Residents of Groningen and Drenthe have been paying for discharges of polluted water in the Wadden area for years.
Residents of the Hunze and Aa’s water board appear to be paying for almost half of the costs of the ‘lubrication pipe’ with which Groningen companies discharge their waste water into the Eems, Dollard and ultimately into the Wadden Sea.
The Veenkoloniale Afvalwaterleiding (VKA), as the pipe is officially called, is owned by Hunze en Aa’s. Between 2011 and 2022, the water board spent 4.3 million euros on usage and maintenance costs. The five companies that use the pipeline exclusively contributed only 2.3 million euros. The residents of Hunze and Aa’s paid the remaining 2 million through the water board tax.
The discharging companies are starch manufacturer Avebe and plastics producer Plixxent in Foxhol, salt processors Nedmag and Kisuma in Veendam and Google’s data center in Eemshaven. This newspaper revealed last year that hundreds of kilos of heavy metals disappear into the Dollard and the Wadden Sea every year through the VKA. These substances are mainly found in Nedmag’s waste water: they also include harmful mercury and lead.
The VKA costs lead to endless discussions between the discharging companies, the Hunze and Aa’s water board and the province of Groningen. After at least eight years of consultation, it has still not been decided exactly how the bill should be divided. The direct consequence is that a large part of the costs has been borne by residents of Groningen and Drenthe for years.
The water board does not believe it is right for citizens to pay financially for the VKA, and has wanted the companies themselves to contribute more for years. In 2016, Hunze and Aa’s went to court. Costs ‘are passed on to the residents of the water board’, the water board argued in court at the time, ‘… which is unjustified, because only the companies use the VKA’.
The court ruled that the discharge of waste water by companies is not a ‘public task’ that belongs to a water board. The companies would therefore have to pay a covering compensation. Hunze and Aa’s and the companies should discuss this together, the judge advised.
It is now eight years later, the water board is still the owner and citizens continue to pay for industrial discharges. Why is it all taking so long?
Press the kettle
“We just want to get rid of it. Point.” Dijkgraaf Geert-Jan ten Brink of Hunze and Aa’s also pays water board tax. And because he lives in his ‘own’ water board, he contributes to the VKA himself. However, because the annual deficit of an average of 170,000 euros is spread over all residents, it is only a small amount, he says.
“At my house you are talking about an extra 75 cents per year. And a single household pays a quarter. So that’s just for perspective. But apart from that, we think it is from a principled point of view not done that taxpayers pay costs that companies incur.”
As owner of the VKA, the water board can put pressure on the discharging companies. And that is what happens initially, after the court ruling in 2016.
Although the judge then rules that the companies should be given enough time to prepare for a cost increase, or perhaps closure of the VKA, the companies do not agree with the ruling. They say they plan to file an appeal.
But in 2017, the water board announced that discharge via the VKA will be stopped as of January 1, 2022. The companies should come up with an alternative before then.
In the meantime, the province of Groningen would not like to see the VKA disappear, because the companies connected to the pipe are important for employment. The provincial government wants a ‘supported solution’ that everyone can agree with.
So the province starts an investigation to determine how the pipe can continue to exist without the citizen paying for it. In 2019, those researchers concluded that ownership would best be transferred to Groningen Seaports, the port manager of Delfzijl and Eemshaven.
Seaports also believes it is important that the VKA is there. Without this pipe, for example, it would not have been possible to bring Google’s data center to Eemshaven. The data center needs to get rid of its cooling water, and this is possible thanks to the nearby VKA.
And then there are the ambitions to turn Groningen into a hydrogen province. Hydrogen that may be produced in the Eemshaven and perhaps be stored in the underground salt caverns near Veendam. Now let the VKA lie exactly in between.
But at the end of 2020, Seaports will withdraw. Whoever owns the VKA is ‘allowed’ to maintain or replace the pipe. But it does not legally give the right to expand the route with a new tube. If this is the case, the port manager concludes, then there is no added value for us to become owners.
Impasse
And so, four years after the judge’s ruling, nothing changes at all. According to the judgment, the discharge of industrial water is not a task for Hunze and Aa’s, but it still happens. It will be 2021. That year, the residents of the water board will pay 189,000 euros for the VKA through their taxes. For comparison: the discharging companies together pay 146,000 euros.
The province and the water board want to break the impasse. There will be another investigation. That same year, this led to an agreement of intent between companies, the province and the water board.
