The alarm drought in Sicilyia reaches increasingly dramatic levels: the Sicilian Agrometeorological Service (SIAS) has in fact reported the data of rainfall averages in Sicily in the last year, equal to 453 millimeters. To find such a serious situation it is necessary to go back to 2002. The areas most affected by the drought are those of central-eastern and southern Sicily, with a crisis that began already during the autumn of last year: the scarcity of rain between October and November has in fact considerably reduced the water supplies available for the spring months, pushing the Region to request and obtain the state of natural disaster already at the beginning of the year. Subsequently it was decided to water rationing in almost 200 municipalities. Simplifying as much as possible, the situation is reversed compared to last year, when the northern regions suffered from drought: this year, however, in the north May and June were very rainy, whereas in South the drought advanced ferociously. And the consequences, in Sicily, are already very serious today: let’s look at them in more detail.
The drought in Sicily is erasing the only natural lake
In recent months the Sicilian rivers have gradually decreased, with an increasingly smaller flow rate. But what is most striking is the disappearance of the only natural lake on the island, the Lake Pergusa: the drought in Sicily has in fact transformed this basin into a puddle of mud. And to think that that same body of water was narrated in the myth of Persephone, thus passing through the offspring of Ovid, Cicero and even John Milton. Special nature reserve included in the list of sites of “community interest” by the European Union, this reservoir is disappearing: as explained to the Corriere by Giuseppe Maria Amato, Water Resources Management referent of Legambiente Sicily, “after months of agony and after an incredible week of unbreathable miasmas, Lake Pergusa has almost completely disappeared, in its place remains a blackish patch of damp mud that is drying in the sun of this summer that has just begun”. And Amato’s words are harsh towards the island’s government, which would have done little or nothing in the face of the drought in Sicily.
There is no water, citrus groves are being uprooted in the Catania plain
It is not just the bodies of water that have disappeared due to the drought in Sicily in recent months. In these weeks the lack of precipitation is accompanied by the Catania plain from the sound of chainsaws: they are those of the farmers in the area who, not having enough water available for their crops, have come to the painful decision to to remove a part of me. The consequences of such a necessary action are notable: beyond the obvious costs for farmers, it is good to think about reducing production, cutting the laborers needed for harvesting, reducing subsequent processing in the factories, and so on. . Cutting citrus groves therefore means impoverish a territory.
Fighting the lack of precipitation with a desalination plant that has been down for 12 years
In Porto Empedocle there is a watermaker, but it has not been used for 12 years: it was decided to shut it down due to high temperatures management costs. Now that, due to the drought in Sicily, the Region has decided to allocate 20 million to tackle the crisis, it has been decided to allocate 1 to reactivation of the plant, capable of sucking salt water from the sea and filtering it to produce fresh water ready to be put into the water network. Costing 6 million euros, the desalination plant was in operation from 2007 to 2012: to put it back into operation it will take at least 5 months. It should also be underlined that in Sicily there are two other desalination plants, in Gela and Trapani, both in a state of abandonment. All this, moreover, is happening while the construction of 4 new watermakers in the Aeolian Islands.
