2023-06-20 14:23:01
From now on you can drink water from the IJmeer on Pampus. This marks another milestone in the island’s dream of becoming completely self-sufficient. Because yes, Pampus is surrounded by water, but for years they have been getting millions of liters from the mainland.
NH News
Every morning the fort guards sail early in the morning towards the Muiderslot to fill up with 3,000 liters of water and take it to Pampus. A time-consuming job that will disappear. The blue container will provide drinkable water.
First of all, water is pumped up from the IJmeer and that goes into the container. There it is filtered into drinkable water. In the video, island manager Martin Verweij explains exactly how this works. “Normally when you drink from the IJmeer, it can contain the so-called poop bacteria. That makes you very ill. We filter that out here, among other things.”
The difficulty of water filtration is that it takes a lot of energy. But this installation is different. This works under a very low pressure. “We manage to run it entirely on solar panels. And that is definitely the innovative thing about the entire system,” says Verweij. “Such an installation for Pampus is unique and we benefit enormously from it.”
Event
Pampus organized an entire event around the opening of the container. There were several presentations in the canals of the fort. For example, director of Pampus, Tom van Nouhuys, talked about the island’s plans for the future. Pampus wants to go full again self-sufficient become, just like before. “It’s a small world here. If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere,” he says.
Pampus has even more plans. For example, a new warehouse is being built with a roof of solar panels. And a motor is being built at the front of the island, underground, to provide all the electricity on the island. Finally, there will be a sustainable entrance building on the water.
Artis impression Pampus
PixelPool Architectural Illustrations
Astronaut André Kuipers was invited to open the installation, but first gave a presentation about the earth and space. He drew parallels with the fortress island. Because in space they are of course also self-sufficient. In the context of youth has the future, 7-year-old Madelief read a poem about water. Then it was time to festively open the blue container.
Earlier
With their own drinking water, the fortress island goes back to the old days when there were still soldiers. Because 125 years ago the island was already self-sufficient. Pampus is part of the Defense Line of Amsterdam and was built to repel attacks from the Zuiderzee. More than 200 soldiers could stay here for a longer period of time, without being daily dependent on the mainland. But the water around the island was unusable, since the Zuiderzee still existed.
So the soldiers caught the rainwater. “It was stored in a basin of 5,000 liters. With a small steam engine it was pumped further to a large reservoir deep in the fort,” says guide Peter Dankers. Via pipes it reached every department that needed water.
The guide shows the washing rooms where the old water pipe can still be seen. “First they pumped the water into a container and used it to wash themselves and then they threw the water away,” he says. “They used about three liters for that. For comparison, we still use about 120 liters of water a day. Soldiers could use very little because the most important thing was that there was water for the steam engines. Because at the time when war had to be waged , they made the guns work.
Now there are no more steam engines and the soldiers have also disappeared from the island. The tourists remain. They can now enjoy real ‘Pampus water’.
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