Last week, news discussed how the road contractor Leonhard Nilsen & Sønner believes it has solved the challenges that road construction entails large emissions of CO₂. In short, they squeeze the marsh to half its size – and lay the road on top. According to project manager Hans-Petter Hansen, 90 per cent of the carbon remains in the mire. The reactions have not been long in coming. – I must admit that I was shocked. Now they must save the marsh by storing carbon. Myra is much more than carbon, says Anne Breistein to news. She adds: – It was a disaster for me. It is incredibly narrow-minded. Breistein is supported by Vigdis Vandvik at UiB, who believes there should be other solutions. Here they are building a road over the marsh – and “canning” the greenhouse gases in the ground “Simple” solution to a complicated problem Vandvik is center manager at the CeSAM center for sustainable land use. When she heard about the solution, she thought that this was yet another “simple” solution to a complicated biological problem. – Bogs are far more than a carbon store. They act as sponges for floodwaters and retain water when there is a drought. In addition, bogs are very important for lots of species such as mosses, beetles and birds. – This method destroys life in the moor. On top of that, it destroys future carbon storage that happens every single day when the plants in the bog carry out photosynthesis. A new construction method over the 3,000-year-old Kringelmomyra will ensure that less carbon is not released. Photo: Frank Nygård / news According to Vandvik, around 10 percent of Norway’s area is bog. But a third has been lost in modern times. She believes it would be far better to build a bridge over the marsh. – It allows the marsh to live. Under the bridge there can be a coherent system and all the biological processes can continue as before, she says and adds: – At the same time, a bridge is also an intervention. I think we should be a bit sober if we need all these new things that we build in nature. This is how the Swedish Roads Administration will build a road and at the same time preserve the bog underneath. The Swedish Roads Administration Bridge not a good alternative Hans-Petter Hansen, the engineering manager, says a bridge could have been built. But according to him, it is by no means certain that it would be a better solution for the environment. – Here it would not be a good solution. A bridge must be founded under the bog. Then we also have to build a construction road next to the bridge. Such a path will have as large an imprint and as destructive as a permanent E6 will have. Hans-Petter Hansen is employed by Aas-Jakobsen Trondheim AS and is project manager. Photo: Frank Nygård / news He adds that any bridge must also be high so as not to take away the light. – Will the bog and the life in the bog be intact after the construction of the road? – That is what we are trying to achieve now. We do not make any interventions on the side of the road and we take measures to ensure that the water in the marsh is not drained away. Photo: Anne Skifjeld / news – How can you be sure that what you do works? – We have started a project to record what is in the marsh of habitat types and water level before we build the road. After construction, there will be control work. – Afterwards, we have a program to follow up that we preserve the natural types and that the water level is where it was before the construction. Does not work with roads on bogs Anne Breistein in Sabima believes there should be a total ban on building on bogs, regardless of how much carbon dioxide is possibly stored. – I honestly thought we had come further than just seeing one side of the matter. Surely the marsh is established as more than a carbon store? she asks. Anne Breistein in Sabima says the new method will prevent the marsh from growing – which will trap more carbon dioxide in the future. Photo: Sabima / – Myra is an enormously important and threatened ecosystem. We don’t save it by driving a road through. Like Vandvik, she believes a bridge would have been a better alternative. – It is better to build a small road next to it than to stop the entire ecosystem from functioning. Now, I do think that a bridge can also be harmful in that it destroys birds. – All disruption is fundamentally stupid. The E6 in Helgeland, in Grane municipality, is being built over bog with a completely new method. Photo: Frank Nygård / news There will probably be a need for new roads in the future as well. Breistein is concerned that solutions like this could lower the threshold for building on bog. – If you give an opportunity for a solution that makes it easier to avoid conflict, it is easier to say yes to new projects. – But this is a method that only takes care of one value in the mire. It in no way takes care of the other values in the marsh.
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Want to capture carbon with canning of the bog – the proposal is butchered by several – news Nordland
