Versilia, 18 June 2024 – And to think that that salt-flavoured refrain, “which is on your skin, which is on your lips”, after sixty-one years It’s still stuck on my heart. Suggestion of a summer love, fleeting and yet eternal. Today, however, it seems unthinkable to get out of the water and not immediately wash away the salt after a swim in the sea, before lying in the sun. The absence of showers on the shoreline, which remained closed at the beginning of the season due to a national regulation which requires the use of drinking water in bathing establishments for services involving human contact (therefore showers, but also foot and hand washing ), has in fact unleashed strong bad moods among the bathers of Versilia. And not only.
After a long discussion – started last November – a memorandum of understanding was produced between the technicians of the Region and the health companies which, at least on paper, resolves the impasse, allowing the bathrooms to use water from the wells (as was always done in the past) for free showers, provided that the well is regularly reported and registered by the Region, that specific analyzes are carried out every month before the start of the activity, and that signs be placed specifying that the water in question is not drinkable.
Despite this, the showers on the shore have not yet been restored. “Because the legislation coming from the Region opens up to some doubts of interpretation, which is why we have asked for clarifications through the trade unions” explains the president of the Viareggio seaside resorts Tommaso Magnani . “What is required to allow the use of water from wells – adds the president of the Lido di Camaiore bathing establishments, Marco Daddio – there are at least two cold and one hot drinkable showers for every hundred umbrellas or shade points. But it is not clear which showers the document refers to, whether those in the cabins or coin-operated ones, or the free ones found at the entrances to the establishments. Because in the latter case, as Gaia has already pointed out to us, there wouldn’t even be the water resource necessary to satisfy everyone.”
So While waiting for answers, the taps on the seashore remain closed. And the taste of salt on the skin. “The agreement between the Tuscan local health authorities and the region for showers on the beaches is a step forward but – says the regional councilor Massimiliano Baldini – it is not yet a sufficient solution and the obligation of drinking water showers for every 100 umbrellas could cause further problems both for entrepreneurs in the sector and for the manager of the Gaia water service”. For this reason “it is necessary – concludes Baldini – to intervene on regional legislation and on its implementing regulations, changing the rules”.
