To complete the widening of the Juliana canal, the waterway will probably be closed for seven months for a length of about four kilometres between Berg and Born in Dutch Limburg from October 2024.
Infrastructure and Water Management Minister Mark Harbers wrote this 19 March 2024 to the Lower House. Due to the closure and draining of the canal section, shipping will be blocked. This will last about seven months. “Businesses will remain accessible in principle, shipping will have to detour considerably because of this,” Harbers said in the letter.
‘October to May’
Work will start in October this year at the latest. Depending on weather conditions, they are expected to be completed in April or May 2025. To complete the widening of the canal, the waterway will be closed over a length of about four kilometres between Berg Bridge and Born Lock. The remaining construction pit can then be removed.
Widening
The work is part of the Maasroute project: upgrading the Ternaaien-Weurt section. The waterway will be made suitable for CEMT class Vb (push convoy with 1×2 longitudinal barges). It involves the last stretch of the canal to be widened. Client Rijkswaterstaat sees no other option than a complete blockage of the Juliana Canal.
Cracked sheet piling
“Widening and deepening the canal while keeping it open for shipping is a challenging and complex task, given the bottom of the canal,” Minister Harbers writes. After an incident with a cracked dam wall, the construction pit filled up in early 2023 and the waterway had to be temporarily closed.
With the unused, 750-metre-long construction pit still there, there is also still a narrow shipping lane. Despite shipping guidance, speed restrictions and various repairs to construction pit and fairway, among other things, the situation is not easily manageable, Harbers wrote to the House of Representatives.
Chemelot
During the work, ships have to detour. The detour route goes via Limmel Lock (Maastricht). If that lock has to close due to high water or malfunction, companies at Chemelot Industrial Park in Geleen will become inaccessible. Belgian authorities have suggested alternatives, according to the Limburg Employers Association, reports NOS, but ‘the answer never came’.
Belgian Meuse
The Juliana Canal is widely used to sail from the Meuse in Liege to the Netherlands. Parties disproportionately affected by the closure can apply to Rijkswaterstaat for compensation. This can be done under Article 4:126 of the General Administrative Law Act and the Infrastructure and Water Management Disadvantage Compensation Policy Rule 2024.
