«Well, the water is there, there are the usual shifts, nothing new. However, almost all of us have tanks. It’s been going on like this for seventy years.” There’s a sort of composed resignation in the words of the inhabitants of Caltanissetta, which not only have been subject to supply rationing for months now, but have now even had to witness the interruption of service due to a fault in the Ancipa pipeline, which brings water from the nearby Ennese dam to the city. Symptomatic responses of a Sicily resigned to remaining in the 1980s, which has not had the opportunity to learn about an alternative to be able to understand how little normal this situation is. Among the Nisseni there are those who take issue with politics in a rather generic way and who reflexively with Caltaque and with the privatization of the water service, seen as a broken promise. «They had announced that with privatization water would arrive every day – says Salvo – In twenty years they have never been able to keep this promise».
«It doesn’t surprise us that much that we don’t have water every day – he says Tiziana – What changes with other years? AND always the same story, this year we just started a little earlier.” And then an enormous variety of topics: from conduct that has been “leaking for years”, as he says Frankwhich invites you to take “a tour around the city when they put the water on, you will notice several leaks”, to those who take issue with the management of the service, up to those who denounce the fact that water from aquifers present in the city territory «gets lost in the sewers». And in some cases it even leads to clashes between neighbourhoods, despite rationing being more or less the same for everyone. “In Saccara area they put water every three days – he says Maria Sole – while in Angels area they give water every day.”
All this while the capital is located in the midst of the election campaign for the renewal of the municipal administration with i three candidates to the mayor’s seat: the outgoing one Roberto Gambino (M5s – South calls North), Walter Tesauro (centre-right) e Annalisa Petitto (supported among others by the Democratic Party, but without a symbol) engaged around the city streets, but the problem of water networks, drought and water shortages does not seem to find a particular place in the candidates’ sermons, both because mostly the more it is a problem that concerns the Region in all its nuances. Region that announced for tomorrow the natural resumption of supply. «If not even the mayoral candidates talk about it – continues Salvo – It means that they know it’s just impossible that things change. And to say that with promises like that they could win without any effort, but it’s too science fiction even for election campaign promises.”
