Brussels, 25/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - €450 million: this is the level of a loan granted last Wednesday by the European Investment Bank (EIB) to transform the banks of the River Emscher. The contract for the funding of this project, which the Bank describes as “restoring a centre of heavy industry to its natural state”, was signed with the Emschergenossenschaft (Emscher cooperative), which will oversee the project.
With a fixed-rate loan over a period of up to 45 years, the EIB is helping to fund one of Germany's most costly urban and regional development projects. In the last century, heavy industry and a dense population have left their mark on this central part of the Ruhr area. For decades, the Emscher River and its tributaries were used as an open sewerage system, but in future, wastewater will be channelled through closed underground canals so that the river and its tributaries can be restored to their natural state and new recreation areas can be created for the approximately two million inhabitants of the Emscher catchment area. At the same time, the reclaimed areas will offer growth opportunities for the region's economy.
The loan contract signed by the Emschergenossenschaft and the EIB concerns the centrepiece of the comprehensive infrastructure project, the underground canal to channel the wastewater. On a 51kilometre long stretch from Dortmund-Deusen to Dinslaken, where the river joins the Rhine, the world's most modern sewerage network will be built, of a depth of up to 40 metres. The EIB loan is the second pillar of the financing of the rehabilitation project alongside the support from the North Rhine Westphalia region.