction.

Viewpoints

Skywalk Jackerath

The Garzweiler opencast mine has two viewpoints.

The Jackerath viewpoint is located near the Jackerath motorway junction. The so-called Skywalk at the southern end of the opencast mine, where the distribution compartment is also located, offers a view of the mining area. The distribution compartment is the material handling point for the excavated earth on the western side of the hole to the other side on the eastern side. At this collection point, the excavated coal leaves the open pit on conveyor belts to the power plants.

The Hochneukirch lookout point is located at the northern end near the Mönchengladbach-Wanlo motorway junction.

See also

literature

  • A. Beil, S. Noethlichs, D. Olles: Garzweiler II - A region in protest . In: Heimatkalender des Kreis Heinsberg, 2000, pp. 199–221.
  • Holger Kaiser, Frederik Petersohn: Opposition in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia: The CDU parliamentary group and the “Garzweiler II” open-cast lignite mine in the 12th electoral period (1995-2000) . Münster, Berlin, London 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-0167-0 .
  • Horst Ulrich: urban development documentation resettlement Garzweiler, Priesterath, Stolzenberg, Jüchen, southern Jülicher Straße. Juchen 1997, ISBN 3-9804847-0-X .
  • Rolf Sevenich: Garzweiler II. Kersting, Aachen 1996, ISBN 3-928047-12-4 .
  • Adelheid Schrutka-Rechtenstamm (Ed.): What remains is the memory. Folklore studies on village resettlements in the brown coal field . Erkelenz 1994.
  • Eusebius Wirdeier, Johannes Nitschmann: Garzweiler or how the brown coal connection burns an entire region . Preface by Bärbel Höhn . Emons, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-924491-68-2 .
  • Hambach Group (Hrsg.): Verheizte Heimat - The lignite opencast mining and its consequences. Aachen 1985, ISBN 3-924007-14-4 ( PDF )

Web links

Commons : Garzweiler opencast mine  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Christian Wernicke: "Hambi" remains - but the resistance is only beginning elsewhere. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . January 17, 2020, accessed January 19, 2020 .
  2. ^ Research Center Recultivation ( Memento of February 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on September 23, 2010
  3. Map of the lignite deposits from a study by Rheinbraun and the state government on which the decision for the Garzweiler II opencast mine (= Frimmersdorf West-West) was based in the 1980s  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / static.illdefined.org
  4. ^ On the parliamentary debate in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia between 1995 and 2000, fundamentally Kaiser, Holger and Frederik Petersohn: Opposition in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. The CDU parliamentary group and the “Garzweiler II” open-cast lignite mine in the 12th electoral period (1995–2000), p. 39ff.
  5. Cf. dies., Pp. 140ff.
  6. Landtag internal 22, page 2, accessed on www.landtag.nrw.de on May 19, 2010
  7. See Kaiser, Holger and Frederik Petersohn: Opposition in the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia. The CDU parliamentary group and the “Garzweiler II” open-cast lignite mine in the 12th electoral period (1995–2000), p. 142.
  8. ^ "Garzweiler II" - Chronology of the approval process (PDF; 81 kB), bund-nrw.de, accessed on May 18, 2010
  9. boerse.de
  10. Garzweiler: Erkelenz threatens RWE with stopping the resettlement
  11. rp-online.de
  12. ^ Lignite: NRW wants to cut the Garzweiler opencast mine. Spiegel Online, March 28, 2014, accessed April 1, 2014 .
  13. Red-Green in NRW seals the end of Garzweiler II. RP Online, July 6, 2016, accessed on May 7, 2017 .
  14. Start of construction for the new A 44. In: RP Online. May 31, 2012, accessed May 31, 2012 .
  15. Autobahn 61 gives way to Garzweiler II opencast mine. In: wdr.de. Westdeutscher Rundfunk , July 6, 2018, accessed on September 7, 2018 .
  16. Gundhild Tillmanns, Andreas Speen: Jüchen: A44n is inaugurated by the NRW Minister of Transport. Retrieved September 15, 2018 .
  17. A44, A61: A motorway gives way to Garzweiler II | Streets.NRW. Retrieved February 17, 2018 .
  18. bundesverfassungsgericht.de
  19. ^ Darshoven - Bedburg, Germany - Ghost Towns on Waymarking.com. Retrieved January 23, 2020 .
  20. Harff in Bilder.de - Epprath, Darshoven & Tollhaus. Retrieved January 23, 2020 (German).
  21. BUND e. V.
  22. Garzweiler II lignite plan of the Cologne district government, text and graphic representation, 1: 50,000 , PDF, accessed on May 16, 2016.
  23. ^ Daniel Gerhards: Rhine water for the Garzweiler lake and the nature park. In: Aachener Zeitung . February 5, 2020, accessed February 6, 2020 .
  24. Pumped storage power plants in disused opencast mines: using the example of Hambach-Garzweiler-Inden , Wuppertal-Papers 194, accessed on February 5, 2019
  25. ^ Take off via Garzweiler , Welt am Sonntag, August 10, 2003
  26. ↑ Big airport moves the country , Welt am Sonntag of October 21, 2007
  27. Garzweiler II comes before the highest court ( Memento of December 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  28. bundesverfassungsgericht.de
  29. rp-online.de
  30. ^ RWE opencast mine in Garzweiler blocked - resistance in the lunar landscape , TAZ from August 16, 2015
  31. ^ Protest in Garzweiler - Opencast mine freed from the press , TAZ of August 18, 2015
  32. protest - #EndeGelaende - End 1200 policemen Garzweiler occupation , the West from August 16, 2015
  33. ^ Protest in Garzweiler - Alliance "End of Terrain" occupies lignite excavators , Die Welt, August 15, 2015
  34. Climate - opponents of lignite invade the Garzweiler opencast mine , focus from August 15, 2015
  35. Climate protests ended - Interior Minister Reul criticized "violent actions". In: The world . June 23, 2019 ( welt.de ).
  36. Merkel stops Söder's coal plans. In: Rheinische Post . June 25, 2019 ( rp-online.de )
  37. ^ Contents Otzenrather Sprung
  38. http://www.phoenix.de/content//252211 ( Memento from June 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  39. imdb.com
  40. Kurt Lehmkuhl: Buried in Garzweiler II. - Series Tatort Grenzland, Aachen crime thrillers. Meyer & Meyer 1999, ISBN 3-89124-574-2 .
  41. ^ Ingrid Bachér: The pit . Dietrich Verlag. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-937717-70-8 .
  42. "As if an epidemic had broken out". Conversation with Eva-Maria Baumeister. In: Corso - Art & Pop. Deutschlandfunk, October 30, 2019 ( online , accessed November 1, 2019).