Willibald Tailings Pond and Drainage System

The mountain pond above the treatment "Willibald".
Above the preparation Willibald, completed in November 1889, there was a thickener and a mud pond for the outlets of the flotation plant. In this facility, built in 1935, it was possible to process 650 tons per day, and later 1,000 tons of ore, and extract about 65 or 100 tons of lead and zinc concentrates. About 90 percent by weight of the throughput were fine-grained, largely metal-free so-called. Mountains that were in the form of a muddy cloud. This sludge was pumped onto the thickener (diameter approx. 35 meters). Here, the solids settle down; the clarified water without solids ran off at the overflow and was used again in the treatment as process water.Drainage of the Willibald heap.
Due to the heavy rainfall events associated with climate change, trench systems for the discharge of surface waters were additionally created in 2014 to protect the stockpile. The aim is to direct the heaps of precipitation water flowing in from above the heap and quickly remove the precipitation from the stockpile plateau. For this purpose, 3 powerful trench systems 1 above, 2 on the heap and 3 below the heap and a deadwood and a rainwater retention basin were newly created.
Timber / foliage and runoff are held back in the deadwood basin, while the rainwater retention basin ensures that the amounts of water from above the heap and from the stockpile plateau are fed into the Eltmeckebach in a heavy rainfall with a time delay, thus relieving the stream system.

The mining trail leads directly over the old dump.

Station of the hiking trail with information board of the mountain pond