The weir at Grave has been created. The hole that had appeared in the weir in recent days has been closed again. This is reported by Rijkswaterstaat. It took almost two days to close the hole in the weir. Meanwhile, the water level in the Meuse between Sambeek and Grave continued to fall.
Shortly after ten o’clock Saturday evening the redeeming word came: the bulkheads in the weir of Grave are back in place. Water no longer flows from the weir. And the water level in the Maas between Sambeek and Grave will therefore slowly rise again.
Yokes damaged
The problems started Friday morning, during maintenance work. Two yokes were damaged. These are the piles between which the gates of a weir hang. This allows the slides to open and close. A weir has several of those movable gates, which can let more or less water through. In this way the water level in the river can be controlled.
The baffle that had been set up to carry out the work on the weir was sucked into the hole that had been created. Meanwhile, the water from the weir flowed out of that hole. As a result, the water level in the Maas fell.
Shipping traffic on the Maas was immediately halted. And because the water level continued to fall, more problems were lurking. For example in marinas. Locks in the area were closed and inland shipping had to take detours and long delays into account.
Huge water pressure
It was very difficult to get that baffle out of the hole again, because of the enormous water pressure on it. That only worked on Saturday. Then the yokes also had to be put back in place. To ensure that the water pressure was slightly less high, the other gates of the weir were also opened.
This caused the water level in the Meuse to drop even more than it already did. But on Saturday evening we managed to put those yokes back in place. And once those yokes were in place, the bulkheads could also be put back in place. And with that, the hole is closed and the water level in the Maas can therefore rise again.
3 centimeters per hour
It will take some time before the water level is back to normal. According to Nico Evens of the Koninklijke Binnenvaart Nederland, the water in the Maas can rise by about three centimeters per hour. At that rate, the Maas will not be properly navigable again for inland skippers until Monday, he thinks.