It lasted more than 20 years, the ninth deepening and widening of the fairway on the Lower Elbe, from the first preliminary planning to the official completion in January 2022. But the hoped-for increase in draft of up to 1.90 meters cost around 800 million euros expensive hydraulic engineering project of the federal government has not yet been completed, but only a maximum of 90 centimeters. The responsible federal waterway administration attributes this to adjustment effects in the river, but also to weather phenomena such as particularly strong storm surges and too little water from the course of the Upper Elbe.
The environmental associations Nabu, BUND and WWF, on the other hand, disagree that what their experts predicted is now happening: the enlargement of the fairway accelerates the entry of sediment into the river. Before the Federal Administrative Court, the associations had tried in vain to prevent the Elbe deepening. Malte Siegert, 57, chairman of Nabu Hamburg, told WELT AM SONNTAG what an environmentally friendly river and port policy should look like for his association.
WELT AM SONNTAG: Mr. Siegert, the activists of the “last generation” stick themselves to the streets or airport runways, with sometimes significant and dangerous consequences for traffic or public life. Do you understand this form of protest?
Malte Siegert: I understand that people despair because nature, biodiversity and climate stability are being destroyed continuously and at an ever increasing rate. The political efforts for effective climate protection are clearly insufficient. Many feel powerless in the face of this. Nevertheless, this type of protest must not be used as a means of confrontation. You have to stick to the rule of law. In Germany we have many opportunities to get involved socially and politically, for example through peaceful demonstrations. With latent taboo breaches, that’s not the right way. This type of protest is also not conducive to our serious goals, which we represent as environmental organizations and for which we have received increasing social and political support in recent years. Actions like those of the “Last Generation” may alienate those who support our work. We can set ourselves apart from that.
WELT M SONNTAG: You advocate your issues politically, legally and with scientific data. Do you feel triumphant because the environmental organizations were right in their forecasts in this regard?
Siegert: No, that’s a reason for sadness. We feel confirmed in an ecological disaster that we predicted ten years ago – which at the time, however, nobody in charge of the federal government and the state of Hamburg wanted to hear. A tidal system like the Lower Elbe cannot be controlled by humans. The water develops its own dynamics, and this will continue to be the case in the future. It therefore makes no sense to try to dredge up the growing amounts of sediment. A joint process for sediment management must be coordinated between Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and the federal government. It is a scandal and a weakness of the federal system that those involved have not even considered it organizationally.
WELT AM SONNTAG: What could a concept for silt or sediment management look like that meets the needs of the port industry, those bordering the Lower Elbe and nature conservation?
Siegert: Nothing has been achieved with the recent deepening of the Elbe. On the contrary, it is counterproductive because it increases the cost of dredging and moving the sediment even further. One could certainly talk about widening the fairway in places in the sense of nautical improvements for the Port of Hamburg, but not about deepening it, because that only serves to maximize profits for the shipping companies at the expense of nature. Sediment management must have the least possible impact on the environment and the Wadden Sea National Park must enjoy the greatest possible protection. It would therefore be unacceptable for Hamburg harbor silt to be deposited on the Scharhörn island off Cuxhaven, which belongs to Hamburg and has since been discarded. And the most recent dogged dispute between the federal states of Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein showed how poisoned the climate on the subject has become.
WELT AM SONNTAG: Lower Saxony has discussed a deposit area at the so-called deep-sea roadstead near Heligoland. Would this area be far enough out at sea from an ecological point of view?
Siegert: It’s not even that far out, but at least sediment wouldn’t drift from there into the Wadden Sea area. That might be a possibility, but it has to be examined first, as well as proposals for the shipment of sediment into the exclusive German economic zone.
WELT AM SONNTAG: Has the Elbe deepening failed?
Siegert: Above all, it failed politically. To what extent are you now trying to square the circle, the feasibility of the unfeasible? The current system on the lower Elbe estuary is strengthened by the ingress of sediments through the further deepening and widening of the fairway itself. Without an incredibly high dredging effort, the goals of the Elbe deepening will not be able to be achieved. Wouldn’t it make more sense to see how German seaports can cooperate in order to achieve the greatest benefit for national port interests with the least economic and ecological effort? Incidentally, also in competition with ports such as Antwerp and Zeebrugge, which for their part have just joined forces and merged. We need a German port policy in the interest of all coastal countries.
WELT AM SONNTAG: The shipping companies use container ships, the dimensions of which have grown rapidly in recent years – this means high consequential burdens for the port cities if they do not want to lose their important shipping lines. Shouldn’t the environmental organizations also focus more on this questionable growth in size?
