from Christiane Viehweg
4 hours ago
2 minutes
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According to the NSN, the quarry is to be expanded by 7.8 hectares – the equivalent of around eleven football fields.
The council members voted against the votes of the Greens and the SPD for the expansion (we reported in detail on March 4th). A year earlier, the majority of the application had been rejected.
The area in question is in the Rannwald and is an FFH area. The fact that a clear cut is supposed to take place here brings nature conservationists to the proverbial “palm tree”. Even if the forest is to be reforested, primarily with trees that can withstand heat and drought better than the existing beeches and oaks.
Our great-great-grandchildren can then perhaps look forward to it.
Ludwig Oßwald, on the planned reforestation
“Our great-great-grandchildren can perhaps look forward to it,” sneers Ludwig Oßwald bitterly.
He is a member of the Natur in Keltern association, or NIK for short, which protested against the expansion during the municipal council meeting. Among other things, he angered that no forester was invited to the meeting. Because: “With the quarry expansion we will have no more timber, no felling.” He also remembers that ten years ago it was once assured that this would be “the last expansion of the quarry”.
He also doubts the impartiality of an expert opinion that NSN commissioned and paid for. In it the company is certified that the mining of shell limestone outside the forest is to be classified as “not economically worthwhile”.
A statement from the regional association was not yet available at the time of the vote. An environmental review is only planned for the second half of 2021. The CDU and FWG did not want to be patient for that long. After all, Keltern’s annual income through the NSN is 300,000 euros, which is good for the parish baggage.
The conservationists do not want to simply accept the decision of their elected body. As Roland Schultner from NIK explained, they want to consult with experts about the effects that the quarry expansion will have.
The company NSN, says Schultner, could continue to run the business for at least five years. That she is striving for legal certainty for the future is understandable, but perhaps not at any price. Apart from that, there is already a signature list “For the forest”, which is available in Ecki’s health food store in Weiler.
Hans Ulmer, managing director of NSN, doesn’t understand all the excitement. “We want an expert opinion as to whether an expansion is possible at all!” He emphasizes. “And we pay for that too, just as we paid for the other report.” He says that the deforestation of the forest is far more expensive for the company than the extraction in the open field. The NSN was not primarily interested in the forest at all.
“It will take a good two years for the process to be completed anyway,” supposes Ulmer. Coordination with the forest is a matter of course for him. “We work great together with the forest and we are known for our reliability,” he is sure. He is less certain whether the environmental assessment actually results in the approval for the expansion. The municipal council decision is only one of several hurdles.
The NSN managing director cannot remember whether he spoke of a “last expansion” ten years ago. Incidentally, as Ulmer assures, only unpolluted soil in the quarry is backfilled, no rubble. In the foreground of the company’s interest, however, is the stone quarrying.
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