The high temperatures are causing more and more problems in nature. Streams, ponds and ditches run dry, salinization threatens and dikes threaten to become unstable. To prevent this, water is being pumped into rivers and canals in more and more places in the country. They also notice this at water management company Van Heck Group in Noordwolde.
“At the moment we are active at one location,” says manager Edwin Righart, “in the Stichtse Rijnlanden water board. In addition, we have received several phone calls from water boards in recent days asking whether we can help. The best thing would be that there would be a large bucket of rain. but I don’t really see that happening yet. In any case, we are ready to help.”
This will mainly be south of Drenthe. “We are also in contact with the Hunze en Aa’s water board and the Wetterskip Fryslân, but the situation in the North is not too bad. The water level is still reasonably good here.”
For Van Heck, it’s a bit of a switch. Normally, the company is often used in case of flooding. In recent years, for example, the company’s pumps were used to pump out flooded mines in Serbia and the company was active in England during the flooding.
“The situation now is the world upside down,” says Righart. “We are now pumping the water in the other direction, trying to keep the water level as high as possible. In Stichtse Rijnlanden, for example, we pump about 7,000 to 8,000 cubic meters of water into the rivers. It’s bizarre that we can also contribute to such tasks. .”