The forgotten Rieselfeld Canal: Dortmund's secret waterways unveiled!

The forgotten Rieselfeld Canal: Dortmund's secret waterways unveiled!

Among the streets of Dortmund is an ambitious building that was once of central importance for the city's wastewater disposal: the Rieselfeld Canal. This impressive, 18 -kilometer building was built at the end of the 19th century and put into operation in 1898. It was created at a time when the city was presented with massive wastewater problems due to the growth of its population and the insufficient expansion of the Emscher. For this reason, the channel was created to effectively derive waste water from western city center and breweries. ruHR24.de reports that the channel in the Dortmund port to the district of Recklinghausen is near Waltrop a certain point, the intersection Deusener Straße/Franziusstraße, had a filter system.

The channel was remarkably bricked and had a diameter of 135 centimeters. To ensure the purity of the waste water, workers cleaned the channel in special suits for deep -sea divers. The filtered wastewater was then distributed on the so -called Riesel fields in Waltrop, which once served an important ecological purpose by contributing to the revelation and nutrient retention in the soil.

The end of the sprinkling

In April 1978 there was a significant change in Dortmund's wastewater disposal. From then on, the canal only led rainwater because the sprinkling of the areas was set. This was an immediate consequence of newer wastewater disposal concepts that took over the Emscher. Ultimately, the Rieselfeld Canal was gradually dismantled and its last remains are only visible in a few places, especially in Brambauer.

The Rieselfelder, which are north of Dortmund, were originally created for wastewater recycling. They extend in the Dahler Heide and range between Datteln, Waltrop and Lünen in the Recklinghausen district. These ideas came from a time in the 19th century, when the introduction of untreated wastewater in the Emscher was considered unsustainable. As early as 1883, the first removal basins for a preliminary explanation were set up. The construction of the sprinkling systems finally started in 1894 and the Rieselfeld channel was driven up to 24 meters deep.

from wastewater disposal for ecological use

Over the years, intensive agricultural use of the Rieselfelder took place, especially for vegetable cultivation. After the sprinkling was discontinued in 1978, the city of Dortmund sold the approximately 1000 hectare area to the VEW, which originally wanted to build a large power plant. Due to public protests and overcapacities, this project was abandoned in the early 1980s. In 1985 the state government decided to no longer use the Rieselfelder as a nuclear power plant location.

In the early 1990s, extensive urban planning and ecological planning followed that drove the transformation of the former Rieselfelder. From 1997 the concept of the "New Park" was developed, which, however, was implemented exclusively in the Datteln urban area from 2003 after the Waltrop city council rejected. Today the Rieselfeldern has a new meaning; They mainly serve agricultural and leisure use and represent an ecologically valuable habitat for various plant and animal species. This shows how the former wastewater infrastructure has turned into a green oasis.

All of these developments illustrate the change in the Rieselfelder from a fundamental part of wastewater disposal to an important ecological space that serves not only nature, but also for leisure activities in the region. ​​Wikipedia added that the adjacent Lippeauen together with the Rieselfeldern form an ecologically important habitat.