Bavaria is building a kilometer-long tunnel, water is penetrating, the groundwater level is falling - and protected moors are drying up. Now the administrative court has decided that this situation must not remain so - and sentenced to rework.
Munich (dpa/lby) - The Free State of Bavaria must have large areas of dry moorland rehabilitated, which retained too little groundwater due to the construction of the Kramer tunnel near Garmisch-Partenkirchen. "The Bavarian Administrative Court has obliged the Free State to have the legally required reorganization measures taken," said a court spokesman in Munich on Thursday. Among other things, a restructuring plan is necessary for this. However, the court rejected specific measures that the Bund Naturschutz (BN) had demanded in its lawsuit.
The BN state representative Martin Geilhufe described the judgment as a benefit for nature and the environment. "For the first time, a court has made it clear that environmental damage caused by state institutions must also be remedied in accordance with the rule of law." The Bavarian authorities and courts have so far always denied that "professional activities of the road construction authorities" can lead to justiciable environmental damage. The dispute has been going on since 2014.
During the construction of the Kramer tunnel, groundwater entered the tunnel. According to the BN, the groundwater level on the mountain dropped significantly as a result, with the result that wet biotopes of supra-regional importance dried up to a large extent and biotope complexes protected by European protection were destroyed. The association therefore sued the court for remedial measures. Specifically, according to the BN, rock clefts should be sealed with the help of concrete injections so that the groundwater level can rise again and the wet biotopes can regenerate.
The Kramer Tunnel is a large-scale project to bypass Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Upper Bavaria that has been eagerly awaited by many citizens and has been sharply criticized by others. After decades of planning, construction of the main tube of the 3.4-kilometer tunnel began in February 2020. It should relieve the region of heavy through traffic from the end of 2024; Thousands of cars drive on federal highway 23 every day.
The reasons for the judgment of the Administrative Court were not yet available. However, no appeal was allowed, so the parties involved can only file a non-admission appeal with the Federal Administrative Court.
