Within a few hours, a month’s worth of rain fell. An exceptional “alluvial” episode, as the Consortium for the reclamation of the middle Bergamo plain defined it.
«Even our province of Bergamo was not spared from this real wave of very intense and at times impressive rainfall» explained the Consortium, which then added: «But we must not forget a positive aspect in this critical circumstance.”
Water removed for 240 Olympic swimming pools
The hydraulic works managed by the Consortium have in fact worked effectively and efficiently, securing approximately eighty thousand hectares of territory. The just over 2,500 kilometers of canals with all the consortium canals drained everything that was necessary, while the lamination tanks located in Lesina (Isola), Astino (city) and Morletta (Levate) reached alert levels, fulfilling their role fully.
Also containing the inconveniences were the spillway of the Morla torrent in the Serio river, which removed around 400 thousand cubic meters of water in a few hours (equal to 160 Olympic swimming pools, in comparison), the drain of the Serio canal in the Brembo river and the Cascina spillway Lupo in Longuelo, who managed the same volumes of water. The Canale di Gronda Sud recorded the greatest performance in this event with 600 thousand m3: equal to 240 Olympic swimming pools.
«In the following night the weather conditions worsened further, moving from the west to the east of the district but discharging an even greater quantity of rainwater and this time putting the disposal system in crisis starting from the regional water network which was encountered with the network of reclamation downstream to try to minimize the wave of water poured into the area”, explains the Consortium.
What remains after this phenomenon of exceptional rainfall is «a great deal of work to restore the safety conditions of the irrigation ditches and canals which naturally also require maintenance and care which generate considerable costs, but which reserve certain benefits. Of all the costs there is one that could definitely be avoided: that of waste thrown into the ditches and consortium canals which involve a significant expense that is passed on to taxpayers”.
