Noorderzijlvest invests over €60 million per year

Performance test

The trend of rising investments will continue for some time. After 2027, the investment volume will decline slightly. At the start of this administrative period, an average of approximately €50 million per year was still being taken into account.
In order to gain a clear picture of the longer-term outlook, an implementation test was carried out. The ambitions set out in the coalition agreement were assessed in terms of their feasibility in terms of time, money, and capacity. Conclusion: not everything fits. More is needed to realize the ambitions and goals that have been set.

The executive committee therefore proposes to manage the growing and changing work of the water board in a controlled manner. The executive committee wants to make realistic plans in terms of time, money, and capacity. That is why some plans are being postponed to later years, financial scope is being limited in certain areas, and a number of investments are being scrapped. This will result in savings of €21 million in one-off investments in the period up to 2027. 

More and changing work on water

The work involved in the core tasks of surface water management is changing, becoming more comprehensive and increasingly important to society. As a result, the work will also become more expensive. With the Implementation Program, the executive committee is looking further ahead than its own term of office. The committee wants to set aside funds for this purpose with caution. Although the developments are inevitable, it is not yet possible to put a concrete financial figure on them:

• The changing climate requires more space for water: in the soil, in land use, in the system with water levels for the main waterways, in temporary water storage facilities in unsafe situations, and greater pumping capacity for ever-increasing amounts of precipitation in increasingly frequent wet periods. Since the presentation of the latest climate scenarios, ensuring the drainage of excess water to the sea during prolonged wet periods has been high on the agenda.
  In addition to dealing with excess water, measures are also needed to improve water retention during dry periods.
• To safeguard public health, our treatment plants must meet increasingly stringent requirements to remove more micropollutants and pharmaceutical residues from our wastewater. The plants have been in operation for years and are now due for maintenance and renewal. That time is now upon us. The same applies to pressure pipes that transport wastewater to sewage treatment plants. 
• The water board must and wants to comply with European agreements on improving the quality of surface water. This means that numerous measures are being prepared and implemented in, near, and along waterways and (in the long term) our treatment plants.
• Reinforcing sea dikes helps to ensure that we can continue to live safely with water for decades to come, even as sea levels rise. Nevertheless, we must already start thinking about other forms of coastal defense for the future. Noorderzijlvest plays a role in this by managing 70 kilometers of sea dikes along the Wadden Sea coast.
• The water board contributes to national and international climate targets by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, generating its own energy, and reusing raw materials. When it comes to such innovations, the water board prefers to actively follow rather than lead.
• Growing urban areas necessitate new investments throughout the water chain.

Choices to make room in the budget

The board is making room by removing €21 million in planned investments and reserves that are still too uncertain from the planning until 2027. In many cases, these plans will be postponed to subsequent years. These include the construction of a number of fish passages, the renovation of the Dorkwerdersluis lock, and future investments for the growing western edge of Groningen. Regional flood defences (dykes and quays in the hinterland) require work along an 8-kilometre stretch. The water board can still do this after 2027.

Rising costs

As previously announced, higher investments will lead to rising costs for households and businesses. With this level of investment, the average rate increase for homeowners will be around 11% for 2025 and 2026. From 2027 onwards, the water board anticipates an average increase of 6%. However, there is a caveat: uncertainties in geopolitics, the market, and price and wage developments could change this picture.

General management makes decision

The proposals are included in the Implementation Program "The Value of Water". The general board will make a decision on March 27.