As of: February 22, 2024, 6:59 a.m
By: Lilli Schaule
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The community of Ruhmannsfelden is currently faced with the decision of where its water will come from in the future.
There is a problem with the old water sources.
© Patrick Pleul/zb/dpa
The Lower Bavarian community of Ruhmannsfelden sold its rights to water sources a few decades ago - unintentionally.
Now she has to pay for the mistake.
Ruhmannsfelden – In the Lower Bavarian community, decisions from the last century are suddenly very relevant again.
As Bayerischer Rundfunk reports, in the 1990s the municipality accidentally sold an old water right from Ruhmannsfelden when it sold its old town hall.
The actual owner has now confronted the market in the Bavarian Forest with this error - and is demanding a lot of money.
Ruhmannsfelden: The community's water sources are actually available to private individuals
According to the BR report, Ruhmannsfelden sold the old town hall to a private individual in 1995 as part of a village renewal.
Some time later it was demolished.
With the sale of the building, old water rights for water sources on a property in the neighboring community of Zachenberg were also sold.
However, this went unnoticed because the reference to this claim was not directly noted on the town hall property, as the mayor of Ruhmannsfelden, Werner Troiber (CSU), described to the BR.
The community has been drawing water from the springs on the property in Zachenberg for years.
But as is now clear, she actually has no right to do that - the owner of the town hall property is entitled to that.
The BR also informs that the water rights were given to the town hall property in the 1950s because the municipality assumed that the land would always remain in the municipality's possession anyway.
Almost 200,000 euros: request for payment for water extraction
The owner of the town hall property – who is the actual owner of the water rights – is now demanding payments from the municipality, as the BR article describes.
They are demanding money for the community's water extraction from springs over the last 29 years.
The requested sum is 167,000 euros.
In addition, the elderly lady is demanding 15,000 euros per year for future water extraction.
The owner's lawyer Karl Rabl told BR that the amounts were only initial projections.
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Community is now looking for other sources of water: issue is “causing some excitement”
The council of Ruhmannsfelden is now looking for a solution to this problem.
The topic is “causing some excitement,” according to the BR.
The mayor is planning a “round table” and the owner’s lawyer is “open to negotiations at any time”.
If the community does not come to an agreement, it plans to switch to other water sources.
Another option would be to purchase water from the drinking water dam in Frauenau.
But this first requires a fundamental decision in the local council.
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It remains to be seen how the Lower Bavarian community will obtain its water in the future.
The water rights from the last century will certainly keep Ruhmannsfelden busy for some time to come.
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