Zurndorf

Initiative forms against hydrogen plant

Gundula Neumann, Magdalena Garnitschnig- Picker, Jacqueline Fedy, Christine Sommer, Melitta Schütz.(Bild: Gundula Neumann, Magdalena Garnitschnig- Picker, Jacqueline Fedy, Christine Sommer, Melitta Schütz. )

The residents of Friedrichshof are now mobilizing against the planned electrolyser in the form of an association.

It was clear that the opponents of the planned hydrogen plant in Zurndorf would not give up so easily. Now the non-partisan association Lebensraum Pannonia has also formed and sent a letter to Governor Hans-Peter Doskozil, Deputy Governor Astrid Eisenkopf and Provincial Councillor Heinrich Dorner as well as Provincial Environmental Advocate Michael Graf and the Chair of the Climate Council, Helga Kromp-Kolb, in which they point out several shortcomings of the project

. They also support the extraordinary appeal submitted to the Administrative Court (VwGH), in which the Friedrichshof Housing and Water Cooperative, the Gols-Mönchhof-Weiden-Neusiedl Irrigation Cooperative and local resident Werner Falb-Meixner demand their right to a fair hearing. "We hope that the VwGH will send the project back to the starting line," says Christine Sommer from the association. "A hydrogen factory is to be built in Zurndorf without water, proper planning and at the expense of the general public. Our concern is that the concerns of the population are taken seriously."

The association says "yes" to putting the energy supply on a stable footing in the long term. "But not like this! The production of highly explosive hydrogen in water-poor northern Burgenland is not well thought out and is dangerous!" Protected areas for endangered birds would be threatened and two cycle paths destroyed. In addition, the question that the district authority has already asked remains: For them, it remains unclear who has to forgo water extraction in favor of the other in times of water scarcity: Agriculture, the economy or the population?