West of Würzburg, Bavaria’s second largest drinking water protection area will be created, covering 66 square kilometers. The aim is to continue to protect the water-rich groundwater between Altertheim, Helmstadt and Zell am Main from harmful inputs from the surface. Because half of Würzburg’s drinking water supply depends on its water. But the process is making little progress – it has been happening for 30 years.
The decisive step was finally followed in March of this year: the drinking water supply company Würzburg GmbH (TWV) submitted the application documents to the district office in Würzburg and now has to complete them in coordination with the authorities. However, it is still unclear when the process will officially open.
The power line runs through the protected area
But time is running out. After three decades of hydrogeological surveys and numerous appraisals, more and more large projects and construction projects come into play and are being planned west of Würzburg. A section of the SuedLink electricity corridor, intended to carry wind energy from northern Germany to the south, will also cross the western district of Würzburg: between Zellingen and Thüngersheim, south of Uettingen to Altertheim. The planned electricity line crosses the catchment area of the Zell springs. Specifically, it is a length of about 2,388 meters in an area where the layers of soil cover offer the aquifers only little protection from harmful contributions from the surface.
Could the project pose a threat to groundwater? And the underground cables in the western district of Würzburg have to be laid somewhere else in the end? According to the Federal Network Agency, there are cases where it is necessary Underground cables “considering water protection areas” must not be laid in a straight line.
Endanger the sources really “unlikely”?
For Alexander Schilling, spokesman for TransnetBW GmbH, this is not a problem, as the planned water protection area had already been intensively discussed during the design of the power line. Two years ago, the Federal Network Agency, in consultation with the Water Management Office, determined that there was “low risk” for the Zell springs in the area under review. And: “Due to the great distance from the source versions”, a threat is “unlikely”.
When asked, Friedrich Altmann, head of the Aschaffenburg water management office, still does not want to commit. Only when all the results of the subsoil investigations of the power line are available will a “concrete assessment of the project’s water management” take place.
One thing is certain: the planned route not only passes through the planned water protection area of the drinking water supply of Würzburg GmbH, but also through the water extraction systems of the drinking water supplies of the municipalities of Waldbrunn and Altertheim (district of Würzburg).
The landfill procedures in Helmstadt and the Knauf gypsum plant projects are still ongoing
Two further construction projects are currently underway west of Würzburg. It has not yet been decided whether a Class 1 toxic construction waste landfill will be approved at the end of the Zeller Quellen catchment area. The approval process for the Beuerlein company project in Helmstadt (Würzburg district) is still ongoing, the relevant mining authority has informed the Upper Franconian government upon request.
And as for the Knauf company’s planned gypsum mine in the hilly triangle between Altertheim, Helmstadt and Waldbrunn, the final assessment of whether the project could endanger groundwater is still pending.
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