Overview

• Altertheim residents passed two referendums on June 1 to block land sales and halt Knauf’s gypsum mine project, prompting the municipality to explore legal challenges.
• Knauf maintains that the legal conditions for approval remain unchanged and emphasizes that only the Bergamt Nordbayern can grant the mining permit.
• The Bergamt Nordbayern holds exclusive authority over the mine’s permit and is now reviewing hundreds of formal objections before issuing a decision this autumn.
• Knauf plans to begin extraction in 2027 on a 7.1-square-kilometer site with an estimated 100 million tonnes of gypsum, about 48 million tonnes of which are considered extractable.
• Environmental groups and residents warn that the mine’s location in a protected drinking-water area supplying Würzburg could jeopardize the local water supply.