Monte Kali and Kalimanjaro are local colloquial names for the spoil heap or

spoil tip A spoil tip (also called a boney pile, culm bank, gob pile, waste tip or bing) is a pile built of accumulated ''spoil'' – waste material removed during mining. Spoil tips are not formed of slag, but in some areas, such as England and Wales, ...

that towers over the town of

Heringen Heringen (Werra) () is a small town in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in eastern Hesse, Germany lying right at the boundary with Thuringia. Geography Location The nearest major towns and cities are Bad Hersfeld (28 km to the west), Eisena ...

, Hesse, Germany. It is one of a number of sites where the

K+S KS and variants may refer to: Businesses and organizations * , a German postwar commando frogman force * , a Norwegian type of company * Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities * Keenspot, a webcomics/webtoons portal founded in Mar ...

chemical company dumps

sodium chloride Sodium chloride , commonly known as Salt#Edible salt, edible salt, is an ionic compound with the chemical formula NaCl, representing a 1:1 ratio of sodium and chloride ions. It is transparent or translucent, brittle, hygroscopic, and occurs a ...

(common table salt), a byproduct of

potash Potash ( ) includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water- soluble form.

mining and processing, a major industry in the area. The names are

pun A pun, also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from t ...

s of ''Kali'' (shorthand for ', German for "potash") on "

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo ( ; ; or colloquially ; , ; ) is an official administrative area of Monaco, specifically the Ward (country subdivision), ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. Informally, the name also refers to ...

" and "

Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world, at above sea level and above its plateau base. It is also the highest volcano i ...

." The heap is near to the border with the state of

Thuringia Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...

, and hence next to the former

inner German border The inner German border ( or ''deutsch–deutsche Grenze''; initially also , zonal boundary) was the frontier between the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the West Germany, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West ...

with what was once

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

The heap rises over above the surrounding land, its summit reaching above sea level. According to the Werra Potash Mining Museum in Heringen, Monte Kali has been in operation since 1976; as of August 2016, it covered and contained approximately 201 million

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the s ...

s of salt, with another 900 tonnes being added every hour and 7.2 million tonnes a year.

Ecological impact

The

Werra The Werra (), a river in central Germany, is the right-bank headwater of the Weser. "Weser" is a synonym in an old dialect of German. The Werra has its source near Eisfeld in southern Thuringia. After the Werra joins the river Fulda in the to ...

river has become salty (≥500 mg/L

chloride The term chloride refers to a compound or molecule that contains either a chlorine anion (), which is a negatively charged chlorine atom, or a non-charged chlorine atom covalently bonded to the rest of the molecule by a single bond (). The pr ...

at Gerstungen, and 65 mg/L

at Bad Salzungen (measurement of June 2003). The legal limit is at 2,500 mg/L chloride, which is saltier than parts of the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

. The groundwater has become salty as well. The

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

fauna was reduced from 60–100 species to 3. K+S are licensed to keep dumping salt at the facility until 2030.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Hills of Hesse Salt mines in Germany Potash mines Environmental impact of mining Environmental issues in Germany Water in Germany

Kali Kali (; , ), also called Kalika, is a major goddess in Hinduism, primarily associated with time, death and destruction. Kali is also connected with transcendental knowledge and is the first of the ten Mahavidyas, a group of goddesses who p ...

Artificial hills