Berzdorfer See
Flooded lignite mining
The Berzdorfer Lake is located on the southern border town of Görlitz in Upper Lusatia. It consists of the early 2013 flooded residual hole of the former lignite mining Berzdorf. The lake forms the southeastern corner of the Lusatian Lakeland. With a volume of about 330 million cubic meters and a water depth of max. 72 meters over an area of 960 hectares, it is one of the largest lakes in Saxony.
Geography
The Berzdorfer lake is located about five kilometers long and two kilometers wide at the southern border of the city of Görlitz in the Eastern Upper Lusatia. The Görlitz districts Hagenwerder, small village and nine Tauchritz and the municipalities marker village and Schönau- Berzdorf on the self- adjoin the former coal mining. The lake water level is at 186 m above sea level. NHN.
Things to Do
The Dresden Regional Council has agreed to a seasonal use of the opencast mine waters with limitations, can therefore be sailed on Lake Berzdorf since August 2007. Access for sailors via the current marina German - Ossig on Neißeeinleiter.
History
History of the mine
The deposit is a tectonic type of deposit. The basin is a tectonically northeast - southwest -oriented trench, which is bounded at the edges by numerous faults with different strike directions. The deposit has been stressed in the Pleistocene by glacial ice, which had an impact on the geomorphological and geological features of the basin.
The Berzdorfer coal seam has German side to an average thickness of 80 meters and covers an area of about three times eight kilometers. In comparison, the seams of Lower Lusatia have a thickness of tens of meters to about a hundred kilometers in length.
Around the year 1835 began south of Görlitz on the site of the former local situation Berzdorf the mining of lignite, then still in pits underground. 1919 was converted to open pit mining. In 1927 the open pit was flooded for reasons of profitability. After the end of World War II in 1946, the mining experienced a reactivation. The Grundwassersee was drained and largely driven ahead of lignite mining in the three-layer system.
In 1958, the lignite was put into operation on site, the power plant I to use. The space requirements for the open pit was large: from 1962 to 1965 the site was moved to Schönau Berzdorf - Berzdorf. In these years, already was the commissioning of the plant II, Plant III followed in 1970. Instance, the open pit developed in large open pit, with flow rates of up to 7 million tons of lignite per year have been achieved. Technologically sparked the conveyor belt running from the elaborate operation of trains and modern large excavator promoted up to 50,000 tons of coal per day. The mine was during the eligibility climax in the 1980s workplace of approximately 7,000 people. 1988 had to give way to the coal mining also the place German - Ossig.
After over 150 years of coal mining, coal mining was discontinued in December 1997. It remained a recoverable lignite amount of 60 million tons. The amount would have made in the estimated 10 to 15 years, a conversion of the power plant on desulphurization necessary. This would have been economically viable.
As a technical monument of this time, the excavator can be visited in 1452.
Development to the recreation area
Through the Lusatian and Central German Mining Administration Company, the former pit has been transformed into a recreational area. In 2002 was started with the flooding of the open pit hole with water from the Pliessnitz. The flooding from the River Neisse with a one kilometer long reconciliation by two 1.6 -meter-thick pipes began on 18 February 2004. The maximum flow was 10 cubic meters per second. Branch water from the Neisse can be taken from a minimum flow of the Neisse of 13.3 cubic meters per second.
The lake serves as many other former opencast mining holes, in addition to the optical landscaping recreational use. In the south, a marina with a 150 meter long quay wall was created. At the 18 km long lakeside there are several vantage points with information boards, among others, German - Ossig and nine small village.
Another golf course and a beach on the north shore and a campsite are planned. The release of the bathing areas on the so-called Blue Lagoon on the south side and on the east side in Hagenwerder was 2010.
In 2008, more than twenty meters high observation tower was completed Neuberzdorfer height on the west bank on the Neuberzdorfer height.
On February 6, 2013, the LMBV said that the aim of the flooding Berzdorfer lake (186 m MSL ) was achieved. As Bewirtschaftungs - water level shall be the level of 186.2 m customary. NHN.