Free Voters: Hubert Aiwanger prevented flood safety enlargement – 2024-06-07 10:32:15

by times news cr

2024-06-07 10:32:15

Bavaria needed to construct seven flood polders for flood safety by 2020. Up to now, two of them have been constructed.

Greater than twenty years after deciding to construct seven giant flood polders – areas which can be bordered by dykes and might be flooded within the occasion of maximum flooding – to guard towards excessive flooding, Bavaria’s state authorities has solely carried out two of those initiatives. The Ministry of the Surroundings confirmed this in München on request. “The Weidachwiesen polder is in operation and has additionally been used just lately. The Riedensheim polder is prepared to be used,” stated a spokeswoman.

“Such initiatives require intensive planning and subsequent development work and subsequently take time,” emphasises Surroundings Minister Thorsten Glauber (Free Voters). The completion of all seven polders was deliberate by 2020, as might be learn in a report by the State Workplace for the Surroundings on the flood polder programme from 2018.

At the moment, the top of the Free Voters, Hubert Aiwanger, is especially beneath criticism, as he as soon as fought towards “monster routes” in addition to “megalomaniac flood polders”. Of their first coalition settlement in 2018, the CSU and the Free Voters subsequently cancelled the deliberate giant Danube polders Bertoldsheim and Eltheim/Wörthhof, the development of which is being opposed by many native residents. Aiwanger, the Free Voters and the state authorities as a complete are subsequently confronted with the accusation of getting minimize prices on flood safety. In 2021, the Bavarian authorities reversed this and expanded the polder plans to 9 places.

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Each the Free Voters and Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) have declared the allegations to be false information. “Since 2001, we now have invested 4 billion euros in flood safety, and by 2030 we could have invested one other two billion, and we spend one billion yearly on local weather safety,” stated Söder on Tuesday after the cupboard assembly. Surroundings Minister Glauber – who, in contrast to his occasion chief Aiwanger, by no means opposed the polder entrance – harassed: “Flood polders act as an emergency brake for catastrophic floods and are needed within the occasion of a catastrophe.”

The 12 months 2001 talked about by Söder refers back to the “Flood Motion Programme 2020”, introduced by the then Surroundings Minister Werner Schnappauf (CSU) simply over 23 years in the past: on Could 8, 2001. The rationale was the nice Whitsun flood in 1999. Actually, the state authorities has since invested nearly twice as a lot cash in flood safety as the just about 2.3 billion euros introduced on the time.

The big sum of money was used to enhance flood safety in lots of municipalities, relocate dikes, buy tools for the hearth brigade, increase the dam wall of the Sylvenstein reservoir on the higher reaches of the Isar to guard Unhealthy Tölz, Munich, Freising and different cities from flooding, and way more.

However the development of the flood polders is stalling – and it’s exactly these polders which can be supposed to guard Bavaria from the dreaded excessive flood catastrophe on the Danube. The rationale for the delays is the vehement resistance on the bottom. “Governing isn’t any enjoyable and that’s the reason it’s a must to put within the effort,” stated Söder.

Aiwanger himself doesn’t consider that extra flood polders would have helped within the present flood disaster. If there have been already extra polders on the Danube, they might most likely not have been used in any respect, he informed the BR24 radio program on Wednesday. The principle harm was to smaller rivers upstream of the Danube, to not the Danube itself: “The harm occurred earlier than it flowed into the Danube.” The operational Riedensheim polder was not wanted in any respect in the intervening time.

Bushes are standing within the flood waters of the Danube. In some flood areas in southern Germany the scenario is easing, however on the decrease Danube it stays tense. (Supply: Armin Weigel/dpa)

As an alternative, Aiwanger known as for extra decentralized measures for flood safety: “Each village” should be examined, and smaller measures akin to elevating cellar shafts or securing heating oil tanks are additionally necessary. “This now requires plenty of brainpower throughout the board.”

Criticism of Aiwanger’s statements got here promptly from the opposition. “Aiwanger’s claims are false and harmful. He accepts no accountability for his critical errors. And he’s mainly questioning the flood polders once more,” stated Florian von Brunn, chief of the SPD parliamentary group within the state parliament. “Such irresponsible statements will hardly be understood in Regensburg and Passau.” On the identical time, von Brunn known as for extra employees for the water administration authorities.

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