The consequences of the drought in Bavaria: restricted shipping, fuss about nuclear power plants and dead fish

Created: 08/18/2022 10:03 am

By: Dirk Walter, Cornelia Schramm, Helmut Hobmaier, Kathrin Brack

The situation in Bavaria is currently tense.

The lack of precipitation and the high temperatures pose major challenges for many areas.

Munich - Nature thirsts for water.

It has been far too dry and too hot for weeks, and it simply rains too seldom.

Day by day the consequences of this drought are becoming clearer.

In Bavaria, this is noticeable, among other things, in shipping, the Isar 2 nuclear power plant and dying fish.

Lake shipping restricts operations:

the low water level on Lake Starnberg has consequences: passenger shipping has to be restricted due to low water.

For safety reasons, Bayerische Seenschifffahrt GmbH has not been using the jetties in Possenhofen and Bernried on the west bank since yesterday.

"It's currently too shallow at the jetties," explains authorized signatory Marcus Weisbecker.

"If the ship's propellers touch the bottom, it causes enormous damage.

In the worst case, the ship could get stuck.”

The remaining six jetties on Lake Starnberg will continue to be approached.

There are currently no restrictions on the Tegernsee, the Königssee and the Ammersee.

“These lakes have tributaries.

Most of Lake Starnberg, however, is fed underground from the groundwater,” says Weisbecker.

"The fact that it hasn't rained properly for weeks is particularly noticeable there."

The jetty at Lake Starnberg near Possenhofen can no longer be approached.

© Andrea Jaksch

Water level at Lake Starnberg extremely low

The water level at Lake Starnberg is lower than it has been for three years.

According to the Bavarian State Office for the Environment, it was 583.93 meters above sea level at 4 p.m. yesterday.

“So far, passenger operations have never had to be restricted due to low water.

Flooding was more of a problem for us,” says Weisbecker, hoping for rain.

Lake dries up, fish die:

there is an absolute emergency at the small Berger See near Steinhöring (Ebersberg district).

It has almost dried up, only a small pool remained in the middle.

However, hundreds of dead fish are floating in it – perished due to lack of oxygen.

The owners, the Abinger family, now have to collect and dispose of them.

It was two cubic meters by noon yesterday.

"They go to the animal body recycling," says Martin Abinger.

Initially, it was planned to save the animals with an oxygen pump.

But the plan was abandoned - the water is just too warm, says Mayor Martina Lietsch.

Many water bodies of the 3rd order - these are the streams - are currently almost dried up, including the small Ascherbach in the district of Fürstenfeldbruck.

The Berger See in the district of Ebersberg has shrunk.

The fish float dead in the water.

© Dziemballa

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AKW Isar 2 requires a lot of water from the already empty Isar

Eddy around the nuclear power plant:

The Lower Bavarian Green MP Toni Schuberl caused a lot of excitement yesterday with a photo on Facebook.

Schuberl had published the photo of an almost dried-up Isar reservoir "near the Isar 2 nuclear power plant" near Landshut and wrote that the cooling tower of the nuclear power plant required around 700 liters of cooling water per second from the Isar.

A power station from the Black Forest picked up on this and concluded that the emergency shutdown was imminent.

The Isar 2 nuclear power plant near Landshut can continue to run.

The operator has rejected assumptions about a failure due to the sinking Isar level.

© Frank Hoermann / SVEN SIMON

However, the nuclear power plant operator Preußen Elektra sharply denied this when asked by our newspaper: "There are currently no heat-related operating restrictions for the Isar 2 nuclear power plant and none are to be expected." The power plant takes its cooling water from the Niederaichbach reservoir and is therefore "relative independent” of the level of the Isar.

The Isar is also not too warm at 22 degrees, according to operating regulations, the power plant can only be switched off at a temperature of 28 degrees.

The situation at the reservoir is not critical.

When asked, Schuberl says that he actually photographed another reservoir near Dingolfing, i.e. above the power plant – he has no influence on what others concluded from a Facebook entry.

"The fact is, however, that the power plant blows 700 liters per second into the air via the cooling tower." That is "not the solution to our current problems".

Bavaria's harvest suffers from a lack of water

Concerns about potatoes and sugar beets:

Maize, potatoes and sugar beets - plants that require a lot of water bring beads of sweat to the farmers' brows.

For example in the district of Freising.

"It's depressing," says Gerhard Stock, managing director of the Bavarian Farmers' Association in the district.

As for the potatoes, farmers expected a poor harvest, the potatoes will be smaller.

Sugar beets would also have needed more rain.

When it comes to maize, the situation varies from district to district – in Freising, at any rate, it rained far too little during the growth phase.

The plants only have small cobs.

Josef Andres, district chief of farmers in Rosenheim, says the maize harvest will start three to four weeks earlier because of the drought.

There are also problems with green cuttings

A special problem in Freising is the hops with 2000 hectares of cultivation area.

First the hail hit the plants, now the water shortage.

That costs yield and quality, says Stock.

Only the grain harvest turned out well in Freising, but also in Fürstenfeldbruck, for example.

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