ROSE GARDEN. The methane distributor, in the Eni service station in Roseto sud, can be installed and the Municipality must grant authorization. This is confirmed by the ruling of the Council of State, signed by the president Fabio Franconiero and from the extensor Massimo Santini, which accepted the appeal presented by Eni following the first instance ruling of the Abruzzo Regional Administrative Court in 2020, which had rejected the appeal brought by the company after the Municipality’s refusal to build the plant. Among the reasons, the judges specify that «there is no problem of danger or lack of safety of the systems, and that the methane gas system is part of a pre-existing system for some time, on which it has never been no complaints relating to safety were made, nor was any assessment of the danger of the plant itself ever carried out by the defendant administration”.
About five years ago, on 20 December 2018, Eni Spa, implementing the will of the manager of the Roseto service station, requested the building permit for the «renovation of the plant for upgrading with the addition of a new product , methane gas, for transport, which involves the installation of plant elements, i.e. a compressor room, a transformation cabin, an electrical cabin, and a new methane product supply island with a shelter to protect it”. However, the Municipality, with a note dated 20 November 2019, communicated to the company the rejection of the proposal. «The area concerned is included in the urban center of the municipality of Roseto», we read in the reason for the refusal expressed by the body, «where the installation of methane gas systems is not permitted, on the basis of a regional law, beyond of the distinction between modification of the existing system or total renovation”. However, on 27 January 2020, Eni challenged the Municipality’s provision, appealing to the Abruzzo Regional Administrative Court and specifying that «the insertion of an apparatus for the distribution of methane gas, in a pre-existing structure for the distribution of other fuels, would constitute a simple modification and, therefore, it would not fall within the ban on the construction of new gas plants in urban centres”. The regional administrative court, with sentence number 97 of 2020, rejected the appeal, deeming that «the setting up of a methane gas distribution apparatus within an existing refueling station falls within the hypothesis of the creation of a new plant prohibited in urban centers for safety reasons, also on the basis of regional law”. Eni thus presented the appeal to the Council of State, which accepted the company’s reasons, canceling the municipal management decision of 3 December 2019.
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