I checked and it's not a hoax:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,990878,00.html
The massive water bridge over the Elbe river cost around €500 million.

Looks like your linking to a picture in your mail box, which isn't viewable to the rest of us. The idea reminds me of the transatlantic train tunnel mentioned a while back. Definitely an accomplishment, but I hope they planned for a little extra weight. Otherwise rain could be a problem

Wow, I'd not heard about this either. What a great feat of engineering. Thanks for sharing.

That is so cool.

Does anybody actually have a link to an article about this bridge? You know, like, say, an original source for the picture? Some more detailed discussion of the engineering marvel?

IG, where did you find out about this bridge? Can we look in the same place, to find out more information for ourselves?

Yep sure stutefish, sorry you have to copy and paste this because i dont know how to insert a link (oops!)

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,990878,00.html

I found out of this through my email actually, a friend sent it to me. I was surprized coz i never even heard about it before!

Very cool

I know MM, makes you wanna see it with your own eyes, lol!

I never heard about this too. That's quite a distance for people to walk too! This is really interesting Em, thanks for sharing!

Regarding the design weight for bridge: The weight of a container of water increases when a floating object is added to the water, because you are adding more mass to the previous single unit of mass. The water level rises in the container (an amount relative to the volume of the floating object); however, this results in an increased weight equal to that of the added floating object. Don’t believe this, then prove it to yourself by using a digital postal scale, placing on the scale a partially filled bowl of water, record the weight of the bowl and water, place a floating object in the bowl and notice that the weight will increase the exact weight of the floating object. The only way your theory works is if the water level does not rise by venting off the water (opening the ends of the bridge or container) to remove the excess volume of displaced water which resulted from introducing the floating object. So the old fly-in-the-bottle high school physics doesn't apply.... if the water rises in the bridge... it will weigh more!

What Riggs says is true, but irrelevant. You don't just plop a 500,000 ton boat onto the water bridge. The bridge must be linked to other bodies of water. Obviously there must be a system of locks like in a canal to get the boats onto the bridge in the first place. These work by pumping water in to raise the water level inside the lock (with the boat) up to the bridge's water level. Once the two water levels are equal, the lock opens up and the boat enters the bridge. Thus, the water level doesn't rise. The water displaced by the boat is kept off the bridge before the boat even enters, So the original statement is true!
One other thing to consider. If the boat were magically just plopped onto the bridge (which can't happen in real life) and the water level did rise, the extra weight of the boat would be evenly distributed over the entire 1/2 mile-plus length of bridge which would make the weight increase negligible.