CME Expedition 13

Location: Skien, Norway.
Members: 001, 004.
Type: Industrial, Waterworks (?).
Status: Active.

Sometimes, when i'm headed up into the county of Telemark I stop the car a little northwest of Skien city and take a leak at this location. I have seen the weird looking structure there several times before and always wondered what it was, but I have never had the camera with me until now. Caveman 004 and I were out spelunking one day after work, and decided to have a closer look at this place. Once there we parked the car and scanned the area for potentially curious onlookers. There seemed to be none, so we carried on down to the structure itself.

The back side of this thing, whatever it may be is right next to the main road. (You can just catch a glimpse of the car parked behind the tree on the left hand side.) Anyway, we surfed on down the little slope in the picture, almost falling headlong when tripping over some roots. Once in front of the entrance I noticed something different from when I was here last a few weeks earlier, namely the small red stickers that are present on the door. They gave some insight into who ran this place, but posed some new questions as well.

The first sign carries the logo of Herøya Industrial Park. Ok, so they run this place we figure, but it still didn't offer any clue as to what this place was or why it was here. Sign number two warns of alarms directly linked to the police and that access is restricted to the personel of Herøya Industrial Park. While talking back and forth about what this place could be, we headed on over to the second structure on the site.

Structure number two also bears the same stickers on the door, so we got confirmation that they are related. This one seems to lead under the road behind it. To get an impression of size and depth, 004 went over and shouted through the horisontal openings in the door only to hear the echo ring back out, so it seems this goes quite a stretch in behind the door. Considering the newly discovered fact that this was industry related, combined with the fact that we had a lake behind us, we decided to look for a water intake. We had a working theory that this could be some power generating facility, but we were no where near a waterfall so this would be strange if true. Either way, after a few minutes looking about the site, we did however find old signs warning of danger due to a water intake from the lake. This in itself posed new questions.

While looking for info on the web now, maps of properties and buildings identify this property as owned by the municipality of Skien, and the structure itself is identified as "other preparedness building." The strange thing is that Herøya Industrial Park is located in the neighboring municipality. There is about 10km (6,5 miles) between this place and Herøya Industrial Park. If they generate power here, where are the power lines leading back out of it? Are there tunnels transporting the power all the way (10km!!) through the mountain? (Not very likely!). What are they doing here? We took our photos and got back in the car even more puzzeled than when we came. Maybe we'll figure it out one day..

"UPDATE": Just found out that the company Hydro that first built industry at the place now called Herøya Industrial Park actually did build a 10 km long tunnel through the mountain to maintain a supply of fresh water for their industrial processes..10 KM!! Wow..that makes me even more curious..  

-Caveman 001-