TenneT wants to be due to the growing demand for electricity considerably weigh up the power grid in the coming years. The net is already packed. That is why, according to the network operator, there must be a new, heavy high-voltage line between Beverwijk-Oostzaan and Middenmeer.
This is laid above -ground, with 100 to 150 high -voltage pylons and kilometers of wires. And that causes nature organizations and bird work groups.
Every year, 800,000 to one million birds in the Netherlands crash into a high -voltage line. How many of those birds in our province make such a fatal blow is not clear.
‘Wire victims’
“Wire victims”, ecologist Jac Hakkens calls them. He has been working at Tennet for five years and is involved in, among other things, protecting birds.
The birds mainly touch the thinner, upper lightning wires that are stretched between the masts. These are threads that, when it strikes, drains to the ground.
Hakkens explains why: “These are thinner than the thicker power threads hanging underneath and are therefore more difficult to see, making them a danger for birds.” That usually happens at night or when it is dusk. “But also in bad weather such as fog or drizzle.”
According to the ecologist, it is mainly geese and swans, but also meadow birds that touch these lightning wires and are therefore injured or even die. “It is often too late when they see the threads, because they are logged and little agile.”
Nature organizations express their concerns
Now Tennet intends to construct a new high -voltage line, nature organizations and bird work groups express their concerns in a letter.
“The construction of 30 to 40 kilometers of masts has a major impact on the landscape,” explains Martijn de Jong from Landschap Noord-Holland.
The network operator looks at several routes for this, including the protected Zeevang nature reserve, between Edam and Hoorn. “This is an important nature reserve for meadow birds such as lapwing, redshank and godwits.”
For meadow birds, the masts mean extra disturbance, so that they will avoid the area as a breeding area, says De Jong. “These birds like a view, want to see birds of prey coming from far away, while birds of prey themselves use such a mast as a watchtower.”
“Within a radius of three hundred meters on either side of a mast, no meadow bird is sitting. That means that across the board an area of six hundred meters wide is no longer suitable as a breeding ground.”
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