hine river transformed into nearly pristine water

7/30/2019 Hine River Transformed Into Nearly Pristine Water

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hine River Transformed Into Nearly Pristine Water StreamEXPLORE GERMANY'S RIVERS

1 Rhine River Transformed Into Nearly Pristine Water Stream

2 A River Runs Through It

3 Discovering the Altmhl Valley

4 A Cycle Trip and Tipple Along the Moselle

5 A Picturesque Pedal Down the Rhine

6 Cruising Germany's Great Rivers

The Rhine is the longest river within Germany and is known for its beauty, with medieval

castles and lovely wine villages along its banks. But it didn't used to be that way. For a

long time, it was heavily polluted.

Part of the RhineRiver is a UNESCO

Cultural Heritage

site

People used to

gravitate toward the

Rhine River for all

sorts of play -- even

swimming despite

the dangerous

currents. Legend has it that in winter, part of the Rhine used to freeze over, and people

would walk across the mighty waterway.

The river begins in Switzerland. Passing through the city of Basel, it forms the border

between Germany and France, flows into Germany and the Netherlands and ends in the

North Sea.

But in the wake of an environmental disaster 20 years ago in Switzerland, many stayed

away from the water, with experts wondering if it would ever be clean again. At a recent

press conference, an international commission said the Rhine is a "living" river once

more.

Polluted with pesticides

In 1986, a fire broke out in a production plant storage room at the pharmaceutical

company Sandoz in the Swiss city of Basel. As a result, huge amounts of pesticides were

released into the Upper Rhine, killing a multitude of fish and micro-organisms.
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The accident turned the river into Europe's biggest sewer.

Fritz Holzwarth, head of the Bonn-based International Commission for the Protection of

the Rhine, said that it was this catastrophe that triggered concern about the river's health.

"We can say that the Sandoz incident was basically the worst possible scenario at the time

so it contributed a great deal to making the protection of water an important issue in

politics," he said.

A huge task

Fairy-tale beauty

along the

waterway's twists

and turns

It would take a lot

of effort before the

river could be

transformed into a

place where people

could swim again.

Ultimately, it was pressure from an outraged public that forced politicians to take fast

action.

Since then, investments in industrial and public water purification plants have amounted

to 60 billion euros (over $75 billion), with local governments investing a yearly amount

of one billion euros in water purification.

The risk of another dramatic accident has been minimized since the companies located

along the Rhine have taken precautions, Holzwarth said, adding that a pro-active

approach is necessary to keep the river clean.

"The International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine, together with those who

live near the river's banks, want to advance a perspective that allows people to live with

and enjoy the river," he said. "We want to include the river in our lives and in those of our

children," he added.To that end, a 320-kilometer-long (nearly 200-mile) hiking trail called the Rheinsteig was

recently completed between Bonn and Koblenz.

In addition, the Rhine, Europe's most densely populated river, is a UNESCO World

Heritage Site. It has become a home again to over 60 different species of fish.DW.DE


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The Rhine River's Gold RushNORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST: GERMANY'S FOUR CORNERS

1 Northern Germany's Literary Houses

2 Platt and Proud

3 Sylt: In Winter, a Mellower Pleasure

4 More Beach up North

5 Climbing the Windmills of Schleswig-Holstein


7 The Rhine River's Gold Rush

8 The Business of Carnival

9 Vogelsang Castle: In the Shadow of the Third Reich

10 Eastern German Town Boasts Cutting-Edge Technology

11 Blame it On the Bratwurst

12 Santa's Other Workshop: Thuringia

13 Six Centuries of Sweet Success

14 Catch a Wave in Germany's California

15 Neuschwanstein Castle Modernized for Visitors

16 Reinventing the Bavarian Myth

17 Bavaria Says "Gr Gott" in Chinese

Neuenburg has the mood of a gold rush on Saturdays. That's when amateur treasure

seekers wade into the Rhine River and pan for gold. With a little luck, they bring slivers

of the precious metal home with them.

Gold rush on the

Rhine

Neuenburg, a city

on the Rhine River,

has the mood of a

gold rush town on

Saturdays. That's

when amateur

treasure seekers

wade into the Rhine to learn the art of panning for gold.

With a little luck, at the end of the day they bring precious metal back home with them.

