Turów opencast mine
The Turów opencast mine , officially PGE Górnictwo i Energetyka Konwencjonalna SA, Oddział KWB Turów , is a large open-cast brown coal mine in the south-west of Poland . It is located east of the Lusatian Neisse in the area of the municipality of Bogatynia (Reichenau in Saxony). The operator is Polska Grupa Energetyczna .
expansion
The mine area, including the overburden and ash dump, covers an area of around 50 km².
The Turów opencast mine (in Polish Kopalnia Węgla Brunatnego Turów ) extends over 28 km² in the Zittau Basin over the entire terrain between the Lusatian Neisse and the Küpper (Miedzianka), it is surrounded by the towns of Bogatynia , Opolno Zdrój (Bad Oppelsdorf), Białopole ( Sommerau), Sieniawka (Kleinschönau), Drausendorf , Hirschfelde and Turoszów (Türchau). In 2004, approx. 1100 workers were employed in the Turów mine; the mining capacity of 16.3 million tons represented 23% of the Polish lignite production 4200 m³ / h, and four spreaders, including a ZGOT-11500 with a capacity of 11500 m³ / h. The total length of the conveyor belts is 79 km. Since 1947, 842 million tons of lignite have been mined in the Turów opencast mine and around 1.8 billion cubic meters of overburden has been removed. Every day, 32,000 tons of raw lignite are delivered to the Turów power plant on conveyor belts , which corresponds to 16 freight trains with 40 wagons of 50 tons each. The coal reserves of the Turów open pit mine are estimated at 373 million tons, they will be depleted around the year 2040 with an annual production of 12 million tons. Until then, the pit, which had reached a depth of 225 m in 2003 (roughly equivalent to sea level), is to be expanded to a depth of 300 m and 55 km². In the open pit, aggregates as well as loam and clay for the ceramics and chemical industries are extracted.
The overburden and ash heap (coordinates: ▼ , in Polish : Zwałowisko zewnętrzne KWB Turów ), located northeast of it on the Königshain Ridge, has an area of 21.75 km². It lies between the places Bogatynia, Markocice (Markersdorf), the devastated Wigancice Żytawskie (Weigsdorf), Wyszków (Maxdorf), Działoszyn (Königshain), Zatonie (Seitendorf) and Turoszów; in the southeast it extends as far as the vicinity of the Czech border. 1.7 billion cubic meters of dumped goods are stored on the heap, it has a maximum height of 245 m above the surrounding area.
Due to the lignite mining, the villages of Dornhennersdorf, Biedrzychowice Górne (Friedersdorf), Gießmannsdorf, Rybarzowice (Reibersdorf) and Pasternik (Zittel) have completely disappeared. Turoszów, Zatonie and Wigancice Żytawskie were also almost entirely devastated . Parts of Sieniawka, Bogatynia and Wald also fell victim to the opencast mine. Gießmannsdorf Castle and both castles in Reibersdorf as well as the route of the narrow-gauge railway Zittau – Hermsdorf from Zittau via Bogatynia to Markocice were lost in the mine . The area can be seen in the aerial photograph as a narrow strip of Polish territory between the German and Czech borders; It is characteristic that large parts of the territory are recognizable as a mine area. In the Drausendorf district of Zittau, located directly on the Lusatian Neisse, building damage occurred, the cause of which can be seen in the open-cast mine, as this has advanced to a protective pillar on the Neisse in the immediate vicinity of the city.
In the course of the planned expansion, Białopole and large parts of Opolno Zdrój will also be devastated. The road from Sieniawka to Bogatynia, which ran via Białopole, Wald and Opolno Zdrój until the 2000s, has now been relocated again south to the Czech border.
