Water police stop rescue due to lack of permission

This story develops a Kafkaesque touch. It started out bizarre but could still go one better as it went. It all started with research by Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in June, which caused some outrage.

According to this, hundreds of e-scooters from the five large rental companies based in Cologne should already rot in the river. According to a local construction diver, he and his colleagues have come across significant quantities of these electric scooters on every dive. A sticky mass is already emerging from many of them.

However, distributors see themselves insufficiently responsible, according to the interview partner of the WDR. A rescue offer that had been requested was rejected by a rental company with the words that it was much too expensive and then the scooters would have to stay where they are.

After the reporting, the topic had developed a strong dynamic. The mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, had also positioned herself, because around 500 scooters alone should be in the section of the Rhine that can be assigned to Cologne city center.

Under this pressure, the joint platform “Shared Mobility”, an association of rental companies, announced that it would salvage all electric scooters located near Cologne in the Rhine at its own expense. The concerted action should start on June 28, 2021.

The lenders wanted to use a team of robots and underwater drones. First of all, the Rhine should be scanned by drone in order to record the positions of the scooters. Once the positions have been clarified, a special drone with a gripper arm should pull the electric scooters out of the water. Divers with special equipment should only be used where this is not possible.

The rescue operation did not take place. According to the Waterways and Shipping Office (WSA) Rhine, the rental companies had not presented a conclusive concept. The planning had a number of gaps. In particular, the planned use of drones met with reservations.

The authority had advised the operators to think more about the use of industrial divers. Ultimately, this is exactly what the rental companies decided to do. At the beginning of September, two electric scooters were pulled out of the mud. Sebastian Schlebusch, spokesman for the micromobility working group at the Shared Mobility (PSM) platform, confirmed this to the German press agency.

A sonar boat had previously identified the places in Cologne’s Rheinauhafen where e-scooters could be. The aforementioned two scooters came to light over 18 out of 60 alleged sites. They were hoisted ashore with a crane and dismantled directly by specialists from the Remondis disposal company in order to safely remove the flammable batteries. The divers also found iron girders, a chair and tin boxes, as Markus Hambüchen from the construction diving company had reported.

After that, the recovery in the Rheinauhafen was to be continued. All 60 potential sites should be submerged within a very short time in order to then tackle the 45 other sites outside the Rheinauhafen. In the past salvage operations in the ports near Cologne city center and on the banks of the old town, more than 50 electric scooters have so far been recovered.

In the middle of the Rhine, divers wanted to retrieve sunken e-scooters from the river bottom again on Monday in Cologne. However, this attempt was stopped after a few hours by the local water police. The water and shipping authority had alerted the police. Reason: The rescue operation was not requested and approved.

The lenders were completely surprised. You want to have discussed the recovery of the e-scooter in several conversations with the Waterways and Shipping Authority. All authorities involved had been announced that this week in the Rhine again electric scooters would be fetched out of the water with a dredger. According to their own statements, the lenders want to have submitted a detailed application with documents about the locations in the Rhine two weeks beforehand. Apparently, this application has apparently not been processed until today.

Anyone who has followed history up to this point will ask themselves several questions. Why do everyone involved remain so relaxed with the amount of damaged scooters? Why are the operators not stepping up the gas? Why are the authorities not only not exerting any more pressure, but also hindering the recovery?

It is also true, however, that there is no reliable information about the actual number of scooters that have been damaged. Aside from the rescue, which is not really in motion, the city of Cologne and the rental company have agreed on a catalog of measures which, among other things, includes a limitation of the fleet size and the designation of parking areas.