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Sunday Morning (49) A quest for clean air
Looking for a new place to live is exciting! Even if the reasons why are a bit of a mixed bag of feelings. And even when the rules to follow are unclear, and most options not very enticing.
Currently we live in a rental apartment in small hamlet in the South of the Netherlands. It is a rural area and we moved here after selling our house to compensate for the income loss when Debbie quit her job in teaching because she wanted to take care of me and be together more. We supplied some extra income by teaching small groups of art student at home, and after the covid thing we continued to do this online. But after two years this became too hard to do, it was a lot of extra time and work involved and we became creatively drained a bit. So we stopped it and try to think of other things to earn a little extra income. We will manage.
But some things life throws at you are beyond control completely. Well, actually everything is, but some things are easier to manage and compensate. We didn’t count on what happened in the last ten years regarding air quality. The air quality in the Netherlands is rather poor overall. Not only in the Western counties (known as “Holland”) this is the case, where the international airport Schiphol is located, the fifth largest airport in the world, that produces enormous amounts of fine dust (measured) and ultra fine dust (not even yet measured). And there is the industrial complex of the Rotterdam harbor, the second largest non-Asian harbor in the world with a huge petrochemical industry around it. In the south, there is the petrochemical giant Sabic (formerly known as DSM, which originated from the early 20th century mining industry). And in fact, the entire Dutch air situation is compromised by its geographical position, being west of Germany, where there is an massive industrial complex known as the “Ruhrgebiet” (area of the river Ruhr), one of the largest industrial area’s in Europe. Much of the energy needed for these industries (mostly steel manufacturing) is provided by the lignite mining which is in the same area. And burning lignite is one of the most air polluting activities mankind has ever invented. Luckily, the prevailing winds in spring and autumn blow this pollution back to Germany, but in summer and wintertime the Eastern winds carry it all over the Netherlands, smearing everything in brown suit. With sun smog added to that, Dutch air is awfully filthy. After Bangladesh, Taiwan and South Korea we are the most densely large populated country in the world with a lot of traffic, also again because of the harbor in Rotterdam, producing a stream of filthy trucks daily coming and going to provide the rest of Europe of everything they ordered overseas.
So, even living in a small rural hamlet doesn’t provide much air quality in the Netherlands. But it was the best we could do. But recently, it is not good enough anymore. Due to increasing gas prices, many households have started converting to woodburning for heating. This was even subsidized for a while ten years ago, but recently this has ended fortunately. Unfortunately many households are already on wood, and the gas prices doubled in the last 2 years so still other households are converted, subsidized or not. This produces a lot of unhealthy smoke and fine dust in and around our house. The ventilation system of our apartment building is on the roof top, exactly on chimney height, and it sucks in the smoke from woodburning continuously. We can shut it of, but only for a while, because one needs oxygen, doesn’t one? And walking the dog outside, especially in the evening when people are at home and heating up their houses, is increasingly unhealthy for both of us, and for me even more burdensome with my poor lungs.
There are currently no laws against this, so the municipality is not able to act on this (and not willing). And asking the neighbors to stop doing this is not an option either, they won’t take this as friendly advise we fear. So, we are more or less forced to move and find a location that is at least only burdened with the general German air pollution, and not with local woodburning on top of that. And with more distance to the highways that are running along our hamlet within 2 miles, and preferably closer to real nature, a real forest for instance, even more rural and isolated.
Well, fortunately, we seem to have found the location. I have already lived there before in my life and it still is a wonderful place. We had to leave it for our jobs, but now we are free to move and take our current jobs with us. It is an even smaller hamlet, in the utter South of the Netherlands, 40 miles South from where we live now, on the cross point of the borders to Belgium and Germany. In the hills, that start over there as a forebode of the massive Ardennes, the Belgium area of vast forest and hills and downs. This little hamlet is ancient already, stemming from shortly before Christ, but officially it has recently celebrated its one thousand’s birthday. There are only 900 inhabitants. There is tourism in summertime, which accounts for some hotels and restaurants, but there is only one little community shop and a bakery. Of course it has a drum band and a wind orchestra/brass band, and every June the pastor leads a religious procession, carrying around the statue of the local Saint. At 195 meters altitude, it is the highest parish in the country. A vast forest is located at the border of the village, providing fresh air to the inhabitants. Traffic is limited due to the smaller roads. So, this is clearly the place to be for us.
Driving through the area, last Monday we stumbled upon a fairly modern apartment building (2014) of which we didn’t know it existed. It is build at the south edge of the village, facing nature and open skies. There are some 21 apartments, but currently nothing is free. But we managed to persuade our municipality to give us a declaration of moving-priority, so we will be among the first of the waiting list (we hope). And we hope we can afford it (still don’t know about the prices to rent an apartement). It can take a year, or a month – who is to tell. But we will let you know. Cross your fingers please. Or, it may fall flat completely for some reason. Nature’s ways are unpredictable – how fortunate is this!
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