We publish below the open letter to the ACA from the mayor of Chieti, Diego Ferrara.
Greetings to the management of the district water supply company and all its employees. I still remember the conference in August last year, during which the Company’s exit from the composition procedure and the Industrial Plan for the following 5 years were announced. A full-bodied Industrial Plan from an economic point of view (98,000,000 euros) and engineeringly ambitious. Funds drawn from the PNRR, the Masterplan and internal resources.
The designs are almost futuristic:
1) mapping and modeling of the entire network (1,063 km);
2) computerization of water networks with early identification of the points of greatest vulnerability and 30% reduction in losses;
3) doubling of the Garden feeder.
President Brandelli hoped, and is still committed to this, to give “efficiency to the water and purification infrastructures, because there is no social, economic, ecological development of the territory without an efficient water and sewerage service”. In all these months I must acknowledge, otherwise I would be committing useless populism or worse demagogy, to the Company’s managers and, above all, to the workers, of a relationship of mutual collaboration made up of timely reports and equally rapid and incisive interventions, whenever an “alert” from the territory and citizens. But summer 2024 promises to be the worst season for water supply due to a dry autumn and, above all, a dry winter. Exceptional weather conditions which add to the vulnerabilities of the network which, with so much effort, we are trying to resolve. Comparative photographic images of the catchment wells, between June 2023 and June 2024, are dramatic and comparable to scenes from disaster films, but Chieti suffers from inconveniences that require your attention. Because yesterday afternoon I phoned some fellow mayors of neighboring territories and these were the answers to my question about what the situation was in their towns to date: San Giovanni Teatino (scheduled closures every other day with closing and opening times respected); Francavilla al Mare (rationing in the hill town with night closures and respected timetables); Spoltore (regular flow of water these days but scheduled closures until 10 days ago); Pescara (apparently everything is in order, the mayor Masci has not received any reports or complaints); Cepagatti (daily night closures with respected times). Given these findings and in the face of a situation in our city territory characterized instead by constant inconvenience caused by non-compliance with the announced timetables and, therefore, by the lack of a flow that does not allow families and businesses to coexist and organize themselves, I ask ACA for RESPECT , as Mayor of a city that has been at risk for health and hygiene for weeks and with a high possibility of default of commercial establishments. Send us TRUE bulletins where there is congruence between the times declared and those actually observed. A citizen who has to take a shower after a day of work or a public establishment that thrives on customers, especially in summer, can no longer trust a water cut warning set at 10.30pm and which instead materializes at 9.00pm, or of restoration which take place at 9 in the morning instead of at 6. My citizens and I are perfectly aware of everything, but we don’t want to be fooled anymore. As is known, I have always trusted in the correctness of institutional relations, but the current situation sees me on the side of the citizens, ready to raise the issue in the official forums of discussion between the Municipality and society, but above all to undertake, with them, also the path of a class action capable of asserting simple reasons, respect for the given timetables, if the situation remains unchanged. Water is an essential good, it is a right, as well as a service for the community: in 2024 this state of affairs is not possible in a provincial capital city, which with all its difficulties must also suffer from an emergency so sensitive, but which must be addressed with the respect and correctness due to a civil society.
