View of Lake Resia

The Reschen reservoir and how it came about...
5 km after the Reschenpass, Graun im Vinschgau, an old church tower sticks out of the water... The Reschenstausee and how it came about...
In 1949/50, the villages of Graun and Reschen in the Upper Vinschgau fell victim to a ruthless damming project. The story of this lake damming reads almost like a crime novel - but it is the story of a catastrophe. Lake Reschen is over 6 km long; With its water volume of 116 million cubic meters, it generates around 250 million kWh of electricity per year. A proud achievement of technical progress? The church tower of Altgraun, which rises out of the middle of the water, serves as a silent indictment, as it were, as a reminder of the price at which “progress” was bought here, which was never paid. A blooming landscape once spread here, with the picturesque village of Graun. It had become a stately village, full of traffic between Bolzano and Landeck, with wide gabled 5km after the Reschenpass, Graun in the inns, such as the "Adler (Warger) and the "Traube Vinschgau, an old church tower protrudes (Reinhartl) as a stop for the post. Where old frescoes did not decorate the houses, the bay windows and staircases did, but everywhere the most colorful floral decorations on the windows and on the balcony. 163 houses in Graun and Reschen and 523 hectares of fertile cultivated land fell victim to the floods. Over half of the 650 residents of Graun had to move abroad, and around 1,000 people were affected by the disaster. 120 farms lost their livelihood, which was almost exclusively tied to livestock breeding. Today we ask ourselves: How could this cruel and arbitrary intervention come about? Was there no way to prevent this catastrophe back then?
Text / Source: reschensee.it
reschensee.it/index_htm_files/geschichte-Alt-Graun-04-2015-1.pdf

The Reschen reservoir and how it came about...
5 km after the Reschenpass, Graun im Vinschgau, an old church tower sticks out of the water... The Reschenstausee and how it came about...
In 1949/50, the villages of Graun and Reschen in the Upper Vinschgau fell victim to a ruthless damming project. The story of this lake damming reads almost like a crime novel - but it is the story of a catastrophe. Lake Reschen is over 6 km long; With its water volume of 116 million cubic meters, it generates around 250 million kWh of electricity per year. A proud achievement of technical progress? The church tower of Altgraun, which rises out of the middle of the water, serves as a silent indictment, as it were, as a reminder of the price at which “progress” was bought here, which was never paid. A blooming landscape once spread here, with the picturesque village of Graun. It had become a stately village, full of traffic between Bolzano and Landeck, with wide gabled 5km after the Reschenpass, Graun in the inns, such as the "Adler (Warger) and the "Traube Vinschgau, an old church tower protrudes (Reinhartl) as a stop for the post. Where old frescoes didn't decorate the houses, the bay windows and staircases did, but everywhere the most colorful floral decorations on the windows and on the balcony. 163 houses in Graun and Reschen and 523 hectares of fertile cultivated land fell victim to the floods. Over half of the 650 residents of Graun had to move abroad, and around 1,000 people were affected by the disaster. 120 farms lost their livelihood, which was almost exclusively tied to livestock breeding. Today we ask ourselves: How could this cruel and arbitrary intervention come about? Was there no way to prevent this catastrophe back then?
Text / Source: reschensee.it
reschensee.it/index_htm_files/geschichte-Alt-Graun-04-2015-1.pdf

The Reschensee is a reservoir in the municipality of Graun in western South Tyrol, which serves as the upper reservoir for the Glurns storage power plant. The lake is located just south of the Reschen Pass in Vinschgau or Vinschger Oberland, the highest section of the Adige Valley.