Backwashing sludge isolates Ameland

In the canteen of the ferry to Ameland, which smells strongly of fried food, team JO8-2 of football club Geel Wit celebrates the win. The Ameland youth team beat opponent SC Veenwouden 1-3 this morning, after a nice pot, coach Leo Kiewied says with satisfaction. And then the ferry also goes according to schedule!

That is sometimes different, says Kiewied. He goes to the mainland with the youth team every other week. “Then those guys on the bus have to change, because otherwise we will not make it. Or the boat back from Holwerd suddenly leaves an hour later, and then you just have to entertain seven of those kids.”

Last week it happened again. Passenger service Wagenborg canceled one in ten trips to and from Ameland. Travelers will also have to take into account canceled ferry services in the coming period, warned director of the ferry service Ger van Langen. “Safety comes first.”

There is a clear cause for all this failure and delay: the fairway. It is too shallow and too narrow to navigate safely.

Then why not make that fairway a bit wider and deeper? Rijkswaterstaat says it is making a “permanent effort” to keep the channel at the required 55 meters wide and 3.80 meters deep. For every passenger, a contractor dredges three trailers full of sand and silt, good for 1.8 million cubic meters per year. Sometimes the dredgers sail between Holwert and Ameland up to ten times a day. They are shut down this weekend.

Not exactly nature-friendly, because all that activity disturbs soil and aquatic life. And not cheap: fairway maintenance for the Wadden annually costs around 5.5 million euros – 3.5 million of which goes to the fairway near Ameland. The ‘sand hunger’ of the eastern Wadden area is great, the eastern Wadden Sea is becoming increasingly shallow.

What exacerbates the dredging problems is that silt from the Wadden Sea must also remain within the Wadden Sea due to Natura 2000 rules. The same sludge flows back into the fairway within a few days. “A kind of carrying water to the sea, but the other way around,” jokes Kiewied.

Navel cord

The ferry service is the “umbilical cord of the island”, says Leo Pieter Stoel, mayor of Ameland. “Every bolt, every screw on this island comes by boat. There is no other way to get to the island.” But despite the permanent dredging effort, the ferry service is currently too unreliable, says Stoel. “We often don’t know when the boat is running or not, or how long it will take.”

And that makes it difficult to make arrangements with the mainland. Chair: “If the boat breaks down, it will take an hour or two more.” Pretty annoying if you have to go to a job interview or a funeral. And what if a fire breaks out on Ameland that is too big for the two fire trucks present on the island?

Well, maybe the sport plane. But just look at transporting a fire truck with it.

It has to change, all parties agree on that. But how?

With a tunnel? Too complicated, and with an estimated price tag of 1.7 to 2 billion euros, especially much too expensive, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management believes. A bridge? That would be at the expense of the island feeling and hamper shipping too much.

CDA member of parliament in Friesland Rendert Algra recently suggested to Omrop Fryslân that the use of a hovercraft could be a solution, because that type of boat moves over the water, instead of through it. However, due to noise pollution, the use of hovercraft is not permitted in the Wadden Sea for the time being, and the loading space is also limited.

Move port

Another option is to move the ports to connect to a natural fairway. Before that, the port on the mainland would move from Holwerd to the west, to Ferwerd. On the island, Ballumerbocht or Hollum are alternatives to the pier at Nes. But the islanders don’t feel that way, according to mayor Stoel. “Then you turn the whole island upside down.”

Isn’t the seclusion also part of the island feeling? Perhaps, Marc Hulsebos sighs. He is a butcher in Nes, the village where the ferry now docks. “We don’t really know any better.” Fortunately, he himself has few problems with the delivery of his goods, but in the adjacent supermarket he sometimes encounters empty shelves. “Uncertainty also becomes a certainty at a certain point,” he says resignedly.

Talks took place last week between passenger service Wagenborg and the ministry about a short-term solution to the accessibility problem. Rijkswaterstaat hopes to come up with a plan next week. Rijkswaterstaat is conducting a study into how Ameland will remain accessible after 2030, which will be completed this autumn.

The municipality of Ameland was not allowed to join the talks. That is an issue, admits mayor Stoel. “Our residents, the people who work here and our visitors are the main users of the ferry service.”

Meanwhile, tourists on their way to the island react with resignation to the uncertain timetable. The German couple Bushoff, from just across the border near Enschede, have been coming to Ameland for years. Yes, they are sometimes delayed. “But when I’m on vacation, I’m not going to worry about that.” They come up and down for rest, to get a breath of fresh air. Tomorrow they will take the boat back. Let’s just hope he goes.