SlateExperience Dormettingen

A unique leisure landscape has been created in a former oil shale quarry as a joint project between the municipality of Dormettingen and the Holcim company.

A large part of the slate quarrying area of the cement plant of the company Holcim (Süddeutschland) GmbH is located in the district of Dormettingen. For the citizens of Dormettingen, this meant the temporary loss of agricultural land, a restriction in village development and a considerable encroachment on the landscape of their home. This situation was the starting point and reason for the community of Dormettingen, together with the company Holcim (Süddeutschland) GmbH, to consider how to use the existing potential and how to deal with the mining landscape left behind. Under the motto "The slate quarry is not a problem, but an opportunity", the municipality of Dormettingen, together with the company Holcim (Süddeutschland) GmbH, planned a bundle of individual projects, which are summarized under the term "SchieferErlebnis Dormettingen". A partial area of about 10 hectares of the mining area to be recultivated was taken out of the planned agricultural recultivation and was available for the design of a landscape park with numerous elements such as a fossil tapping site, lake, mining playground, open-air stage, and information on the subject of oil shale.