Only a few days are left until the release of the new issue of LIFE’s Iz tršce bulletin. This edition will be entirely dedicated to our historical act: the restoration of the watercourse Stržen, thus restoring nature to its original image.
Among many topics, readers will be able to find out interesting, first-published facts about the many past interventions on Lake Cerknica. There were not few of them, as the humans were constantly trying to subdue it. To either erase it from the face of the Earth, “clog” it and preserve the lake water forever, and place hotel complexes next to it. To divert its watercourses and decide when the water will be in it and when it will not. to put a hydroelectric power plant on it. It was even supposed to serve the second Slovenian nuclear power plant! An article about this was written by our highly skilled collegue, Tine Schein.
Quote from the article:
“In the conceptual plan from 1940, one can read that it was planned to divert the water of Lake Cerknica through a 12 chilometres long underground tunnel leading to the edge of the Ljubljana Marshes near Borovnica, where a larger hydroelectric power plant would be constructed, supplying electricity to Ljubljana and its wider surroundings. A few years later (around 1950), Lake Cerknica also became a military training ground for artillery and aviation. It was then that the first geological research of the lake bottom began, and for this purpose several geological wells were drilled to a depth of 100 metres, confirming that the receding water of the lake flows at this depth as well. The research was part of the project to obtain electricity and seal the underground lake flows, which was presented in the study of Water Management Basis of the Ljubljanica River Basin (1954). Between Otok and Lipsenj, an embankment up to 8 meters high would be built in a straight line, which would retain water, which would flow through artificial canals towards Planinsko polje, where a larger hydroelectric power plant would be built in Cirje.”
Entrance to Mala Karlovica, deepened before the First World War.
Cross-section of a 12 m high and 30 m wide embankment from Breznik’s permanent lake project.
Find out more in Iz tršce on December 22 2021! It will arrive in the mailboxes of all households in the municipalities of Cerknica, Loška dolina and Bloke, for everybody else, it will be available online!