It is a wry coincidence that the house of Tonnie (62) and Henny (59) Wittenaar from Daarlerveen is called ‘The willows’. The name refers to their attitude to life, says Henny with some pride. “A willow is a strong tree. It won’t burst anytime soon. Bend yes, but do not break.”
Unfortunately, this does not apply to the house in which the couple has lived for 26 years. If you walk around the house, you will see countless cracks. The driveway has been re-paved because it was sagging. The wall around the front door is propped up with iron posts. The corner of their facade is fastened with an angle iron. The wall section would otherwise come loose due to trucks racing past and the accompanying suction.
“We have a large horizontal crack running through our foundation,” says Tonnie in her small kitchen. The cracked tile floor she’s standing on slopes down at one angle. If you put a ball on one side of the kitchen, it immediately rolls into that corner. “The front part of the house tilts forward,” explains Tonnie. “And the rear part slightly back.” Their house has, in fact, been broken in half. In 2010, the Wittenaars had another valuation carried out when they wanted to transfer their mortgage. There were no major problems then, nor were they expected. “Until the canal drama,” says Tonnie.
In Overijssel, between Almelo and De Haandrik, there is a 34 kilometer long canal. Work was carried out between 2011 and 2016 to make the canal suitable for larger shipping. After that, residents near the canal noticed that their houses were suddenly damaged. Nearly four hundred damaged houses are now known, over a length of about five kilometers between the places Beerzerveld and Daarlerveen. The residents filed complaints about cracks, sagging foundations, burst water and gas pipes and broken walls and roofs. According to the province, residents in seven houses felt so unsafe that they had to find alternative housing.
According to many residents, the cause of the damage is clear: the work on the canal. But according to research, this is less clear-cut.
props
On both sides of the canal in the village of Geerdijk is a busy road, with drawbridges here and there to get to the other side. Peter Blok (59) steers his Toyota along the water. Right next to the roads are rows of houses, shops and business premises. Every now and then he points out houses with props to hold things together. “These people now live behind their house,” he says, nodding in the direction of a gray emergency home in the backyard of a building.
Blok is a board member of Kant still Wal, the advocate of duped canal residents. The foundation has just over two hundred members and costs him about twenty to thirty hours a week, in addition to his forty-hour work week as a software architect.
It was not until 2018 that the cracks, broken gutters and gas and water pipes began to be noticed by many residents. “You don’t walk by your house every day to look and wonder: was this crack there or not?” says Blok. At an evening organized by Kant still Wal in Vroomshoop, everyone shared their story and concluded that it had to be the canal. “We left there with a feeling of relief,” says Tonnie Wittenaar.
In 2018, the province called in the knowledge institute Deltares to see whether there was a connection between the damage and the work. For a year, the agency examined 26 houses and 3 business premises in and around Vroomshoop. The conclusion: there are ‘relationships’ between the damage and some work. But because every building is different, that says little about the cause of the damage per house.
“It was really a disappointment for residents and for us,” says deputy Bert Boerman (Water, ChristenUnie), from the province of Overijssel. “We have said from the beginning that we want to help. If you are legally liable, there is no discussion.” Precisely because the province wants to remain independent, it did not interfere in the Deltares investigation, says Boerman. “But I would never do that again. As a result, we were unable to make any adjustments when it turned out that there was no unambiguous answer.”
groundwater level
Former professor of soil mechanics and foundation engineering Stefan van Baars read about the ‘canal drama’ and went to Overijssel to do his own research. Based on statistics alone, the damage must have something to do with the work, he concluded. That, and the fact that many residents are urging more research, prompted the province to hire Deltares again. Released at the end of last month a new report.
“The first investigation already proved that the province had caused a lot of damage by, for example, vibrating sheet piles and tension anchors too hard,” says Van Baars. The second study looked in more detail at the subsidence of the foundations. In recent decades, the groundwater level has systematically decreased, which in turn has led to desiccation and settlement, or shrinkage, of peat layers. Many houses are (partly) built on peat, as a result of which many foundations sag.
It is striking that Deltares, the advisors appointed by the province (including Van Baars) and the supervisory committee in the second Deltares study think differently about the role of the activities therein. According to Deltares, the activities made a limited contribution to the damage, according to the advisers the contribution is decisive and according to the supervisory committee the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The work caused the groundwater level to rise and fall, the committee writes, and formed a trigger on top of an already unstable situation.
