59
Huge Polish open-pit mine to become giant artificial lake
(tvpworld.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2026
59 points (100.0% liked)
Europe
11641 readers
1301 users here now
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the admin that applied the rule (check modlog first to find who was it.)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
We are trying to do that at several sites here in Germany, too. The big problem is getting all that water. You can't take that much from the rivers around - they currently have problems with low water levels due to the heat and no rain. Therefore you can't take that much water f.e. from the Rhine to fill the Garzweiler holes. The current plan is that this will take several decades
Water itself isn't the big problem. Water in huge amounts in an orderly manner is.
If you simply shut down the pumping stations that currently keep the pits dry by lowering the water table, the pits will fill up with groundwater on their own. However, there are two major drawbacks to this:
1. The pit walls will become unstable and start to slide... a process that could make it impossible to use the lake for a very long time.
2. The inflowing groundwater causes the pyrite found in coal seams to weather into sulfuric acid, which means that the pH of the lakes drops to levels that are hostile to life. This is precisely the problem currently being addressed through liming in the post-mining landscapes of the eastern German states, a process that also consumes a great deal of money and resources.
/edit: Melchior already wrote the same... should have read the comments before. ^^'
There are a lot of lignite mines, which have been flooded already. During mining ground water is usually pumped out of the mine, to prevent flooding. So if you stop mining and pumping, the mine would flood anyway. However that would also wash out minerals and cause some serious problems on the "shore" of the new lake. So usually it is better to flood it as fast as possible.
The issue is that these mines are among the largest in Europe. Garzweiler as well as Bełchatów. However for Garzweiler we are talking 1/30 of the water the Rhine has near Colonge. It is bad, but certainly possible.
1/30 of the Rhine water near Colonge is massive. That is one of Europes biggest rivers and taking that much amount of water out is serious. We are talking about problems with shipping and water management in the netherlands, increased salinity in the north sea and so on. And if you take a look at the Spree, stopping pumping up the groundwater has its own problems. Berlin is depending on water from the Spree which is coming from pumped up groundwater. Stopping that will change a whole river system that grew over decades.
Sorry, but it is 1/30 of the water which flows past Cologne in the Rhine in a year to fill up the entire Garzweiler mine. So basically diverting the Rhine for a bit more then 12 days. I realize that what I wrote was easy to misunderstand.
But the key here is that the alternative is to keep the pumps running forever. Otherwise you get an acid lake with collapsing walls. Obviously keeping the pumps running also causes massive problems. I am sure they find a solution for Berlin as well.
I saw a model on this: If the drainage water from the open-pit mines stops flowing, the Spreewald upstream from Berlin will evaporate as much water as would otherwise flow into the Spree without drainage.... This is bad news for Berlin, which obtains a significant portion of its drinking water from the Spree’s bank filtrate.