Garzweiler

The brown-coal mine to open sky of Garzweiler (Braunkohletagebau Garzweiler) is a site of extraction of Lignite, named according to the village of Jüchen-Garzweiler in the commune of Jüchen (Rhein-Kreis Neuss), located at ten kilometers in the south of Mönchengladbach, in Rhineland-of-North-Westphalia (Germany), and exploited by the company RWE Power AG. The village of Garzweiler was demolished, and the place then entirely cleared the extraction of the lignite parallel to, and became today - in particular in German the ecologists mediums - synonym of lignite exploitation with open sky.

The mine with open sky

The lignite extraction undertaken by subsidiary company RWE Power AG of firm RWE AG (in the past Rheinbraun - lignite saying in German Braunkohle) took place up to now only in the first of the two sections envisaged, Garzweiler I and II. Garzweiler I includes/understands the extent located at the east of the highway A 44, while the exploitation site Garzweiler II corresponds to a sector in the west of has 44; this last, large of 48 km2, is definitely vaster. March 31st, 1995, the government of the Land of Rhineland-of-North-Westphalia gave its downstream to the implementation of the Braunkohleplan Garzweiler II . Also the general purpose excavators could, on June 18th, 2006, to start this new zone. Are concerned now, for the first time, and with 40 km2 height, of the portions of territory of the town of Erkelenz (Kreis Heinsberg). A third approximately of the surface of this city will be put at contribution. 6,5 km2 are located on the territory of the commune of Jüchen and approximately 1,5 km2 on the territory of the town of Mönchengladbach, which will be thus for the first time it so implied in this mining project.

The period of extraction envisaged extends from 2006 at 2045. The breaking-down of the coal is carried out with open sky (exploitation into discovered or by discovered) and the activity are connected then with a project of earthwork which moves gradually.

Garzweiler II has a brown-coal bed of 1,3 billion tons. The t/c report/ratio - which expresses the relationship between the quantity of cleared dead ground (i.e. the quantity of ground that it is necessary to release initially before reaching the coal seam) and the quantity of coal extracted -, is here of 5/1, which is favorable.

The Garzweiler project requires the evacuation and the removal of whole localities. With regard to the project Garzweiler II, twelve villages and 7600 inhabitants will be touched.

Measurements of pumping, necessary to the drainage of subterranean water, have well repercussions beyond the exploitation site. Thus, the marshy forests of the natural park Maas-Schwalm-Clear are also threatened by the fall of the level of the ground water.

However, the legal procedures are not enclosed yet at this hour.

Modification of the preliminary draft

Following the resistance of the population, the surface envisaged of the exploitation site Garzweiler II was reduced: If, in the beginning, a surface of demolition of 6800 ha had been considered to be necessary, from now on only some 4800 ha would be asserted more. what implies that the villages of Wanlo, Venrath, Kaulhausen, Wockerath and Kückhoven would escape the excavations.

Lanes

Two highways cross the exploitation site and will have to also be cleared, namely a44 highway (connecting Aachen and Düsseldorf) and a61 highway (connecting Mönchengladbach and Cologne). The reason for which A61 was widened is, moreover, the fact that A44 will have to be sacrificed in first. The latter was closed with circulation in October 2005 and (May 2006) was dismantled meanwhile mainly. After the year 2017, A44 will be rebuilt, to accept responsibility for the traffic of A61.

Transport of the lignite

The extracted lignite with Garzweiler having mainly to be used as fuel for the thermo plants of the area, located in Frimmersdorf and Neurath, the routing of the lignite since Garzweiler is carried out by the railway known under the denomination of North-South-Bahn (North-South railroad) pertaining to the RWE Power AG.

Evacuation of the localities

Already evacuated localities

Jüchen-Garzweiler
Priesterath
Elfgen in Grevenbroich
Belmen
Königshoven

Localities in the course of evacuation

belonging to the entity of Jüchen

Otzenrath: evacuation started in 2000
Spenrath: evacuation started in 2000
Holz (Jüchen): evacuation started in 2000

belonging to the entity of Erkelenz

Immerath-Pesch]]
Immerath-Lützerath]]: evacuation started in 2006
Immerath: evacuation started in 2006
Borschemich: evacuation as from 2006, bound for Neu-Borschemich

Localities on standby of evacuation

belonging to the entity of Erkelenz

Berverath
Holzweiler
Keyenberg
Kuckum
Oberwestrich
Unterwestrich

Social problems of displacements of population

Given that the levelling of the old agglomerations takes place per successive blocks, it is necessary to envisage in time of new sectors urbanisables, to put them of accessibility and to create entirely new districts of dwelling. The owners are thus constrained to occupy themselves in spite of them of construction of a house, and the tenants are confronted with the problem to find a housing with comparable rent. For the communes, that can be admittedly the occasion to create vaster units of settlement and to modernize the infrastructures. One makes an effort, by a possible transfer of population more grouped, to preserve the village community of origin. The attempts to prevent “architectural anarchy” in the new establishments and to reproduce the aspect there typically rhénanien old villages are often felt by the interested parties like Paternalisme. The modern individual residences are seen certainly like a progress with respect to old constructions, narrow and malcommodes, but at the same time, the total destruction of the old places, to which intense memories and a long story stick, is deplored like a cut of the place of origin. The maintenance of village cohesion in the new places is conditioned mainly by the safeguard of the old social links beyond reimplantation. The continuation of community life and the traditional calendar of festivities appears in this respect paramount, if it is wanted that a transplantation is tested by the interested parties like “succeeded”. In this respect is important also the attitude, precociously adopted, not to approve new requests for license more to build, or, if necessary, to suspend the qualifications in ground to be built in the localities concerned with the future mining activity, of kind to prevent the aforementioned localities from developing and to make easier the resumption of the places by the companies lignitières.

These measurements lead so that less new large companies (and thus of potential employers), even more no, come to be established, and so that the already established companies cannot extend any more, forced either to wait until the official date of the evacuation, or to move with their expenses their place of activity. What is aimed by this process, like side effect, is to some extent a desertisation places, clean to push mainly the young population to move in advance, to approach the employers and places offering of better possibilities of leisures.

Leaves the basin created by the lignite extraction

The residual basin, to which place will give, in the Western part of the site, the extraction with open sky of the lignite, will have to be arranged in an artificial lake. This one represents for the mining company a way far from expensive to fulfill its obligations of landscape repairing and renaturation, since then the quantity of cuts with remobiliser will be less important (more especially as the volume of the removed raw materials is not available any more), and will further increase the profitability of this activity, in addition supported by subsidies granted by the State under safeguarding of the landscape. From 2045 thus will be diverted each year, during approximately 40 years, some 60 million cubic meters of water of the the Rhine towards the basin. The lake will have a 185 m depth and a surface of 23 km2 (lake of Annecy: 27 km2), and will contain 2 billion m3 of water. In order to prevent that the future lake has not been suddenly acidified, of lime as of is now added to spoil.

In addition the construction project of a large airport with-inside extract range is evoked, when this one is embanked in the neighborhoods of the year 2035.

Source

de.wikipedia

Internal bonds

Lignite

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