Million tons of sand will surround an artificial island

One million tons of sand will fill the dyke of an artificial island in the Vistula Lagoon, Gdynia Maritime Office informed Polish Press Agency. The island, created from scratch, is an element of constructing a new waterway between the Vistula Lagoon and the Gdansk Bay.

According to the investor and contractor statement, the island has an elliptical shape with dimensions of 1906 m by 1166 m, a circumference of 4.9 km and a total surface area of 180 ha.

– The area of the steel sheet pile walls used to give the island its shape and to keep it filled with sand excavated during the dredging of the waterway bottom is almost 112,500 m2. This means that these walls would cover almost 16 full-size football pitches – said Wojciech Czyżewski of NDI, the contractor for the navigation channel.

In addition, one million tons of sand will backfill the dykes, which would fill about 37 thousand trucks. The total capacity of the island is 9.2 million cubic m. Approximately 140,000 tons of hydro-technical stone will be used for its construction, which would fill 3,500 carriages – showed the contractor.

So far, over 10.5 km of sheet pile walls have been installed there (out of the total 10.8 km). Also, the silting works inside the dyke have been finished. However, stone filling works are still in progress.

The artificial island, which will be created in the Vistula Lagoon once the shipping channel has been built, is to be called Ests Island – after the former medieval name of the Vistula Lagoon.

The Maritime Office in Gdynia, the investor, has pointed out that birds already frequent the island. Therefore, in the future, the island will be their nesting site.

The works under the first part of the waterway construction connecting the Vistula Lagoon with the Gdansk Bay will be completed this year, and the entire investment will be in 2023.

source: PortalMorski.pl