Report: Macrozoobenthos: Weser estuary before and after Titanwerk (1969)»

In 1966, the construction of a titanium dioxide plant was started on the Blexer Groden near Nordenham. The company received the water authority permission to discharge 38.200 m³ of waste water daily at Blexen into the Weser. Production began in the spring of 1969. There was no experience in Germany about the influence of effluents of this type, and above all this classification of size, on the habitats of coastal waters. [...] A second source of chemical wastewater is the Guano plant near Nordenham, which emits 450 tonnes of gypsum daily with 36 000 m³ of cooling water to an emulsion from May 1968. It is believed that the plaster is completely in solution [...]. In order to create a basis for assessing later changes, a chemical-biological inventory in the Weser estuary was carried out before production of the titanium plant. The Lower Saxony Water Investigation Office (NWU), Hildesheim, took over the chemical, the research centre Norderney the biological part of the evidence. [...] the fieldwork of the investigations lasted 1 year, from the end of 1967 until the end of 1968. [...]’