prehistory
After lignite had been found in various places near Zittau in the middle of the 18th century, the Zittau council commissioned the Freiberg shift foreman Mehner to look for coal near Kleinschönau and Olbersdorf in 1779 . The following year, the farmer Weichenhain from Seitendorf an der Küpper opened a lignite works. On May 26, 1800, a six cubits thick brown coal seam was found near Türchau. In 1802 the Reibersdorfer nobleman Johann Georg von Einsiedel near Oppelsdorf commissioned a brown coal underground mine. In 1830 six brown coal works were operated near Zittau, including three Gräflich Einsiedelsche pits near Gießmannsdorf, Oppeldorf and Türchau as well as Graf Clam-Gallassche pit and the Weichenhainsche pit near Seitendorf. Initially, lignite was only used as a fertilizer, it was only used as fuel from the middle of the 19th century. In the second half of the 19th century, a large number of small lignite works were built in the Reichenauer Zipfel, mostly farmers who sank coal pits on their property. A large part of these peasant mines had already closed again by 1870. As a counterweight to the larger joint-stock companies operating in Lower Lusatia, 21 Upper Lusatian lignite works joined forces on February 27, 1899 to form the Association for Mining Interests of Lignite Works in the Dresden Mining Inspection District . The members of the association, which existed until the 1930s, included: the brown coal works Burghardt, Josef Weichenhain near Seitendorf, Reinhold Friedrich, Kober, Krusche, Pfeiffer, Seifert & Rolle, Robert Scholze, EE Scholze and Bührdel near Reichenau, EG Heidrich, O. Heidrich, Max A. Posselt, Carl G. Posselt and Julius G. Posselt at Türchau, Gute Hope at Zittel as well as Herkules and the State Mountain Directorate at Hirschfelde.
In 1904 the landowner Ernst Heidrich from Türchau had three shafts sunk at a depth of six to ten meters on the former Hennigschen brown coal works , and the following year he brought his brown coal works into the Hercules union. In 1907 the Herkules union was converted into a stock corporation. After purchasing an overburden excavator, the transition from civil engineering to open-cast mining took place. The Hercules AG acquired 1907 larger deposits in Hirschfelde, side village and Türchau, including the Weichenhainsche lignite plant; she had a briquette factory built in Hirschfelde. On January 1, 1917, the Saxon state took over Herkules AG, and the plant subsequently operated as the Hirschfelde State Brown Coal Works. In the same year, the state treasury also bought the Hirschfelde power plant from the Berlin Electricity Delivery Company . With the founding of the Aktiengesellschaft Sächsische Werke (ASW) in 1923, the Hirschfelde State Lignite Works and the Hirschfelde Power Station became their property. After the end of the Second World War, the Hirschfelde opencast mine was separated from the power plant by the new Oder-Neisse border line and handed over to the Polish government. Negotiations by a Soviet-Polish commission meant that the mine could continue to be operated from the German side under Soviet supervision to supply the Hirschfelde power plant in compliance with special regulations and that the power plant ash could be dumped on Polish territory. On October 30, 1945, the Soviet military administration confiscated the ASW's operating assets. The coal from the Hirschfelde mine continued to be supplied exclusively to the briquette factory and the Hirschfelde power station. However, the new Polish authorities created increasing obstacles to regular operations. For example, the coal railway to Hirschfelde was suddenly banned from the usual red and white warning signs, as these colors are the Polish national colors.
story
On August 16, 1947, the Hirschfelde opencast mine was placed under Polish administration and was given the Polish name Kopalnia Turoszów. The 300 German miners were laid off and replaced by Polish personnel. After the open pit mine was taken over by Polish administration, supplies to the Hirschfelde power plant were only irregular, so that the head of the administration for mining and metallurgy at SMAD on September 30, 1947 in order no Kopalnia Turoszów and, in return, ordered the delivery of electricity from Hirschfelde to the Republic of Poland.
In 1962, the first block of the newly built Turów power plant to the north of the opencast mine was put into operation. This was accompanied by a significant enlargement of the opencast mine with several demolitions. Due to the political events of 1980 in Poland, coal deliveries to the GDR were interrupted , and German power station ash was refused to accept. From 1981, coal was transported to the Turów power plant on conveyor belts. In 1982 the supply of raw lignite to the German power station Hirschfelde was completely stopped.
In 1994, the operating group PGE Bergbau und Konventional Energetik AG (PGE Górnictwo i Energetyka Konwencjonalna SA) was approved to operate the open pit until April 2020.