A little known fact: There really is gold in Germany's Rhine. You're not likely to find

coins or goblets, "but one is guaranteed to find at least little flecks of gold," said hobby

gold prospector Franz-Josef Andorf.
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In Neuenburg, Andorf teaches a class for locals and tourists interested in gold panning.

A golden opportunity

Small flecks of gold

found in the Rhine

River

"This is a totally

thrilling feeling,"

said Helga Maier-

Garlipp, who is

taking her first

course with Andorf.

She's lucky:

standing at the bank of the Rhine, her hand holds several wafer-thin gold flecks.

The Rhine deposits more gold in Neuenburg than in the rest of Germany, Mayor Joachim

Schuster says with pride. The precious metal comes from a geological formation in

Switzerland and gets moved down several rivers to the Rhine. The quantity of gold is

small, there's nowhere near enough to cause a gold rush like in California or Australia.

Yet what's there has been keeping people hunting for hundreds of years.

Gold flecks can be found in river detritus that gets agitated and washed up during high

water, Andorf said. To search for the gold, his students dig up the hardened riverbed with

picks and shovels. Andorf's students put the material through a wash pan. The sand gets

washed out, leaving hard minerals and gold in the bottom of the container.

All that glitters is not gold

This gold nugget

was found in

Switzerland

The motion needed

for panning the

gold is not so easyand requires

practice, Andorf

said. Also, novices

often get tricked by

pyrite. The so-called fool's gold glitters in the pan and sometimes causes premature


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celebrations.

"When you can't split the piece with your thumbnail, then it is really gold," Andorf told

his students. The gold slivers they find in the Rhine are, for the most part, smaller than a

millimeter.

Andorf's course is organized as a continuing education program for people who want to

pursue gold panning as a hobby. The class is not meant for professional treasure seekers.DW.DE

From the Pen to the Pitch: World Literature Meets SoccerKICKING OFF WITH CULTURE

1 Germany Pulls Out All The Stops For Cultural World Cup

2 World Cup Gala Gets the Ax3 From the Pen to the Pitch: World Literature Meets Soccer

4 Germany Plans Star-Studded Opening Gala For World Cup

5 Waiting for the World Cup Tourists

6 Off the Pitch, Into the Concert Hall

7 Hip-Hop Stars Face Off in Leipzig

8 Gods and Hooligans Clash in Soccer Opera

The author crafting pitch-perfect prose and the soccer player setting up a picture-perfect

goal might seem like diametric opposites. But they have more in common than you'd

think, as a recent symposium in Berlin showed.

A perfect match?

Books and World

Cup mascot Goleo

You can almost be

certain that the last

thing on soccer

fans' minds as their

team scores a

winning goal is

sitting down in a quiet corner with a good book. Many might argue that the worlds of

literature and soccer are different planets, indeed maybe in different galaxies.

But a group of highly renowned authors who gathered in Berlin this weekend would beg

to differ. For them, soccer is not only a sport that they love -- it and everything around it
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are phenomena which inform their work.

Culture Minister

Bernd Neumann

opens the literaure

summit in Berlin

As part of the 2006

World Cup's

cultural program,

more than a dozen

authors from four

continents came to

Berlin to talk about where literature and soccer intersect, and how their own experiences

with the sport had influenced their lives and their writing.

The symposium, called "Headers: International Literature Meets International Soccer,"

was touted as a mini-summit of world literature, held appropriately enough at Berlin's

Museum of Communication. Indeed, some big names did come out for a kind of two-day

all-star game, but one that was conducted in the head rather than on the playing field.

The personal and the political

Much has been written about the intellectualization of the sport in the lead-up to this

summer's World Cup. Far from being the domain of beer-swilling thugs with limited

brain power, football has become acceptable in polite society, even in intellectual and

artistic circles.

Former soccer star

Franz Beckenbauer

with a print of him

done by Andy

Warhol

There was even an

exhibition devotedto visual artists'

take on "the

beautiful game"

which just finished its run at a museum in Berlin.

But it wasn't always so, according to several writers who participated in the symposium's


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panel discussions. South Korean author Hwang Chi-Woo, of his country's most well-

known poets, said many intellectuals used to have a schizophrenic relationship with

soccer and often remained in the closet as far as their appreciation for the game went.

