Every year on Epiphany Day, horse natures warm themselves up in a tent on a gravel bench near the “High Bridge” near Ferschnitz by a wood-burning stove and then plunge into the ice-cold Ybbs. Winter swimmers have been swimming here since 2004. You could call it a Christmas custom in the area if the concrete monster of a power plant project of the state electricity company EVN weren’t still dormant.
Gerald Mevec, who has been chairman of the citizens’ initiative “Pro Ybbs” for decades, wants to keep nature conservationists, but also the entire population awake with the unusual bathing day at the beginning of every New Year, as if with a cold shower. EVN has not operated the barrage project at the Hohe Brücke for years. “But they never withdrew from the authorities,” says Mevec. So you would do well with the bathing campaign to show the e-economy that the opponents have not lost their way and would immediately offer resistance again if the plans were reopened. For Mevec, the fact that “Linius”, the research association of natural biologists, has only just been able to secure a party position for any approval procedure, proves that the act is buried, but the project is far from dead.
Mevec was again this year with a hood on his head in the six degrees cold water. “It only gets uncomfortable when a cold wind blows on you,” says the chairman of the citizens’ initiative, which is probably the longest active in the state. Over the years, the sails of “Pro Ybbs” have billowed with a tailwind, not just since they joined forces with nine other NGOs to form a platform that made their demands. Mevec sees a number of large construction sites along the course of the river as an achievement, in which the large stone throws have been removed from the banks and side arms have been dug through the alluvial forests so that the Ybbs can flow freely again. “The relevant EU directive for water bodies was very helpful,” says Mevec. It took a while, but then the excavators started to renaturalize the river. “That doesn’t mean that we’re done with the renaturation program by now,” notes Mevec while, like all 32 swimmers, he feasts on hot tea after jumping into the cold water. Last year only three swimmers came to a secret place for winter river bathing because of Corona, so that the tradition does not break down. “There are still a few kilometers ahead of us when it comes to renaturation,” says Mevec.
Source: Nachrichten
