Embellished groundwater model may jeopardise stability of planned opencast mining lakes

Cottbus, 30.01.2023. In a comprehensive statement, the environmental network GRÜNE LIGA has criticised the plans of the opencast mine operator LEAG to continue pumping out groundwater in the Jänschwalde opencast mine until 2044. The GRÜNE LIGA sees the stability of the planned opencast mining lakes at risk because LEAG's application ignores the increasing water shortage in Lusatia.
"The consequences of open-cast mining are being made up with fictitious amounts of water. LEAG's plan only works if there are no droughts and no increasing evaporation until 2100. Relying on this could cost the region dearly: If the planned water levels of the opencast lakes are not reached, the stability of the banks at Heinersbrück, Jänschwalde and Taubendorf will be in danger," explains René Schuster from the Green League's Federal Lignite Contact Point, who prepared the statement.
The GRÜNE LIGA also sees LEAG's request for permission under water law as contradictory to the official justification for groundwater extraction. Schuster comments:
"LEAG wants to pump out significantly more than is necessary for the safety of the mine, apparently in order to evaporate more water in the cooling towers of the Jänschwalde power plant. The aim is to burn as much coal as possible from the Welzow, Nochten and Reichwalde opencast mines at the expense of groundwater resources."

For a long time, the GRÜNE LIGA Osterzgebirge and the Ranoala Rainforest Association have been supporting reforestation projects in the (former) East Madagascar rainforest area. About ten years ago, the focus gradually began to expand from pure forest work to environmental education projects. This has developed into a school partnership between the Glückauf-Gymnasium Altenberg and the Lycée of the Malagasy village of Anjahambe, but above all into a wonderful partnership between committed young people in both, far-away countries. In Anjahambe, the "Analasoa-Club" (analasoa = the good forest) is active, in Altenberg the "Madagascar-AG".

The activities on both sides are based on the same principle: first working together practically for nature, then going on trips together to learn more about nature. Several times a year, the Analasoa Club organises student planting missions around the remaining rainforest called Analasoa. This involves multi-day excursions in rented "bush taxis" to well-known Malagasy national parks and other protected areas - financed by donations from Dresden and the Eastern Erz Mountains.

The up to 25 pupils plant rowan trees on the Kahleberg, tend wild hedges and take part in practical species protection measures around Altenberg. In return, once a year there is a larger trip to "rainforest experience places in Central Europe": to Gondwanaland Leipzig and the rainforest museum Phyllodrom, to the "Biosphäre" Potsdam, and even to the Masoala Hall of the Zurich Zoo. In 2019, the Madagascar-AG visited the Federal Ministry for Development Cooperation in Bonn and the Madagascar House of the Cologne Zoo.

Planned acceleration law undermines legal protection against major projects

Berlin, 06.09.2022: In a statement submitted today, the environmental network GRÜNE LIGA strongly opposes the draft for another acceleration law. The Ministry of Justice plans to avoid the suspensive effect of lawsuits by allowing courts to disregard legal errors in the decisions complained of.
"The law planned by the Federal Ministry of Justice aims at facilitating the creation of facts even in the case of unlawful approvals. In practice, lawsuits against fossil-fuel power plants, waste incineration plants, airports, roads and even lignite mining would be nullified from the outset, even though the law claims to serve the conversion to sustainable energy supplies. This kind of planning acceleration would undermine the rule of law as a whole," says René Schuster, Federal Chairman of the GREEN LIGA.

Coal company wants to justify expropriation with business secrets Sorbian-Welsh cultural project shows solidarity on site

Representatives of Fridays for Future from Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony demand that no more land be expropriated for opencast lignite mines. They met in the forest leased by the GRÜNEN LIGA at the Nochten open-cast mine, where they planted a young lime tree.

"Opencast coal mines like Nochten have an impact over the entire course of the Spree. Our generation will bear the consequences if the coal phase-out is delayed. As climate activists from Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony, we therefore jointly demand that the mining areas be reduced and that no opencast mining consequences be passed on to the general public," says Tom Beeger from Fridays for Future in Görlitz.

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