Silver willows reclaim the Traisen
On the way through the 9.4-kilometre-long, newly created river basin, we let our gaze wander. "When the Altenwörth power plant was built in the 1970s, the Traisen estuary was straightened. Our aim was to turn it back into a diverse floodplain landscape," explains our guide, VERBUND project manager Roland Schmalfuß. And indeed: on our way through the corridor, which is up to 300 meters wide, we can identify knee-high willow regrowth. "In ten to fifteen years, there will be a forest there," predicts Schmalfuß. The black woodpecker watching us curiously will also be pleased.
Loamy slopes attract sand martins
Exactly 72 bird species were documented in the project area before construction began. And the number is growing - because word of the protective living conditions seems to have spread among the fluttering creatures. Since winter 2017, a colony of sand martins has settled here. We can easily observe their breeding burrows on the steep slopes. With a body length of 12 centimetres, the sand martin is the smallest European swallow species and is on the endangered species list. In the LIFE+ Traisen area, it benefits from the loamy embankments created by the construction workers. "In total, around 3 million cubic meters of material were moved," Schmalfuß explains the dimensions. There were also some less pleasant discoveries. "We had reckoned with individual aerial bombs," says the project manager. "But as ground battles also took place along the Traisen during the Second World War, we came across vast quantities of shells and other war relics." However, a team of experts was able to painstakingly remove all the ordnance.
