The Dutch government approved Friday an unpopular plan to breach dikes and flood a fertile patch of reclaimed farmland in a bid to repair a damaged estuary ecosystem that is home to wildlife including wading birds and seals.
Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said the 300-hectare (740-acre) Hedwige polder in the southern province of Zeeland will be flooded, because his government was unable to find a viable alternative.
Farmers vowed to keep up their fight against the plan.
The plan, which must be approved by parliament, has been fiercely resisted by many in Zeeland who remember a 1953 disaster when dikes broke under the pressure of a high tide and powerful storm, unleashing a flood that killed more than 1,800 people.
"I understand people's feelings in Zeeland," said Balkenende, who hails from the province. "I know how sensitive this issue is and that is why we did everything we could to find an alternative. Sadly we came to the conclusion that it is not possible."
The debate about breaching dikes has resonated beyond the handful of farmers who will lose land. For centuries, the Dutch have been clawing back land from the sea and using it to contribute to the agricultural prosperity of this small nation where one-third of the land is below sea level.
Friday's decision is part of a plan to dredge the Westerschelde river linking the Port of Antwerp with the North Sea. Without deepening the river, the largest container ships can only reach the port at high tide.
In a statement, the government said it will work toward buying the land voluntarily and if that is not possible it will be compulsorily purchased.
"Farmers in the effected area can continue their businesses elsewhere," the government said without elaborating on where in the heavily farmed region that might be possible.
Magda de Feijter, a farmer who has long protested breaching dikes, refused to give up hope.
"We are not done," she told reporters in Zeeland. "We will use all legitimate means to prevent this de-poldering."
The owner, wealthy Belgian industrialist Gery De Cloedt, has said he does not want to sell the land, where he keeps polo ponies and where 20 tenant farmers cultivate potatoes, onions, maize and other crops in the rich clay soil.
De Cloedt's spokesman did not immediately return calls seeking comment Friday, but on Thursday he said De Cloedt would go to court to fight any attempt to make him sell the land.
The Port of Antwerp, which loses an estimated ⁈lion each year because it is not always accessible to the largest container ships, welcomed the decision.
"But we can only really be happy once the dredging work is completed and the biggest ships can reach the harbor more quickly," said Marc Van Peel, Antwerp's port alderman.
Flooding the polder, land reclaimed from the estuary more than a century ago, is meant to help preserve a valuable ecosystem of marshy salt flats that will be altered by dredging. It also is intended to allow the natural habitat to recover from two previous dredgings of the Westerschelde.
Environmentalists support the flooding, saying the estuary is a rare ecosystem that acts as a fast-food restaurant for birds migrating between North Africa and Siberia.
Breaching dikes around the Hedwige polder was part of a 2005 agreement between the Dutch and Belgian authorities on dredging the Westerschelde. However, the Netherlands still has not started the work because it tried to find an alternative. The delay has strained normally friendly relations between the neighbors.
