The controversy over the planned deepening of the Elbe River (Germany)

Transcription

1 The controversy over the planned deepening of the Elbe River (Germany) GEO Water Policy, Governance and Law Frederic Klimm (F130302)

2 Introduction The Elbe River is one of the major water streets in Europe. Especially its lowermost part, the Lower Elbe, is of crucial economic importance. Hamburg, a 1.7 million inhabitant city, is the biggest metropolitan area along the river and its port is the second biggest in Europe, and the 14 th biggest worldwide 1. The port of Hamburg is more than 100 km away from the mouth of the Elbe River into the North Sea, which leads to the problem that the river has to bear the increasing amount and the increasing size of ships with destination Hamburg. To deal with this situation, the river experienced several artificial deepening steps during the last centuries. Another deepening plan was introduced in , but is temporarily stopped after an indictment of several nature conservancy associations. Together with local residents, the associations took legal actions against the plans of government, economy, and the Hamburg Port Authority. The German Federal Administrative Court stopped the planned deepening until the consequences of the project for nature will be investigated properly. This essay shall discuss the controversy of the deepening of the river Elbe and assess the plans made by economy and politic. History of the deepening of the Elbe River Tab. 1: Deepening steps of the River Elbe and period of time in which they took place 3. Period of time of deepening New depth of the river (according to NAP) m m m m m m m m The port of Hamburg has been of major significance for Germany s second biggest city for more than 800 years. Along with increasing industrialization came higher frequencies and bigger sizes of ships. Since the port of Hamburg was connected to the North Sea only by the flat Elbe River (Fig. 1), several steps of deepening of the river took place over the last 200 years (Tab. 1). The original depth of the river in Hamburg was lower than 5 m. Stepwise excavation led to a depth of 16.8 m in Hamburg s city center in This enables ships with a maximum depth of 12.8 m to enter the port of Hamburg. It is remarkable that the frequency of new deepening steps has increased over the centuries. A new deepening of the Elbe River takes place in average every ten years nowadays. Before the last deepening was finished in 1999, new plans for the ninth excavation appeared. The plan included another increase in the depth of the river, allowing ships with a depth of 13.5 m to head for 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 Ibid.

3 Hamburg 4. The digging work on the river bed should affect 70 % of the area between Hamburg and the mouth of the Elbe River. Furthermore, downstream from Hamburg, a broadening of the river of 20 m is planned to enable big container ships to pass each other. The implementation will take about two years, taking breaks due to spawning and brooding times of animals into account 5. As a major reason for the new plan the increasing number of container ships with a high depth was stated. This plan was suspended by a court in 2012 due to legal actions of three nature conservancy associations (BUND, Nabu, WWF) until the impacts of a possible deepening on the fauna and flora of the Elbe River will be investigated 6. Fig. 1: Geographical overview of the Lower Elbe River (blue), the City of Hamburg, and the Port of Hamburg (white) 7. Positive and negative aspects of the deepening A great controversy set the tone for the ninth deepening of the Elbe, as soon as these plans became public. The parties that have fought against each other for now more than ten years are nature conservancy associations, local authorities, and local residents (including farmers and fishers), on the one side; and economy, Hamburg Port Authority, and politicians from the three involved federal states (Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, except from the Green Party) as well as from the national government, on the other side. The main argument of the supporters of the deepening is the economic significance of the Port of Hamburg for the city, the region, and even the country. At the present day, more than 150,000 people s jobs depend on the Port. It contributes 15 % to the annual GDP of the Federal State of Hamburg, and 700 million Euro taxes per year. As one of the economical driving forces of Northern Germany, the future of the port strongly depends on its importance 4 Elbvertiefung setzt Hamburger Hafen Grenzen, Die Welt, (download from 5 Was bringt die Elbvertiefung?, NDR, (download from 6 Verbände sollten Klage gegen Elbvertiefung zurückziehen, Kieler Nachrichten, (download from 7 Google Earth,

