Jan De Nul PHOTO: Prins Hendrik Dike Work Underway

Jan De Nul yesterday kicked off the works for the reinforcement of the Prince Hendrik Sand Dike over a distance of 3 km.

After youth director and Texel resident Rodny Stolk, together with ‘Hoogheemraad’ director Kees Stam and Jan De Nul director Francis Verhees, had sketched a picture of the future, the directors of the cooperating partners poured sand into a large hourglass.

This was the signal for Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger Bartolomeu Dias to start reclaiming the first amounts of sand.

Reclaiming new territory covering 400 football pitches

The project has two main goals: it will create a future-proof water barrier in the form of dunes and it will improve the ecological value ​​of the Wadden Sea, said Jan De Nul.

This has been made possible thanks to the unique cooperation between and the financial contribution of the Water Board ‘Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noordkwartier’, the province of North-Holland, the Ministry of infrastructure, Public Works and Water Management, the municipality of Texel and the Wadden Fund.

The journey of 5 million m³ of sand

The sand is dredged in the North Sea and transported to the project site by the Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger Bartolomeu Dias, where she will reclaim it onto the beach through a floating pipeline.

Bulldozers will subsequently spread the sand on land. The works are expected to be completed by the end of 2019.

The island expansion is created in the Wadden Sea within the Natura 2000 area. Increasing safety and improving the ecological value go hand in hand.

The result will be a diverse area with dunes, a beach, a lagoon with tidal flats, mudflats and saltmarshes, a sheltered water area and high water refuges.

The new territory will offer a new habitat to a large number of animal species that are typical of the Wadden area: grey and common seals, birds such as eider ducks, avocets, ringed plovers, Kentish plovers, oystercatchers, shelducks and red knots.