New defences safeguard Baltrum against floods

The Baltrum project has involved the creation of a 1.4km long protective flood barrier with 14 breakwaters, 7km of dunes and 1.6km of dykes. At the western end of the island, the new barriers also carry an attractive seafront promenade.

Officials said 15,000 tons of stone were transported to the North Sea island, which lies just off the northern coast of Lower Saxony. It included special granite from Portugal and stone from Norway.

The German Coastal Defence Authority NLWKN, which is responsible for the federal state’s dykes and barrages, said 350 tons of sheet piling was also placed and 20,000cu/m of earth moved. The work was carried out by a consortium grouping Tell ABu GmbH in Norden und Colcrete-von Essen GmbH & Co. KG Spezial-Wasserbau in Rastede.

Half of the cost of the work came from the EU’s regional development fund and the rest from Lower Saxony which last year invested a total of €73m in its coastal defences.

State Minister of the Environment Hans-Heinrich Sander said the Baltrum work had closed the last gap in the state’s coastal defences. That’s no mean feat because there are 1,143km of dykes along Lower Saxony’s extensive North Sea coasts, tidal estuaries and islands and some 14% of the state is seen as flood endangered.

In work that started in 2007, all the dykes are being raised by half a metre because of climate change warnings. The NLWKN said the lowest dyke currently was at Cuxhaven and stood about 6m high while the highest, near Norden in East Frisia, is 9m in height.

By Tom Todd