Doubts, questions and many critical issues regarding the project Borgo biodigester were expressed yesterday evening (Thursday 18 April) by minority councilors Paolo Armellini and Giancarlo Boselli (“Independent” list) and by Luciana Cagna (anesthetist at the Santa Croce hospital) during the conference “Cuneo and the biodigester case – What happens in Acsr and Cec organized at the headquarters of the list in via Meucci.
“The Biodigestore affair concerns one of the many open issues that weigh on our city – he underlined Luciana Bitch opening the evening -. It is certainly among those with the greatest impact on the future of Cuneo and Borgo San Dalmazzo and the greater Cuneo, the set of vast territories that open onto the valleys and the mountains. In the coming months we will address other issues and after the summer we will begin a series of meetings in all the neighborhoods and in all the hamlets”.
“The current Borgo Biodigester project (currently at the feasibility study stage) would have a strong environmental impact, with a quantity of waste that is intended to be collected to make it work in an economically convenient way, oversized compared to the territory. There is not only an economic criticality in the transfer, but also a criticality in the technology of this biodigestion plant – he said Paolo Armellini -. Until yesterday we heard, and we also said, that we were not against biodigestion technology, but against this Borgo Biodigester. Not today! Because the production of biomethane is not aimed at a true circular waste economy, but is a system that consumes energy and requires a large expense for systems and transport, it is not clean because it pollutes, and it is a place of combustion. When we argue that the waste cycle must be closed, we are saying something sacrosanct: the waste cycle must be closed, but the closure represented by the Borgo Biodigester is a closure that has flaws. The Biodigester plant must be viewed with caution, it is a particular plant which in itself does not close the waste cycle, because it generates gaseous, liquid and solid waste. The plant, which is a technological redevelopment of an existing composting plant, has at its input the organic fraction of solid urban waste: the wet and green waste for 45,000 tonnes (which according to reliable sources, confirmed to us in the Council Commission by the managers of the ACSR, to be economically convenient, must be 60,000). The plant’s technique consists of anaerobic digestion (in the absence of oxygen) of organic matter, which produces biogas which is then transformed into biomethane. It is not easy to switch from biogas, which is obtained from the anaerobic digester, to biomethane. I will therefore have done a lot of processes that pollute and consume energy to obtain methane for end uses. So: biogas plus biomethane and compost with a whole series of potential or real problems: danger of groundwater pollution; dimensions and artifacts of the project. Are there chimneys? Is a plan variation necessary? It is necessary to see urban planning compliance; road conditions: traffic is not negligible. Each truck carries an average of 10 tons of waste; to reach 45,000 or 60,000 tonnes, 4,500 to 6,000 trucks per year are needed, at least, round trip, which emit CO2 and PM10 during their journey; which translates into 20-25 additional trucks and vans per day going back and forth entering the Cuneo traffic; methane is a gas, therefore: risks of explosions and accidents linked to hydrogen sulphide. f) Water consumption: 5 times higher than landfill processing, a non-negligible issue in a period of now stabilized water crisis and last but not least the noise. At this point the question arises spontaneously: why produce biomethane if it has all these “disadvantages”? Because there are tax breaks, through green certificates to produce biomethane; There is an economic gain from the sale of biomethane. This is not forbidden, nor scandalous in a market logic, but it is a systemic error, it makes the virtuous upstream reduction policies uneconomical”.
Doubts have also been raised by the councilors regarding the Waste Area Plan which has not yet been drawn up. “There is a lack of serious planning – continued Armellini -. We are undergoing, not planning. One gets the impression that it is decided instead of politics, since the majority of citizens do not want the plant. The most serious thing is that the decision is going over our heads. Among other things, only the Cuneo one has joined the regional ATO, the other 3 consortia in the province go a bit on their own and lack a coordinator and decision-maker. So it happens that, in the waste policy vacuum, a gigantic anaerobic digestion plant is proposed. We are in a city, Borgo, of 12,000 inhabitants (with an influence on the city of Cuneo of 56,000) which will have to dispose of 50 times the garbage it needs. It is a territory that has already given (the landfill has been present since 1982) and which says no to the fact that Borgo becomes the province’s dustbin and that Cuneo, a contiguous territory, has to bear the consequences”.
Also remaining to be resolved – the councilors underlined – is the problem of conferral by the other three consortia (Alba-Bra, Mondovì, Saluzzo-Savigliano-Fossano) which have not yet confirmed their membership because they are currently moving elsewhere at more advantageous rates. “Ultimately there is no absolute no, but talking about alternatives (from the point of view of technology, the site (Borgo is not central to the province) and investments) is good and right. The Biodigester is a great opportunity, but the treatment can be done with two technologies, with different purposes and different consequences” they reiterated.
“The Municipality of Cuneo, ACSR’s reference partner, was decisive in the decision to build the biodigester – he said Giancarlo Boselli, leader of the Independents -. It was decided to build a 60,000 ton biodigester which will weigh heavily on citizens’ waste bills and will create significant pollution problems as claimed by a study by one of the most prestigious universities in Italy. With absolute approximation it was argued in all the forums that if the waste to be delivered was not on paper, it would actually arrive from outside the area from outside the province. And therefore the parameters to make the operation financially compatible, even if they weren’t actually there, would still be there over time. But the new President of the Piedmontese authority has excluded him. It has been guaranteed that the technology does not lead to pollution problems. That security is absolute. But in our opinion the story has highlighted another issue. Why do we arrive at this paradoxical situation? Because there is a serious problem of governance of the operating companies in the sector. The question I ask is very clear: are the Municipalities, primarily the capital, who as partners outline the strategy and policy that the companies must follow? One gets the impression that instead they live their own life and that the presence of the members is experienced as a nuisance. It seems to be the companies that show the way to the municipalities which is obvious, they must adapt. We think that the Municipality of Cuneo does not effectively exercise its role as shareholder in all the subsidiaries. Hasty meetings and quick hearings in the board commission are not enough, important operating companies need administrators with specific and operational skills. Companies can never be entrusted to the management, they must respond to the directions of the shareholders which, however, must be there and be strong and clear”.
Tags: tons Borgo Biodigester Guide
