A

DIP IN A
NATURAL
SWIMMING POOL

Last summer, Maddy Harland visited ZEGG, the Center for Experimental Cultural
Design, near Berlin, Germany. There she took a dip in a beautiful natural
swimming pool that they created themselves. Here is how they did it.

U
ntil the 1980s, ZEGG
was a spy training center
for East German men
with a difference – they were
called the Romeo spies and
their remit was to infiltrate the
west by romancing the female
secretaries of well placed western
military men, politicians and
diplomats located in West
Germany. Today it is a place of
conflict resolution and peace
where the landscape is as fertile
as its community life.
The community here is vibrant
and creative and the whole site
is an example of regeneration.
The once barren sandy soil has
been enriched by mulching with
cardboard, straw and huge piles
of leaves, courtesy of the local
council, and everywhere are
fruit and nut trees, berries,
vegetables, salads and flowers.
All the old military buildings
are ecologically renovated,
heated by a biomass boiler that
burns woodchip from the trees
from regional forests and there
are solar hot water panels on
many buildings.
In a quiet corner, near the
woods, is a beautiful converted
fire pond containing about
420m3 of water. In such a dry
climate and a woody site, it is
essential to store water for fire
fighting. In the early 1990s, it
was a green and slimy pond,
perfectly functional but un-
attractive. Today it is a natural
swimming pool, a fire pond
and a nature reserve. What is
different about this pool is the
relative low technology used to
create it, the small surface area
of plants required to clean it
and the quality of the water.
There is no complex filter
system as the clever design has
enabled a balanced ecology of
plants, fish and molluscs to clean
the water.
On a hot July day, Tim and
I slipped away from the Global
Ecovillage Network European
assembly for half an hour to cool
ourselves in the pool. We’d
eyed it up longingly the day
before on a tour of ZEGG and
just had to try it out. All we
had to do was to shower down
and slip into the refreshing,
cool water…
I asked Achim Ecker, ZEGG’s
permaculture designer, how
he had created such a stable
ecosystem. “We started to super-
ficially filter the water through
a small soil filter planted with
aquatic plants, pumping the
filtered water back into the
pond. This soil filter offers a
habitat to many natural pond-
dwellers, thereby strengthening
the self-purification powers of
the basin. We intend to promote
a close to natural pond biotope.”
Achim quickly discovered that
the method of purification
described was insufficient
during the summer, when hot
temperatures draw residents
and guests to bathe and refresh
themselves in the pool. As ZEGG
did not want to use chlorine,
they set out to research efficient,
environmentally friendly
methods of purifying the water.
This search led them to discover
the various beneficial effects of
the so-called Effective Micro-
Organisms (EM).
“During the first two years
here, we had to change the water
Above:
The natural swimming pool at
ZEGG, which started life as a
fire pond.

