To the bottom

Sinking the intake line to the bottom did not seem on paper to be the most difficult job. The heavy squeegee with basket would easily sink to great depths due to its weight, and the pipe automatically filling with water would automatically follow. But sometimes nature doesn’t cooperate.

Some air entered the pipe and the buoyancy was so great that the pipe partially floated. The heavy intake basket, which had sunk quite a bit, had to be resurfaced.

Van Schie was called in and solved it with a telescopic crane from a pontoon island. But tethering underwater was possible only by divers. Fortunately, the Royal Navy was willing to provide them.

Pontoon Lane

The question remained, “So how do we get the pipe to the bottom, the part where the coldest water is? Van Schie thought along and came up with only one solution, which was to lay a 130-meter pontoon track across the Leemslagenplas, in order to be able to control the pipeline in its entirety from there.

Scattered along the pontoon track were 15 small winches that would allow the pipe to lower evenly along its entire length once it filled with water. Furthermore, steel bars were attached to the pipe every few meters to cope with the buoyancy. And so the intake line was able to sink to the bottom.

It was then up to the divers to untie all the lines. And that at a depth of 30 meters and at a water temperature of 4 degrees Celsius. This action also involved private divers. The project is called “Lake Source Cooling,” realized by the NTP Group.