The Tyrolean Fishermen’s Association speaks of an environmental disaster: as reported on Monday, a serious incident occurred in the river Sill during the opening of a weir under the Europa Bridge. The mudslide caused “a thousand fish deaths”, according to the association. Fishermen filmed the “uncontrolled masses of water” and “the brutal death of the fish” in the mud and took shocking pictures. The municipal services of Innsbruck (IKB) had already admitted the incident.
„Within minutes the level of the Sill rises rapidly and the fishermen themselves struggle to get to safety. But there is no way out for the fish. They are pushed to the side of the riverbed by the water masses and the mud wave and then painfully suffocate,” the Tyrolean Fishermen’s Union described the incident in a broadcast on Monday. Attached: a video with dimensions:
“Power Plant-Related Destruction of Nature”
Branch manager Zacharias Schähle is indignant: “Such massive flushes are nothing more than a power plant-related destruction of nature, which would also have been absolutely avoidable. This can by no means solve the technical requirements of power plant operation.”
Schahle, him was on the Sill during the tidal wave itself, believes that even human lives are in danger as a result.“It is sad that the local recreational area of the Sill Gorge is no longer safe to enter with this form of energy generation.”
‘State politics finally demanded’
For him it is “five past twelve when it comes to the long-awaited greening of all power plants: now state politics is finally being called upon to take appropriate measures. In any case, this is not what clean and nature-friendly hydropower looks like.”
IKB: “This must not happen”
The IKB had admitted the incident on Tuesday evening. “When the snow melts, a lot of wood, sediment and other natural material is washed into the sill. This is deposited at the weir and must be removed in order for the plant to continue to operate reliably. For this purpose, the Sill weir was opened for the first time this winter after the snow melted yesterday (Monday, note),” said a broadcast.
IKB now relies on conversations
The opening of the weir led to “a short surge of water, mixed with the sediments that had been deposited for months”. When the circumstance was noticed, they reacted immediately and rinsed with water. “We have contacted the fishing license holder, with whom we are in constant contact. Something like this should not happen, so we will get together as soon as possible and discuss how to avoid such a scenario in the future,” says Herbert Schmid, head of the Energy Generation Department at IKB.
Source: Krone
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