Vistula Spit canal

January 2020 status

Proposed waterway Elbląg - Gdańsk Bay

Approximate location of the Vistula Spit canal

The Vistula Spit canal (official name Nowy Świat ship canal, Polish: Kanał żeglugowy Nowy Świat^[1]) is a planned canal across the Polish section of the Vistula Spit that will create a second connection between the Vistula Lagoon and Gdańsk Bay. It will allow ships to enter the Vistula Lagoon and the port of Elbląg without having to rely on the Russian Strait of Baltiysk, saving a 100 km journey. The works started in February 2019. It is planned to be 1305 m in length and will allow ships of draft up to 4 m, length up to 100 m, and beam up to 20 m.^[2] It is planned to be completed in 2022. ^[3]

The planned canal location is between the villages of Skowronki and Przebrno.

Works[]

The major works include:^[4]

Construction of the breakwater harbor on the Gdańsk Bay side.
Construction of the shipping channel together with all its infrastructure
New roads and bridges
Construction of an artificial island in the Vistula Lagoon.

The works started in February 2020 with tree cutting, which was finished during February 15 - 20, 2020. Logging and branch removal was to be finished by the end of March.^[2]

The beginning of the construction of the artificial island was announced on May 30, 2020. It area is planned to be about 180 hectares and it is expected to be a bird habitat.^[3] Its tentative name is the Aestian Island, selected by a poll and to be formally approved.

The first of two bridges over the canal, the southern one, was completed in June 2021. It is on the way connecting Krynica Morska and Stegna^[5]

Costs[]

A contract was signed with a Polish-Belgium consortium in October 2019 to build the canal at a cost of PLN 992m (EUR230m). The total cost of the project is expected to be PLN 2 billion.^[6]

Concerns[]

The Russian Federation strongly objected to the canal on both environmental and security grounds, claiming that since the canal will allow NATO warships to enter the Vistula lagoon without passing close by the Russian military facilities at Baltiysk, this presents a direct threat to the security of Kaliningrad and the Russian Federation as a whole.^[7]

Environmental concerns had been expressed by environmental activists in Europe and Poland, which did not stop the project.^{[citation needed]}

Marine biologist Dr. Agata Błaszczyk expresses the concern associated with the phosphorus accumulated in the sediments at the bottom of the lagoon, primarily coming from technical wastewaters from industries in the area of Elbląg, from animal farming sewage, and from the washed-out fertilizers, which contributes of eutrophication of the nearly closed lagoon resulting in strong blooms of cyanobacteria, which in their turn contribute to algal blooms in the lagoon giving it a distinct greenish color compared with the rest of the Baltic sea. The new waterway is expected to contribute to the mobility of the sediments, possibly resulting in changes in the ecology of the adjacent areas of Baltic Sea with unknown consequences. The concern is that the cyanobacteria in the lagoon are different from those in the open sea, with higher toxicity.^[8]