Actual Water Shortage Day also marked the launch of a new face in the media. It belongs to Michèle Blom, director-general of Rijkswaterstaat and chairman of the National Water Distribution Coordination Committee (LCW), until the outbreak of the Actual Water Shortage by me, at least not before broadcast wide. She was brought in by the public broadcasters as the Dutch hope in frightened days and played her part with verve.
Good that she sounded the alarm on behalf of the government, and how professionally she gave one journalist after another the same answers to the same questions. When I was at the NOS News had recovered from the initial shock, Blom stated that shipping and agriculture in particular are affected. ‘There is less water in the rivers, there is less ballast in the ships and therefore they can sail less,’ Blom explained to the reporter. Clear language. The reporter did not ask further about the consequences for agriculture – let the farmers find out for themselves, he may have thought. What about drinking water? Blom hushed: ‘The drinking water is not in danger, I really want to emphasize that, it is not in danger. The drinking water companies take care of that twenty-four-seven.’
Throughout the evening, despite those reassuring words, there was heightened vigilance. news hour came up with a report on options for saving water. Producing ten thousand liters of drinking water from seawater: this is already possible in a Scheveningen test container. Unfortunately, it was not disclosed whether this is per year, day or hour. Another drop in the ocean: a urinal with a fountain on it. This can be turned away to release the urinal. After business is done, the user places the fountain back and washes his hands, with that water also flushing the urinal. Pwc, a pee-wash combination, is the name of the invention.
Blom’s calming words and the in news hour beckoning perspectives had not yet penetrated to a moment later On 1-presenter Tijs van den Brink, who started the broadcast alarmistically with: ‘Can we still take a shower and do the dishes?’ The seasoned water expert Piet Verdonschot did not express his displeasure without cynicism. He had already lived through the drought crisis of 1976, and since then ‘little has been done’ at the policy level.
Back to Blom, who was on Radio 1 at With a view to tomorrow after that long day off the cuff, Coen Verbraak spoke once more. She agreed that the ‘water community’ will be ready in the coming weeks and that she has the situation ‘in the snot’. Moreover, the IJsselmeer has been ‘set up’: extra water reserves have already been built with foresight.
The Afsluitdijk suddenly loomed in my mind’s eye, where traffic has been moving at a walking pace for years due to dramatically delayed reinforcement work under the responsibility of Bloms Rijkswaterstaat. The unrest from earlier Wednesday was back: can the dike handle such a raised lake?