4 in global shipping, and therefore on the connection to the North Sea. Without another deepening, so the argumentation of the supporters, Hamburg will lose its leading role in the global shipping economy, which will endanger a lot of jobs 8. Supporters hope that by excavating the river, the new generation of giant container ships will be able to reach Hamburg fully loaded. By now, they just can arrive in the hanseatic city if they are only partly loaded. This is a clear disadvantage over the big European seaports like Rotterdam, Zeebrugge, and Antwerp. Furthermore, Hamburg s port is strongly tidal dependent. Ships can only start at the port in a time window of about 60 minutes, which often leads to delays. After the excavation, this time window is expected to increase to two hours. Overall, the planners hope for additional jobs from the deepening 9. Moreover, they argue that as a result of a deeper river, emission of pollutants will decrease due to less truck traffic and more eco-friendly shipping 10. Conservationists hold against these arguments. According to them, the negative effects on nature outweigh the positive economical effects by far. The deepening of the river would be the biggest intervention into the river bed for 50 years; the Elbe, now one of Germany s biggest bio reservation areas, is in danger of becoming a sewer or a shipping canal Already after the last deepening of the river, a major fish dying due to a shortage of oxygen occurred. It is very likely to happen that another excavation will strengthen this process. Another argument of the conservationists is that at present day, hardly ever fully loaded ships enter the port of Hamburg, which makes another deepening superfluous 11. Local authorities, especially at Lower Saxony (south to the river) argue that deepening steps of the Elbe are likely to become a never ending story, and that to switch on other ports, e. g. the new founded seaport of Wilhelmshaven would be a better alternative. The controversy about the recent excavation shows, that the port of Hamburg has reached its natural limits 12. A study provided by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment gives evidence, that the ecosystem Elbe has almost reached its tipping point and that even smaller interventions can have major consequences for the aquatic system, the flora, and the fauna 13. Finally, the opponents argue that another deepening contradicts the non-deterioration law that is stated in the EU Water Framework Directive 14 as well as the Natura 2000 program of the EU. Legal Aspects Two legal documents affect the plans of the deepening of the Lower Elbe: The Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Natura Based on these documents, the nature conservancy associations substantiated their complaint at the court. 8 Vertiefung für Megafrachter: Gutachten warnt vor schweren ökologischen Schäden für die Elbe, Der Spiegel, (downloaded from 9 Was bringt die Elbvertiefung?, NDR, (download from 10 Elbvertiefung: Schlagabtausch mit Umweltschützern, NDR, (downloaded from 11 Ibid. 12 Elbvertiefung setzt Hamburger Hafen Grenzen, Die Welt, (download from 13 Vertiefung für Megafrachter: Gutachten warnt vor schweren ökologischen Schäden für die Elbe, Der Spiegel, (downloaded from 14 BUND sieht gute Chancen für Verbot der Elbvertiefung, Hamburger Abendblatt, (downloaded from

5 One part of the WFD defines environmental objectives to protect the aquatic ecosystems and legitimate use 15. The non-deterioration principle acts here as a main objective regarding surface waters. Non-deterioration means: Preservation of a good chemical and a good ecological status of surface water, i. e. the meeting of all environmental quality standards for chemicals on EU level, as well as the protecting of associated surface waters and the ecosystem. Article 4 (1) and (3) state that for artificial or heavily modified surface water bodies, the main goal is to achieve an appropriate ecological potential. One way to achieve the environmental objectives is to assess the impact of significant man-made actions on surface water bodies 16. According to BUND, Nabu, and WWF, this was not given at the planned deepening of the Elbe. But also the supporters of the deepening back their plans up with the WFD: Article 4 (7) states that additional modifications that lead to deterioration of the ecosystem s status are allowed if the benefits of the development outweighs the benefits of achieving the environmental goals of the WFD or if the development is of prior public interest 17. Natura 2000, a Europe-wide network of nature protection areas, aims to guarantee the survival of the most endangered and valuable species and habitats. Natura 2000 areas are neither national parks nor pure nature zones without any human action, but they represent areas integrated into a reduced human sphere of influence. Protected sites included in Natura 2000 are bird sites (Directive 79/409/EEC) and habitat sites (Directive 92/43/EEC) 18. Natura 2000 sites located in the area of the planned deepening of the Lower Elbe are shown in figure 2. The entire Lower Elbe Area downstream Hamburg is labeled as habitat site and bird protection site. According to the nature conservancy associations, the excavation plans, again, stand in contradiction to the legal framework provided by EU law and adapted to German law. Fig. 2: Natura 2000 sites in the Lower Elbe area. Habitat sites are coloured in yellow, bird sites are coloured in pink Introduction to the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), European Commission, 2012 (PDF downloaded from 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid ( ) 19 ( )