"At home, we watched, and we were passionate about the game," he said. "But in public,

we shied away from it. We did not want to be seen as soccer fans."

For him, there were political reasons for doing so, since under South Korea's military

dictatorship, which only collapsed in 1992, soccer was used to manipulate the masses,

and was seen by the intelligentsia as a control mechanism best avoided.

Russian author

Victor Yerofeyev,

far right, makes a

point at the FIFA

literature event

For Russian

novelist and

essayist Victor

Yerofeyev, his

relationship with

soccer under the Soviet regime was similar. Then, Russian soccer was seen as something

like a collective factory, and had a distinctly militaristic nature to it. Many Russians who

detested those aspects of Soviet life rooted for the other side whenever the national team

played as a way of protest.

But at the same time, they loved the game, partly for the same reason they loved

literature.

"Books and soccer were the two ways to escape the reality of the everyday," he said.

Stories and change

For Swedish superstar author Henning Mankell, soccer shares with literature the ability to

tell a story.

Swedish authorHenning Mankell

He recounted a

game he saw in

Mozambique that

changed his view of


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the game forever. It was 15 years ago at the conclusion of a brutal civil war there. One

attempt to get the two sides of the conflict to reconcile was to arrange a soccer match

between two teams of men who had committed atrocities in the war.

As Mankell watched these men play, he said they began to see each other differently than

they had before, realizing they could solve their conflicts in a way that did not involve

violence.

"Drama, literature and soccer are about the same thing, conflict, contradictions and

finally, solving problems," Mankell said. "That's what the author has to do, and the soccer

player does as well. And both have to make it interesting, otherwise no one will watch the

game and no one will read the book."

Place of transgression

One of the topics that came up several times was that of soccer's underbelly: the dark

sides of the game, be it hooliganism, racism or general intolerance and violence against

opposing sides.

The literature

summit was held in

the atrium of the

Museum for

Communication

For Tim Parks, a

British novelist who

lives in Italy and

wrote a popular

book recounting his

travels with Hellas Verona club, soccer, like literature, can be a place of transgression,

where the darker side of human nature finds an outlet.

"People go to stadiums to experience the emotion of collective delirium, to experience a

place of danger," he said.

Since matches are like "mini-wars," they let people lose themselves in a side ofthemselves that modern society tells them to keep bottled up.

"When we see games with no aggression, we hate those games," he said.

It's a rich field for literature, he said. His book, A Season with Verona, details how a local

soccer team works, how its players and its hard-core fans live, and the dynamics between

all participants at games that, even in Italy, have a reputation for being explosive affairs.


9/16

"What's most interesting for us authors is not actually the game itself, but what's

happening all around," he said, since the increasing amount of good writing about soccer

"starts where the game on the field ends."DW.DE

Rejuvenating The Rhine River

A German state plans to earmark a part of the Rhine river as a special protection zone to

meet EU requirements on preserving the natural habitat. But the move has elicited mixed

reactions.

The Rhine is one of

Germany's mostpicturesque

waterways

Germany's most

treasured waterway

for both tourists and

Germans alike was

treated like a

stepchild during the

first three-quarters of the 20th century.

From the upper reaches of the river in Switzerland and southern Germany to its delta in

the Netherlands, the Rhine was used as a dumping ground by both industries and cities.

But it wasn't until 1986 when the Sandoz chemical spill in Basel, Switzerland, happened,

that measures were at last taken to clean up one of Europe's most scenic rivers. Two

decades ago, it would have been unthinkable to eat fish and other marine animals caught

in the river. Nowadays, migratory species such as salmon have not only reappeared but

are surviving in the Rhine.

Klaus Markgraf-Mau a Rhine River expert from NABU, a German conservation group,

is pleased that even fishermen are coming back.

"Everyone along the Rhine who is engaged in environmental aspects is proud to have

them back because it's a good sign concerning the water quality," Markgraf-Mau said.

Satisfying EU requirements


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The Rhine,

Germany's largest

river, needs to be

better protected

While

environmentalists

are happy that the

Rhine is in such

good condition and

that fish like

salmon and shad are returning to its waters, the EU wants further protection for the

waterway.

In 1992, lawmakers in Brussels passed the Flora, Fauna, Habitat directive, or FFH. By

signing on to the FFH, EU countries promise to preserve and protect natural habitats,

including rivers, lakes and streams, within some four million square kilometers (1.5

million square miles) of Europe.

