The city of Beverungen has organized a protest against a nuclear waste storage facility in East Westphalia. Since plans were off the table, he's been celebrating the victory.
Protest franchise in East Westphalia: Yellow W represents resistance to nuclear waste in Würgassen Illustration: Jeong Hwa Min
DRINKStaz | A mild summer afternoon in Beverungen, Höxter district, on the eastern edge of East Westphalia. Here, right on the border between North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, there is almost no wind. The Weser flows calmly and the setting sun has turned the clouds of the night sky into a soft pink color. On the meadows of the still relatively new promenade, ducks stroll among overly symmetrical flower beds and people sit on some of the wave-shaped wooden loungers that suggest ergonomics.
The dust from the petanque court has also disappeared. On the opposite bank, in Lower Saxony, behind the treetops you can see the first roofs of the houses in the municipality of Lauenförde. The half-timbered structure meets photovoltaic energy. On the nearby Weser Bridge, vehicle traffic moves slowly towards the end of the working day.
In this idyll on the bank side of the Beverung stands out a large W, painted in bright yellow, measuring a good 5 meters high and probably 8 meters wide. The four solid spruce wood beams rest on two solid concrete feet, deeply sunk into the grassy soil of the Weser meadows. The thing has been here since the summer of 2022 and the grass around the gray slabs has not yet fully grown back.
Due to its size and bright color, the W is clearly visible to everyone who passes by: on the cycle path on the promenade, to drivers on the nearby Weser Bridge and to passengers on the Weser steamships passing by. here every few hours.
Old ovens, new barrels
The yellow W has long been ubiquitous in the border triangle of Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse: in front gardens and shop windows, on car stickers and on T-shirts. W for Würgassen. YW resistance. A protest symbol of the anti-nuclear movement, based on Gorleben's yellow X.
The peculiarityThe symbol of a protest movement with more charisma than any old miler. You can feel this when you drive through the otherwise somewhat quiet towns in the area. There are yellow Ws everywhere, on every garden gate and on every garage. But the fact that the city of Beverungen has placed such a piece in its front yard is nothing short of surprising.
The target groupOpponents of skin cancer and fans of civic courage and democratic commitment. And maybe from the alphabet soup.
Obstacles on the wayUnfortunately, at the time of going to press, the doubts about whether the 49 euro bill also applies to Castor transport could not be completely dispelled. If this is too uncertain for you, a well-timed jump with the pike from the Weser steamer will suffice if necessary.
The city of Beverungen itself placed the big W here on the river bank, right at the entrance to the city. You can find out by following the QR code attached to one of the interior bars. Nuclear waste should also be stored in the Weserbergland, specifically on the site of the former Würgassen nuclear power plant, a few kilometers away. The reactor came into operation in 1971 as the first nuclear power plant for commercial use in the Federal Republic. In 1994, the plant had to be closed because small cracks were discovered in the steel jacket of the reactor core.
The facility was subsequently dismantled over a period of 17 years, at a cost of around one billion euros. Many expected it to be a great step forward, especially for tourism, which is slowly beginning to take off in the region. But the Federal Ministry of the Environment and the Intermediate Storage Company (BGZ) had other plans, as they announced in 2018: a new logistics center would be built at the Altmeiler Würgassen site, where 15,000 barrels of nuclear waste could be temporarily stored for more than 10 years. 30 years before being shipped to the destination, the final tank planned for by the Konrad well must be transported.
W for resistance
The neighborhood, on the other hand, definitely did not want to become a nuclear waste center. Civil society, associations, municipalities, local politicians: they all opposed the plans of the BGZ and the Ministry of the Environment.
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Above all, the citizen initiative Nuclear-Free 3-Country Corner, founded at the end of 2020. BGZ and the waste disposal commission ignored their own safety regulations when deciding on the location. Road and rail connections are completely inadequate and the facility is located on the Weser floodplain.
Furthermore, a TÜV Nord report commissioned by the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony in 2022 showed that a central interim storage facility for nuclear waste was not necessary and that a significant acceleration in final storage could not be expected. .
At the end of 2023, the policy relented. The temporary storage facility would now arrive too late and would ultimately prove uneconomical. “A billion-dollar grave,” as Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) said. Schacht Konrad will now be supplied decentrally, without a prior logistics centre. And if another one comes, it certainly won't be in Würgassen. Breathe a sigh of relief in the border triangle!
This means that the W is also obsolete, the yellow one, because it is more suitable for fighting than for celebrating victory. He can still sit still for a bit. The city can't get rid of it right now because of flooding.