Progress with the Salt Dam at IJmuiden Locks

The next 5 pieces of the puzzle of the Zoutdam at the IJmuiden Sea Lock are in place!

Last week, the five partition walls of the Zoutdam in IJmuiden were installed in five days. This will close the Binnenspui canal from +1m NAP  to -16m NAP and the letterbox has been created so that the salt water will soon be able to be drained between -16m NAP and the -23m NAP.

Thanks with pride go to the men and women of Van Hattum en Blankevoort and Volker Staal en Funderingen B.V. who made this possible… and of course Bonn en Mees who provided the power with the Matador 3, which had no problem with the walls weighing between 600t and 900t.

And it is not over yet. Next month is ‘Bokken’ month in which the four fish passages will be assembled and finally as the last piece of the puzzle: the pocket door.

To be continued!

Featured photographs courtesy of Ko van Leeuwen and Topview

With thanks to Alex Vijverberg, Projectmanager at 

Editor’s Notes:

• NAP – Normaal Amsterdams Peil is the standard from which heights in the Netherlands are measured. A height of 0 metre is approximately equal to the average sea level of the North Sea.
• The project, when completed, will return the salt water to the North Sea that enters the canal every time a vessel transits the IJmuiden lock complex.