Current Situation
The Nieuwe Waterweg gives the Port of Rotterdam its deep-water access to the North Sea. From Hook of Holland it stretches for approximately 20.5 kilometres (12.7 mi) where the waterway continues as the Nieuwe Maas. The very first Nieuwe Waterweg—a breach through the dunes at Hook of Holland—was only 4.3 kilometres (2.7 mi) long, but in around 1877 the channel was made much larger and wider and the current Nieuwe Waterweg was created. Currently the width of the channel is between 480 and 675 metres (1,570 and 2,215 ft) and it is dredged to a depth of 14.5–16 metres (48–52 ft) below Amsterdam Ordnance Datum.
It is this channel, together with the dredged channels in the North Sea, Maasgeul and Eurogeul, that allows ships like the MS Berge Stahl and MV Vale Rio de Janeiro to enter Europoort.
The Dutch government agency Rijkswaterstaat is responsible for maintaining the channel.
Read more about this topic: Nieuwe Waterweg
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or situation:
“What in fact have I achieved, however much it may seem? Bits and pieces ... trivialities. But here they won’t tolerate anything else, or anything more. If I wanted to take one step in advance of the current views and opinions of the day, that would put paid to any power I have. Do you know what we are ... those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society’s tools, neither more nor less.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)
“... the task of youth is not only its own salvation but the salvation of those against whom it rebels, but in that case there must be something vital to rebel against and if the elderly stiffly refuse to put up a vigorous front of their own, it leaves the entire situation in a mist.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)