Sogin, the state company in charge of the decommissioning of nuclear plants and the safety of radioactive waste, has published the map of the sites potentially suitable for hosting the deposit of nuclear waste (Cnapi). After waiting for years – the impetus for Cnapi came from Carlo Calenda, Minister of Development in the Renzi government – and the slowdown of the first Lega-M5S government, Environment and Development have finally crossed the Rubicon. And now the map of sites potentially suitable for hosting nuclear waste storage is finally available to the public. The deposit, it should be remembered, is a project that cannot be postponed and is absolutely necessary: the other European countries have already taken steps to implement it'Italy pays extremely high costs to transfer nuclear waste (related to medical diagnostics and industrial activity, certainly not to nuclear power generation plants which no longer exist since 1987) abroad.
The document aroused immediate interest and the below was stormed. The document, in any case, is not definitive – there will still be a long way to go – and it immediately sparked controversy, in particular from the Basilicata Region. "With the permission of the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of the Environment and the Protection of the Territory and the Sea - the Ministry of the Environment announced in a statement -, Sogin published on the website of the National deposit the National Charter of Potentially Suitable Areas (CNAPI), the preliminary project and all the documents related to the creation of the National Repository for Radioactive Waste and the Technology Park, which will make it possible to definitively dispose of Italian low and medium activity radioactive waste".
Currently radioactive waste in Italy they are stored in about twenty temporary sites, which however have never been suitable for final disposal. The publication of the Cnapi, with the list of 67 potentially suitable places (which are not all equivalent to each other but have different degrees of priority depending on the characteristics), in fact initiates the document consultation phase for the duration of two months, at the end of which the national seminar will be held over the following 4 months. “This will be the start – wrote the Ministry of the Environment – of actual public debate which will see the participation of local authorities, trade associations, trade unions, universities and research bodies, during which all aspects will be explored, including the possible economic and territorial development benefits associated with the construction of the works".
After this discussion, Sogin will update the Cnapi, which will once again be submitted to the opinions of the various ministries and control bodies. Based on these opinions, the Mise will validate the definitive version of the Charter, or the Cnai, the National Charter of Suitable Areas. It will be a highly participatory and transparent procedure, assures the ministry, even if there are already those who are protesting. The Basilicata Region is one of the areas concerned but has already made it known, through the words of the President of the Region Vito Bardi, that "it will oppose with all its strength any hypothesis of the location of the national radioactive waste repository in its territory".
"We had not been informed - added Bardi and the councilor for Ambiente Rosa - and we reiterate our opposition to this choice, sure of interpreting the common feeling of the people of Basilicata, who, as everyone knows, has already expressed this orientation, in composed but decisive manner, 17 years ago when the Scanzano Jonico site was indicated. Now as then our territory, which contributes significantly to the country's energy balance with its own natural resources, cannot be further burdened by an activity that it would risk questioning and jeopardizing the perspective of sustainable development that with so much effort, in this difficult situation due to the ongoing health emergency, the institutions and economic and social forces are trying to materialize ".
"In the public consultation that has been foreseen - conclude Bardi and Rosa - the Region will produce a series of negative observations which are currently being processed".
