Wippra Dam
The dam Wippra, even Wipper Dam and partly pre-dam Wippra or pre-dam Wipper called, in the Harz is a 1951-1952 built from the dam, reservoir and hydropower plant existing dam on the Wipper near Wippra in the district of Mansfeld- South Harz in Saxony- Anhalt.
Operator of the reservoir operation Saxony -Anhalt, who maintains a total of 31 dams. The dam with reduced function for flood protection also serves as a recreational area.
Geographical location
The dam is located in the Lower Harz Wippra just east outside of the Harz Nature Park / Saxony- Anhalt. Near Mansfeld it extends about 5 km west-southwest of Sanger Hausener hamlet Wippra the Saale- Wipper inflow.
Dam
The straight gravity dam that impounds by their own weight Wipper, consists of reinforced concrete. It is about 126 m long, 18 m ( other claims to 17.9 m) high and at the base about 18 meters wide. About the foundation bed is 24.9 m high.. The joint sealing was done with copper sheet. At the spillway wall is provided with a free crown overflow.
Reservoir
The lake is about 32 hectares (0.32 km ²) in size. It extends approximately in the east-west direction at about 2.2 km in length and is in the middle section about 190 m wide. He has about 2 million cubic meters of storage space. Its water surface is at 292.6 m above sea level. NN.
Hydroelectric power station
With the built- in the dam hydroelectric plant to generate electricity from hydropower. The installed capacity is 22 kW. As a bottom outlet is a 17 m long steel pipe DN 600 ( circular profile ), with revision Gleitschützen (1.3 mx 1.1 m ), a butterfly valve DN 600 ( circular profile ), an annular piston valve DN 600 ( circular profile ), a bypass pipe DN 300 ( circular profile ) is equipped with 2 flat wedge gate valves and a Francis turbine for electricity self-sufficiency. The bottom outlet power is reached with full back up to 3 m³ / s
History
For centuries the Mansfeld region was dominated by the copper shale mining and smelting of the ore obtained therefrom. In general, there are water and mining contrary to each other, because the water is the " enemy" of the miner. On the other hand, water is required for the recovery of ores. That was the reason why we docked in many areas of the resin reservoirs (artificial waters), which dominate the landscape today.
So also in the case of the dam Wippra, which was originally planned as a pre-dam. Their dam was built from February 1951 to November 1952, to secure the domestic water supply of copper processing businesses in Mansfeld and Hettstedt; it should be the constant water supply to the VEB Mansfeld Kombinat - " Wilhelm Pieck " be hedged. Originally the plan was the construction of a (larger) main barrier whose shut-off was to be built between now and Wippra reservoir near the western end of the village. To this end, it never came; the reasons for this are safe in low water consumption in the smelting. The function of the dam for flood protection than pre-dam rather limited.
Tourism and hiking
The dam is Wippra popular destination, and there are guided tours of the interior of the dam. The dam is included as No. 219 in the system of stamp locations of the Harz hiking pin; the stamp box ( ⊙ 51.56608333333311.206694444444 ) is located on the south-southeast of something located below the dam parking lot. To the reservoir introduces about 5.8 km long hiking trail, and also there since 2009 south to southwest of the dam in the Harz Naturistenstieg, the first official nude hiking tracks.