As of: February 7, 2024, 9:20 a.m
By: Michael Seeholzer
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“All curvatures, also known as meanders, were eliminated by continuous straightening”: local researcher Hans Huber on the straight Urtel in Taglaching (municipality of Bruck).
© Stefan Rossmann
The measures taken on the Urtel 100 years ago still have an impact on the city of Grafing.
As the riverbed straightened, the risk of flooding also increased.
Grafing/Bruck – If it’s too much, it’s bad.
If there is too little, it would also be best if there were always sufficient quantities available and it did not pose any danger.
But it's not that simple with our water.
In any case, there is no topic in the Grafinger city council that has a longer lifespan.
It's always about flood protection.
Because of energy supply: Grafinger blames himself for the risk of flooding on the Urtel
A colored mark on the town hall makes it clear what would happen to businesses today in the event of a once-in-a-century flood.
In some of their rooms the water is higher than the rubber boots can reach.
The Grafinger forefathers themselves are to blame for this situation.
At least that's what research by Taglaching local historian Hans Huber suggests.
He unearthed interesting documents that document events from 100 years ago.
At that time it was about the energy supply for the city.
A situation similar to the one we are experiencing today?
But one after anonther.
The yellow line (with a red border) shows the new course of the Urtel in the municipality of Bruck.
Above (gray) you can see the old, meandering course of the stream.
© MPS
Huber discovered a document in the district office's documents in which the regulation of the Urtel that Grafing was calling for at the time was described in detail.
It is about a section of water on Bruck Flur, which is why the municipality of Bruck had to agree and did so.
“The plans contained in this act show both the original course of the Urtelbach and the planned changes to the stream bed and the entire course.
Both courses are drawn in parallel in the plan, so that the changes can be seen particularly clearly,” reports Huber.
The regulation was only intended for the upper reaches of the stream, the approximately 2,500 meter long section between the source and the railway passage on the Munich-Rosenheim line.
The total length from the origin to Grafing is around 4000 meters.
Water as an economic factor: Straightening of the Urtel demanded by the Grafinger water power plant owners
The applicants for the Urtel regulatory measure were the Grafingen water power plant owners, who asked the Munich Cultural Building Authority to carry out the necessary preparatory work.
The result was an almost dead straight course of water.
All meanders that could slow down flooding have been removed.
And that was intentional, after all, more water was supposed to flow into the mills, which were a significant economic factor in Grafing.
Between 1921 and 1923 there were a number of companies that were dependent on water, reports Huber.
At the Urtel in the municipality of Grafing these were Joseph Danner (hammer mill), Bartholomäus Prabst (hammer mill), Max Altinger (electricity plant), Paul Oswald (gries mill), Egid Daxenberger (dye mill), Georg Enthammer (tannery) and Ludwig Weilnböck (tannery). .
At the Attel in the community of Öxing there were: Franz Oswald (electricity), Joseph Wurm (Kothmühle), Sebastian Scheller (Großottmühle), Max Altinger (electricity), Joseph Rothmoser (electricity), Georg Köll (mill and sawmill) and the community Ebersberg with a pumping station in Aiterndorf.
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Urtel has lost half of its water flow in the last 50 years
Huber did not find any further documents for the section from the railway breakthrough to the entrance to Grafing.
However, it can hardly be assumed that the Grafingen city fathers could have encouraged the people of Bruck to take such a measure if they had not set a good example on their own territory - i.e. with straightening measures themselves - or at least had not carried them out at the same time.
Evidence of this may be that the Attel was completely straightened below Grafing at the level of Straußdorf.
In any case, the Urtel still runs dead straight in its bed from the railway embankment to the Walche.
It is understandable from history that the power plant operators were worried that there would soon no longer be enough water for their plants.
Huber gathers from the documents available to him that the Urtel had lost half of its water flow over the course of 50 years.
The operators feared operational restrictions or even a complete standstill.
“Concerns even went so far that this development could lead to a serious catastrophe for the grafting market,” Huber warned at the time.
From the perspective of the time, it was only possible to eliminate this danger by lowering the bottom of the stream and improving the alignment: “What this means is straightening the entire stream.”
Land reclamation and increasing amounts of energy: “The market town councilors were satisfied”
These measures lowered the groundwater level in the Urteltal area, which also led to a significant improvement in agricultural management and thus an increase in yields.
Above all, however, this change in the stream bed significantly increased the amount of water and the flow speed.
More extinguishing water was available for major fires, which served as an additional argument for the power plant operators and also corresponded to the facts.
However, as historical pictures from 1940 already show, after the water conversion project, more quickly arrived than the people of Grafingen would have liked.
At that time the market square was knee-deep in water.
The entire stream bed had been fundamentally changed; little or nothing remained of the former course of the stream.
“All curvatures, also known as meanders, were eliminated by continuous straightening,” says Huber.
The associated goals were achieved.
Land reclamation made it possible to increase production.
On the other hand, the measure served to increase the amount of energy for the mills and power plants.
The farmers and the power plant owners were satisfied.
“The councilors of the market town of Grafing were also very satisfied, as they had completely achieved their two goals of protecting drinking water and also fire protection by increasing the amount of fire-fighting water,” said the local researcher.
Today, however, city councilors are worried - the risk of flooding has not been averted
Today's city councilors are, of course, worried about how they can now deal with the flood risk that they themselves caused back then.
The most recent measure is a retention area below the Red Pond on the border with Ebersberger Flur, which was presented at the most recent building committee meeting and can be implemented with a manageable financial outlay.
The Wieshamer Bach also has potential for damage.
But the biggest risk remains the judgment.
The city has not made any progress for decades with the construction of a flood basin at the western entrance to Grafing, i.e. where the forefathers used to intervene.
The building authority has repeatedly informed the city councilors that the land negotiations are deadlocked.
Huber's research into the events of 100 years ago also has a current relevance in that our society is currently in the process of intervening in nature to generate the necessary energy.
And the Urtel example shows that a massive intervention is sometimes associated with significant side effects, the elimination of which can later result in high costs for the general public.
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