The distrust in the province is now enormous, says Blok. This is largely due to the vague conclusions of the initial study. Complaints are also received at Kant still Wal about the damage settlement that followed. For example, the damage at Tonnie and Henny Wittenaar is valued at 18,000 euros. “Disgraceful,” says Tonnie. “We had a counter-expertise carried out, which also included the damage to the foundation. That appraiser comes out at 105,000 euros.” According to Commissioner Boerman, 306 appraisals have now been carried out; at 211 the result is known. “A counter-expertise has been done 13 times, paid for by the province,” says Boerman. “Around 35 residents have accepted and received an amount.”
Proving Innocence
Many residents are not satisfied: “I have the idea that the province is busier proving its innocence than helping us,” says Istvan Greguss (40) from Bergentheim. He walks around his house with his partner Anouk Schimmel (40) when he stops. “Is this new?” asks Anouk. “This is the worst thing, that you constantly find a new crack. If he says: ‘Anouk, you should come now’, then I think: let’s go again.”
In 2018, the couple moved with their two daughters to a 1938 farmhouse for some peace and quiet. Greguss is an Afghanistan veteran and has PTSD. They found the space, but not the peace. Greguss tosses a 2018 valuation report on his coffee table. It doesn’t say anything about damage. But the problems started at the end of that year. He lists them as he walks through the house: “There are leaks everywhere, the roof is corrugated, the chimney is broken, so in winter it is cold when the underfloor heating doesn’t work and you can’t turn on the fireplace. You can’t get on the balcony, the doors jam, and there are cracks everywhere.”
Gregor looks through the window. “And this was once right.” He points to the lawn with a large hole in the middle. “I think it’s special: for 81 years nothing has ever happened to this house, and after the work it is a ruin within two and a half years. I think the worst thing is that after almost three years we still have no perspective.”
Boerman also sees the lack of perspective, he says. “Those stories touch me.” Based on the latest research, the province is expanding its previous claims settlement. She visits houses where there is ‘settlement damage’ to do foundation research. The province will pay for any foundation improvements, Boerman promised in a webcast for residents on September 28.
This goes further than is required by law, emphasizes Boerman. “Other authorities, such as the water boards and municipalities, are concerned whether we are not setting a precedent with the compensation,” says the deputy. “Houses are sinking all over the Netherlands. The suggestion that the province does not want to spend money is not on the agenda. 40 million has been set aside to accommodate people. That’s no mean feat.”
But it’s not just money that fuels mistrust. It is also the work on the canal itself. They are not well executed at all. The Court of Auditors East Netherlands published a report this month showing that contractors did not comply with agreements on risk management and that the province did not enforce this. The focus was mainly on ‘time and money’, not on the risks for local residents and their homes, according to the court. Former professor Van Baars: “People started dredging without thinking. These houses are not included in any calculation or consideration. That is really messed up.”
The lack of proper measurements during the work has had consequences for the Deltares studies. “There was less data, which made the research difficult,” says project leader Goaitske de Vries. “Long-term measurements of groundwater levels around houses were missing, which would have helped us, for example.”
Boerman understands the mistrust. “I understand that the unrest is increasing, especially because people think that the government cannot or will not act,” says Boerman. “But I also speak to residents who, for example, ask us to arrange a contractor, which we do. That’s the other side of the coin.”
Missed income
“When we first drove along the canal and saw the farm, we fell in love,” says Greguss. “But I’m afraid the farm won’t make it. Repairing will likely cost more than rebuilding, the man who assessed the damage hinted.”
Lost income also plays a role in the Wittenaar family. “We have our own home business that we wanted to expand,” says Henny. “Tonnie has had enough work, but it is not possible. Everything has stood still for so long.” The uncertainty has not disappeared with the arrival of the new research and the claims settlement, says Peter Blok.
And what is causing the ‘drying out’ of the soil, which has caused the foundations to sink, Van Baars wonders. You certainly can’t blame that on climate change, he writes in an email to the province. He believes that companies that pump up more and more groundwater and the authorities that issue permits for this are responsible.
“I understand that people want to know quickly: what does this mean for me,” says Boerman in the webcast for residents. The province now has to look at what needs to be done per house. “I will add, that takes some time,” says Boerman.
Istvan Greguss wants to see it all, then believe it. “Let me put it this way: has the province regained my trust? New.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 7, 2021