To build the useless echo monster of the SNAM a devastation of unprecedented gravity would be committed in the area of the Case Pente necropolis.
The Citizens’ Committees for the Environment of Sulmona are making their voices heard again about the project that the multinational gas company intends to build in the Case Pente area despite the archaeological value of the entire area. “A historical context that has only partially come to light and that requires further investigation” explain the committees, recalling that Case Pente is “an archaeological complex among the most important and unpublished in the Peligna area” as already supported in 2008 by the Archaeological Superintendence in front of the “remains of a vast and articulated settlement with traces of the road system, of the inhabited area as well as of the necropolis.
Testimonies of the history and identity of the Peligni people that environmentalists have asked the Superintendency of the Province of L’Aquila – Teramo to protect as a whole consisting not only of the ancient construction found in the area SNAM but also from a second construction and from a wall on the path of the gas pipeline discovered during the preventive archaeology excavations.
A request from the committees accompanied by an invitation to the Superintendency itself to hold an urgent meeting to understand what measures they intend to adopt, explain the citizens’ committees concerned by the response that the same body provided to the Legal Intervention Group. Not very clear words that could hide the intention of the Superintendency to accept the thesis according to which “once the human remains and funerary objects have been removed from the tombs, only holes would remain on which it is possible to build”. An “absurd” thesis for environmentalists who indicate at least three reasons why it is impossible to accept the idea of building in Case Pente. First of all because it is a sacred place “intended by our ancestors for the burial of their loved ones”, secondly because the necropolis partly brought to light “could also extend beyond the site SNAM” and finally because it is not conceivable to “break up into various pieces” what represents a unique to be protected as a whole.
Reasons why the Superintendency rejected the project in 2008 Lafarge who intended to open a quarry in the area, a project that would have “altered the state of affairs” and put at risk important testimonies of the historical value of Case Pente and the surrounding area. As demonstrated by the archaeological pre-existences discovered over time, from the Italic and Roman era burials to the stone inscription of the Callitanifrom the Roman sarcophagus containing the remains of Numisina to the remains of the rock church of S. Angelo in Vetulis. This area was probably intended to host a town from which, following the road that passes along the Grascito valley, one arrived at the sanctuary of Ocriticumin Cansano where recently Parks Railways reopened a train station to allow travellers to visit the archaeological area.
There are many reasons, conclude the Citizens’ Committees for the Environment of Sulmona, why in the Case Pente area one should not build but, on the contrary, create “a large archaeological site to be enhanced for cultural and tourist purposes and to be handed over to future generations”. A purpose that the construction of the SNAM would irreparably compromise, paving the way for other industries that would have an impact on the territory.
