Talsperre Pirk, Reservoir at Vogtlandkreis, Germany
Talsperre Pirk is a reservoir covering 152 hectares with around 10 kilometers of shoreline and is the second largest in Saxony's Vogtland region. The water body serves both electricity generation and water level regulation of the White Elster River.
Construction of the Pirk Dam began in 1935, with its official inauguration on July 6, 1939. The project represented a major advancement in regional infrastructure at that moment in history.
The reservoir is a protected cultural heritage monument. Its dam is a slightly curved concrete gravity dam faced with natural stone, built from 1937 and inaugurated in 1939. The reservoir is the largest local recreation area of Oelsnitz/Vogtl., with a youth hostel, a camping and recreation centre, a sailing club and playgrounds on its shores.
The reservoir lies right by the A72 motorway near the Pirk junction and the Plauen–Cheb railway line, so it is easy to reach by car or train. Swimming, sailing, windsurfing and boating are possible on the water, but boats with combustion engines are expressly forbidden. A youth hostel, a recreation centre with campsite, a sailing club and playgrounds sit by the shore.
During the 2013 Central European floods the dam overtopped on 2 June; it did so again on 24 May 2018, when 150 mm of rain fell in the Vogtland within a single day. The reservoir's pre-dam at Dobeneck was drained from 2007 to 2009 to flush out washed-in sediment, and a bird island was heaped up as compensation for the nearby B92 bypass.
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