Alliance Greens call for measures to stabilize the water balance in Lusatia

For a long-term stabilization of the water balance in Lusatia with the coal phase-out, the Alliance Greens in Brandenburg, Saxony and Berlin demand a series of measures from the federal and state governments. For example, Leag, as the mining operator and polluter, should be comprehensively involved in the costs of restoring the water balance, according to a position paper presented on Thursday. For long-term financing of the renaturation of the destroyed landscape, the parliamentary groups demand the establishment of a lignite consequences foundation. In their view, the insolvency-proof reserves of the energy company Leag for the reclamation "by far" not enough.

"For the cost of the measures, the mining operators must be asked as polluters to pay. Unfortunately, the mining offices of the states have failed for decades to demand sufficient security deposits from the mining operators," explained Bernhard Herrmann, Saxon member of the Bundestag and member of the Committee for Energy and Climate Protection. In order to secure the monies of the mining operators insolvency-proof, the federal government and the states should now resolutely tackle the establishment of a lignite consequence foundation.

With their paper, the three parliamentary groups also refer to a study of the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). According to it, the drinking water supply in the greater Berlin area and along the Spree River is threatened with major bottlenecks. The river could locally carry up to 75 percent less water in dry summer months if much less groundwater is pumped in when lignite mining ends. As a solution, the study proposes, among other things, upgrading dams and water reservoirs and expanding existing lakes as water reservoirs. Also the countries concerned should sound out together, how water from other regions can be pumped by new pipe systems as nature-compatibly as possible into the Spree, for instance from the Elbe.

Latter suggestion sees the three alliance green parliamentary groups with view of ecological effects and economy critically. They require for a fundamental decision to Überleitern from other river basins "benefit-cost analyses", which include also variants such as the need-wise further enterprise of the groundwater pumps. It must also be demonstrated that ecological damage to river systems is thereby ruled out, the report adds.

Isabell Hiekel, environmental policy spokeswoman for the Green parliamentary group in the Brandenburg state parliament, but also sees measures from the UBA study that would have to be addressed quickly - such as a legal review of whether the Cottbus Baltic Sea could serve as a reservoir or a master plan for the Spreewald to reduce its water demand.

With the evaporation over the future mining lakes, the Green parliamentary groups see another problem. Therefore, the development of small and deep instead of large and shallow opencast mining lakes should be worked towards via lignite planning when the mines are being cooled down, the three parliamentary groups of the Alliance Greens suggest.