The Traunstein district administrator Siegfried Walch (CSU) has announced that he will push ahead with the controversial plans for a new run-of-river power plant on the lower reaches of the Bavarian-Austrian border river Salzach. For years, the state government has been considering building new power plants as part of the necessary rehabilitation of the river bed. Most recently, however, an official report commissioned by both countries showed that the Salzach can be protected from a so-called bottom breach even without artificial transverse structures in the course of the river. The Bavarian Ministry of the Environment has so far ruled out new transverse structures solely for the purpose of energy production.
In his own words, Walch has the backing of Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU), who recently spoke several times about new power plants on the Salzach. Walch made his announcement in a video message that he says he recorded on the way back from a meeting with Söder and a high-ranking representative of the Austrian power plant operator Verbund. Accordingly, at least one so-called running water power plant is to be built in the Tittmoningen basin between Laufen and Burghausen – according to Walch “a flagship project” that will make Bavaria less dependent on fossil energies and energy imports and “not at the expense of nature”, “but even with an ecological upgrading of the Salzach connect is”.
Years ago, the Austrian Verbund AG presented plans for one or more such running water power plants, which should be almost completely submerged by water and next to which there would ideally be space for migrating fish and gravel washed up by the river. These power plants would do without a high dam wall and without draining water into a power plant canal. However, they also produce significantly less electricity than such systems.
From the point of view of many nature conservation associations, which have joined together to form the Salzach Habitat Community, the possible electricity yield, which the Bund Nature Conservation recently described as “marginal”, bears the worst possible relation to the feared interventions in nature. The associations consider the Salzach to be the last Alpine river in Bavaria, despite its largely canal-like bed, which can still flow freely over a longer stretch. Because of its narrow bed, however, the Salzach digs deeper and deeper and threatens to break through in several places. The Free State and the State of Upper Austria are currently widening the banks in a section north of the town of Tittmoning.