Once the fountain is broken, it's broken.

First, the water level drops, the pumps have to work harder and harder to overcome the height, and capacity drops.

And at some point it's just over.

The channels turn ocher, that is, iron hydroxides and manganese settle out, the well dries up.

Luckily things didn't go that far with the Kelkheimer Brunnen last summer, but the water level was already 45 meters below normal.

And instead of 38 to 40 cubic meters of water, only 29 cubic meters per hour could be pumped out.

Andrea Diener

Correspondent in the Main-Taunus district

  • Follow I follow

"We want people to get a feeling for the connections," says water manager Christian Schmitt.

That's why he and two employees went to the Gundelhardt elevated tank at an open day on Sunday – the first in over 15 years – and answered all the questions the numerous visitors had about water.

Because this is a not uncontroversial topic in Kelkheim since the city had to declare a water emergency in the summer - not for the first time, by the way.

And not everyone understands where the problem actually lies.

Everything is connected in the system

The high reservoir gets its water from two sources, namely some Kelkheimer wells and, which makes up the largest share, drinking water from the Ried that is purchased from Hessenwasser and fed in via the Zeilsheim pumping station.

The two tanks made of reinforced concrete, each with a capacity of 2000 cubic meters, are constantly being filled up, and there is a constant splashing in the chambers.

The older of the two is still tiled, and a staircase with a railing leads down like a swimming pool.

It looks inviting and you almost want to jump in in your bathing suit, but the water is far too cold for that.

Even if oxygen is supplied to kill bacteria, bathing is strictly prohibited for hygienic reasons.

In the left of the two tanks there is a little dust on the water surface, because it was newly built and doubles the capacity.

It is 4.80 meters deep, 10 by 11 meters tall, just like its twin on the right.

With its 4,000 cubic meters, the Gundelhardt storage facility is now the largest of the five storage facilities in the city area, even if the Waldwiese storage facility is to be expanded to double its capacity.

The water level in the reservoirs should always remain the same, even in summer.

And that's a challenge.

The Gundelhardt storage facility has a thick downpipe.

The water is not pumped out, it reaches the supply areas by pure gravity.

The so-called middle zone in Kelkheim, roughly from Frankfurter Strasse up to the cinema in Hornau, feeds on the elevated tank.

But something is also branched off to Fischbach.

Water master Schmitt has positioned himself in front of a very confused graphic that shows the water network in Kelkheim, the wells, the reservoirs, the pipes, the pumping stations, a labyrinth of basic services.

"It's all connected," he says.

“And there is a domino effect.” If a pump fails, it is repaired as quickly as possible by our own staff, and there are always replacements.

But you also know that Münster still has water for eight hours, the Waldwiese reservoir for seven, it's better to hold on.

Wells need to recover

During the day, people use the water.

They cook pasta, take a shower, water the geraniums.

At night, however, the storage tank has time to fill up again for the next day.

When Kelkheim is asleep, Zeilsheim pumps Riedwasser, then the city's own wells run, and the tank comes up to the normal level again by morning.

Otherwise there is a problem.

With normal consumption, the container is well filled again in time for the morning shower, and whether you stand more or less under the shower is hardly important.

It's a completely different story when it comes to nighttime peaks in consumption - customers who run the lawn sprinkler for hours or fill up the pool.

It is not enough if more than the usual 80,000 cubic meters of water are bought from the reed in the summer.

The capacities are limited for physical reasons, there is not an infinite amount that can go through a pipe and a pumping station can only manage a limited amount per hour.

If too much is siphoned off at night, the level cannot recover.

And the wells are strained, the water level is sinking.

They need time to recover, otherwise there is a risk of falling dry.

The city is doing a lot to increase capacity, says Christian Schmitt, new storage is one measure.

However, this also entailed enormous costs.

There is praise everywhere for the mountain villages, Ruppertshain and Eppenhain, which had to be supplied with an emergency line from the fire brigade in the summer of 2018.

The residents adhered to the restrictions, especially after the state of emergency was declared, and reduced their consumption.

In any case, the water workers are doing their utmost to reach the rest of the population and encourage them to use it in moderation.