Siegert: We are also talking about this with the shipping companies. Our impression is that the shipping companies recognize the limits of sensible ship sizes. There is no additional benefit for them, only higher costs if they put even larger ships into service. A similar development is now taking place as in aviation a few years ago with the largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380. The aircraft is simply too big and, with its four engines, consumes far too much kerosene to be able to use it economically and ecologically. One or the other shipping company – such as Mærsk Line – is now returning to smaller ship sizes because they can use them more flexibly and with less economic risk.
WELT AM SONNTAG: What do you expect from the new Economics Senator Melanie Leonhard, who is also the head of the Hamburg SPD, when it comes to port policy?
Siegert: Melanie Leonhard is a solution-oriented politician. But the SPD also represents a port policy at its core, with which we do not agree. This policy seeks to maintain the status quo of the port in a world that is rapidly changing. In the present draft of the Port Development Plan 2040, Hamburg’s port policy already ignores the new hub for container handling in the Mediterranean as well as the changes already noticeable in Hamburg due to up-and-coming Baltic Sea ports such as Gdansk in Poland. Hamburg sees only itself and not the interests of all directly affected coastal states. That will eventually fall at the feet of the port industry.
WELT AM SONNTAG: What are the chances for Hamburg that the seaports will suddenly become hubs for imported energy again as a result of the energy transition and the Ukraine war, from liquefied LNG natural gas and in the future also from “green” hydrogen?
Siegert: It’s good that Hamburg no longer just wants to count containers and thus become more independent of the global liner shipping companies. At the same time, however, the port industry is once again complaining that Hamburg is in danger of falling out of the list of the world’s 20 leading container ports. In the port, however, the energy transition offers immense opportunities for new added value and at the same time for ecological progress. However, the Port of Hamburg would now have to make radical decisions for such a transformation – decisions that might not have been made in other, “normal” times without climate change and war in Europe. Among other things, against the background of the “turning point” proclaimed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, to forgo the construction of the A26 East.
WELT AM SONNTAG: The A26 Ost is the new, big topic in the metropolitan region for the environmental organizations, right?
Siegert: We have been opposed to this anachronistic project for many years for a number of reasons. Especially because around 40 hectares of valuable, species-rich moorland would be destroyed. It is insane that the state wants to spend billions on climate protection at the same time in order to restore carbon-binding moors. In addition, the construction and operation of the A26 East, raised by up to 50 meters, would be immensely harmful to the climate. It is particularly absurd, however, that a significant part of the 50-hectare “Hohe Schaar” area opposite the disused Moorburg coal-fired power plant would be completely or partially blocked due to the necessary safety distances between the motorway and the hydrogen economy and for the construction site facilities on the motorway. This is valuable space, which Hamburg must now use, according to experts, to produce and distribute “green” hydrogen on a large scale. That would be a lost decade for the energy transition and the hydrogen economy in Hamburg.
WELT AM SONNTAG: How should the port in the south be connected instead of the A26? A modern, up-to-date connection for the southern part of the port is urgently overdue.
Siegert: You can’t just see the port, you have to look at the entire transport system. Individual traffic must be reduced and not increased. The new port development plan states that the A26 is also important for bringing people from the Stade area to work in Hamburg. That is a completely backward-looking transport policy. How does that work together with climate protection, biodiversity and the turnaround in traffic? The alternative is a new, efficient and modern crossing of the Köhlbrand with a tunnel, which is supposed to replace the Köhlbrandbrücke anyway. In addition, the existing main port route Veddeler Damm has to be expanded and connected to the A252 with a tunnel on the Veddel in the east. You don’t need an expensive and ecologically harmful double structure of Köhlbrand crossing and A26 east on the southern edge of the port – if you also connect Hamburg on this side in the future with a high-performance system of local public transport.
Malte Siegert, 57, studied politics and philosophy in Hamburg. Since 2003 he has been working for the German Nature Conservation Union (Nabu). At the beginning he managed, among other things, the Wallnau waterfowl reserve of the Nabu Federal Association on the island of Fehmarn. In 2012, he moved to the Hamburg State Association as head of environmental policy, where he primarily dealt with the topics of infrastructure planning, ports and shipping, and energy policy. Siegert has been the first full-time chairman of the Nabu state association since 2020. Siegert accompanied the legal proceedings against the deepening and widening of the Elbe fairway at the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig and there also the proceedings against the construction of the Fehmarnbelt tunnel on behalf of the Nabu – together with the environmental associations BUND and WWF. At the time, the plaintiff environmental organizations were unsuccessful in all proceedings.
