ZUYDER ZEE DRAINED

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 July 1927, Page 3

ZUYDER ZEE DRAINED

9000 SQUARE MILES. Probably the greatest feat of engineering in progress at the present time is that of draining the famous Zuyder Zee, in Holland, in order to reclaim an area of about 9000 square miles. This land is being reclaimed in the truest sense of the word, for we know that as recently as the middle of the 14th. century that part of Holland which is now the Zuyder Zee was dry land. The Dutch have been fighting the sea for centuries. Much of their agricultural land is acutally below sea level, and only protected by dykes, the slopes of which are even used as grazing land or as intensely cultivated gardens, where the famous Dutch bulb industry is carried on. And new land is continually being added to the mainland. Here and there dykes are erected in shallow water, the pumps get to work, and new acres put into service. But never has anything so gigantic been planned or undertaken as the Zuyder Zee scheme. When the work is completed agricultural land equal to one-thirteenth of the present total area of Holland will be’ added to the country. The idea of draining the Zuyder Zee has been put forward repeatedly during the last 50 years. Its advocates said it was the simplest thing imaginable. “All yon have to do,” they said, “is to construct the dyke across the entrance of the sea, drain the water through sluice gates at low tide, pump out the rest, and the work is finished.” The bill to enable this work to be undertaken was, however, passed only in July, 1918. The official inauguration of the undertaking, i.e., the dumping into the water of the first load of earth, took place with much pomp in June, 1920. But the work was taken in hand seriously only in 1924. and since then one mile and a half of the dyke has been completed. The remaining distance is about 21 miles, and it is estimated that 20 years will pass before the last load of clay definitely encloses the Zuyder Zee and the draining can begin. The famous and picturesque fishing villages of Volendam, Hoorn, Edam, and many others, the island of Market), will become agricultural centres. The fishes will be replaced by Friesian cows, and the folks will handle milk pails and butter churns instead of sails and nets. Not altogether, though. For the deepest part of the Zuyder Zee will remain a lake, fresh water replacing the salt, and, it is hoped, trout the herrings. There has been some argument, at times rather heated, over the question whether the new land, which will naturally contain a certain amount of salt, will make rich pastures, and thus repay the tremendous cost of the scheme. But it is rightly pointed out that on previous occasions the land won back from the sea soon changed into “sweet” and fertile ground.