Mussomeli – It was supposed to be a highly participatory city council aimed at finding solutions. At least based on expectations. The extraordinary meeting convened, at the request of the minority group, for yesterday, Monday 24 June, at 5.30 pm at Palazzo Sgadari.
Present at the table of the majority group were the mayor Giuseppe Catania, the municipal secretary Francesco Piro, the president of the Council Gianluca Nigrelli and the councilors Daniele Frangiamore, Michele Spoto, Sebastiano Lo Conte. In the reserved rows, councilor Jessica Valenza, together with the majority councilors Saverio Sciarrino, Salvina Mingoia, Salvatore Castiglione, Adriana Sorce, Enzo Vullo. In front of all the minority councilors, Enzo Munì, Ruggero Mancino, Eugenia Costanzo, Silvana Castiglione, Giusi Mantio.
There was little, or rather very little, popular participation. Which recorded the absence of all the categories most interested and affected by the water emergency. With all the risks linked to rationing and the non-potability of running water. Whether out of resignation, indifference, distrust or excessive trust – in institutions rather than in miracles! – we cannot really know.
The fact is that the council – extraordinary only in its definition – resolved itself into a debate – mostly weak and not very engaging – rather aimed at raising – and consequently stemming – the controversy, rather than identifying immediately feasible and shared solutions. The “short” may already be too long at the moment. The well-known fact that in twenty days we will hit our heads in the bottom of the Fanaco, now emptied even of manganese which, at the moment, is the only excess element, is no longer news nor does it cause alarm or alarmism. We’ll see if the bins represent the symbol of this “African” summer. Meanwhile, tourists are canceling flights and planned stays in western Sicily. But also in what appears, against all (ir)reasonable predictions, to be the poorly equipped Capital of Culture 2025. While, in the small town in the shadow of the castle, people are busy hoarding water in supermarkets.
We started from afar, on both sides, retracing a political history – the responsibility of which is not clear whether to be attributed to the various right-wing or left-wing, local, regional and national governments that have followed one another over time. The only certainty, and also shared, is the social disaster we are witnessing. And that the water revolt of 1954 recalls only in the name of water. But of that civic conscience, even if human, which also caused four deaths, not even a shadow. Even before being an absent good, water is an instrumental fact. Which everyone would like to bring to their own mill.
And if Catania and Munì agree on the delay in establishing the regional control room, everyone’s point of view regarding the quantity of water, in the form of rain, that Sicily receives is very different. But which he then fails to collect, much less distribute.
At the table of proposals, the one that would have the most suitable requirements to be put into operation in a very short time is the one supported by the mayor of Catania who has already held a technical table with Her Excellency Chiara Armenia. That of intervening with the competent offices in order to guarantee the volume of water – forty-five liters according to – which, at the moment, serves the needs of the nine municipalities of the Vallone. Drawing on the adductors that bring water to the Fanaco. At this moment the adductors carry 120 liters according to, regardless of the rains. At the moment the requirement of the nine municipalities stands at 276 liters according to which, we reiterate, are guaranteed.
The situation within the districts is very different, as they currently receive water every twenty-one days, as reported by Cris Nucera. One of the three “voices of the people”, together with Francesco Amico and Peppe Territo, long-standing politicians, who spoke as ordinary citizens, given the exceptional nature of the Council. They were the only moments that raised the tone of the assembly a little, at which the Carabinieri commanders, Major Giuseppe Tomaselli and Lieutenant Lorenzo Chiatante were also present. In civilian clothes the commander of the Municipal Police Attilio Frangiamore and the traffic warden Enza Messina. But not even this small excitement warmed up the spirits of those present who, several times, asked for the interventions to be speeded up because the pleasure of the match loomed large. We would say with a clearly oxymoronic meaning.
Yet in the shadow of the -historicized- town of Manfredi, widening onto Piazza Roma -emasculated even of its fountain- with the Sgadari behind it -once the door of the building which vaguely recalls Dante’s is closed – a thought cannot fail to go to the good Peter and Paul, the two faces of Neptune himself, who also guaranteed water, at least they guaranteed it. But Mussomeli has never had a good relationship with the fountains and today he cries about it in some way. Hoping that tears are not the only waste liquid…while under their breath there are those who murmur “let’s get out of San Calò”!
