Rijkswaterstaat is having the broken dam in Maastricht closed with enormous quantities of large stones. These are brought in by ship from Wallonia, Belgium and then packed in huge nets that alone weigh 8.000 kilos. The nets are supplied from Rotterdam. May van de Kerkhof, director of network management Zuid-Nederland at Rijkswaterstaat (RWS), mentioned this as one of the options on Thursday during a visit to Maastricht.
A breach in a spillway dam in Maastricht on Wednesday led to the evacuation of about 30 houseboats. The situation was first reported at 3:15 p.m., and was being treated as a local disaster response by emergency services workers. Spillways are used to adjust water flow by lowering them at a dam so water only flows away at higher levels. The affected spillway is near the Bosscherveld water lock off Stuwweg on the north side of Maastricht. It is managed by infrastructure agency Rijkswaterstaat.
LIVES, a pioneering European project, is tackling the massive problem of plastic in cross-border rivers and streams. So far a staggering 260 tons of waste has been removed.