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Staßfurt, Saxony-Anhalt Environmental health threats

Philipp Baum

1. Long-term threats, legacy of mining
- Unstable old salt mines below Stassfurt that have to be monitored and water flows have to be management to prevent ground movement
- so far, more than 800 buildings, including an 500-year old church had to be demolished. Currently, ground movement is under control
- 27 waste heaps and contaminted sites within the city that contain many very hazadous chemical compunds. They were never properly cleaned up

2. Long-term threats, ongoing causes
- by-products of salt mining and refining are collected in large landfills that leak salt into sorrounding areas. There are no plans how these landfills can be remediated, they have to be mananged indenfinitely
- soil erosion of arable land around the city by high intensity farming of crops for livestock production and bioenergy
- toxic waste produced by waste incarceration plant is pumped into former salt mining caves where it solidifies and becomes impossible to recover

3. Short term threats
- explosion in bionenergy plant in 2020
- leakage of ammonia at public street in 2014
- pollution of river bode with ammonia and chloride by CHIECH Soda, massive fish kills every summer
- air pollution, cause unknown, probably mostly by metalworks industry

Staßfurt, Saxony-Anhalt Setting: Salt-mining

Philipp Baum

Staßfurt is a small city in the East German Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt with about 24 thousand inhabitants. Like many cities and villages in the area, it faces huge demographic problems: The population is shrinking rapidly, consists mostly of older people, unemployment is high, percentage of highly educated people is low. The city has a long history of salt mining that goes back to the 13th century. Many inhabitants proudly refer to Staßfurt as the "Cradle of potash-mining" ("Wiege des Kalibergbaus"). Unfilled salt mining shafts that were flooded by groundwater had to be abandoned and started to cave in. Over 800 buildings in the city center had to be demolished because of instabilities, among them a 500-year old church. Nevertheless, salt mining and a metallic industry that developed alongside it is still the largest economic sector in Staßfurt. The city is still permeated by an old mining culture that becomes visible in traditional festivals, clubs (Bergmannsverein e.V. Staßfurt) and the playing of traditional miner's song on offical occasions (Steigerlied).

Archiving for everybody?

ATroitzsch

For me it seems like the Internet Archive gives the possibility to participate to everybody - so if you think this webpage should be archived, you can just do it by yourself, everybody who has a free account on the internet archive, can add something to the archive - but besides this, they are having a lot of partnerships with libraries and other institutions to be always behind important web pages that should be archived.  

Frozing time

ATroitzsch

The most interesting part of this archive (which helped me to find information about the chemical accident that happened 1993 in Höchst AG) was the wayback machine: The “internet archived” saves a very huge amount of webpages (475 billion web pages) in different moments in time, so that even if information are not available on websites anymore or the websites/ companies do not exist anymore, in the archive they can still be found. Extending the idea of “archiving the internet itself” from 1996, the “internet archive” also started to build up a library, where books, audios and videos which are running on free licenses can be found.

Archiving digital text-data

ATroitzsch

It is not designed to remember data related to a certain topic, but more generally an archive where especially websites of different institutions, NGOs, companies etc. are saved (“Wayback Machine”). It is strongly related to a question of archiving digital text-data, for example websites.

pece_annotation_1475020260

erin_tuttle
Annotation of

The system was built to serve organizations and individuals with humanitarian goals. The system gathers data from report, reviews, and users and compiles it into comprehensible information to help inform decision-making for humanitarian concerns. Portions of the app also focus on education and technical support for field researchers looking to collect large quantities of data.

pece_annotation_1475020279

erin_tuttle
Annotation of

The system is primarily used by researchers, scholars, and organizations with humanitarian interests. The app also has functions which would attract users that are beginning research and do not have established connections within the field as the app provides a support system.

pece_annotation_1475020310

erin_tuttle
Annotation of

Twine provides information and software to set up compatible data collection systems that pool information into the larger system, which the app then makes available to its users. The system also includes a publishing and collaboration aspect which allows groups of people from all over the globe to access the same data and report on the findings together.

pece_annotation_1475020326

erin_tuttle
Annotation of
In response to

Data visualization is primarily determined by the type of data being gathered and the system for data collection being used. The app integrates data in order to both make large quantities of data easily viewable and understood, as well as compare studies with existing data stored on the system.