An application submitted by the operator in October 2019 to extend this concession for a further six years was approved, as was a later application for a general extension of funding until 2044. This approach is not undisputed in the neighboring countries of Germany and the Czech Republic. The Turów power plant supplied by the opencast mine is the largest greenhouse gas producer in Poland and the eighth largest greenhouse gas producer in Europe. Cross-border coal mining leads not only to noise and dust pollution, but also to extensive groundwater subsidence and the associated subsidence that affects the historic old town of Zittau . The Czech Republic fears serious problems for the drinking water supply of up to 10,000 inhabitants in the vicinity of the open-cast mine due to the lowering of the groundwater if the mining continues. Therefore, in February 2021, the Czech Republic filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice against the approved continued operation of the open-cast mine until 2026 , as the principle of sincere cooperation in the European Union was not correctly applied in the proceedings for the extension of the mining concession. This concerned in particular the provision of information to the public and Member States involved in cross-border consultations and access to justice. The European Commission had already confirmed these objections by the Czech Republic beforehand.
As part of an interim order published on May 21, 2021, the European Court of Justice ordered the immediate cessation of funding until the final judgment on the action submitted. Several German environmental associations criticized the state government of Saxony for not campaigning for Germany to join the Czech action.
The Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki , stated in response to the ECJ's order that the government would “not take any steps that could affect Poland's energy security” and company from him. The majority state-owned group PGE, operator of the opencast mine and power plant, stated that the court decision was "ordinary extortion". Stopping mining would destabilize the Polish and European energy supply system and could lead to the closure of the entire plant, tens of thousands of residents in the region would lose their income overnight. The operator PGE had previously announced that in the event of a subsidy cessation, damage of 13.5 billion zlotys (about 3 billion euros) could be expected from the dismissal of the workforce, non-compliance with supply contracts and bankruptcies at supplier companies. In addition, according to the PGE, environmental damage is to be expected.
Because the lignite mining was not stopped, the ECJ sentenced Poland in September 2021 to a fine of 500,000 euros in the EU budget for every additional day on which it fails to comply with the interim order from May. The Czech Republic applied for a fine of five million euros a day in June. The Deputy Minister of Justice, Romanowski, then declared that the mine would not be closed and that the EU would not receive any money.
Mountain damage and accidents
On the morning of September 27, 2016, a landslide occurred that extended to almost a quarter of the open pit area. There is no endangerment of the "Neisse pillar".
public relation
Group tours are available upon request to the management. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the mine, a small exhibition with ten showcases was created in the hall of the management building. On the road from Trzciniec Dolny (Lehde) to Sieniawka, a lookout point was built on the “Neisse pillar” with a view of the open-cast mine.
literature
- Friedhelm Schulz: Three centuries of Lusatian lignite mining. Lusatia Verlag, Bautzen 2000, ISBN 3-929091-30-5 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Can objections stop the Turow building? Saxon newspaper from January 29, 2019
- ↑ Fear of the pit behind the New Germany border from October 13, 2020
- ↑ Turow: EU takes on Poland Sächsische Zeitung (Zittau edition) December 18, 2020
- ↑ ECJ: Poland must close Turow Sächsische Zeitung (Zittau edition) from May 21, 2021
- ↑ https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen/bautzen/goerlitz-weisswasser-zittau/eugh- Judgment-polen-stopp-braunkohle-turow-100~ amp.html
- ↑ https://www.merkur.de/politik/trotz-eugh-beschluss-polen-will-an-tagebau-festhalten-zr-90657075.html
- ↑ What are the consequences of an immediate Turow end? Sächsische Zeitung (Zittau edition) from February 25, 2021
- ↑ https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/polen-tagebau-turow-schlung-101.html
- ↑ SZ-Online: A slope slides in the Turow opencast mine.
- ↑ SZ-Online: Landslide has no effect on the German side.
Web links
- Company website
- http://www.atrakcjetechniki.karr.pl/de/seiten/1045.html
- http://www.ostkohle.de/html/turow.html
Coordinates: 50 ° 54 '47.4 " N , 14 ° 54' 9.4" E