Hydraulic engineers and colonists straightened natural rivers and created most of today's watercourses between 1751 and 1799, forming a grid expanding to today's length of 222 kilometers to be maintained and financed by the landowners in the drained mire, combined in today's local water board (a public-law corporation), the Gewässer- und Landschaftspflegeverband Teufelsmoor (or GLV Teufelsmoor).