Due to ongoing drought and low river levels, the Lusatian and Central German Mining Administration (LMBV) is using its reservoirs to supplement river flows. To support the Spree River, water is currently being released from the Lohsa II reservoir in Saxony, said press spokesman Uwe Steinhuber to the German Press Agency. The five lakes of the so-called “Restlochkette” on the Saxony-Brandenburg state border near Senftenberg are also currently being used to support the Schwarze Elster, which has since dried up, the report added.
According to the information provided, a total of 82 million cubic meters of water was released from the post-mining lakes and remediation facilities in Lusatia into the rivers last year—44 million of which were released into the Spree from the LMBV’s two largest reservoirs alone. In return, 61 million cubic meters of water were withdrawn from the rivers for “the flooding and post-reclamation of post-mining lakes”—which, according to the LMBV, represents a 30 percent decrease compared to the previous year.
