Agriculture in Brandenburg : A real mess

"It is good that now, finally, something happened!" Benjamin Raschke says: "But it's too bad that it took almost six years to the person in charge of your responsibility." Raschke of environmental and agricultural policy spokesman of the parliamentary group of the green Alliance and the leading candidate of the party for the state election in just five months. He is committed to better controls of groundwater in the vicinity of huge pig-fattening plant in Tornitz, a part of Vetschau.

"For years, were measured alarming levels of pollutants in the groundwater, but nothing happened," he says. Also, a few months ago, it was found that a large slurry tank, the mast system was leaking and expired, it welcomed both by the operator, but also from the chief administrator of the district of oberspreewald-Lausitz, there is no direct correlation.

"the Ministry has even objected to now," says Benjamin Raschke: At a meeting of the Committee for Rural development, the environment and agriculture of the responsible Department head said that even the state environmental Agency of vessels, the connection between leaky Manure escaping from the well have confirmed manure and groundwater contamination.

A large pig-sty, it was in Tornitz already in GDR times. In the mid-90s, the facilities had been taken over by new owners. The Bolart GmbH is not, with almost of 52,000 animals, only the largest pig-breeding complex in the state, but also one of the largest in the whole of Europe.

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to order Accordingly, the burden on the environment. Anyway, a lot of people went to the barricades, as the company announced in the past year, your capacity to 16,000 animals increase. They criticized the often unbearable stench, the pollution of groundwater and the lack of animal protection.

It was founded the citizens ' initiative "pig wind"

Although it had stopped by the upper administrative court of Berlin-Brandenburg, the expansion of the pig fattening facility for the time being. This happened but only due to a technicality, a final decision is still pending. Here, conservationists have objected to the Bolart GmbH already in the notice of Approval for the system from the 30. April 1997 set out requirements to be sampled according to the groundwater semi-annually at four groundwater measuring points, had not been met. Almost even harder to weigh, in your view, that the Lower water authorities have probably insisted on the submission of the prescribed examination results.

Only once in Vetschau, the citizens ' initiative "pig wind" was founded and together with the Nabu Brandenburg, pressure made, rather than found, the first measurements. It was, so the Nabu, among other things, the limit for sulphate is exceeded permanently, the limit value for nitrate in each of the measurement points to the Four-to five-fold for Ammonium to 35 times.

conservationists fear that the manure of antibiotic-resistant germs may cause damage to the Ecosystems. However, the Lower water authority is also required not to act for its own unannounced measurements. Not until the end of 2018, it was clear that at least one liquid manure tank is leaking and the ground water was more heavily loaded, you met an agreement with the Bolart GmbH, which undertook the pumping tank empty and to eliminate the damage.

The load was from the times of the GDR, declared Bolart

An admission of guilt but that is. The exposure through manure come from GDR-times, said one of the Bolart, managing Director of the now at the request of the daily mirror. You have to show the commitment to the elimination of the damage, only good will.

However, the public Prosecutor's office in Cottbus determined now against the Bolart GmbH due to unauthorized operation of production plants in concomitance with water and soil contamination. Not only Benjamin Raschke, however, is of the view that one would not have to actually pull the Lower water authority the responsibility, because to comply with your duty of monitoring. He also criticized the district because of the looks, as before, no correlation between pig fattening and groundwater pollution.

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The Brandenburg Ministry of agriculture, however, has all the water authorities of the counties on their responsibilities for the control of ground water noted. And it is not expected in these days of reports from all over the country. On the results you may be curious.