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The water areas before and after the Inn power plant Braunau-Simbach are to be connected for fish. Now the preparatory work for the project implementation begins, the start of construction is planned for this year. Based on the experience gained with the “Continuity and Habitat” project at the Ering-Frauenstein power plant, Verbund has submitted a similar project in the vicinity of the Braunau-Simbach power plant for approval.
Between the Inn kilometers 63.0 and 60.6, the waters are to be linked, floodplains are to be made more dynamic and habitats on land and on water are to be created. The project is part of the “Life Riverscape Lower Inn” project for more nature and environmental protection. So that the start of implementation this year can also be adhered to, the first work must be completed in the next few weeks, which can be implemented as best as possible in the cold season, according to the project planners.
In the Braunau-Simbach power plant area upstream, the existing 20 kV overhead line will be buried. In addition, a new path will be created that will in future serve as an accompanying path for the bypass. Due to the construction site activity, there will probably be restrictions on pedestrian and bicycle traffic until April 2023: Due to material transport, the existing lower embankment path from the power plant to the Gstetten landfill will be closed. Numerous ecological measures have already been implemented around the power plant.
For example, the removal of the bank structures on the Inn below the power plant or measures in the area of the Mattig estuary have contributed to improving the living space, according to the project planners. In addition to the network of watercourses, new flowing water habitats are to be created in the long term that can be used by all fish species in all life stages. According to the project, new habitats would also be created on land, since newly created gravel banks should be home to birds that breed on the gravel.
Plans for several power plants
A special impulse comes from “Life Riverscape Lower Inn”. Starting with the Braunau-Simbach power plant, numerous measures for the ecological development of the river landscape on the Lower Inn are to be implemented together with project partners from Bavaria and Upper Austria. This includes near-natural bypasses at the Inn power plants Braunau-Simbach and Egglfing-Obernberg as well as further creation of water habitats in the power plant areas of the Inn power plants Ering-Frauenstein, Egglfing-Obernberg and Schärding-Neuhaus.
The overall project with a volume of 27 million euros is funded by the EU LIFE program. In total, Verbund will invest around 80 million euros in ecology and the environment on the Inn by 2027.
Source: Nachrichten
