There regional council of Veneto could not have changed in 2022 the waste plan adopted in 2015, introducing the possibility to activate asbestos landfills also in vulnerable areaslike those of the high plains, as an “area of recharge of aquifers”.
It’s not just the women who support it environmental associations or citizens who in the provinces of Verona and of Mantua they are opposing the transformation of former quarries in hazardous waste landfills, but they are also seven regional councilors. The asbestos issue thus embarrasses the Zaia arrived and questions politics, given that the councilors are part of all groups, even the majority ones.
Yet they presented a motion to ask for a reversal of course and to commit the regional council “to consider cancellation of the exemption” and to “evaluate the suspension of all Fear proceedings (Regional Single Authorization Provision, ed) for waste disposal plants containing asbestos in the high plains – aquifer recharge”.
The motion, also requested by citizens’ committee, has not yet been examined by the regional council, but is already on the calendar. It was signed by Northern League members Filippo Rigo, Marco Andreoli and Alessandra Sponda, Stefano Valdegamberi (Mixed League), Daniele Polato (FdI), Anna Maria Bigon (PD) and Cristina Guarda (Green Europe). Therefore, even within the majority a conflict develops on a lacerating topic such as the public health. The motion claims, in fact, that the 2022 modification could not be made by the regional council alone, but needed a vote of the regional councilgiven that it “has a substantial and significant impact on the underlying criteria and essential elements of the Waste Plan” which had been approved by the regional council in Venice.
THE PROTEST OF THE VERONA PEOPLE – The question is interesting two landfills in the province of Verona, while a third is in Lombardy territory. TO Ca’ Balestra in Valeggio sul Mincio the society Progeco Environment asked to use a gravel quarry with 940 thousand cubic meters of material (equivalent to 120 football fields). Another project concerns localities Caluri from Villafranca di Veronaand was presented in November 2023 by the company Tecno Inerts. A third hypothesis is instead in the municipality of Marmirolo (Mantua). Finally, a Villafranca notebooks there is a fourth request to fill a quarry to dispose of waste from marble processing. The citizens’ protests are therefore aimed at the political choices made in Venice, to prevent the opening of the sites. And now they have found support in the seven councilors.
250 CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS – As for Ca’ Balestra, around 250 critical observations have been deposited so far on the Region’s website. They contest the legitimacy of the exemption and raise doubts about health safety of citizens and for the environment. Asbestos is very dangerous if inhaled, because it can cause tumors such as mesotheliomaand the roads that would be affected by the passage of trucks with asbestos waste pass through the towns and villages farms. “The quarry bottomwhere the asbestos deposit would begin, has a distance of just 3-4 meters from the water table that flows underground. If we think that the ground is made up of gravel, the contamination concerns of the groundwater grow, despite the fact that we are told that asbestos causes consequences if taken into the respiratory tract”. The comment is from Gianni Bertaiolapresident of theTerritorial defense committee Quaderni Valeggio” which was established with the aim of combating the opening of landfills.
THE COMMISSION GO – A meeting took place on May 10th technical inspection in the disused Ca’ Balestra quarry which would be expanded to handle 90,000 tonnes of asbestos waste per year, almost double the needs of the entire Region Veneto which is equal to 55,000 tonnes. A large number of citizens also assisted protest banners. “In a 70-page document the Committee – explains Bertaiola – underlined the illegitimacy of the exemption, the risks of infiltration into the aquifers and the danger posed by the transit of dozens and dozens of trucks with asbestos (even not properly packaged, as permitted by the same project) in a road just 3 meters wide. It is lined with open irrigation canals. If a truck skids and the asbestos ends up straddling the canal, the flowing water could cause dispersion of the asbestos fibers not only on the adjacent fields, with direct penetration into the aquifer. A true environmental disaster!”.
The observations were presented by the two municipalities directly involved (Valeggio and Villafranca), by the Provinces of Verona and Mantua, by the Lombardy Region, the Marmirolo Committee, WWF Verona, the Association of Doctors for the Environment, production associations and farmers, the Veronese Land Reclamation Consortium , Coldiretti Verona, political groups, associations and schools. In Valeggio sul Mincio, starting at 8 am from the Baita degli Alpini in the Ichenhausen Park, a free-will anti-landfill recreational walk will be held to raise funds to support the mobilization which will also be legal.
