Стаßфурт қаласы: тарих, тұз және экологиялық мәселелер

Town in Saxony Anhalt, Germany

Staßfurt (Stassfurt) is a town in the Salzlandkreis district, in Saxony Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on both sides of the river Bode, approximately northeast of Aschersleben, and south of Magdeburg.

Around the village of Atzendorf are several lost hamlets, reputedly destroyed together with Atzendorf and many other villages of Staßfurt on 29 August 1635 by Imperialist troops. Although the ruined hamlets of Eikendorfer Kock, Eimecke, Kötlingen, Luxdorf, and Stieritz appeared on older maps, today there is only tilled farmland. The old road to the nearby town of Borne bei Staßfurt was demolished but traces of its route are still visible in the lay of the land.

Although saline springs are mentioned here as early as the 13th century, the first attempt to bore for salt was not made until 1839, while the systematic exploitation of the salt beds, to which the town is indebted for its prosperity, dates only from 1856. The shafts reached deposits of salt at a depth of 850 ft. (190 m); but the finer and purer layers lie more than 100 ft. (31 m) below the surface. The rock salt is excavated by blasting. Besides the rock salt, the deposits of Stassfurt yield a considerable quantity of deliquescent salts and other saline products, which have encouraged the foundation of numerous chemical factories in the town and in the neighboring village of Leopoldshall (currently part of Staßfurt). The rock salt works are mainly government property, while the chemical factories are in private hands. The town is also home to Staßfurt Museum shed, which houses many preserved steam locomotives.

The Staßfurt potash deposit, a part of the same evaporite sequence that hosts the salt mines, is notable historically as the site of the earliest large scale mining of potash for fertilizer, beginning in 1861.

The discharge of wastewater by local companies into the Bode has been frequently criticized as severely damaging the ecosystem of the river by Environmentalist Organisations. The decrease in water quality of the Bode may be the cause of high fish mortality. To prevent damage to the river’s wildlife the state of Saxony Anhalt has announced to increase the supervision of the Bode The city council's measures to reduce chemical emissions in wastewaters have been criticized as insufficient by BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany), the IG Bode Lachs e. V. and the Green Party.