display
Gabriele Römer becomes clear.
"If the perspective is no longer right, you have to think about the future," says the head of the mineral water bottler Haaner Felsenquelle.
And the entrepreneur is currently thinking a lot.
The medium-sized company from the Bergisches Land does business with 100 employees and 50 million fillings a year.
So good, in fact, that a new filling line for glass bottles is necessary in order to be able to deliver in the summer months.
“However, given the current conditions, we are not ready for this investment,” says Römer.
The expansion would cost around twelve million euros.
"The prerequisite for this is planning security," explains Römer.
"But that is no longer the case." The reason for this is the planned amendment to the state water law in North Rhine-Westphalia, says Römer: "This law endangers our sources and can therefore even cost us our existence."
display
The sticking point for Römer and their Haaner rock spring, as well as for all the other 24 mineral water companies on the Rhine and Ruhr, is a planned priority of use for the pipeline-based water suppliers, i.e. the public water works.
"This crosses a red line," says Caspar Jürgens, the deputy managing director of the Association of German Mineral Fountains (VDM).
"Affected companies lose business basis"
So far, water suppliers and mineral wells have not gotten in the way underground.
In the future, however, the public utilities should be allowed to drill much deeper everywhere.
"This can lead to our deposits either being tapped or contaminated."
display
Because if water is pumped from greater depths, pollutants and trace substances above it can be drawn into the depths, say hydrogeology experts.
So-called carryover occurs, the pollution spreads.
This could make mineral water unusable.
Because too little attention was paid to the avoidance of pollutants, "the public water suppliers now tend to penetrate new, untouched groundwater resources that the mineral wells depend on," says VDM Vice President Juergens.
But as soon as foreign substances land in the water, the respective source is unusable.
"And then the affected company loses its business basis."
display
Jürgen's suspicion: Under the impression of the recent years of drought, the waterworks want unrestricted freedom of movement in the groundwater to be written into the state water laws, with the help of which they can freely serve themselves anywhere underground - also at the expense of the mineral water producers.
For public utilities, it is cheaper to tap new resources than to invest in recycling and infrastructure, said Jürgens.
And the amendment to the NRW Water Act may just be the beginning.
Resource theft, so to speak?
Because, according to the expert, this law could also become a blueprint for other federal states.
The protection of resources for more than 200 mostly medium-sized bottlers would be gone.
Jürgen's demand: The drinking water supply should have legal priority over agricultural and industrial interests - but expressly include the mineral wells.
“The supply of people with water as a food does not only take place via pipeline-based infrastructures,” the VDM representative recently reported in a hearing in the Düsseldorf state parliament.
"Rather, the non-wired supply by mineral water companies with almost 30 percent per capita per day plays a major role."
The Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW), however, considers the accusation that public water suppliers want to displace mineral wells as "downright absurd".
They have no interest at all in the geological soil layers from which mineral water is extracted.
display
"The water from great depths often contains such high mineral contents and concentrations of trace substances that we are not even allowed to give it to the consumer according to the Drinking Water Ordinance", says Martin Weyand, Managing Director of Water at BDEW.
Argument of services of general interest
After all, the water from great depths often contains natural carbonic acid and in many cases has low pH values, “and that can attack pipes,” says Weyand.
The drinking water for the public supply usually comes from the upper "groundwater levels", ie from depths of up to 150 meters.
"Only if these possibilities do not exist geologically will deeper aquifers be used."
Weyand thinks little of the demand to include mineral wells in the priority regulation.
Services of general interest are the responsibility of the municipalities.
The mineral fountains have no statutory supply mandate, says Weyand.
"There is no reason to privilege the purely private-sector mineral water business, such as other beverages, with a statutory priority regulation."
The mineral fountains see it differently.
They are primarily concerned with groundwater as a protected asset and the potable resources in it, according to the association.
And contrary to what the BDEW claims, there will be more and more "competition for use" in deep water layers in the future.
From their point of view, the argument of “services of general interest” is being overused by the line operators.
After all, only a fraction of their production is used as drinking water, around 150 million of a total of 4.6 billion cubic meters sold.
“The rest is just process water,” says Jürgens.
Here, for example, the quantities that are needed in years of drought can be retrieved through reprocessing and not through ever deeper drilling for fresh water.
display
He could understand the difficult situation of the water suppliers.
“But there are other ways of eliminating the water shortage without endangering mineral and medicinal water resources and interfering with the rights of wells,” emphasizes Jürgens and calls for investments.
“About ten percent of the quantities pumped by water suppliers don't even reach the customers, which is mainly due to ailing pipes.
So an improvement in the infrastructure would bring a lot. "
This text is from WELT AM SONNTAG. We will be happy to deliver them to your home on a regular basis.
Source: Welt am Sonntag