Tue, Jul 12, 2022 page7

• Austria, Hungary battle to stop lake vanishing

  • AFP, ILLMITZ, Austria
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  Kitesurfers and windsurfers dot picturesque Lake Neusiedl on the Austrian-Hungarian border, but the water is so low some get stuck in the mud.

  The salt lake and its marshes — the largest of its kind in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage Site — could soon run completely dry, and locals are worried.

  The lake, only an hour from Vienna, last dried up in the 1860s, but was naturally replenished by rainwater.

  

  Lakemania founders Michael Oberhauser, left, and Tobias Monte hold a sign reading “Our lake must not die” in the port of Rust, Austria, on June 6.

  Photo: AFP

  However, it was not drawing millions of tourists back then, nor was the area producing 108,862 tonnes of crops a year.

  “Letting the lake and the region run dry is not an option,” Burgenland Provincial Councilor Heinrich Dorner said.

  To avert what he sees as an economic disaster, Dorner is banking on a series of major projects, the biggest being a canal to bring fresh water from the Danube River in Hungary.

  However, the plans have run into opposition from environmentalists, who fear any interference could accelerate the demise of the lake, the westernmost outpost of the great Eurasian Steppe.

  Hungary has tasked a company owned by one of its richest men, Lorinc Meszaros, with building the canal, although work has not yet started, a municipal official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

  Meszaros, who is close to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, is already in charge of a vast real-estate project on the Hungarian side of the lake, including the construction of a marina, sports complex and a hotel.

  However, activists are against both on environmental grounds and over fears of corruption.

  “The canal project is unacceptable... [and will] destroy the whole ecosystem” of the lake region, said Katalin Rodics of Greenpeace Hungary.

  While other lakes naturally fill up over thousands of years, shallow Lake Neusiedl — which Hungarians call Ferto — naturally dries up about once a century. As its salty bed is exposed to saline-loving bacteria, algae, plankton and mud decompose, dry out and are swept away by the wind.

  If fresh water from the Danube ends up being flushed into the lake, this could dilute the saline levels and stop the natural process, WWF biodiversity program leader Bernhard Kohler said.

  “It’s a natural cycle,” Kohler said. “We’ll just have to learn to live with it again.”

  However, Dorner said this is not an option.

  As well as the canal, he hopes to dredge out 1 million cubic meters of mud to deepen the lake for boating.

  Farmers would also have to switch from water-intensive crops such as potatoes, corn and soy, and instead plant spelt, millet or other crops more suitable for arid climates, or even wine as world-renowned grapes already grow in the sandy banks of the salt marshes, Dorner said.

  The last time Lake Neusiedl dried up in the 1860s, it left an almost apocalyptic landscape. Historians described dusty clouds of salt inflaming people’s eyes, piling up on fields and spoiling crops.

  Fish, too, died, and locals “lamented that they’ll starve if the dry spell of the lake continues,” but three years later, the water began its miraculous return.

  However, with tributaries now cut off and more people depending on the lake than ever before, there is doubt about how long a recovery would take.

  Rain, the lake’s lifeline, now increasingly falls in summer, when it evaporates faster, as overall temperatures have risen and heatwaves have increased because of climate change.

  Provincial water management head Christian Sailer said it was vital to save the “very complex region.”

  “The climate is changing, and that negatively affects the lake,” he said.

  Last month more than 100 canoeists and rowers staged a rally on the lake to sound the alarm, some holding posters reading: “Our lake must not die.”

  However, it is not just the lake that is vanishing.

  More than 100 salt marshes once dotted the region, but as groundwater levels have dropped dramatically, about 60 are now “irreversibly lost,” Lake Neusiedl-Seewinkel National Park director Johannes Ehrenfeldner said.

  Many of the 350 species bird watchers observe depend on these salty ecosystems, and if they dry up, “bird numbers will dwindle,” Ehrenfeldner said, his binoculars trained at a black-and-white avocet scooping tiny crabs from the mud.

  “We’re running toward our own demise with our eyes wide open,” he added.
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