So last friday morning we both hustled to a very unprepared interview with Jörg in his hard-to-locate office above Süden, the wonderful local-produce restaurant located in our very own Vauban. We started off our interview with what we thought were some good warm-up questions, asking him if he could give us a brief overview of the history of the Dreisam, to which he responded that it was "not possible," as well as asking him which themes he considered to be the most crucial right now concerning the Dreisam, whether it was political, economical, sociological, or ecological, to which he shrugged and replied "yes, all." He seemed a little exhausted with us already, so Andrew and I nervously eyed each other and decided to go for the distantly-knowledgeable-yet-humble approach of probing him with questions that hinted to more of a background in the history of the Dreisam than we perhaps truthfully knew, which worked out quite nicely and soon he opened up to us about his skepticism with the potential effectiveness of the newly elected Green Party to be able to get any good legislation passed through the lingering legacy of the 60-year reign of the Christian Democratic Party. He informed us of the miscalculation of the architect Tuller when he straightened the Rhine (better for transportation and trading), mis-measuring the allotted space for a dam and leaving only .5 meter where there should have been 1 meter extra in case of flooding.
With the straightening of the river, the habitat of the river bed changed dramatically, as straightening of a river increases flow rate which results in increased sedimentation, altered area of flood plains, change in species composition as plants are selected towards resilience of faster river flow (such as stronger root systems), and competition breaks out between dry species and special adapted flood-plain species (silver willow, silver poplar). Some of these flood plain species have some cool attributes, including relying on Lenticels (such as Wild Cherry); cells that allow the plant to breath through its bark when the root systems are drowned in water in heavy flooding. The Dreisam is extremely narrow, as are its banks, with walk/bikeways running along the waters edge along most of its length, leaving just enough room for some seriously thick vegetation and a grassy ledge suitable for picnicing or siesta-ing. This is enough habitat for many bird species, and small fish. However, one of the biggest goals of longterm NGO involvement in the river's management, is the re-introduction of salmon, or "wundefische." In 1850 the river Rhine and all it's connecting distributaries were abounding in salmon. 1 million salmon would migrate up the Rhine each year, until the Sandoz fire in Switzerland in 1986 that released tons of agrochemicals into the river, turning it red. However, travel up the Rhine is made virtually impossible by the 10 different dams from Strasbourg on, created to manage the river's flow. 2 of these dams have made efforts to assist the salmon; at Gumshyne Dam a salmon bridge was created to assist the natural spawning cycle of the fish, and is also used as an educational resource for visitors, who can view the salmon traveling through. Excursion-zeit!
Jörg informed us that all of these dams and power plants located along the river are located in France, making it a political hurdle for these groups, as France is more interested in power than the welfare of the "wundefische," and was granted the rite to use the water how they please after WWI. This is likewise a similiar hurdle in dealings with the Netherlands, with the Haringvlietdam, creating an enormous barrier for the salmon. In 2010 the Dutch government had pledged to open the dam, but a change in government yielded an a change in plans. The dam is still closed. I'm curious about this case, because after our meeting with Jörg I still had a few questions. What environmental implications for Holland would opening the dam mean? I doubt its as simple as I'm "made it" here, villianizing the new Dutch government. In fact, Jörg painted a pretty picture of Germans in terms of their support for the Dreisam's health, while also suggesting that France and the Netherlands have little interest in restoring the Rhine. But what's really going on here? It's not that German's are the most compassionate and environmentally responsible folks around, was this just a little country-bias? Something to be explored a little more.
We encountered a similar curiousity when Jorg told us about the next major project for restoring the dreisam which would be to "give it more space." The only question is if there is enough money. I asked Jorg how the community living in that area feels about this project. He laughed at my use of the word "community" asking if Freiburg wasnt the community in question and clearly Freiburg is in support of the Dreisam. Andrew clarified that we're using the term community to refer to the smaller community within Freiburg that may have a different stake in development of the Dreisam, for example, a residential community in that neck of the woods who might have some "qualms" with expanding the river. He kind of scoffed at this as well, as clearly the Freiburg community is in support. For Andrew and I however, this was a huge shock, because we could easily imagine a project like this back in the States being met with avid opposition from people who would argue that widening a river in their backyard would perhaps bring virus-carrying mosquitoes, add a dangerous element to their neighborhood, possibly encroach on their property, not to mention construction and maintenance noise and potential costs.
Overall our meeting with Jörg was a HUGE success. He is a very busy man and we were extremely grateful that he not only took time out of his busy schedule to speak to two Americans on a topic we know so little about, but he gave us a copy of his big glossy magic book. He led us in some great directions, and connected us to a few other players we might seek out.
*A Short Disclaimer: I dont claim that everything I've written here is fact. Most of the information here today was received in Genglish from Jörg Lange, and Wikipedia links obviously come with their own potentially dubious sources. These are a mere wading-into of these issues, some to be explored in much deeper, scholarly-researched steps. Any additional information or corrections anybody has would be wonderfully appreciated*
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