Endless investigations and fines. Environmental damage that are worth billion in public spending. Everything that is bad for the country has been certified by Ispra, the Institute for Environmental Protection, on behalf of the Ministry of the Environment. 2017 and 2018 were two tragic years. Sicily has conquered the primacy of infringements – as many as 38 – followed by Campania, Puglia and Tuscany. In all, 217 measures with great expenditure of resources and a lot of bitterness. Renzi's Italia Sicura program relied on a billion euros from the European Investment Bank. Then something went wrong and funds are still scarce.
By environmental damage, the law explains, we mean any significant and measurable deterioration caused to protected species and habitats, to rivers, lakes or to the soil. The truth is that we are not virtuous at all. Ispra says infringements are steadily increasing. What are we talking about? Of the Costa Concordia accident, of the unfortunate waste dumps in Campania or of Bellolampo at the gates of Palermo, to mention the most striking.
When it is discussed, as in the conference "Environmental damage: prevention and repair in a network system", we realize that we pay all the costs of a systematic and long-standing underestimation. Most of the investigations for environmental damage are related to offenses committed in waste management (41%). 19% relate to building violations and against the landscape. L'8% are related to eco-crimes, against which a 2015 law provides for penalties, including criminal ones. Then there is the casuistry of polluting emissions into the atmosphere, noxious industrial discharges, outlawed production processes, uncontrolled climate-altering factors.
I 217 cases registered in the last two years they belong to two broad categories: 184 in legal proceedings for environmental crimes that end up before the courts and 33 out of court that start when public bodies, citizens, associations request the intervention of the Ministry. The first step is the complaints to the Prefectures. But the administrative machinery must do more and quickly. The slowness as well as having a very limited effectiveness, weighs like a boulder on state coffers, which could collect money by virtue of the fines.
The law on land use, for example, is a good basis for prosecuting abuses, stimulating transparent local economies and getting the Administrations to collect money from the infractions. The pardons, so to speak, are elsewhere. The Conte government has the good opportunity to rely on the National System for the Protection of the Environment (SNPA). The one who created the "Environmental Damage Operational Network" a year ago for a qualitative leap. The strong partners are precisely Ispra and the regional environmental protection agencies. They are evaluating actions to prevent disasters and deaths, but the criteria for faster administrative procedures and methods of insurance coverage for damages have yet to be developed. The territories, however, do not wait for bureaucracy.
