The environmental network GRÜNE LIGA is concerned about the slides on the bank of the Cottbus Ostsee, the former open-cast lignite mine Cottbus-Nord, which faces the city.
"When the grown shore of an open-cast mining lake starts to slide, this is unusual and worrying. With Schlichow, an inhabited settlement lies in the immediate vicinity of the slide. In addition, the area of the quay wall is affected, where the city of Cottbus wants to extensively develop the lakeshore and where millions of structural funds are flowing in," says René Schuster, lignite expert of the association.
Several landslides occurred in February and March. In the Cottbus district of Schlichow, the former noise protection dam was extensively closed off. LEAG is currently analysing the causes. This was confirmed by LEAG and the mining authority at the request of the GRÜNE LIGA last Thursday at the meeting of the Brandenburg Lignite Committee. The responsible department head at the State Office for Mining, Geosciences and Raw Materials also pointed out that the landslide visually resembles the one in Lake Helene near Frankfurt (Oder).

Normally, only the side of the dump that is backfilled by the excavators is at risk of sliding. For the Cottbus-Nord open-cast mine, an approved final operating plan has been in place since 2012, so that all risks should have been checked in advance and excluded through defined measures.
The visually similar landslide in the Helenesee is an unrehabilitated former open-cast mine that had already been used as a bathing lake for decades and now had to be completely closed for recreational use.