Dredging resumes on Fehmarnbelt Tunnel

Last month the Alliance Against a Fixed Fehmarnbelt Link made an emergency application to the court to halt work off the island of Fehmarn in an area with protected reefs. Work was suspended in the area around the reefs pending the court’s decision.

Reefs were discovered after the German government approved the project in January 2019. The Alliance’s action was in response to work in contested areas, despite a court ruling in September 2021 in which the state amended the scheme’s original planning approval for the German section, ordering immediate enforceability to account for and minimise the destruction of newly-discovered reefs, especially those off Puttgarden, a coastal village on Fehmarn.

The court has now rejected the environmental group’s appeal as the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of Transport had given special dispensation to Fehmarn Belt Contractors (FBC) to dredge in the reef areas, provided new reefs were created elsewhere in the waters off Fehmarn. FBC is a joint venture between Dutch dredging and marine contractors Boskalis and Van Oord.

The Fehmarnbelt project, currently the largest construction project in northern Europe, will link Germany and Denmark via an 18km immersed tube tunnel beneath the Baltic Sea. It will consist of 79 217m-long hollow, reinforced concrete elements and 10 special elements.

Due to open in 2029, Fehmarnbelt will be the world’s longest immersed tube tunnel and the longest combined road and rail tunnel underwater. It will cut journey times between the two countries to just 10 minutes by car and seven minutes by train.