COMO (ITALPRESS) – The Coast Guard, active to guarantee safety at sea, along the coasts and on the major lakes, also presents the results achieved in 2023. The new Coast Guard garrison on the lake was inaugurated today in Menaggio of Como, called the 3rd Coast Guard Naval Vessel Unit, which adds to the lake garrisons already present on Lake Maggiore and Lake Garda. The ribbon cutting and plaque unveiling ceremony was attended by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Matteo Salvini, the Commander General of the Port Authority Corps – Coast Guard, Chief Inspector Admiral Nicola Carlone, as well as numerous civil authorities and military. The Coast Guard will be present on Lake Como, from 15 June to 15 September, with 12 soldiers who will alternate in service on 2 nautical vessels, to which a third naval unit will be added, when fully operational. The presence of the Coast Guard on the lake will represent a further guarantee of legality which will allow us to increase the safety of navigation and the protection of the area’s environment, placing highly specialized personnel and nautical vehicles ready to intervene in emergency situations at the service of the lake community. .
On this occasion, the Coast Guard’s summer operation was launched which this year will have a new name “Safe seas and lakes 2024”, precisely to highlight the important commitment of the women and men of the Corps also in these three lake contexts. The operation, which will take place during the summer, will see 3,000 women and men of the Corps, over 400 naval vessels and 16 aircraft engaged every day in guarding the 8,000 km of coasts of our country, as well as the major Italian lakes. For more than 30 years, summer operational activity has seen the women and men of the Coast Guard alongside swimmers, yachtsmen and divers who choose the Italian coasts, seas and lakes for their leisure. But not only that: particular attention is also paid to environmental protection, to guarantee the regular use of the coastal strip; an activity – the latter – which led, in the last summer season, to returning over 197,872 square meters of illegally occupied state property to the free use of citizens. These are some of the salient data relating to last summer: 1,716 people rescued (of which 218 on the major lakes), 495 pleasure craft rescued (of which 64 on the lakes), 244 thousand checks (42,354 on recreational watercraft). Similar to past seasons, boaters will be able to count on the release of the “Blue Sticker”, which will allow them to experience the sea and also the lakes more peacefully, avoiding duplication of safety checks (3442 stickers issued of which 95 on the lakes larger). During the event, the 2023 Coast Guard Annual Report was also presented, focused this year on Coast Guard functions – the so-called Coast Guard functions (CGFs) -, the concept of which has developed in Europe since 2018 and which today constitutes the passport to recognize oneself among the European bodies and authorities that carry out these functions within each member state. All those who, thanks to an important institutional synergy, allowed the activation of the garrison took part in the event: the mayor of the Municipality of Menaggio, Michele Spaggiari, Inspector Admiral Piero Pellizzari, Maritime Director of Liguria, regional command which extends its competences from the Ligurian Sea to Lombardy as well as the President of the Lario and Minor Lakes Basin Authority, Luigi Lusardi and Alessandro Fermi, Councilor for University, Research and Innovation of the Lombardy Region. At the end of the ceremony, an air-naval exercise was carried out for the benefit of the citizens to recover shipwrecked people through the use of naval vessels and a Coast Guard AW 139 helicopter. (ITALPRESS). Photo: Coast Guard press office trl/com 03 -Jun-24 5.39pm .
