The Sands Are Slipping Out for Sylt
Nature does not love Sylt. The West German barrier island’s 36 square miles of dunes, salty air and quiet villages attract 400,000 affluent vacationers every year. But with every storm, more of Sylt vanishes into the North Sea. "Most everybody agrees that the island is dying," says Heinz Meyer, owner of the Klift’kieker restaurant on Sylt’s outer shore. "They give it until the year 2020." Time is running out even faster for the Klifikieker, which wasn’t always perched precariously above the relentless surf. "There are so many bets on how long the place will last," Meyer laughs gamely. "I myself am betting that it won’t be here in five years." His grin fades as he adds: "We could be out on the street tomorrow." The sea has made its biggest inroads near Hörnum (population: 922), the island’s southernmost town. Roughly a quarter mile of Sylt’s southern tip has disappeared since 1972, according to Werner Matthiesen, a local environmentalist. Matthiesen, 64, has made saving the island his personal cause since cancer forced him to retire from his gas station eight years ago. "So much has been lost just since Easter," he says, gesturing toward the last fringe of a vanished dune. "If nothing is done, it will mean the destruction of Hörnum within l0years." All told, Sylt has lost roughly a fifth of a square mile in the last 30 years, but the erosion is advancing faster these days because of rising sea levels and warmer, stormier winters.
Sylt’s 19,705 year-round inhabitants have been fighting against the tide for decades to save their island. Environmentalists currently favor a remedy called sand flushing—dredging up sand from several miles offshore and rebuilding the island’s shoreline with it. The process costs at least 12 million Deutsche marks a year. But Peter-Kurt Wurzbach, the region’s representative in the Bundestag, wants to find a cure rather than a treatment. He advocates the establishment of an international competition— with prizes in the millions— for the architect who invents an effective means of saving coastlines everywhere from natural erosion. "Whether it costs 20 million or 80, money should be no object," he says.
But money is an object, of course. When most West Germans think of Sylt, they think of the high-flying lifestyles of the island’s summer population. ‘~The mainlanders think that if youre from Sylt,you’ve got to be rich," complains Meyer. Sylt’s reputation for nude beaches and licentious partying has won scant sympathy from the rest of the country. Wurzbach insists that nowhere else in West Germany are communities expected to pay for natural disasters. Meanwhile the waves continue to claim the island that is the subject of the debate. "We can’t afford to wait," says Matthiesen. "The North Sea isn't waiting."
-THERESA WALnRoP on Sylt
Source : NEWSWEEK, July 10, 1989
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