The companies say they will abandon their appeal and are prepared to jointly bear all costs as of January 1, 2022. They will also jointly reserve 10 million euros to replace the VKA when necessary. Once all this has been arranged, the companies will be assured that they can use the pipe for a maximum of 40 years.
When January 1, 2022 has passed, little seems to have happened. The ball is in the court of the discharging companies: they must first agree how they will divide the costs among themselves. Only then can the water board transfer ownership.
‘Do not disrupt the process’
But to this day, the companies cannot reach an agreement. Questions from this newspaper to the three companies with the largest water discharges to the VKA appear to be in vain. Nedmag ‘does not want to respond substantively so as not to disrupt the process.’
Google, owner of the Greenbox data center in Eemshaven, only wants to say that it is ‘a complex file’. Avebe: ‘The process of developing the agreements is still ongoing.’
There is an obvious reason why companies appear to be in little hurry: they will pay more for their water discharge after the transfer of the VKA. Because they also have to save for maintenance or replacement of the pipeline, their joint costs will increase by hundreds of thousands per year. That is not exactly an incentive to quickly reach an agreement.
Harm Küpers, secretary-director of the Hunze en Aa’s water board and who has also been working on the VKA issue for years, points to other complications. For example, most companies discharging into the pipe are (partly) foreign owned. “I also sat down with Google myself. When things got complicated, Ireland or America always had to be called.”
The Groningen companies therefore always need the blessing of their foreign parent companies in discussions about cost sharing, Küpers expects. “And then: what do you base the cost allocation on? How much water do you actually discharge? Or the maximum you can get according to the permit allowed discharge?”
Last year, fiber optic manufacturer NEG went bankrupt. The company in Westerbroek discharged to the VKA. With the disappearance of NEG, a co-financier for the pipe also disappeared. That will not make the conversations between the remaining companies any easier, Küpers thinks.
Another thing: not every company uses the same number of kilometers from the VKA. “We see companies discussing the location of the connection. Google is at the very end, it only uses a small part. Nedmag has a completely different interest here. These kinds of things all play a role.”
Province becomes owner
Who will be the owner of the VKA, as successor to the water board? It is not stated in black and white in the declaration of intent, but the province of Groningen has already agreed to take over the pipe.
The VKA is there and will remain there, as far as deputy Henk Emmens is concerned. For the time being, the pipe is indispensable for the affiliated companies, where “roughly eight hundred people” directly or indirectly earn their livelihood.
“We do feel responsible for the companies, in the sense that they must be able to continue to exist. This pipeline must remain in place as long as there is no other solution for the discharge. But I think the users of the pipe should pay the full cost.”
In other words, residents will no longer pay for discharges into the Dollard and Wadden Sea as soon as the province becomes the VKA owner. And if something unexpected happens to the pipe, the province will advance the costs, but the companies have to pay them back.
Provincial official Klaas Stadens: “We have never found out whether we are legally obliged to do this, but put the interests of the companies and employment first. We want to reach an amicable solution. That is our position to this day.”
No deadline has ever been agreed upon by which the companies must complete their cost allocation. Stadens: “I don’t dare say now how fast it will go. The province will only take over when the companies are out. So now we are kind of waiting for each other.”
But putting pressure is not up to the province, says Deputy Emmens. “The leverage lies with the water board. The situation is now tolerated, but we have asked the water board and the companies to hurry.”
Knife between the teeth
Dijkgraaf Ten Brink does not intend to impose a deadline. “The companies just need a little more time. Then you can do two things: talk straight through, or respect that.”
He predicts that the transfer of the VKA will take place this year, “or at the latest in 2025”. “We are now in a phase where it will simply be arranged.”
Ten Brink is therefore waiting for the discussions between the companies. This is also in line with how the province is acting on the issue, he says. “We followed the council of the Provincial Executive. They are the driving force behind this. They have asked for space. And we have given that space. That’s how it is.”
Want to contribute to discharges yourself? ‘Bizarre’
According to member of parliament Dries Zwart (Party for the North), the Provincial Council of Groningen has never been informed about the significant contribution of residents to the VKA. He emphasizes that the water board must do everything to spare citizens and place costs where they are incurred.
“At a time when we insist that the polluter pays for their own waste, this cost ratio is worrying.”
Member of Parliament Stijn ten Hoeve (Party for the Animals), who lives in the Hunze and Aa’s area, calls it “bizarre” that she now indirectly contributes to the discharges.
According to her, it illustrates that “companies are not prevented from polluting.” Her party wants the dischargers to stop further burdening the environment.