6 Current situation In 2011, the European Commission has given its permission for the deepening of the Elbe, although this would lead to massive negative impacts on the nature, especially the Natura 2000 sites². They justified their decision with the usage of article 4 (7) of the WFD: The public interest of this project outweighs the ecological arguments. As a consequence of this statement, BUND, Nabu, and WWF started legal action against the project. On October 17, 2012 the project was stopped by the German Federal Administrative Court until more detailed research regarding the effects of another deepening of the river will be done. At this stage, the national government involved themselves into the conflict. The transport minister lamented that nature conservancy associations in Germany would use legal action by far too often, and sometimes only for ideological reasons. He also feared that major shipping companies especially from Arabia and Southeast Asia could quit their contracts with the port of Hamburg and start to cooperate with Rotterdam and Antwerp instead. Base for his fear was the retreat of China Shipping from the cooperation with Hamburg as a result of the court s judgment short before 20. Temporarily, the planned deepening of the Lower Elbe is stopped. In the meantime, more resistance against the project has risen especially in Lower Saxony, the federal state south to the river. Never a total supporter of the project, things changed after the election of 2013: The former government from conservatives and liberals was replaced by the labour party and the green party 21. Furthermore, municipalities like the city of Cuxhaven announced their resistance against the project because of doubts regarding environmental as well as touristic issues. Recently it came to light that the city of Hamburg has problems in funding their portrelated projects which also concerned the excavation plans 22. Assessment The excavation of the Lower Elbe between the North Sea and the port of Hamburg has occupied the politic and economy for more than ten years. The growing resistance against the project shows that, even though the responsible parties will be able to win the process and will carry out this next deepening, it might become even more difficult for possible future deepening plans. A look at the history of excavations of the river (Tab. 1) shows that this next step of excavation will certainly be not the last one. With increasing size and amount of ships entering the port of Hamburg, other deepening steps are likely to become necessary from the point of view of politic and economy. With the knowledge of this, local residents, nature conservancy associations, politicians, and economists should ask themselves if the river Elbe, that is already high polluted, is able to deal with human actions at an increasing rate of impact. In my opinion, the present strategy of excavating and pollute an already sensitive 20 Verbände sollten Klage gegen Elbvertiefung zurückziehen, Kieler Nachrichten, (download from 21 Elbvertiefung setzt Hamburger Hafen Grenzen, Die Welt, (download from 22 Hamburgs Hafenprojekte drohen am Geld zu scheitern, Hamburger Abendblatt, (downloaded from

7 ecosystem is extremely unsustainable. Also, it contradicts existing European law. In my opinion the court has done right to decide the way they did since it eventually does contradict the law and is for sure not the most sustainable way of solving the problem. As the prime minister of Lower Saxony said: The controversy over the prospected deepening of the Elbe shows that the port of Hamburg reaches its natural limits. 23 The port of Hamburg is the city s most important economical support; more than 150,000 jobs depend on the port. These jobs need to be guaranteed, but also the environmental significance of a healthy ecosystem Lower Elbe must be taken into account. An option to ensure both with compromises is to adapt the strategy that the city of Bremen applied in the 19 th century: Because of the increasing siltation of the city s harbor, they bought land at the North Sea and constructed a new port: The city of Bremerhaven which is today one of the major ports in the North Sea region. Bremen also has some problems with a planned deepening of the Weser River, but these problems are small compared to the challenges the port of Hamburg faces. Instead of constructing a new port, it would be economical and ecological more sustainable for the municipality to invest in an already existing port. One potential port is already given: The Jade-Weser-Port of Wilhelmshaven; a major project of the states of Lower Saxony Bremen, and Hamburg (in the early project stage) that was opened in It is Germany s only deepwater port and recently has suffered from bad utilization. This port, which is accessible for ships with a depth of m 24 has at least some infrastructure and could in the future be a reasonable alternative to relieve the port of Hamburg, making a deepening of the Lower Elbe River unnecessary. Conclusion In many ways, the plans for another deepening of the Lower Elbe between Cuxhaven and Hamburg are unsustainable. On the one hand, the city of Hamburg, facing financial problems, strongly depends on its port that provides more than 150,000 jobs and is one of the biggest ports worldwide. On the other hand, more interventions into the ecosystem Lower Elbe will cause serious environmental damage. Moreover, these interventions contravene the EU law. The municipality of Hamburg is recommended to look for alternatives. A potential alternative is here the already constructed, but widely unused deepwater port in Wilhelmshaven. 23 Elbvertiefung setzt Hamburger Hafen Grenzen, Die Welt, (download from 24 Ibid.