After a busy Christmas weekend, the Drents Overijsselse Delta water board (WDODelta) in Drenthe can take a breather. Due to the lack of precipitation, the shelf drains more water than it adds and the water level drops. “We think we will be working on the removal for another one or two weeks,” says Gerner spokesperson Herald.
Last Christmas was a lot of hard work for the employees and volunteers of the water board. Not only were the pumping stations running at full speed, but it was also all hands on deck to ensure optimal drainage of excess water. “Our employees were busy, among other things, keeping culverts and the passages between ditches clean. The abundant water released a lot of floating debris, which sometimes clogs divers.”
City canal Zwolle
The water board is also alert in Zwolle: the water in the city canal is very high there, as a result of the water supply via the IJssel, the Vecht and the Sallandse wetering. In Drenthe it is mainly precipitation that causes nuisance. “But the rain largely did not materialize on Tuesday and Wednesday and this is immediately reflected in the drainage of water. In the head of Overijssel and in southwest Drenthe we can now drain water without adding more water,” Van Gerner explains. “In the past period it regularly happened that more water was added than we could drain.”
In Dalfsen, the water board had to install an extra pump at the sewage treatment plant, because after cleaning the water could no longer be pumped into the Vecht in the usual way. “But our sewage treatment plants in Drenthe do not have that problem.”
Zedemuden
In Zwartsluis, the Zedemuden pumping station, which pumps excess water from the Meppelerdiep into the Zwartewater, was running at full speed. This has now been reduced to 70 percent of capacity. Zedemuden, the second largest pumping station in the Netherlands, is very important for keeping Meppel dry.