“More and more often, before booking, customers ask if there is regular availability of water in our rooms. I believe that this is enough to highlight the damage to the image that our territory is suffering in the summer preceding the year in which Agrigento will be the Italian capital of culture”. This is what Francesco Picarella, head of Federalberghi, owner of the Viale hotel, says.
The May rains did not fill the reservoirs: there is still a water emergency
DOSSIER – Abandoned and vandalised, we take you inside the “ghost” watermaker in Porto Empedocle
The water crisis does not only concern the Agrigento area, but the entire island. So much so that the Council of Ministers decided on a national state of emergency. In this province, already “famous” for its often dry taps, now the supply shifts, in some cases, even reach 12 days of waiting. “It is clear that it is frustrating to do business in these conditions, in a cursed land like ours, where while the taps are dry half of the water is lost underground and in the streets due to a water network
sieve”, explains Picarella.
Water crisis, the CDM: for 12 months there will be a state of national emergency, 20 million euros already ready
DOSSIER. Dry taps and water lost on the street: Agrigento’s new water network has been held hostage by bureaucracy for 15 years
“I had to install two cisterns, because with just one I could no longer meet my water needs”, explains Angelo Agosto, owner of ‘Il Giardino Antico’, a holiday home with four beds. “Unfortunately the situation is complicated, if it continues like this I fear that in two months I will be forced to close and cancel the reservations I have already received”, he adds. According to what appears, numerous reservations have already been canceled in various accommodation facilities for fear, on the part of tourists, of encountering the inconvenience of staying in hotels without water.
“We are trying to use our reserves as wisely as possible, we have even replaced all the aerators in the taps and showers in our rooms to try to save as much water as possible – says Giovanni Lopez, owner of the bed & breakfast ‘Le Cinque news’ – . Rightly – he concludes – people ask us for reassurance before coming, but we don’t know what to answer, we are neither the municipality nor Aica”. A situation which, from Agrigento to Sciacca, from Licata to Menfi, affects the entire tourist accommodation sector, which risks serious economic consequences in a production sector which, in fact, is the only one on which this territory can count.
Drought and cultivation of oranges and peaches, the prefect: “Stop electricity production at the San Carlo power plant”
Siciliacque announces reductions in water supplies, the prefect: “Water is already at the vital minimum, public order is at risk”
AgrigentoNotizie is also on Whatsapp. Follow us on our channel.
