The Huttaler Widerwaage is a small reservoir that is a part of the

Upper Harz Water Regale The Upper Harz Water Regale (german: Oberharzer Wasserregal, ) is a system of dams, reservoirs, ditches and other structures, much of which was built from the 16th to 19th centuries to divert and store the water that drove the water wheels of the ...

, an old mining water management system in the

Harz Mountains The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...

of Germany that is now a

UNESCO World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

. The reservoir lies east of the mining town of

Clausthal-Zellerfeld Clausthal-Zellerfeld is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located in the southwestern part of the Harz mountains. Its population is approximately 15,000. The City is the location of the Clausthal University of Technology. The health resort ...

. It is designed to feed water from the Huttal river during times of low water to the reservoir pond of the ''Hirschler Teich'' and, during times of high water, to handle the overflow of water from it.

Location

The Huttaler Widerwaage lies in the

Upper Harz The Upper Harz (german: Oberharz, ) refers to the northwestern and higher part of the Harz mountain range in Germany. The exact boundaries of this geographical region may be defined differently depending on the context. In its traditional sense, th ...

in the

Harz Nature Park The Harz (Lower Saxony) Nature Park (german: Naturpark Harz (Niedersachsen)) or just Harz Nature Park lies in the districts of Goslar and Göttingen (in the area of the former Osterode am Harz district) in South Lower Saxony. The nature park in th ...

. It is located southeast of Clausthal-Zellerfeld around 550 metres east-southeast of the source of the

Innerste The Innerste is a river in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is a right tributary of the Leine river and in length. Origin of the name The river name is not related to the German word ''innerste'' meaning innermost. ''Innerste'', in earlier times c ...

and about 500 metres south of the B 242 at Huttaler Graben at about .

Function

A ''Widerwaage'' is the name used in the region of the Upper Harz Water Regale for a small basin or small impoundment. This particular basin is impounded by a small wooden weir structure, a so-called ''Fehlschlag''. It is linked by the Huttal Water Tunnel (''Huttaler Wasserlauf'') with the ''Hirschler Teich'' on the other side of the ridge and is designed so that the two reservoirs act as a

communicating vessels Communicating vessels or vasesMario Bunge, ''Philosophy of Science: From Explanation to Justification'', 1998, , p. 369 are a set of containers containing a homogeneous fluid and connected sufficiently far below the top of the liquid: when the l ...

. Water from the Schwarzenberg and the Polsterberg Pumphouse is supplied to the Widerwaage by the Huttal Ditch (''Huttaler Graben''). If the weir is full, water is drained out of it through the Huttal Water Tunnel to the ''Hirschler Teich''. There it was used to supply hydropower for the very productive Caroline and Dorothea Pits.

References

{{coord, 51, 47, 08, N, 10, 22, 40, E, region:DE-NI_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title Upper Harz Water Regale Clausthal-Zellerfeld