#wettirol — Public Fediverse posts

Re-watched "Bis Zum Letzten Tropfen" ("Until the last drop") last night, a very good, but also scary Austrian documentary about the myth of "clean" hydro energy and the actual widespread environmental and cultural impact and damages of these large construction projects, especially in at-risk environments in the high Alps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqRjDCB18Io

The project at hand here is the planned extension of the Kaunertal hydropower station, which involves flooding another pristine valley (Platzertal) at higher elevation with a protected alpine wetland/moor ecosystem.

In order to fill that new reservoir, they propose to build several smaller dams in side valleys of the upper Ötztal (~50 km away), drawing up to 80%(!) of volume of some of these last remaining wild glacial rivers in the eastern Alps and then pumping that water via a 47km tunnel to the new reservoir. The result would not just be the destruction of the upper Platzertal, but also mean untold damage to river ecosystems in & around the Ötztaler Ache up & downstream from these other planned dams.

Similar to AI data center construction projects, there's deep institutional & political entanglement and big money to be made (aka "it's good for the economy") in the construction phases themselves. The construction of this project would take 12-15 years, by which time many of the glaciers to be tapped will already have further declined...

In July 2025, after more than 10 years of revisions and already four rounds of amendments, the documents for Phase 1 were accepted by the Tyrolean authorities, marking the official start of the “environmental impact assessment process” which is running until end of 2026. This process itself seems already biased too, with some of the impacted wild river stretches already been (wrongly) pre-declared as "built-up" and therefore unworthy of protection, requiring another public petition to reclassify them...

The Alpenverein (DAV) is one of the orgs producing a comprehensive risk & impact assessment and has published their full document (in German) with more in-depth details of the complex problems this project entails (and which really should have been addressed by the planning parties much earlier):

DAV assessment:
https://www.alpenverein.de/verband/natur-und-klima/naturschutzverfahren-und-raumordnung/wasserkraftwerk-kaunertal

More info:
https://wet-tirol.at/

WWF petition to stop the project (already 101k+ signatures):
https://www.wwf.at/petition-kaunertal-wet-wildwasser-erhalten-tirol/

WWF guided hike/excursion in the Platzertal this summer:
https://www.wwf.at/artikel/exkursion-komm-mit-ins-platzertal/

#Kaunertal #HydroPower #ClimateChange #Water #Alps #WETTirol #DAV