The Zuiderzeewet - the Act that enabled the building of the Afsluitdijk and the building of the polders, or reclaimed land.
This week marks the 100 Year anniversary of the passing of that Act.
Although it was passed in 1918, the plan had been developing for at least 70 years before the engineer Lely finally had his plan accepted.
It is interesting to read the politics of the day - in 1901, the "water" Minister was not convinced of the technical possibilities of the plan and so it was withdrawn.
Governments came and went and eventually in 1913, Lely himself became a Minister and began the process of implementation.
But then came the First World War in which the Netherlands remained neutral, but not without incurring other priorities - declaring and maintaining neutrality, accepting refugees, and feeding its own people.
It was decided to begin as soon as possible after the war - but the changing nature of warfare itself also had implications for the plan of draining the Zuiderzee. It was soon realised that the centuries-old "Water Line" defences of the Netherlands would no longer have any value. People began to look at coupling the drainage plan with other defence plans - but Lely was able to ensure that his plan was not side-tracked. He argued that the plan should be first carried out and then think about what was needed to protect the country.
And, there was also a disastrous flood in 1916 - this helped the argument that the Zuiderzee should be closed off.

A "trial" dyke was built in 1925, with much being learnt for the 32km long Afsluitdijk, which was started in 1927.
The closing of the Zuiderzee had enormous consequences for the more than 3000 fishing vessels of the time. Whole communities were dependent on fishing, but their protests don't appear to have achieved anything - except a minor compensation of 60 guilders!.
The following video is in Dutch but it does give an idea of conditions at the time - for fishermen and dyke builders...
This story first caught my eye not only because of the 100-year celebrations but also because of what was perhaps an unintended consequence. (maybe it was part of the long-term plan, but I haven't read it anywhere - the plan seemed to be more about producing more food to become self-sufficient and to reduce the effects of flooding).
Matthijs Kok, a Professor of Water Security at TU Delft (University) says that the Netherlands has a "rare commodity" in the (now) fresh water of the Ijsselmeer. "Without the Zuiderzee Act we would still be holding back the saltwater - now we have fresh water for the taking" - about 9.66 cubic kilometres.
It is all the more interesting having been through one of the polders at snail's pace with the boat.
More reading (in English) can be found here...
https://www.100jaarzuiderzeewet.com/?lang=en
In other news...
Dorpsfeest 2018 (Ye Olde Village Fair)
Janny takes our clients to the Bingo event...
and snack food lunch back at the farm
What a diet will do... Janny lost 14kgs!
(but this was for the PlayBack Show - something with Zombies)
Fitted insect screens to the boat.
and had a scare with the fridge - but it was just a loose wire caused by me as I added more USB ports. (We have an unlimited data plan from KPN - ideal for the boat! - we have a laptop, 2 tablets and 2 phones connected to it as I write this).
Planning a new table arrangement...
Maybe something like this...
Another winter job to go with sorting out the diesel tank and the ever-present rust spots.
Asbestos Roofing
The BIG NEWS from this week is that we received our first quote on removing our acres of asbestos roofing. Still not sure how it is to be paid for; the "official" government view is that "you have had 30 years to plan for it", notwithstanding the Economic Crisis in between.
The quote is based on removal and replacement - our first reaction was "when can you start?" as it seemed to be reasonable - the company organises the permits, including arranging any subsidies that apply (at least the Government is prepared to help out in this regard).
All our current projects would immediately go on hold. We need to find temporary accommodation for the people in the apartments, maybe stop with work for a couple of weeks; we have also to determine just what work I (we) can do ourselves - new ceilings and painting, for example.
We've been driving around looking at all the buildings with a new roof...this one took our fancy - different colour and metal sheets with a roof tile pattern/shape (instead of the traditional farm building corrugated sheets).
and so, off to work. The first job is to make some room (somewhere???!) to store all the furniture!
Ben has been working again in Guangzhou... doing lots of hours! and they were allowed to have fun on the job!
You need to tidy up the bottles of whiskey & wine on the boat too!!!
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