Un investment plan of 400 million euros to reduce polluting emissions fromIlva of Taranto. The former prefect deposited it today in the prosecutor's office of the Apulian capital Bruno Ferrante, president of the Riva group, the company that owns the iron and steel plant.
Ferrante also filed an application requesting that the company be allowed to continue producing, while respecting the sentence of the Review Court, which confirmed the seizure without the right to use the six hot areas.
“We hope that the plan and the application will be positively evaluated by the prosecution and the magistrates – said Ferrante -. We ask to implement the decisions of the Court of Review and therefore to follow the path it has indicated to us". On 17 August last, the number one of the Riva group announced that the company would invest 146 million euros for the first plant remediation measures, 90 of which have already been allocated.
However, it is not yet clear what the personnel management plan is, given that since yesterday, by order of the magistrates, Ilva must reduce production by at least 30% to make it possible to start the compliance procedure. In detail, the judicial custodians have given the order to initiate the shutdown of blast furnaces 1 and 5 and of all the batteries of the coking plants (with the exception of 7 and 8), as well as the closure of steel plant 1.
"We are not faced with closure but with a transition to recovery – commented the Minister of the Environment, Conrad Clini – and I hope that with the initiatives of the ministry, the judges and the company, a concrete path will be built. I spoke constructively for a long time this morning with the chief prosecutor of Taranto ”. Also yesterday, with a message on Twitter, Clini announced that the ministry will appear as a civil party in the process on responsibility for pollution in Taranto.
Meanwhile, the House is examining these days the government decree for the environmental rehabilitation of the Taranto area, while the final go-ahead is expected by 30 September new integrated environmental authorization for the iron and steel plant, which will impose a series of measures on the company to ensure compliance with the law on the limits of emissions of polluting substances.
Secondo an epidemiological report ordered by the Taranto prosecutor's office, in 13 years the pollution produced by Ilva has caused the death of almost 400 people. The company replied that these are data relating to the past and that today the environmental situation has clearly improved.
A study by the Higher Institute of Health shows that in Taranto, between 2003 and 2008, deaths are 10-15% more than expected. A gap that increases to 30% if we look only at deaths caused by lung cancer. However, a clarification came from Clini: “Everything remains to be demonstrated that the deaths are caused by Ilva emissions – said the minister -. In short, there are margins of uncertainty on the cause and effect relationship of mortality from cancer".
The Minister of Health Renato Balduzzi he then clarified that the definitive data on the mortality caused by the Ilva of Taranto will be made public on 12 October.
