Crotone reclamation – The “Poisons Out – Crotone wants to live” Committee, formed in recent weeks (Read here the article), intervened in today’s day with a long letter addressed to the President of the Regional Council, Roberto Occhiuto, to the President of the Regional Council, Filippo Mancuso, to the Regional Council and for information to all the regional councilors.
The exponents of the assembly ask that what has already been established in the Services Conference of
24.10.2019, on the issue of poisonous waste with Tenorm and asbestos matrices facing the sea in the area
SIN, to protect the health of the citizens of Crotone, is respected and reiterated in the next one
Services Conference convened at the Ministry of the Environment.
Furthermore, the Committee invites the Region to immediately review the update of the Regional Waste Plan.
Here is the complete letter with all the details justifying the requests.
Dear regional authorities,
as you will certainly have learned from the National Epidemiological Report “Sentieri 2023” the city of
Crotone is suffering greatly in terms of tumor and environmental incidences, which it should
absolutely advise against allowing further activities that have impacts on the environment,
already severely compromised, and with even more serious consequences in terms of public health.
Crotone currently welcomes within a 10 km radius:
N.3 biomass plants (Crotone, Cutro and Strongoli).
N.1 gas turbine power plant (Santa Domenica di Scandale)
N.1 Waste-to-energy plant for hospital waste and sewage sludge
N.1 landfill plant for the disposal of non-hazardous waste (Sovreco SpA)
N.1 landfill plant for the disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste (Sovreco SpA)
N.1 TMB (Mechanical Biological Treatment) for undifferentiated waste loc. Bridges
N.1 disused MSW municipal landfill plant in locality. Flour
N.4 offshore platforms for the extraction of methane gas (owned by ENI)
N.31 active offshore wells for the extraction of methane gas (owned by ENI)
N.9 active wells on the mainland of the Capocolonna promontory (owned by ENI)
N.2 refining plants for the gas extracted in Crotone (owned by ENI)
N.1 EIA PROCEDURE underway at the Ministry to create a regasification plant loc.
Passovecchio.
Finally, the area is saturated with wind farms (with wind turbines 20-30-50 m high) installed for about 20 years in the nearby towns of Rosito, S.Anna, Isola C. Rizzuto, S.Giorgio, S.Biaglio, Apriglianello, etc . etc.
Well compared to this context, what is happening is even more serious, in particular the
attempt to modify the SIN reclamation plan to remove the constraint that requires Eni to
take the poisons out of Crotone and Calabria. A very serious operation with implications and
lethal consequences for the health of the people of Crotone.
We are therefore writing to you so that, first of all, what has already been established in the Services Conference of
24.10.2019, on the issue of poisonous waste with Tenorm and asbestos matrices facing the sea in the area
SIN, to protect the health of the citizens of Crotone, is respected and reiterated in the next one
Services Conference convened at the Ministry of the Environment.
To this end, it is necessary to urgently proceed with an amendment to the new Regional Waste Management Plan (approved on 12 March 2024), to be done by the day of the Council of Ministers, given that some parts of it appear to be in conflict with the defined objectives. in Directives 850/EU/2018, amending Directive 1999/31/EC on landfills, and 851/EU/2018, amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste.
The recent changes to the Waste Regulatory Plan have in fact inspired today’s request for a variation to the POB Phase 2 by ENI, which from 2020 to date has not intended to proceed with the remediation of the SIN site as established by the Legislative Decree inter M. 7 of 3 March 2020. Eni thus assumed serious responsibility for the failure to clean up. These amendments appear to be unconstitutional, to the extent that they violate the sacrosanct right to protect citizens’ health and life itself. They are also illogical by regulating without distinction the regulation of hazardous special waste and related landfills and that of municipal and non-hazardous solid waste.
The illogicality of the choice made in updating the Regional Waste Plan has also pervaded and influenced some recent choices. In fact, we proceeded to authorize, in a simplified manner, the
construction of a GASIFIER for special and infectious hospital waste for 25 tons per
day through a simple variant to an Integrated Environmental Authorization relating to and
limited to the “only” storage of said waste, without any Environmental Impact Assessment. All authorized in the SIN area and near two biomasses and a waste-to-energy plant.
In the meantime, the construction of a new waste-to-energy plant for 65,000 tonnes of special and dangerous waste per year is underway where one already existed.
The aforementioned authorizations violate the fundamental and essential constitutional and European principles,
such as the PRECAUTION principle, as well as violating the principle it provides for, in the release of
authorizations, the evaluation of the CUMULATIVE effect on human health and the environment, which
is widely disregarded.
Due to the ascertained epidemiological situation, due to the very serious environmental criticalities already present as well as the hydro-geological risk of the area, so that public safety is not put in danger in Crotone, something for which your responsibility could not be excluded, being in I play the health and lives of people,
We ask you:
- to immediately review the update of the Regional Waste Plan
amending:
1) in point 32.1 Application of location criteria, the period “In the Plan of
2016 it was intended to distinguish the location criteria for the identification of areas
suitable for urban waste treatment and disposal plants according to the criteria
locations for waste treatment, recovery and disposal plants
dangerous and non-dangerous specials. In this update this is no longer done
use of this distinction and therefore the localization criteria defined herein
chapter apply to all plant types in table 32.1,
regardless of the legal qualification of the waste and its origin.”;
2) in point 32.2 Exclusion from the scope of application of location criteria, the
letter “n) landfills for permanent safety and waste disposal plants
treatment of waste created in the area subject to reclamation and destined
exclusively for the remediation of contaminated sites according to the
procedures of Title V of Legislative Decree 152/2006, without prejudice to the obligation to remove
of the treatment plants once the reclamation is completed”;
As these predictions constitute the reason why ENI claims to leave
all poisonous waste in Crotone, contrary to what is foreseen with the PAUR; - to provide, through the Region’s Environmental Policy Department
Calabria, at the start of a Strategic Environmental Assessment procedure ai
pursuant to Legislative Decree 152/2006 and Regional Regulation no. 3/2008, with the
purpose of ensuring that all authorized activities are compatible with i
environmental contexts and sustainable development, respecting ecosystems and
resources and their regenerative capacity, the protection of biodiversity and
especially human life. For this reason, suspension is therefore requested
of all authorization procedures issued and/or under evaluation.
Furthermore, it should be noted that the recent choice to reject the construction of the Giammiglione landfill for hazardous and non-hazardous waste proposed by the Maio Srl Group, although it goes in the direction of excluding the construction of yet another environmental monster, already rejected in the past, is not a resolution that fully guarantees the non-implementation of the very dangerous project; Indeed
substantially, with the changes contained in the new Regional Waste Plan, spaces are open for accepting foreseeable appeals from the proponent, should you not wish to review the Adaptation of the Waste Plan, amending it in the aforementioned parts and reintroducing the deleted factors, making them even more stringent , and the location criteria, in order to prevent the creation of new landfills in an area already heavily polluted and exposed.
