Solution found for Ferchenbach: prevent a catastrophe together
Created: 01/16/2023, 02:00 p.m
By: Catherine Bromberger
The Ferchenbach caused massive damage in the summer of 2021, including just before it flows into the Partnach (photo on the left).
The wild wood rake is to be built nearby.
© Bavarian State Forests
The Ferchenbach is considered a ticking time bomb.
Finally, the Garmisch-Partenkirchen market, the forest and the water management office are presenting a flood protection solution.
The start of construction is planned for 2024.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen – There they sit.
Together in a table circle in the small meeting room.
In front Elisabeth Koch.
Happy.
Thankful.
Proud.
That everyone can sit together and that she, as mayor of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, can announce: "There is a solution."
And that, she emphasizes, was only possible because - finally - everyone talked to each other: the water management office, the Bavarian State Forests and the administration from the town hall.
In intimate unity, with one goal: the safety of the people.
"That's what we're all about," emphasizes Silvia buyer-Schropp, spokeswoman for the market.
"We are investing to ensure that there is no catastrophe." No one should die again, as happened in the storm in June 2018.
Pulling together: (from left): Dr.
Andreas Kolbinger and Horst Hofmann from the water management office, district forester Wolfgang Striegel, the mayors Claudia Zolk and Elisabeth Koch, building authority manager Jörg Hahn and Richard Baur from the Oberammergau forestry company.
© Markt Garmisch-Partenkirchen
The solution is no surprise.
After much planning, the experts around Horst Hofmann, who is responsible for flood protection in the district at the water management office, decided on the variant that they had already favored in the Tagblatt interview in October: a J-shaped rake just above the mouth of the Ferchenbach in the Partnach.
A first in the district.
A wild wood rake in the form of a walking stick has never been installed.
Flood protection at the Ferchenbach: 1.5 to 2 million euros costs
Graduate engineer Professor Dr.
Johannes Hübl in a model test on the Naarn in Upper Austria, how the steel posts are arranged, how high and how strong they have to be and how many of them are needed so that they offer optimal protection on the Ferchenbach.
Once the results are available - Hofmann expects spring 2023 - the commissioned office will draw up the final construction plan.
Approval is expected by summer at best, but rather by autumn 2023.
Hofmann expects construction to start in spring or summer 2024.
The access road could be built as early as this year.
A crucial pillar in this flood protection project, which is expected to cost 1.5 to 2 million euros.
The workers will have to transport thousands of tons of material to the construction site.
About 17 kilometers route over the local mountain.
Only about five kilometers from Elmau.
However, since a landslide, this path has been partly buried and partly broken away.
Access road to the construction site: The big solution is too expensive
During a tour in August 2021 - two months after heavy rain, in which the Ferchenbach had once again demonstrated its power - Richard Baur, deputy head of the Oberammergau forestry operation, described the permanent preparation of it as a grave of millions.
Because the slope is constantly slipping, especially in three places, and will continue to do so.
Therefore, those involved apparently agreed with Baur's opinion.
There was a move away from a large, permanent solution in which the path was extensively renovated and the stream was secured with stones.
An office had calculated 700,000 euros for it.
Hofmann was "shocked" by the sum.
It's a lot cheaper, he thinks.
Maybe for 500,000 euros, you do it cleverly.
Maybe even for only around 100,000, it's more of a temporary measure.
More details are still being decided - as is the question of how far the path will remain after the construction phase.
Not as a cycling and hiking trail for tourists.
This aspect never played a role.
However, the path would be practical as a service road for forestry or maintenance work in the area, for example if tree trunks have to be removed from the rake after a storm.
If the path is buried again by a mudslide during heavy rain - sooner or later this will happen, nobody doubts it - those responsible will first assess the damage and then consider whether to clear and repair it.
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Flood protection at the Ferchenbach: 510,000 euros from the state government
Both the plan for the rake and that for the road have been on the table for some time.
The question remains: Why did it take so long?
Silence around the table.
Koch waves his hand and gives the floor to the representatives of the water management office and the state forests.
"You have to answer that." She herself had last put pressure on.
"They have to get into the pots now," she demanded in October.
Her patience was at an end.
Especially since she had raised money.
In the course of the G7 summit, the state government promised the market 510,000 euros, earmarked for the Ferchenbach.
Even if the torrent has been at the top of the priority list at the water management office since the accident in 2018 at the latest, the promise of money has certainly given the project a boost, says Hofmann.
He provides a possible and honest reason for the tough negotiations: the landslide.
"No one wanted to put on the shoe that there will always be problems." In the worst case, you build a road for 700,000 euros of taxpayers' money, and "the next time it rains, it's in the stream".
His authority and the market had insisted on a tripartite division of the costs.
It's off the table.
The Free State – i.e. the Water Management Office – takes on 70 percent of the total expenditure, and the municipality 30 percent.
The state forests continue to take care of woodwork, and also signaled that they would be involved in maintenance.
Baur emphasizes that this will certainly be settled by mutual agreement "through official channels" and in personal consultation.
You pull together.