But deciding what exactly should be protected is a matter of national or local sovereignty.

In Germany, individual states are held responsible. The environmental ministry of North-

Rhine Westphalia has proposed to set aside 30 percent of the Rhine River under the FFH

directive.

"The purpose is to determine and create the habitats for rare fish," said Markus Fliege, a

ministry spokesperson. "We have marked out a few fish sanctuaries that we believe and

that experts also believe to be sufficient and that will protect and sustain the habitats in

question."

Too little or too much?

The Rhine is

Germany's most

important

thoroughfares forships

For the time being,

the proposal of

North Rhine-

Westphalia's


11/16

government's looks set to be approved by the EU. But it has been criticized by shipping

companies on the one hand as being excessive, and on the other by environmentalists

who say it doesn't go far enough.

"The scientific advisors of the EU have hinted that our recommendations will be

accepted," Fliege said. "We have heard that some environmentalists as well as some

business associations are not 100 percent satisfied with this. But this simply confirms that

our solution lies in-between and is a sensible one."

Politics is almost always a matter of compromise, and the current center-right

government in Dsseldorf prides itself on the fact that its proposal goes further than that

of its predecessors which included the environmental Greens.

Nevertheless, NABU expert Markgraf-Mau, who jointly heads a project to promote the

habitat along and on Germany's longest river, called "Living Rhine", points to holes in the

proposals.

"It covers only a small part of the habitat," he said. "The most important part that is

missing the central part of the river, the shipping channel itself, because nowadays we

have only parts on both sides, the river banks."

Concrete walls

According to conservationists, the situation in the central part of the Rhine is where the

crux of the problem is. Fish species that live on the bottom of the shipping channels will

pay the price and lose valuable habitats should the river need to be dredged in the future

-- and this may be unavoidable.

Rows of cars on a

cargo ship on the

Rhine

But even in areas

other than the

shipping channels,

the Rhine flows

through a man-made straitjacket of

embankments and

concrete walls, mostly past cities and towns. And it's the areas where these walls are of

little use that should be given priority.

"The goal of our project, 'Living Rhine,' is to put concrete out of the bank and to have


12/16

more space for dynamics along the river," Markgraf-Mau said.DW.DE

Cruising Germany's Great RiversEXPLORE GERMANY'S RIVERS


2 A River Runs Through It

3 Discovering the Altmhl Valley

4 A Cycle Trip and Tipple Along the Moselle

5 A Picturesque Pedal Down the Rhine

6 Cruising Germany's Great Rivers

Looking to experience the charm and variety of Germany without working too hard at it?

You may want to consider a river cruise. Just sit back, relax, and watch thousands ofyears of history glide by.

The Elbe River runs

from Hamburg,

through Magdeburg

to the Czech border

Its a typical case of

the travelers blues:

Your feet hurt fromtramping around

too many medieval

churches. A bus

tour? Too claustrophobic. And cycling would be too much like hard work. Lucky for you

there's another way to visit Germany: floating along on its waterways.

Germany has more than 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) of interconnected rivers, canals

and lakes whose waters are plied by barges and sailboats, cruise ships and kayaks. The

quaint tourist centers people visit today grew up along those routes centuries ago, but the

Rhine and Elbe rivers are still busy transport waterways, crucial to German industry and

agriculture.
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Rhein mit Loreley

in St. Goarshausen

One of the great

pleasures of the

cruise experience is

sitting back and

taking it all in

sipping a Riesling

or Pilsner while

watching the

scenery go by. But a river cruise doesnt need to be an entirely passive experience. There

are plenty of chances to stop and visit the castles, palaces and vineyards dotting the banks

of the main tourist rivers: the Rhine, Weser, Danube, and Mosel.

River of painters and poets

Hands down, Germany's most famous river is the Rhine. Although it has inspired painters

and poets for centuries, the Romantics of the mid-19th century drew particular inspiration

from its dramatic beauty. They made the Legend of the Lorelei based on a towering cliff

along the Rhine into one of their key symbols. According to the myth, a maiden named

Lorelei sat upon a cliff at the rivers narrowest, deepest and swiftest point. She combed

her golden hair and bewitched the hearts of sailors with her singing. When they looked up

at the irresistible siren, their boats would crash and sink.

