The Uttaro, exactly seven months after the condemnation of the European Court of Human Rights, the securing of the landfill, and the area in which it is located, has not yet begun. This is the bitter consideration reached by the Committee of Ministers, the decision-making body of the Council of Europe, which announced that it will deal with the case The Uttaro on the occasion of Meeting number 1501 scheduled in Strasbourg from 11 to 13 June.
On that occasion, the Committee will question the national Government on the existing interventions and the actions it intends to implement to resolve a twenty-year-old affair, also reserving the possibility of inflicting penalties in the event that, in the following twelve months, they are not carried out significant steps forward in terms of reclamation. Last October the European Court had in fact condemned the management of the Lo Uttaro landfill by the Italian authorities, accusing them of failing to protect the right to life of citizens living near the plant.
In the Lo Uttaro area there are still three landfill sites today, which have never been reclaimed. The first, Ecologica sud, opened in 1990, Lo Uttaro was active from ’94 to ’98 and Lo Uttaro 2 opened in 2007 and operated for six months before being seized by the judiciary. With the ruling of 19 October, the Court confirmed the existence of serious environmental pollution coming from the landfill The Uttaro as a result of approximately twenty years of illegal waste disposal, later specifying that the plant was managed in violation of the relevant legislative provisions and administrative authorizations. An appeal is also pending on Lo Uttaro, presented in Strasbourg thirteen years ago by nineteen people, all residents between Caserta and San Nicola la Strada, who reported exposure to environmental pollution and the risk of being particularly vulnerable to certain diseases.
«Finally the sentence of the Strasbourg judges has entered its executive phase, he explains Alfredo Learned, lawyer of the 19 appellants, now the Italian Government will have to present an action plan and then also a report on what has been done, it is clear that first it will summon the local authorities for a survey of the state of the places. As is known, we are still in the embryonic stage and at this point it is clear that securing the sites is absolutely not enough. A clean-up is also urgently needed in light of the fact that the landfill continues to pollute, as demonstrated by the municipal ordinances which prohibit the owners of the areas surrounding the sites from using the wells for irrigating the cultivated fields”. Learned then anticipates that it will point out «the need to implement toxicological biomonitoring in order to identify the possible presence of chemical substances (attributable to the source of pollution) in the blood and tissues of citizens residing in Caserta and San Nicola la Strada. This is with a view to verifying and measuring the effects that these landfills have produced over the last twenty years on those who live in these areas.”
The municipal councilor for the environment also intervened in the case, Carmela Mucherinoto specify that «the activities underway in the Lo Uttaro area are aimed on the one hand at making the Nuova Lo Uttaro landfill safe, under the responsibility of Sogesid, the in-house company of the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Transport, and on the ‘more on the safety of the former Southern Ecological landfill».
Mucherino explains that in the «first case, the drafting of the executive design is underway. The second intervention, however, recently financed by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security and which concerns an area of approximately 58 thousand square metres, is proceeding quickly. For these works, of which the Municipality is the implementing body, the technical-economic feasibility project will be presented on May 27th. In this regard, it should be noted that we are the only administration that will not have to revisit the timetable as it is in line with the times dictated by Mase. A step forward that shows the commitment of this organization in resolving the environmental problems affecting that area.”
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