Coca-Cola and Efteling want to return the amount of water they use back to nature. They do this by ensuring that the soil of the Efteling area can capture, retain, and absorb much more water.
To achieve this, they are creating a pond at the golf park area three times larger and raising the water level in two other ponds. The water in the three ponds seeps slowly into the ground. The two companies have had hydrologists calculate that with this system, 500 to 600 million liters of water can infiltrate into the soil each year. The project is expected to be completed in 2027.
Half a Percent of the Goal
“This is how we would like to see it,” responds deputy Saskia Boelema. With their water project, Efteling and Coca-Cola contribute to the restoration of groundwater levels, which is urgently needed as North Brabant increasingly faces drought and sometimes extreme flooding.”
“We need to extract less groundwater and replenish more,” Boelema summarizes the advisory report Without Water, No Future. To restore the balance, Brabant must, according to that advice, extract 100 billion liters less groundwater each year and replenish an additional 100 to 150 billion liters. The water project in Efteling thus accounts for half a percent of that. The province hopes that more initiatives will follow.
The province itself cannot intervene, Boelema explains. They do oversee permits for large industrial extractions but cannot simply prohibit the pumping of groundwater because the rules are determined nationally. “We encourage companies, farmers, and consumers to be water-conscious,” says Boelema. “What helps is that companies now also have to report on green goals in their annual report.”
Filtered Water
The water in the ponds of Efteling comes from the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Kaatsheuvel. It is wastewater from the amusement park, the accommodation parks, and households, supplemented by rainfall. A WWTP usually discharges such treated water into rivers that carry it to the sea, but in this case, part of it goes through a 4-kilometer-long pipeline to Efteling. There, it passes through a reed field that filters it again before it flows into the ponds.
This system, called Klaterwater by Efteling, has existed since the late last century. The amusement park built the golf course then and did not receive permission from the province of North Brabant to pump more groundwater.
With the expansion of the system, Efteling helps Coca-Cola. “Water needs soil to infiltrate into the ground. Stichting Natuurpark de Efteling has that soil,” says Jurgens. “Our companies have been partners for over 30 years; we share a passion for water and concern about the drying out of Brabant.”
