– Is this the new normal? – VG

Less than 20 minutes ago

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On Golsfjellet, the large lake is a fraction of its usual self. Large mud banks, which are usually several meters under water, now extend outwards.

– I don’t want to hear more about low rainfall and snow in the mountains, that is leading us astray. They can say it as it is, the water flows out, and the money flows into the power companies, says Gudrun Hesla.

Hesla is the proprietor at Oset Høyfjellshotell. The oldest hotel in Hallingdal is located down by what is usually the water’s edge of the Tisleifjorden.

They depend on being able to offer their guests good nature experiences, and have the fjord as an important attraction. Now the water bed has been dry for so long that yellow summer flowers have started to grow, so that it resembles a flower meadow more than a beach zone.

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Hesla points to the hydropower plant, which has the fjord as a water reservoir.

The water level is now several meters lower than what is normal for the lake in July. Tisleifjorden was regulated with a dam plant in 1949, and in 2015 got a small power plant in the plant itself.

Low water levels have consistently been present in several places in the country this spring and summer. Electricity prices were high in Europe, before the war in Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia led to an acute demand for energy.

Norwegian power companies make good money from selling electricity to the European market, but have received strong warnings from the authorities about not draining the magazines and creating a power shortage in Norway.

Now the national filling rate is on 65.1 percent, with large differences. South-west Norway has a filling percentage of 48.3 per cent, which is far less than what is normal at this time of year.

Desperate situation

In the wake of corona, Oset høyfjellshotell has invested a lot of money, including restructuring funds they received, in water sports.

As an investment, they have started a ten-year lease on a large area down by the water. The water now stops several meters away from the area, and the floating piers are on land.

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– We are afraid that this will become the new normal, says Inger Hutchinson, project and marketing manager at Høyfjellhotellet.

The hotel has to think outside the box and buy in new alternative activities to give guests an offer.

– It is impossible to defend such an investment with a starting point like this summer. People have come back with high expectations and have been very disappointed.

The hotel had calculated a decrease from the corona summers, which were very good, but the decrease is greater than expected.

– There is no doubt that this is directly related to an amputated offer in terms of water activities and fishing. For the operation of Vasskanten, there is a crisis, says Hutchinson.

Vasskanten is the name of the area the hotel rents down by the water.

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Have warned against this

– We also understand that we need more electricity, but it must be possible to do it in a way that benefits everyone, says Helge Arne Jallen (49), board member of the Golsfjellet Fishing Association.

Since 2016, the Norwegian Fisheries Association has been involved in the case and argued that the burden of flood mitigation must be somewhat distributed on the other waters further up the watercourse, so that the regulator does not need to keep the Tisleifjord so low.

– What I think is that there is little snow and little inflow, but if there had been the will to do so, we would have managed to fill the fjord up to a level that was more usable for both us fishermen and everyone else around the fjord. They have released more water than we think is necessary. They could also distribute the water between these reservoirs.

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The low water flow reduces the availability of fishing from boats, reduces the biological production of food animals in the coastal zones, and may have consequences several years into the future.

– Tisleifjorden has received all the burden of the regulation.

Godsfjellet fiskeforening usually sells fishing licenses for NOK 25,000 on average at Oset Høyfjellshotell. So far this year, they have sold 13 fishing licenses. The income from the fishing licenses goes to gapahuk and similar measures to facilitate fishing experiences on Golsfjellet. In the event of a lack of income, it will go beyond what the association can do next year.

Must do everything we can

– We think that we must influence everything we can so that this does not become the new normal. The water must be saved, there will be no lost power income anyway, says owner Gudrun Hesla to VG.

Last year, the hotel received restructuring funds to survive, but now they may still be lost.

– There is little we can do until after the holiday, but I will fight. I will sit in the waiting room of both the head office of Eidsiva Energi and the Ministry of Oil and Energy, says Hesla.

– Not going to leave until they let me in. This needs to be sorted out!

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– This summer’s situation is particularly unusual

Øyvind Eidsgård, general manager of the Association for the Regulation of the Bægna River, which oversees the power plants in the area, writes to VG that the reason for the low level of filling is that the inflow has been far below normal for a long time. Both because the winter has been snow-poor, and that there has been significantly less rainfall than normal.

– This has particularly large consequences for a reservoir such as Tisleifjord, which has a large volume to be filled in relation to the size of the catchment area.

Although low water levels occur, the summer situation is particularly unusual. We do not find the equivalent in statistics going back to 1961.

– We fully understand that the environment and other users are not satisfied. It’s not us either, but the situation is solely due to natural conditions, not a breach of the maneuvering regulations or other abnormal bottling, says Eidsgård.

Beyond the provisions for the lowest and highest regulated water level, there is not, and has never been, a requirement for the degree of filling for Tisleifjord. The upstream magazine Flyvatn, on the other hand, has such a requirement.

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