The measure, approved yesterday evening by the government on the proposal of the Minister for Civil Protection Nello Musumeci, will be valid for 12 months and provides for an initial allocation of 20 million euros to allow the Region to implement the first immediate interventions.
The request for the declaration of a national state of emergency was made last April by the Sicilian Region, in order to be able to deal with extraordinary powers and means with the emergency situation that arose on the island affected by a long period of drought, caused both from the exceptional scarcity of precipitation of the last autumn and winter seasons, and from the temperatures recorded, higher than average which led, among other things, to a significant reduction in surface water outflows, as well as the failure to recharge the aquifers.
The territories most affected are the Provinces of Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Enna, Palermo and Trapani. More limited disruptions were recorded in the Province of Messina and in the remaining Provinces of Catania, Ragusa and Syracuse.
“This is a first allocation – clarified Minister Musumeci -. Other resources will be made available as the Region proceeds with payments. Obviously, he added, the interventions concerning the agricultural and water infrastructure sectors fall within the competence of others ministries, as we clarified to the President of the Schifani Region, who participated in the Government session”.
“I thank the government for the sensitivity shown and Minister Musumeci for the allocation of the first 20 million euros and for the commitment to implement the resources quickly in the wake of a close collaborative relationship between the Region and the national government” commented the president Renato Schifani who yesterday in Rome once again illustrated the plan developed to deal with the water emergency on the island.
The solutions proposed by the control room, led by the governor and coordinated by the head of the regional civil protection, are differentiated based on the implementation times.
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, as well as the modernization of around thirty springs; the upgrading of pumping systems and pipelines and 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 and Trapani, operations that will require longer times and tender procedures, as there are no substantial exceptions in environmental matters and procurements above the community threshold.
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 the companies that manage the water service, including the Azienda Idrica Comuni Agrigentini.
