A UNIQUE ASSIGNMENT FOR RIJKSWATERSTAAT
Sometimes, you end up in the strangest places. I’ve been part of the photographers’ pool of the Dutch government for a while now. This means I’m regularly in The Hague for various assignments. But sometimes, something very unique comes along. A fun assignment for Rijkswaterstaat (the Dutch water management authority) that you immediately say yes to when it crosses your path.
When the question came in whether I had time to join in photographing mussel fishermen on the Wadden Sea, they didn’t have to ask twice.
When an assignment comes in, the photo agency doesn’t always know what the underlying assignment means and what a photographer will do. So, they always look for the right match for an assignment.
This time it was about ‘mussel poop sucking’. When I heard this, I also had to scratch my head momentarily.
It turns out that in the poop of the mussel, you can measure the health and quality of the water. And that these mussels purify the water from substances that Rijkswaterstaat would like to remove from the water. They collect it to measure later in the laboratory how healthy the mudflat is. And which substances the mussels filter out of the water. You can think of heavy metals, PFAS/PFOS and other chemical substances. They do this with special mussel baskets and bags in which the mussel poop is collected.
This is a pilot project for Rijkswaterstaat to see if it can naturally monitor and improve the water quality in the Wadden Sea.
Just before the start of the storm season on the Wadden Sea, I had to report to a fishing boat in Den Oever. They were talking about boats of 13 meters. I naturally thought big, a bit like a trawler. But it turned out to be a rather small, open boat.
Early in the morning, it was light; we sailed out of the harbour at Den Oever. The Wadden Sea was as smooth as a mirror. Sailing along the coast, you hear the silence over the water. And you see the land from a different side. In the villages along the dike, I am regularly for real estate videos and aerial photography.
Arriving at a gully in the mudflat, an offshoot, there was a row of mussel baskets. Which had to be lifted out of the water and then emptied into a large container to collect the sediment and poop.
It was done basket by basket before I knew it, and the 16 baskets were emptied. I had also taken my photos.
A beautiful day on the mudflat.
Rijkswaterstaat wanted images and a photo report for the documentation and communication about this project. Images have been placed in the image bank of Rijkswaterstaat.
