Three hundred euros for a few laps in the lake?
Several dozen visitors to the Mönchwaldsee near Kelsterbach will have to transfer this sum in the next few days.
Because they violated the nature protection guidelines and bathed in the Mönchwaldsee despite the express ban.
After the chaotic conditions prevailed on and around the lake on the weekend before last, the city, city police, state police, the lower nature conservation authority and the forest took action this weekend.
What they had to experience is sometimes unbelievable.
Kelsterbach's mayor Manfred Ockel stood at the barrier that blocked the access to the lake all day on Saturday and Sunday.
Everyone who ran in the direction of the water was informed by Ockel.
Swimming is prohibited in the landscape protection area, as is leaving the paths, such as smoking, camping and diving.
"We have to do that all the time from now on," was Ockel's balance sheet on Saturday evening.
It has been shown that the controls are effective.
While up to 1500 people were at the lake the whole day a week before, leaving tons of rubbish behind, it was significantly less on Saturday.
For some, just looking at the vehicles of the regulatory authorities was enough not to drive to the parking lot at the lake, but to turn around straight away.
Unreasonable swimmers
Elke Grimm, head of the Lower Nature Conservation Authority in the Groß-Gerau district, makes it clear to the people at the lake during patrols with the police why they are only allowed to use the circular path around the lake, but swimming is taboo.
It is about the protection of the flora and fauna.
She does not meet with understanding everywhere.
Two older men even become quite abusive: They would swim in the lake every day and they would not allow themselves to be forbidden to do so in the future either.
The advice that they have to pay a fine of 150 euros per person makes them even angrier.
Two men who pretend that they barely understand the German language and don't even want to remember where exactly they live tend to make fun of the controls.
“I don't pay anything, I have a good lawyer,” one of them says and laughs.
The day also went badly for a young man who came to the lake with a few friends.
He was also informed of the ban on bathing.
But because it was his birthday, he still jumped into the water and was promptly caught.
A young person comes to the lake with a huge bass box on his back: He obviously wants to party there.
The mayor criticizes various websites on which the Mönchwaldsee is recommended as a bathing lake, although it has been under protection for more than ten years because of the many rare animals that live near the shore and also breed there.
But in earlier years no one consistently checked compliance with the rules.
Ockel wants to put up more signs about the bans in the next few weeks.
Martin Klepper, who looks after the Kelsterbach Forest, acted immediately. All trails around the lake were cordoned off with tree trunks on Sunday morning and further signs were put up. But even these actions did not stop many people from going to the lake anyway. Including four divers.
For example, a young couple who come by taxi and walk towards the lake with two large dogs tells the mayor that they just want to go for a walk. Of course, one obeys the prohibitions. An hour later, when a police patrol was checking the lake, the man, the woman and the two dogs were in the water. The man and the woman pay for the short pleasure with a fine of 300 euros each. Because they were informed beforehand of the bathing ban, the authorities assume willful intent, which doubles the actual fine of 150 euros.
A family with three grown children sitting on the bank saw the prohibition signs.
But because others also swam in the lake, they did that too.
At least the mother does not want to see that they should pay for it and demands forbearance.
A coot with its young chicks sits in the reeds just ten meters from the family and looks excitedly at the swimmers.
A family with a toddler camping on the bank claims not to have been in the water at all.
However, a wet swim board and wet swimming shoes speak a different language.
Three women from Kelsterbach who were in the water early Sunday morning want to keep it that way in the future.
They do not find the swimming pools in the area attractive enough.
Visitors come from the region
When recording the addresses, however, the police found that the majority of the bathers came from the entire Rhine-Main region, especially from Frankfurt, Offenbach, Wiesbaden and the Main-Taunus district.
This nature reserve is particularly important for the city of Kelsterbach, which has lost almost its entire urban forest as a result of the construction of the northwest runway at Frankfurt Airport.
This is also the opinion of the head of the Lower Nature Conservation Authority, who especially in the conurbation grants such small jewels of nature a special meaning and therefore also a special protection worthiness.
The mayor announced that the control pressure on the lake would be maintained throughout the summer.
Under no circumstances would conditions like in previous years be tolerated.