When police water cannons may be used is actually clearly regulated according to service regulations. Special vehicles with large water tanks may be called in to avert danger, and emergency services use them primarily during demonstrations, street battles or high-risk soccer games. Or – under certain circumstances – when clearing sit-ins if they cannot be done with staff alone. From Tuesday onwards, however, the Bavarian riot police will use the device for something completely different: water cannons for “watering the trees” in Nuremberg are the order of the day.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, “water cannons of the latest generation” with a tank that can hold 10,000 liters are planned. These will initially be used until September 7th on the streets of Trierer Strasse, Minervastrasse, Finkenbrunn and Hafenstrasse. In a summer like this, you have to “help together” to protect the trees, which are plagued by the persistent drought, “from serious damage,” said Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU). The riot police will help as long as it is necessary. However, with the restriction that the water cannons are not required for other purposes – i.e. for classic police operations.
According to Nuremberg’s Mayor Christian Vogel (SPD), additional irrigation is particularly welcome in Nuremberg because the city’s sandy soil “has poor water storage capacity”, meaning that the soil dries out particularly quickly in the summer heat. The water pressure is adjusted “individually to the needs of the trees on site”, and the tank has to be refilled up to six times during the watering process. The water for the trees is tapped at hydrants, it said. The city currently supplies around 9,500 trees with around 18 million liters of water a year. Most recently, in August 2018, water cannons of the riot police helped to water green areas in Nuremberg.