The district office confirms that the operator of the Puch gravel pit (formerly Stockinger gravel pit) in the west of the district town has applied for the establishment of a landfill for inert waste and wants to fill it with rubble, for example. According to a spokeswoman, the planning approval process has not yet been completed.
Thomas Brückner from the local branch of the Federal Nature Conservation Association and BN district chairwoman Eugenie Scherb had criticized the fact that the approval process was being carried out with virtually no public view and doubted that the substances with which parts of the gravel pit were to be filled were really harmless.
So far, according to Brückner and Scherb, it was planned to backfill “the gravel pits with relatively unproblematic soil material” with up to 30 percent rubble. But now it’s about a landfill and therefore “a completely different category”. Such a system would have to be sealed at the bottom and top with barrier layers against the soil, groundwater and substrate. “The risk of pollutants getting into the groundwater, into the adjacent drinking water protection area or in the outflow of the groundwater into the bathing lake of the Pucher Meer is much higher.”
In its statement, the district office points out that this is the lowest landfill class and that the backfilling of the former gravel pit area has already been approved – the lake that was created by dredging and is currently being filled with washed-up gravel is particularly affected.
Materials that “are not subject to any significant physical, chemical or biological changes” – such as “excavated soil and mineral, pre-sorted and separated construction and demolition waste with only slightly adhering non-mineral impurities” can be deposited at an inert waste landfill. In the northeast of the area, a plant for the treatment of the seepage water is to be built, as well as another groundwater measuring point in the outflow.
The district office is defending itself against the BN’s latent accusation of not playing with open cards and leaving the public in the dark by choosing the approval process. A planning permit applied for by the gravel plant instead of the alternative planning approval with an environmental impact assessment and public participation is permissible if it is “the construction and operation of an insignificant landfill” and provided that the project has “no significant adverse effects” on people or the environment – what the district authority in this case yes.