Zaia: “It’s time to start the Marshall plan against floods”

“It’s time to launch the Marshall Plan against floods. Starting from a simple consideration: it is better to spend a billion on prevention rather than two, or who knows how many, to repair the damage.” She said it to the “Corriere della Sera” Luca Zaia, which is grappling with precisely that: counting the losses caused by the flood in Veneto. And it proposes a national policy for hydrogeological risk. “I consider the flood between October and November 2010 to be my baptism of fire as governor. I had never faced something like this: 235 municipalities flooded, 10,040 families and businesses underwater. Prime Minister Berlusconi and Bossi came to visit… That’s where the idea for the Marshall Plan was born.” He talks about what at the time “many considered a utopia. Also because no hydraulic works had been carried out for 80 years. I called some experts and they came up with a 2.7 billion plan, which we didn’t have. But step by step… 2,400 construction sites open and 23 large rolling basins, the vast majority of which are already functioning”. “The result – he continues – is that, despite the rains of the last few days, Vicenza has not ended up under water as it did then. We averted devastation. Bear in mind that it was a deluge, even 400 mm of water concentrated in a few hours. A real flood.”

And now he proposes such a plan for all of Italy: “Precisely. Look at the ‘Veneto model’ we are testing. There are the basins and we need to put back the banks, historically made with poor materials and now reduced to gruyere of holes dug by badgers and otters. In Veneto we have 10 thousand km of embankments, a quarter of the earth’s circumference. We have a billion works ready, but we don’t have the money.” The government should therefore budget billions for hydrogeological instability: “It should be a priority, I was hoping for the Pnrr and I note that we pay billions in damages every year. With the works around Vicenza and Padua, with this flood we saved a billion or more. But I also have another idea. A policy. It would be useful to set up a mutual catastrophe policy for everyone at a national level. Insurance at controlled prices that can encourage citizens to secure themselves. It would allow us to say: ‘Italy is 100 percent safe’”.

There are those who speak of the excesses of environmentalism: “You can’t help but see the problem. Denying climate change is incomprehensible. To deny that part of what happens is caused by man means not being connected to reality.” But today Veneto is safe: “Safer than before, of course. But it doesn’t have total security. The Piave, for example, is an important river that worries us. We would be ready with a mega project already financed. Reminding us that these are issues that cannot be joked about: in 1966 the flood of the Piave caused one hundred deaths”, concludes Zaia.

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