East German Demand For Sewage Payment

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31596, 6 February 1968, Page 13

East German Demand For Sewage Payment

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) EAST BERLIN, Feb. 5. East Germany has warned West Berlin to pay its sewage disposal bill, amounting to about SNZISm, “or else.”

To West Berliners the “or else” could mean the nightmare of thousands of bath-

tubs fouled by blocked sewage lines.

The East Germans are serious about the unpaid bill for West Berlin’s sewage, which flows in pipes to sewage farms at Stahnsdorf and Wismannsdorf in East Germany, outside the city. And not one pfennig has been paid by West Berlin since the Communists built the Berlin Wall in 1961. A letter from the East German Water Department warned the West Berlin Senate: “Your Senator for construction and bousing assumes the sole responsibility for the consequences which would result from a further delay in payment.” West Berlin officials are understood to consider the bill too high. Questioned, after talks about the bill last September between West Berlin and East German authorities bad apparently collapsed, an East German official scorned the idea of any drastic measures. “But," he added, “I imagine there must be a metal plate somewhere in the pipes which could be let down.” A West German magazine commented if the sewer pipes were blocked. West Berlin’s sewage would flow into the River Spree, which flows back into East Germany. West Berlin is striving for sewage independence, one might call it, and considering plans to build another sewage filter plant