Germany transforms former coal mines into Europe's largest lake landscape

This is quite normal thing to do for many open pit mines or rather hard not to do if the pit goes below the water table.

There are some very nice natural swimming pools in the local area thanks to that, for example:

https://www.kudyznudy.cz/aktivity/koupaliste-u-libuse-v-lule... (stone quarry, IMHO one of the best summer swimming pools anywhere)

https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zatopen%C3%BD_lom_v_Blansku (stone quarry)

https://www.jednoustopouceskem.cz/listing/lom-kaolinka-prime... (kaolin mine)

This report seems to be a bit one-sided. They say the lakes will be used as reservoirs for rivers like the spree. The issue is that the spree was feed for years with excess water from the old mines which had to pump the water out. Now they don’t pump water anymore to fill up these lakes and some parts of the spree run low on water during summer. The water table fell a lot over the last 10 to 20 years in Berlin. I’m not sure what exactly contributed to this situation overall. But they had plans to pump water from the Elbe into the Spree to help out with the situation. But cities downstream are not happy about the situation. For me this feels like a somewhat similar situation to the Colorado River situation with the upper and lower basins.

https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2026/07/wasser-mangel-...

To provide a counterpoint that is missing in the article: Conservation organizations are somewhat skeptical that these projects might take much longer and be more expensive than planned, due to climate change.

Projects like Garzweiler and Hambach were expected to take 25 to 30 years to fill up, but with droughts like this summer it might take much longer and the water would have to be diverted from already stressed ecosystems like the Rhine.

This whole topic has become much more complicated in the last years...

Mining operations often are toxic environments for various reasons aren't they?

Haunted Hydrology's video for October 8 is about divers in flooded mines:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/V-HW5HAL7Lk

This reminds of a retirement community that was developed in Rome, GA on the site of an old limestone quarry.

https://www.thw.com/projects/49-senior-living/323-berry-coll...

Turning old brownfield into usable and livable space is a win all around

Oh, now thats cool.

These strip mine reclamations are just great.

In the 1990s, we lived on a lake in Indiana that was reclaimed from strip mines. Recommended.

Interesting machine that mines the coal and makes the lakes possible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8772vEfUu8

On the one hand, it's nice that they're doing it.

One might think that they've come to the conclusion that it's time to phase out coal and move towards renewables. But coal is still big in Germany, and with the current Minister for Economic Affairs, Katarina Reiche [1], the fossil fuel lobby has installed a puppet in that position, one who is going all in on fossils again and pushing legislation that makes it much harder to expand solar and wind capacity. Even though no one needs coal anymore, big companies like RWE still forcibly demolish villages to expand their mines and show off their power .

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherina_Reiche [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambach_surface_mine

Cool, but how is this bigger than, e.g. East Finland's lake landscape?

This is a great idea. I think there are issues with possible contaminants but if that can be sorted...

I wish someone would try to convert them in geothermal plant.

Germany is pretty famous for tagebaurekultivierung.

Is it safe to recreate in water that has been exposed to all of that mining slough?

Now please bring back solar + nuclear energy and stop pretending that burning oil is cleaner.

We changed the URL above from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/germany-is-... to an article that has more information.

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I feel bad for the post-apocalypse folks who won't be able to find any dry, solid fuel to burn.