The new government commissioner for the sector starts from 52 million euros credited to the special accounts quenching and tempering Of Taranto, Vito Felice Uricchio – appointed last March – but, he tells Quotidiano, “obviously nothing or very little is done with this money. I will now request additional resources. There was an important opening by Deputy Minister Vannia Gava to be able to indicate amounts for the next FSC, Development and Cohesion Fund. I received this note yesterday and I have already made an initial assessment. We’re thinking about more than 500 million. I am confident that this can happen. On the other hand, we are at the beginning of the new programming. Either it’s done now, or never.”
Uricchio is the fourth commissioner appointed by Government for the reclamation of Taranto. A technician from the Cnr, the National Research Council, with vast experience, Uricchio arrives after Alfredo Pini, in those years national commander of the Fire Brigade, the geologist Vera Corbelli and the then prefect of Taranto, Demetrio Martino. Figures that descend from the legislative decree n. 129 of August 2012, which established the appointment of a commissioner through a Prime Ministerial Decree. The latter, for the interventions to be carried out, recalled CIPE resolutions from the same period for 110 million.
The details
In the budget sent to the Ministry of the Environment at the end of September by the previous commissioner Martino, there is the safety and reclamation of the contaminated soil of the Tamburi district with 8 million, which was then extended to the areas outside the schools of the district and to mechanical ventilation of school environments for another 2.750 million. And again, the removal of anthropic materials from the seabed of the first breast of the Mar Piccolo for 3.334 million, the removal of the floating fish market in Mar Piccolo for 2.476 million, the reclamation of the unpaved areas of the San Brunone cemetery for 6.127 million on which however a dispute arose, the agreements with the Municipalities of Massafra, Statte, Crispiano and Montemesola to use resources previously allocated by CIPE and, finally, the 32.276 million for the rehabilitation of Mar Piccolo, a project on which the former commissioner expressed reservations in cost-benefit terms by asking to evaluate alternatives.
The resumption of actions on the urban cemetery and on Mar Piccolo were included by Commissioner Uricchio in the list sent to the Deputy Minister for the Environment. On Mar Piccolo, Uricchio recalls the meetings he had with the mussel farmers’ associations and underlines how there is “total convergence. Actions have been proposed and everything will be done in a participatory manner. No decisions made from above. I did the census of discharges in Mar Piccolo myself with my research group. A job where we also involved the Navy and the Financial Police. The executive phase was missing. Former commissioner Corbelli had started it but it was then suspended. Would the situation have improved a little now in Mar Piccolo? Yes, in short, but we still have to face it. In the Mar Piccolo there are bacteria that are capable of bioremediation. We observed this through laboratory studies, while we carried out the intervention with the assisted phytoremediation on the ground, in the Cimino-Manganecchia area” says Uricchio regarding the use of poplar cuttings in this area on the Mar Piccolo to counteract pollution.
Uricchio’s agenda also includes the revision of the borders of Sin, the site of national interest, and Taranto is so due to the presence of polluted areas. “Work has just been completed by the Ministry of the Environment and Ispra – states the commissioner -. This redefinition will be the subject of a meeting that should take place on May 29th. An evaluation is therefore underway. In the current phase I would say to continue this re-perimeterization anyway, because in the previous one there were geometric errors. It was made with a marker on cartography 1 at 250 thousand, it was absolutely not precise, and now it is right to review the errors. But above all there are twenty sites that have been reclaimed and therefore must be removed from the Sin area”.
With the re-demarcation, adds Uricchio, we will have a more limited Sin and “now I will ask for resources to be able to characterize other areas and possibly exclude other areas too. Are you asking me if there are situations that are not compromised or not seriously compromised? We need to delve deeper, we need to appropriately characterize these areas to then be able to exclude them.” Will a revised Sin also speed up the reclamation process and procedures? “Yes, but it is useful to first delve deeper, understand exactly what the environmental situation is like and the state of compromise of the matrices and then exclude in a conscious way – notes Uricchio -. This will be the subject of a future review. Let’s not make a definitive one. It is always dynamic and depends on the areas that will gradually be reclaimed, or it will be ensured that they are not contaminated. Some areas of the Great Sea were probably also considered at the time. It was imagined that the greater surface area would also correspond to greater funding, but this is not the case. And therefore we need to keep only the areas that need it perimetered.” “Now for me it is essential to activate the support structure – concludes Uricchio -. It is an urgent need. There is also a lot to pay. The previous commissioner carried out activities that still have to be paid for by the municipalities and businesses. And therefore an administrative structure is also needed because I am a technician. It is essential that this happens as soon as possible. I hope so”
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