Judge questions Antwerp dredging for beach village in Zeeland and demands more control
Residents from the vicinity of the Zeeland Perkpolder, United States in the Schone Polder Foundation, approached the Council of State last month. The foundation fears an environmental debacle due to the supply of huge amounts of dredged material for raising the polder. The material comes from the port area of Antwerp and is intended to build a new Zeeland village. There is a fear that the dredged material is sludge.
1500 loads of sand ships
The Hulst municipality, which is responsible for supervision, assumes that the filling material complies with the legislation and regulations. The judge is not sure. In order to prevent “difficult reversible consequences” from occurring in the supply of dredged materials, the Council of State imposes continuing conditions on the transport. Each shipload must be issued to an expert check.
According to the project developer, this concerns 1500 loads that will arrive in the polder from August. For each shipload, it must be kept exactly where the batch comes from. The results must also be made available “as soon as possible” to the municipality of Hulst and to Stichting Schone Polder. Initially, the foundation did not want the entire supply to go through, but the judge does not want to go that far.
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New beach village on Belgian dredge puts Zeeland relations on edge
A new beach village in Zeeland is to be built on land with dredged material from the port of Antwerp. Polluted, investments nearby residents. Proponents see the plan as the last straw.