Logbook · 12 places

The lake of Meirama

Cerceda, Ordes, A Coruña

1 Villages · 4 Monuments · 3 Nature · 2 Activities · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

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The lake of Meirama

Nature · Cerceda, Ordes, A Coruña

Image of Cerceda, not of the place itself.

Lake Meirama, also called Lake Encrobas, occupies the hollow more than 300 metres deep left by the lignite mine that supplied the neighbouring thermal power plant, worked from 1980 until 94 million tonnes had been extracted, and closed in 2007. As early as 1985, alongside the extraction, the company had begun an environmental rehabilitation project that gradually turned the spoil heaps into today's forest. The sheet of water, born from the filling of the pit that began in 2008, measures 2.2 kilometres long by one wide and reaches a maximum depth of 205 metres, with 171 hectares of surface area; the rehabilitated areas total 730 hectares. It is today one of the largest artificial lakes in Galicia, with banks of native vegetation and colonised by waterfowl.

Photo: Miguel Branco (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What to see and do in Cerceda