The mayor is exhausted. Dieter Schaltegger is frantically typing on his mobile phone, rubbing his tired eyes, sometimes he can’t think of the right words. The 60-year-old has been the mayor of Stadel, a pretty little town in the Zurich Unterland, since 2014. Around 2,300 people live here, there is a fountain from the 17th century, geraniums in front of the windows, lots of half-timbering. It’s fair to say that Stadel has been famous since last Saturday. Then it became known that Switzerland is likely to build its nuclear repository right here – in the realm of Dieter Schaltegger.
He was one of the first to learn that the National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste (Nagra) had chosen the “Nördlich Lägern” site from among the last three options. An area that is just a stone’s throw from the border with Germany and includes Stadel among other municipalities. Such news would come as a shock to any region. In a border region, however, it becomes worlds more complicated for everyone involved.
Digital preparation of the SZ graphics
(Photo: SZ graphics)
Massive construction work is now expected of Stadel and its three districts of Windlach, Raat and Schüpfheim. Because this is where the surface facilities are to be built, and this is where the deep repository is to be dug. Nagra has estimated a construction period of 15 years, from 2045 to 2060. And the nuclear waste with all its risks hasn’t even been mentioned. How do you respond to this as a community? “It is important that the region continues to hold together,” says Mayor Dieter Schaltegger. “And that we don’t let ourselves be disturbed so easily.”
Don’t let it get you down? What Switzerland is planning here, no other country has yet achieved. Only Finland is in the process of building a deep geological repository for its nuclear waste. In Germany, where the memories of the fierce resistance in Gorleben are still fresh, one does not want to comment on a repository site again until 2031.
Where there is now a farm with a paddock, nuclear waste is to arrive in the future
The calm that prevails in Stadel after the spectacular Swiss decision is remarkable. Nowhere do you see posters against the repository. Even at the planned location itself, in the Haberstal area, about four minutes by car from the community center: nothing. Under a gray sky, the landscape gently undulates, the meadows are growing green again after the hot summer. Where today a dense coniferous forest frames a small field, the entrance shaft to the repository is to be located. Below is a lonely farm with a paddock. The so-called surface facility is to be built there, the place where the nuclear waste arrives by truck and is then sent to a depth of around 900 meters.
The farm belongs to a family with two small children, there is a climbing frame with a slide in the garden, and a sign warns drivers to drive slowly. The courtyard will have to go when the camp comes. For Ramona Keller, the farmer’s wife, a catastrophe. Shortly after the location proposal was announced, the 34-year-old told the Zurich resident Tages-Anzeiger: “I am unspeakably sad.”
And yet: The anger in Nördlich Lägern is limited. Many apparently see it like Mayor Schaltegger, who said the astonishing sentence on Monday: “Stadel is making an important contribution to a national task.”
At the citizens’ meeting a day later, the mood is tense. Many of the approximately 150 people are angry that there was no written invitation. Then the residents want to know how stressful the construction phase will be and what the federal government will do if real estate prices fall. It’s about compensation, about regional equalization payments. A woman says: “We’re not doing very well.” However, there is no sign of fundamental opposition. Instead, sentences like: “We are making this sacrifice for the whole of Switzerland.”
From this place, the Swiss Nagra explored the soil in Stadel – with positive results, purely as far as the suitability of the rock is concerned.
(Photo: Michael Buholzer/dpa)
There are certainly opponents. Astrid Andermatt, for example, co-president of the association “Loti – Nördlich Lägern without deep storage”. The social democrat has been fighting against the repository for a long time, even though she is aware that a solution to nuclear waste is needed. “But we are still far too early to decide on a location,” says Andermatt. There are too many unanswered questions.
But even someone like Andermatt is not only an opponent here, but also part of the process. She is sitting on Wednesday evening at the general assembly of the Nördlich Lägern regional conference, the body that has been supporting the search for a repository for more than ten years. Here, the population, authorities, interest groups and also critics were able to contribute to the identification process. “We’ve been able to achieve a lot and point out contradictions,” says Andermatt. The criticism of your club is therefore on an astonishing level of detail. Loti calls for more studies, for example on possible gas deposits underground or on water protection.
In Hohentengen they are annoyed by their Swiss neighbors anyway
The anger is growing on the other side of the Rhine. Thursday evening in Hohentengen on the High Rhine, 2.3 kilometers from the planned repository. The town’s multi-purpose hall is full, around 500 people have come. At the front on the pedestal, Nagra’s geologist explains why, in their view, Nördlich Lägern is the most suitable location. There are the well-known arguments: the thick layer of Opalinus Clay, geologically boring but very safe according to Nagra, the extensive space in Nördlich Lägern, the solidity of the rock. But that’s not enough for the people in the multi-purpose hall.
In Hohentengen they are already annoyed by their neighbors because planes approaching Zurich Airport thunder over their community every day. So now the planned nuclear waste repository. In general: isn’t it actually dangerous when a crashing plane falls on the repository? A restaurateur asks who wants to go on holiday here, right next to a repository. Some are just angry because Switzerland is shifting a very big problem to the border. “Make it a national task and not an international one,” scolds one. Hundreds clap.
The mayor of Hohentengen, Martin Benz, is also “surprised” by Nagra’s decision. What many here in Hohentengen don’t understand: Nagra wanted to put the Nördlich Lägern site back in 2015. And now he’s suddenly supposed to be the safest? Nagra justified the about-face with new investigations after 2015, which had shown that the postponement was “too cautious”.
On both sides of the Rhine, they now want to wait and see how others judge the Nördlich Lägern area. So far, the location is just a suggestion from Nagra, which will be reviewed by federal authorities and external experts in the coming years. In the end, the government, parliament and probably also the people of Switzerland will have to approve the proposal. Only the Germans, they have to watch.