English: New ship hoist in East Brandenburg

For about 150 million euros a new ship hoist is built on the Oder-Havel's Canal until 2012.

In Niederfinow a colossus of concrete will soon be substitute for the aged steel ship hoist. Much bigger ships than nowadays will be able to overcome the 36-metre-height difference of the Oder-Havel's Canal with it fast and at a reasonable price. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) Frankfurt (Oder) provided information about the progress of construction work for about three dozen entrepreneurs and municipal representatives at the “Technoforum” in Eberswalde.

“If the current tender runs as scheduled, we'll be able to start construction at the end of the year, latest next spring”, announced construction manager  Johannes Siebke of Berlin's building authorities for waterways. Preparatory works already are in process. Presently old buildings are removed in the future location of the new hoist. Next year the area will be the biggest building site of eastern Brandenburg. From 70,000 cubic metres of concrete and 6,000 metric tons of construction steel one of the biggest ship lifts of Europe will be formed until 2012. The budget for this construction project is up to a total of about 150 million euros.

“We expect a transport need of about ten million metric tons on this important waterway between Berlin and the Baltic harbour of Szczecin”, estimates construction manager Siebke. Such amounts can only be mastered with modern and bigger barges which are unable to pass the old hoist in Niederfinow. Therefore the hutch of the new hoist will measure 114 metres in length and 11.6 metres widthwise. The depth of the water will be four metres. The gigantic water basin for the ship lift will be much bigger than the old hutch.