Mining company wins licence to extract more salt from Wadden Sea

Dutch salt mining company Frisia has been granted a provisional licence to expand its salt extraction operation in the Wadden Sea despite opposition from the Frisian provincial and local authorities, and environmental groups.

The Wadden Sea is a protected natural area, and in 2024, an agreement was reached to stop new mining activity after 2035. Frisia had requested the expansion shortly before 2024.

Environmental organisations fear that extracting even more salt at the shallow site could cause subsidence of up to 160 centimetres, harming a vulnerable natural area and depriving birds of food.

“The Wadden Sea area is unique. It is the only place in the world where so much of the sea floor is exposed at low tide,” Frank Petersen, a spokesman for the Waddenvereniging, told broadcaster NOS. “If the sea floor drops, that expanse will become smaller.”

Millions of birds come to the area to feed, Petersen said.

According to an assessment carried out by mining monitoring body SodM, more salt can be extracted safely under certain conditions. Those include a longer extraction period up to 2052 and the condition that subsidence must be compensated for by natural sedimentation.

Frisia must also adhere to the so-called “brake path scenario”. If calculations show that subsidence after mining stops will be greater than allowed, Frisia must halt its activities ahead of that point.

A spokesman for the economic affairs ministry said the licence is provisional and has only been granted on condition subsidence in the area does not exceed certain limits. Mining will “cease immediately” if it does, he told the broadcaster.

The Waddenvereniging said it has little faith in the government’s assurances and is contemplating legal action if its objections are not weighed in the final decision.