Wupper Association

Wupper Association
legal form	KdöR
founding	1930
Seat	Wuppertal , Germany
management	Georg Wulf
Number of employees	350
Branch	Water association
Website	www.wupperverband.de

The Wupperverband has been a public corporation since 1930 and one of the major water management associations in North Rhine-Westphalia . He is responsible for water management in the Wupper catchment area and is based in Wuppertal . The association has around 350 employees and trains an average of 20 trainees.

tasks

Administration building of the Wupperverband

Part of the complex of the Radevormwald-Nord sewage treatment plant, operated by the Wupperverband

The Wupperverband is responsible for wastewater treatment in the Wupper catchment area. It operates 11 sewage treatment plants: Buchenhofen sewage treatment plant, Burg sewage treatment plant, Dhünn sewage treatment plant, Hückeswagen sewage treatment plant, Kohlfurth sewage treatment plant, Leverkusen sewage treatment plant, Marienheide sewage treatment plant, Odenthal sewage treatment plant, Radevormwald sewage treatment plant, Schwelm sewage treatment plant and Wermelskirchen sewage treatment plant.

In addition, he is responsible for flood protection and low water elevation. To this end, it operates 14 dams: Beyenburger Reservoir , Bevertalsperre , Brucher Dam , Eschbachtalsperre (owner eeA GmbH), Large Dhünntalsperre , Herbringhausen Dam , Kerspe dam , Lingesetalsperre , Neyetalsperre , armored dam (Owner: ewr GmbH), Ronsdorf dam , Silver Dam (Schevelinger dam) Dahlhausen dam and the Wuppertalsperre .

Furthermore, the Wupperverband looks after the waters in the catchment area of the Wupper (water development, renaturation, flood prevention). The Wupper has numerous branches, the largest branch is the Dhünn.

The tasks of the Wupperverband are defined in the "Wupperverbandgesetz" (WupperVG) of 1930, last amended in 2012:

Regulation of water runoff including balancing the water flow and securing the flood runoff of surface waters or sections of water and in their catchment areas;
Maintenance of surface waters or sections of water and the facilities functionally related to them;
Return of developed surface waters to a near-natural state;
Avoidance, reduction, elimination and compensation of water management and related ecological changes caused or expected adverse changes caused by effects on the groundwater level;
Procurement and provision of water for drinking and industrial water supply and for the exploitation of hydropower;
Wastewater disposal in accordance with the State Water Act;
Disposal of the waste generated during the performance of the association's tasks;
Avoidance, reduction, elimination and compensation of adverse changes in the surface water that have occurred or are expected to be caused by wastewater discharges or other causes;
Determination of the water management conditions, insofar as the association's tasks require it.

Association history

The catchment area of the Wupper has had pre-industrial production facilities for textiles and haberdashery since the 15th century, which have also been known as Barmer haberdashery (after Barmen ) since the 18th century . Accordingly, the springs and rivers in the Wupper catchment area were used intensively, both for supplying and disposing of spinning mills, dye works and weaving mills, as well as for generating water power. In the 19th century there was also the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, e.g. B. with the founding of the Bayer company in 1863 in what is now the Wuppertal district of Heckinghausen and other factories such as the " Barmer carpet factory Vorwerk & Co " in 1883 as well as metal processing and mechanical engineering.

With the use of the Wupper and industrialization , the degree of its pollution increased, especially in the lower Wupper from Wuppertal downstream. The last salmon was spotted in the Wupper in 1830. In addition to the poor water quality, the river's stench was a problem. The Eschbachtalsperre was built from 1889 to 1891 as the first drinking water dam in Germany on the Eschbach tributary of the Wupper . The legal prerequisites for further problem solving were created with a Prussian law of May 19, 1891 for the application of compulsory membership of industry to a water cooperative in the area of the Wupper and its tributaries. This “Wuppertalsperrengesetz” and the establishment of the “Cooperative for the Construction of Dams” in 1896 initially served to build dams for water and energy supply and not to deal with wastewater problems. An organizational expansion to cope with water pollution was discussed as a result of the Emschergenossenschaftsgesetz (Emschergenossenschaftsgesetz) enacted in 1904, but only after the municipal reform on August 1, 1929 (establishment of the city of Wuppertal) on January 8, 1930 through a Prussian special law with municipalities and industry as members with the " Wupper Association Law "was founded. This enabled the Wupperverband to tackle the wastewater disposal across the catchment area.

Members

Today, the association's members are cities, municipalities and districts in the association's territory; Companies and other providers of public water supply in the area of the association who extract water as groundwater for the purpose of using it, take it from surface waters or take it over from the association's facilities; Commercial companies, property owners and carriers of traffic systems with relevant benefits from the work of the Wupperverband. The association assembly with 101 delegates is the highest body.

The Wupper Association in the present

The Wupperverband has identified demography, energy, climate change and flood protection as future topics. The reduction of own greenhouse gas emissions, the circular economy and new technologies are pursued in research and cooperation projects. The Wuppertal catchment area is also to become a salmon spawning area again as part of the water management policy of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The association area

The association area includes the above-ground catchment area of the Wupper in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia . The location in the Bergisches Land causes local precipitation of up to 1,400 mm per year with corresponding problems with runoff and flood protection. Around three quarters of the approximately 1 million people in the catchment area live in the four large cities of Leverkusen , Solingen , Remscheid and Wuppertal . Two thirds of the areas, especially in the upper reaches, are used for pasture and forestry.