It's a bit strange canoeing in the brand new nature area, the Volgermeer Polder, just north of Amsterdam. Beneath the ponds lie huge volumes of toxic waste, covered with a thick liner and peat. Eight years after work began to cover the former dump with a natural cap, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander has opened it as a nature area. It's the biggest ever operation in the Netherlands to prevent chemical contamination from seeping into the environment.

The Volgermeer Polder covers an area of 100 hectares, the size of the centre of Amsterdam. At the beginning of last century, peat was dug in the area, leaving behind holes in the landscape. The city council saw the holes as ideal dumps for household rubbish and, in 1927, it became a city dump.

Chemical rubbish
While the peat holes gradually filled with the capital’s waste, various companies in the 1960s began to realise there was a dump there. As a result, 30,000 barrels of chemical waste were illegally disposed of, seriously polluting the soil and ground water.

It was 1980 before the first barrel of chemical waste was discovered. “When it was found, it was actually no longer safe to enter the area,” says project manager Hans van der Pal. Local protests led to the dump closing down in 1981.

North/South Line
Between 2003 and 2010, the Volgermeer Polder underwent a complete face lift. The ecologically-sound solution was to cover the chemical waste with a liner and layers of soil. “There is so much waste here, sometimes up to six metres deep, that we cannot dig it up. So we isolated it with layers of soil,” says Mr van der Pal. The layers of soil collect rainwater which in turn form ponds. As plants die off, organic layers of peat form on the pond beds, which eventually take over the job of the liner.

To cover the waste, 2.5 million cubic metres of soil was needed. This came from various building projects including Amsterdam’s new metro link, the North/South Line.

Recreation
In November 2010, the last lorry-load of earth was delivered. As of 23 April, the Volgermeer Polder will be open to the public for recreational activities, such as cycling, walking, canoeing and horse-riding. Nothing will remind visitors that it used to be a chemical dump.
 

Read more: Natural cap of former chemical dumpsite

 (nc/mw)