Germany -- As the sun beats down on a small vineyard by the rippling waters of Grossraeschen Lake there's little sign of the vast wound that lies beneath This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Material from the Associated Press is Copyright © 2025 audio and/or video material shall not be published rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use The AP will not be held liable for any delays errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing Oklahoma was planning around the fact that the federal government was holding some vaccines back for those critical seconds doses "Our understanding now is that the policy or process changed in December We were not told that it changed," said Keith Reed We sat down with Deputy Commissioner Keith Reed with the Oklahoma State Department of Health to see how this affects us "Our neighbors in Colorado were expecting 210,000 vaccines this week they're now because this stockpile doesn't exist So what has that done to us here in Oklahoma?" we asked "That's probably pretty consistent with what we've seen That's really just our regular allotment of what we've gotten for the last three or four weeks of around 40,000 to 50,000 doses times two," Reed said but not what was foreseen and still frustrating to a man who's trying to coordinate a vaccine rollout with far more demand than supply I had hoped at this point we would see a steady escalation of inventory coming into the state and we have not seen this," said Reed Operation Warp Speed seems to have been reduced to a slow but steady crawl Without that promised stockpile of second doses we asked Reed about the elephant in the room "Do you feel like you were misled at all by the White House or the Federal Government?" we asked "The impression that I had and that my team had on how the second doses were being handled did not match with what was actually being done that second doses were being physically stored," Reed replied He told us you can call it however you like on land once occupied by the GDR’s industrial heartland remains relatively unknown to non-east Germans ‘This was once one of the dirtiest areas in East Germany,” says Sören, my tour guide from IBA Tours as our bikes swoosh through the Lusatian Lake District because we knew they wouldn’t be white after a few minutes It’s difficult to connect this information with the pristine landscape around us glistening lakes and immaculate asphalt cycle paths The only other major signs of life have been a smattering of fellow cyclists and a sedge of cranes in a field a motorised vehicle – and there’s certainly no coal dust in the air now stretching 50 miles across the states of Saxony and Brandenburg The popular Spreewald area is just to the north the Polish and Czech borders are around 55 miles away – as is the handsome city of Dresden – and Berlin can be reached by train in an hour and a half It’s intriguing to think that each of the 26 lakes that make up this region was once an opencast mine The mining continued throughout the 20th century reaching peak production under the GDR regime which was highly dependant on lignite as a natural energy resource The idea of turning mines into recreational lakes actually began in the GDR when one of the mines near Senftenberg was flooded in 1973 on the recommendation of landscape planner Otto Rindt Lake Senftenberg – nicknamed “Dresden’s Bathtub” – subsequently became the blueprint for the current development the remaining mines were either taken over and cleaned up by Swedish company Vattenfall or handed over to the federally owned LMBV (founded in 1994) for transformation into recreational areas Upper Lusatian heath and pond area in Saxony Photograph: AlamyAround 13 lakes are already accessible with the rest a year or two away from completion There are cycling paths encircling each lake many of which criss-cross to create a 300-mile network and associated infrastructures are being individually developed in an attempt to create a variety of experiences Volleyball on Senftenberger lake beach Photograph: AlamyAccording to Kathrin Winkler visits to the area have been increasing 10% annually there were around 300,000 overnight stays on Lake Senftenberg alone with another 200,000 spread around the rest of the lakes illustrating how the region has managed to remain something of a local secret The lakeland also carries huge symbolic value in terms of the country’s Energiewende part of Angela Merkel’s renewable energy act under which all nuclear power stations are to be closed by 2022 in an ambitious push towards clean energy with lignite (together with stone coal) still providing 41.9% of national power several mines are still in operation around the country The former IBA offices, now known as the IBA-Terrassen, include a fairly slick cafe-restaurant that’s fronted by an attractive vineyard sloping down towards the lake. The adjacent marina is still in progress but the adjacent Seehotel Großräschen is already up and running Originally built in the 1920s for Polish mine workers it’s now a swish four-star with an intriguing museum of counterfeit artwork made by the Russian Posin brothers Sören remarks: “They are perfect for the area