www.permaculture.co.uk No. 42 Permaculture Magazine 17

twice a year, as so much algae Being an ecological community, and decomposing leaves and grass pond with a natural chain of
was growing due to the many it was anxious not to have to which settle on the bottom. living organisms. They siphoned
nutrients in the water,” said refill the pool twice a year, and Because the rudd are spawning off a portion of the mud and
Achim. “In hot spells the eco- besides, this further disrupted at such a high rate, Achim has spread part of the 2.3m (71⁄2ft)
system collapsed at intervals. the pool’s settling ecology. decided to bring in perch (Perca deep section of the pond with
Since 2000, we have employed Besides using EM, Achim intro- fluviatilis) in order to control a layer of washed sand 10cm
EM in our fire pond and we get duced red-eye rudd (Scardinius their numbers. (4in) deep. This offers a good
a professional lab to test the erythrophthalmus) and carp habitat for the water-filtering
water quality towards the end (Cyprinus carpio) in 2000. The FERMENT & NUTRITION Goose Barnacle (Anodonto
of the summer – the time when fish have thrived without any After four years of the pool’s life, cygnea) and other sludge dig-
ponds are normally most polluted. supplementary feeding. The rudd it was no longer necessary to esting organisms. A fully matured
These tests have now proven our mainly live off mosquito larvae change the water as the bacteriol- Goose Barnacle, which is an
water is of excellent quality and and insects that fall into the ogical condition of the water endangered species in Germany,
hygienically in perfect condition.” pond, whereas carp feed on algae in the pool was excellent. The can filter up to 2,000 litres of
visual aspects were less than water per day. They achieve a
satisfactory, however. The side size of up to 25cm (10in) and
EFFECTIVE MICRO-ORGANISMS walls were covered with algae, live for up to 300 years, placing
The idea of EM was originally developed by a Professor Higa in there was lots of algae floating them among the most long lived
Japan. EM consists of a mixture of cultures of micro-organisms in the water and the water itself animals on this planet. They feed
naturally occurring in the environment, which are used as an appeared to be murky. The off fine floating algae and, in
inoculation in order to raise the micro-bacterial variety in reason was an increased ph-value order to build their shells, draw
soils and plants. Higa discovered micro-organisms which connected with a heightened lime from the water, which in
can co-exist in mixed cultures and which are physiologically nutrient content due to organic turn lowers the water’s ph-value.
compatible. When these cultures are introduced into a natural matter entering the water. On
environment, synergistic effects are activated, multiplying the bottom of the pond, for Below left:
the individual beneficial impacts. EM contains no synthetic example, a layer of leaves drop- Detail of entry step and flow
substances. Research in Japan and in other parts of the world ped by the surrounding trees inlet to the natural filtration
has confirmed that inoculations of soil or plant systems with sometimes began to ferment system.
EM raises general soil and plant vitality, as well as improving during hot spells in the summer.
the yield and quality of crops. EM is completely harmless During the summer of 2003, Below centre:
to humans, and can also be used externally for treating skin the community decided to cont- The swimming pool requires
diseases and internally for gastro-intestinal complaints. inue the efforts already under a suprisingly small area to be
way to clean and maintain the used as a filter bed.

18 Permaculture Magazine No. 42 www.permaculture.co.uk

They live in a symbiotic relat-
ionship with a small fish, the
bitterling (Rhodeus sericeus
amarus ‘Bloch’), each relying
on the other for procreation.
There is another type of
mollusc that can filter water. It
is the Painter’s or freshwater
mussel (Unio pictorum), which is
also red-listed as an endangered
species. Achim also introduced
gudgeon (Gobio gobio), a fish
feeding on organisms living in
the sludge. The naturalisation
of the molluscs helps to create
a new habitat for them, and
could serve also as a basis for
their re-introduction into their
natural biotopes.
In addition to the work of the
freshwater plants, fish, barnacles
and mussels which clean the
water, the vertical side walls of
Right:
Inspecting a freshwater mussel.
Below right:
The filter bed is a soil and
aquatic plant filter which does
much of the purification of the
water. It also provides a habitat
for many natural pond dwellers.
www.permaculture.co.uk
the pond are ‘grazed’ by the river He said, “In one corner of the past the planted edge, full of
snail (Viviparus viviparous) and basin, we plan to install floating aquatic flowers, a little green frog
the ramshorn snail (Planorbis beds of water plants to help plops into the water besides me.
corneus). By 2004, the water clean the water with their root What natural companionship!
quality was still very good and systems, offer shelter for spawn-
there are now hundreds of young ing and young fish and provide For more information about
fish and even quite a number of carp with vegetative matter.” technology at ZEGG:
crested newts (Triturus cristatus). Sitting by the pool, we Sustainability and Ecology at
In fact, the pool is so successful occasionally see the rudd rising the ZEGG Community, by
that the community has taken on the surface and, in shallow Achim Ecker, price £4.95, is
out several hundred small fish areas, fingerlings bask in the available from Permaculture
and quite a number of big ones sunny edges. It’s very peaceful Magazine’s Earth Repair
and introduced them to other here. Better still is swimming in Catalogue. It is reviewed on
ponds and lakes in the area. the sweet, soft water. As I drift page 59 of this issue.
Some of these fish are also on
the endangered species list.
The water testing continues
and Achim told me, “We have
official measurements on bacteria
in the pond. In June 2004, it still
reached drinking water quality.
By the beginning of August the
bacteria level was higher, but it
was still much better than the
highest requirement of swim-
ming water quality and many
more times better than the lowest
requirement for swimming water
by German standards. All this
is reached without conventional
filtering systems.”
I asked Achim if he had further
plans to enhance the pool’s ecology.
No. 42 Permaculture Magazine 19