In 1983, a governmental resolution was adopted, explicitly imposing a liability to construct a water power station and locks at Hainburg on the river Danube below Vienna. The joint-stock company Donaukraftwerke prepared a general project and requested the Supreme Water Law Office (SWLA) with federal jurisdiction to identify such economically very interesting water power station as a „preferred water work construction“. In the end of the year 1984, a building permit was granted. In spite of having satisfied all required legal and administrative conditions, construction could not have commenced, as several thousands of ecologically oriented activists occupied the building site and acquired wide support from the public. The Federal Government suspended the permit to fell trees in the site area, and a year later the administrative office cancelled, by a legal decision, the already granted building permit.

About ten years prior to preparing the Hainburg project, initiative groups started to protect the unique shore area with the wild life and unique flora.

In the interest of protecting the shore ecosystem, a national park was later declared here.

The Freudenau water power station is situated directly in the City of Vienna, approx. 50 km upstream from Hainburg. In the demanding conditions of the existing infrastructure, as are the bridges over the river Danube, the requirement not to disturb the hydrologic conditions in the bed, and also accounting for the relatively small space available for the whole water work, the construction was realised in three stages. The construction started with the weir, followed by the section of weir spill ways, and finally the construction of the power station building. During the whole construction, the anti-flood protection of the City of Vienna was not impaired, neither the navigation conditions were deteriorated.

During the years 1986 – 1988, a diligently prepared proceedings on the objectives and realisation of the construction was held. Approximately ten expert groups reviewed the results of the project from the aspect of hydrology and hydraulics, limnology and fishery, regional planning and development of infrastructure, navigation, landscape engineering and landscape ecology, botany, zoology, climatology. The experts had come to a relatively positive opinion on the project, and they had formulated additional approx. 130 conditions which were satisfied during the construction. In respect of water resources, the federal state has the overall jurisdiction.

The Austrian federal water law, in order to protect the public interests, stipulates that all water environment must be kept clean, in order to ensure health of the people and fauna, it imposed on federal authorities the liability to supervise the water management in order to protect the environment. The current Austrian legislation is the role of the public in the decision-making process defined by the law on conjunction with the environment and the law on participation of the public, which came into force in the year 1993 and 1996 respectively. The planning and decision-making process must be transparent from the very beginning, in order to ensure trustworthiness thereof. The interaction among the planners, the deciding team and the public should be gradual in steps, in order to have a feedback from the public until the next planning stage.

The Freudenau case clearly shows the multicriteria approach aimed at certain compensation of the consequences of the project, trying to achieve a compromise between the interests of the environment and the social, regional, and economic objectives. On the other hand, in the Hainburg case, it was more or less a single-purpose project, with the aim to maximise production of energy and to support navigation. At that time, the ecologic objectives played only a second role.

NACHTNEBEL, P. PETROVIC - In: Water Management Journal. - Year 42, No. 11 (1999), p. 12-14.
In: Participation of the Public in Decision-making Processes in Water Management
Detail extract with the author´s consent was prepared by RNDr. Pavel Petrovic, CSc., VUVH Bratislava H.P.

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