Should your modern-day cruise ship manage to get past the Lorelei unscathed (chances

are better these days, since the once-dangerous passage is now clearly marked with

buoys) it's worth taking some time to explore the sides of the valley.

At Frankfurt an der

Oder, visitors can

cross the Oder

River to the Polish

town of SlubiceLong stretches of

the Rhines banks

are covered with

terraced vineyards,

and picturesque


14/16

castles perch on hilltops. The valleys footpaths and trails offer magnificent views,

including well-marked tourist roads such as the winding Lorelei Castle Road and the

Rhine Wine Trail.

The area is a wine lovers dream, with endless opportunities to tour wineries, attend

tastings, and take courses on the wines and foods of the regions. A busy tourist area, the

Rhine Valley has some of the best-appointed hotels in the country and fine restaurants

to go with them.

Gateway to history

If you are as interested in history as you are in wine, you might prefer a trip down the

Danube. The Danube (which, just to make things clear, isnt blue) is Europes second-

longest river. It doesn't have the dramatic scenery or castles of the Rhine, but it's worth

exploring for its own quiet charm and the traces of its varied, exotic history.

The Romans left their mark there, and a trip down the river can take you from Germanys

best preserved medieval city, Regensburg, to Passau, which lies at the confluence of the

Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers. From there you slip downstream beyond the German border to

Vienna and Budapest, past the castles, palaces and vineyards of central Europe.

Nature and Culture

The Spree River in

Berlin runs past the

Museum Island

with the Bode

Museum and the

Pergamonmuseum

The river Oder is

Germany's

easternmost river,

and to travel along

it is to tread the line between Germany and Poland. The Oder Valleys isolation under the

GDR left it nearly undisturbed by human activity, and today it is known for its marshesand lakes dotted with untouched villages that are unlike anything in western Germany.

You pass through wildlife-rich natural parks like the Lower Oder Valley National Park

and the Oderbruch marshlands.

Of course, the Polish border region is also a must for World War II buffs the place

where the Russians broke through the German lines to start the final assault on Berlin.


15/16

If you're feeling really ambitious, and you have a lot of time, you can take a cruise on the

Elbe from Magdeburg to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. The Elbe is the most

important river linking southeastern Europe with northeastern Europe. From its birthplace

in the Czech Republic to the point where it sinks into the North Sea, in Hamburg, the

Elbe is over 1,000 kilometers long.

The Elbe passes through varied and distinct landscapes, starting with a sandstone massif

and running through vineyards to end up in meadow lowlands. Located on the banks of

the Elbe are towns like Dessau, home to the famous Bauhaus school of architects;

Luther's former home Wittenberg, and Meien, famous for its porcelain. The baroque city

of Dresden (photo), capital of Saxony, also lies on the banks of the Elbe.

Meeting up with the Brothers Grimm

Fans of German fairy tales will get a lot out of cruising the Weser, the birthplace of the

Brothers Grimm and inspiration for some of their best-known stories. Germanys Fairy

Tale Road, with its half-timbered towns and castles, follows the course of the river.

Travelers can check in with childhood friends such as Cinderella (in Polle), Hansel and

Gretel (in Hxter), and the Pied Piper of Hamelin (Hameln).

Dresden on the

Elbe River is one of

Germany's

architectural gems

After flowing

through wide

stretches of

farmland, the Weser

reaches Bremen, a

Hanseatic port city

(which was also the destination of choice for the four hopeful characters in the Grimm

story The Bremen Town Musicians. Despite fierce competition from Hamburg, Bremen

has been able to hold its own among German North Sea ports, albeit on a smaller scale.City river tours

Of course, if you dont have several days to let the country float by you, a short day

cruise might be more to your liking. Most of Germanys big cities are perched on the

banks of a river: Hamburg on the Elbe, Cologne on the Rhine, Munich on the Isar, and

Berlin on the Spree (photo of Museum Island). They all offer short jaunts up and down


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the waterways, past historical sites and beautiful landscapes. And most can be booked for

an hour or two, just long enough to allow you to sit back and rest your weary feet, take in

a refreshing summer breeze, and enjoy seeing Germany from a different perspective.

hine river transformed into nearly pristine water

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