The sea used as a landfill in which to get rid of substances that should have passed through a purification plant before being poured into the waters of the Ionian Sea and which instead would have been disposed of irregularly, in a system in which the forms would have been falsified and in which a service paid for by the Municipalities and never performed by the management company would not have been responded to. Whoever was responsible is facing a trial in which vThe Municipalities of Montepaone, Montauro, Soverato and Gasperina are officially admitted as civil parties who enter as active subjects in the process resulting from the Scirocco operation in which 28 people are involved. The DDA prosecutor Paolo Sirleo renewed in the courtroom the request for everyone to be sent to trial.
The operation had shed light on a less than transparent management of the purification system, dragging into the vortex of controversy not only the Municipality of Montepaone, owner of the consortium purification plant, but also those who were served by the same plant. All strangers to what was happening, which was not missed to the forestry carabinieri of Davoli who had started the investigations from the Lower Ionian Sea, which were then extended to the other territories where there were plants managed by the same company that had the task of maintaining the Montepaonese one. This is the heart of the origin of the maxi investigation on environmental matters coordinated by the Dda of Catanzaro and carried out by the carabinieri of the environmental protection and energy security command and the Forestry and Parks Protection Command, which involved all five Calabrian provinces and led to the execution of 18 precautionary measures, of which 4 in prison, 13 under house arrest and an obligation to stay in the month of March.
Yesterday the second hearing before the preliminary hearing judge, called to decide on the requests for civil action by the Ministry, Region, Municipalities and associations and to express its opinion on the objections raised by the defendants in the last hearing, regarding the legitimation of the entities to become part of the process and on the regularity of the incorporation documents. «All forms of civil action are permitted», confirms the lawyer Domenico Calabretta who defends the interests of the four municipalities of the Lower Ionian Sea, with public bodies being able to assert their rights for damages resulting from the disputed conduct.
“Dozens of various exceptions have been raised to oppose the request to constitute a civil party of the Municipalities represented by me – explains the lawyer Domenico Calabretta – accepting the reasons given to protect the image of the Municipalities, to defend the right to public health, to promote respect for the environment and to protect the interests of commercial activities and tourism operators. The Municipalities, like other territorial entities, have been deemed entitled to take legal action to obtain damages, should the defendants be convicted of the crimes contested”.
What remains excluded from this possibility is Legambiente, the environmentalist association that had sided with public bodies in a symbolic way, but also the municipalities of Petrizzi and Stalettì.
