“This morning I raided the watermaker located in Gela. Structure that the Region, and therefore the citizens, pays over 10 million euros a year and which has been decommissioned and abandoned for over ten years”. This was stated by the vice-president of the anti-mafia commission at Ars, Ismaele La Vardera after visiting the structure.
“This government has an obligation to intervene”
The Sicilian parliamentarian continues: “This government has the obligation to intervene, we are faced with an unprecedented water crisis and while Schifani thinks about getting more votes for Tamajo than Falcone, money is being thrown away here. I requested access to the documents and asked an urgent question.”
“I will prepare a complaint to the Court of Auditors”
“Our island deserves more: it is unthinkable that for almost 10 years we have been paying over 800 thousand euros a month for structures that are closed. I will prepare a formal complaint to the Court of Auditors and access to documents, as well as an urgent question.”
Watermaker decommissioned in 2012
The watermaker was definitively decommissioned in 2012, but the Region continues to pay a very high installment of 10.5 million euros per year for a structure that is now reduced to old iron. This is the paradoxical case of the Gela plant, which in the Sicily of the great thirst was identified, together with Porto Empedocle and Trapani, with one of the large desalination plants that could be restored to serve one of the areas most affected by the drought.
State of national emergency due to drought in Sicily
Meanwhile, yesterday, the Council of Ministers approved the state of national emergency due to the drought on the island as requested in recent days by the regional council, for a duration of 12 months, allocating the first 20 million euros, with the possibility of increasing resources in a short time already during the implementation of the first interventions. A year of water emergency and extraordinary interventions in Sicily. The President of the Region also participated in the meeting at Palazzo Chigi.
The measures that will be adopted
Among those quickly implemented, the purchase of new tankers in municipalities in crisis and the arrangement of other vehicles in around a hundred local authorities; approximately 130 interventions including regeneration of existing wells, drilling of twin wells and reactivation of abandoned ones, in addition to the revamping of around thirty springs; the strengthening of pumping systems and pipelines; the construction of new interconnection and bypass pipelines.
For the next few months, however, we are evaluating the restructuring and restarting of the desalination plants of Porto Empedocle, in the Agrigento area, and of Trapani, operations that will require longer times and tender procedures, as there are no substantial exceptions in environmental and procurement matters above the community threshold.
Nine tables in the individual provinces with the Civil Engineers
At the same time, the regional Civil Protection department has established nine technical tables in the Civil Engineering offices of the capitals of each province, with representatives of the Water Department, the Reclamation Consortia, and the Basin Authority. The tables identified and selected the interventions according to priority and will then proceed to monitor the implementation phases. Furthermore, several meetings have already been held with Siciliacque, Aica Agrigento, Caltacque and Acque Enna.
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