Authorities continue to support mining, but in modified form
With minor variations, the detailed surveys below Jezerka, at Černice and Horní Jiřetín produced findings similar to those from the Jezeří survey. The mountainsides and their bases were modified by tectonic fault zones up to several dozen metres thick. Within them, the crystalline rocks were crushed or even disintegrated into a sandy-clay earth. The basin strata series at the edge of the basin were also disrupted by various fault and non-fault deformities.
Now the problem was how the mine planners and operators would cope with that because they still insisted on their original plan to fully deplete the seam up to the edge using the large-scale opencast method, albeit at the cost of disproportionate expenses and special precautions, the technical and energy intensity of which would clearly outstrip any profit from the coal mined.[[File:CSA2.jpg|thumb|CSA2]]
Jezeří threatened with demolition by new mining design
Design ideas verging on fantasies were developed, including stabilization of the Ore Mountain massif using a series of pretensioned anchors up to 80 m long, bored from slope sections cut into terraces. Another was to remove the entire exposed section of the crystalline complex so that the end slope of the opencast coal mine would face mountain slopes dressed at a stable incline of approx. 35°. Obviously, that would have required the complete removal of the forest, the groundcover, the protruding rock formations, and naturally, Jezeří Chateau. The latter version was even elaborated into an implementation design, undersigned by Ing. Kubricht, former chief architect of Most and a designer at Báňské projekty at that time. To that end, the mine management, the Brown Coal Research Institute in Most and Báňské projekty in Teplice filed a joint application with the Ministry of Culture in 1982 calling for cancellation of the heritage conservation status of Jezeří Chateau and the adjacent Ore Mountains hillsides.
Dr Marek learnt about the meeting called by the Ministry of Culture to discuss the matter the night before during a discussion with Ing. Stoklasa at the “Quite Small Theatre” in Litvínov. Following a discussion weighing up the relative importance of the coal on the one hand and the local landscape, cultural heritage and health of the population on the other, which carried on until midnight, he set off for Prague in his 4WD. He was going to wash and change at home and attend the crucial meeting the next morning. On the way, driving through a February night snowstorm, he missed the elevated on-ramp leading to the new bypass at Panenský Týnec and crashed into a ditch. He left the overturned car through the rear window before the running engine exploded and the car caught fire. He managed to explain the accident to the Louny police, catch the first bus to Prague from Louny, attend the meeting at the Ministry, and take part in the discussion. The miners’ proposal to lift the conservation status of Jezeří and expand the mining district up to the summit portions of the Ore Mountains was not approved.
However, the meeting had a tragic aftermath: Ing. Kašpárek, director of the Regional Office of State Cultural Heritage and Nature Conservation in Ústí nad Labem, had a heart attack and died the next day.
Proposal to demolish Jezeří ignites widespread debate
The miners’ plan to destroy Jezeří Chateau and the adjacent mountainsides provoked a long-lasting and frequently passionate polemic in the daily press and other media as well as at various professional conferences over the period 1981-1987.
Disapproving positions were expressed by leaders in culture, history, nature and heritage conservation, representatives of the local population, youth environmental movements, and journalists alike. Dr Marek initiated the production of a monographic issue of the popular journal “Památky a příroda” [Monuments and Nature] dedicated to the Jezeří issues. It was published in 1983, and the editors still refused to include a paper by Dr. Líbal, the country’s leading expert on heritage buildings, who resolutely defended the conservation of Jezeří.
The authorities persecute the conservationists
The village of Albrechtice fell prey to the mining preparations below Jezeří in 1985. As was the custom in the area, the houses to be demolished were looted. At that time, Dr Marek’s colleagues and he were arrested at Jezeří and charged at Most police station with lotting the chateau. The event was probably stage-managed by mining lobbyists. A lengthy report was made after a long interrogation; no prosecution followed but he was still stalked by the police even at home in Prague.
In the eyes of the mining authorities, Jezeří Chateau was becoming an increasingly hated structure, allegedly an obstacle to further advances in coal mining, although it is situated outside the coal seam. The official caretaker of the building – the Regional Conservation Office in Ústí nad Labem, which had no means even to do basic maintenance – was reluctant to invest its limited resources in a building endangered by demolition, the proposal for which had already been made. It made several efforts to get rid of the dilapidated building: by assigning it to the mine corporation! It even dismissed the only employee – the chateau custodian. Therefore, the presence of Dr Marek and his six colleagues in the field office, which they refused to abandon, was the only obstacle to carrying out the demolition plan.
The Jezeří issue reaches a wider international and national audience
In the meantime, the Jezeří issue made it into an international forum. It was talked about at geological, hydrogeological, engineering geological and geotechnical conferences all over the world (Melbourne, Washington, Nuremberg, Granada, Moscow, etc.), but mostly by others. After Dr Marek submitted his final research report, there were suddenly scores of ambitious experts willing to declare the results, conclusions and interpretations as their own, and boast about them abroad. Dr Marek was not even allowed to read out my paper at the World Geology Congress in Moscow in 1984. However, he produced a short film about the stability issues of the Ore Mountain slopes due to the coal mining for Washington D.C. and a paper on a similar issue for Melbourne. Ing. arch. Zdeněk Stáhlík of Terplan and he became expert advisors for another, more artistic short film on the issues around Jezeří and the Ore Mountains.
During the harsh political “Normalization” period, however, positions published in “Rudé právo” – the leading press medium of the all-governing Communist Party – were the most significant ones. Editor Jindra Čekalová played an exceptional role there. She was not afraid of publishing opinions that clearly went against the existing ideological positions and guidelines of the ruling Party, whether under her own name or signed by apparently non-conforming individuals, irrespective of the disapproval of the then editor-in-chief, comrade Kojzar, and at the risk of her own existence.
Editors of dailies and popular periodicals visited the critical area around Jezeří as a group in 1985. The editorial office of “Věda a technika mládeži” celebrated Dr Marek as the winner of a nation-wide competition of discoverers and inventors.