The drought summer clearly demonstrated the bottlenecks in shipping caused by low water. There have long been plans to remedy this. At the meeting of the transport ministers, the states want to put pressure on the federal government – especially Baden-Württemberg.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – After the problems in shipping due to the low water in the drought summer, Baden-Württemberg wants to put pressure on the federal government at the conference of transport ministers next week to expand the Rhine as quickly as possible. The project “Unloading optimization of the fairways” on the Middle Rhine is “the most urgent measure to remove bottlenecks to strengthen the resilience of freight shipping in Baden-Württemberg to low water events,” says the Stuttgart Ministry of Transport in response to an application by the FDP in the state parliament.
The project, which costs around 60 million euros, should result in ships being able to load around 200 tons more at low tide. To this end, the fairway is to be deepened from 1.90 meters to 2.10 meters at low tide. It is not certain when this will be implemented.
The proposed decision for the ministerial meeting on October 12th and 13th in Bremerhaven with the request to the Federal Ministry of Transport to implement the project as soon as possible is supported by all federal states, it said. Christian Jung, spokesman for transport policy for the FDP in the state parliament and party colleague of federal department head Volker Wissing, explained that it would be good if the federal government was reminded of its obligations, among other things, when it came to upgrading the Rhine. “In the summer we painfully experienced how the loads had to be significantly reduced.”
In the summer, the Rhine had so little water due to the drought that freight ships had serious problems and had to sail with less cargo. The water level near Kaub between Mainz and Koblenz, which is important for the Middle Rhine, reached a value of 31 centimeters on August 15.
Almost all freight shipping in Baden-Württemberg on the Rhine, Main and Neckar is affected by the low water on the Rhine, according to the response from the Ministry of Transport. There is still no comprehensive data for the entire low water period. However, some ports expect the volume of goods handled to decrease by 25 percent in 2022.
The Baden-Württemberg freight transport concept documents the growing role of shipping: This assumes that transport performance via rivers will increase by 25 percent by 2030 compared to 2010. With the necessary investments, more would be possible from the point of view of FDP politician Jung: “It is very clear to me that the waterway has considerable future potential.”
