It was May 1994, when Silvio Berlusconi, who had himself filmed live while on his way to Palazzo Chigi to take possession of the first Presidency of the Council of the Second Republic, was attracted by a delegation of miners from Sulcis who contested him: the President-in -that occasion-miner turned to them smiling and said "I'll take care of it". In 1997 the last mine in Sulcis, the zinc mine of Masua, closed. Two Carbosulcis sites remained open, but not productive – including the one now occupied by forty miners – awaiting a longed-for gasification plant for the bad, and unusable, Sulcis coal, which would allow it to be used to power electricity production. But Berlusconi was not the first to encounter the problem of the Sulcis mines. Since the 60s, Italian politics has been confronted with the legacy of a respectful mining past, but now condemned by the exhaustion of the veins of zinc, manganese, iron, lead, which had fueled the mining boom in the area in the second mid-nineteenth century, and of the fascist autarchic dream (or nightmare?), which in 1930 had led to the creation of the architecturally extraordinary new cities of Carbonia, Cortoghiana, Bacu Abis. Obviously without being able to find the philosopher's stone that could transform bad coal into gold, but managing to create illusions fueled by public money.
The birth of Eurallumina and the aluminum pole in the 60s is in fact the result of the dream of using the coal of Sulcis to develop an intensive production of energy, which would also have allowed the miners to be converted into industrial employment. A peculiar choice: precisely because the production of primary aluminum is very energy intensive, aluminum plants tend to be located where there is a great abundance of energy (as in Iceland or the United Arab Emirates) or close to the ore production areas ( such as in Australia, Brazil or China). There is no mineral in Sulcis and it was soon discovered that the use of coal from Sulcis had very high costs, due to its polluting characteristics and that therefore coal had to be imported to feed the energy plants. Since then, Sardinian aluminum production has been subsidized through highly subsidized tariffs: so subsidized that the European Commission has deemed that they were not compatible with competition within the European Union. And without subsidies, the companies in the Sardinian aluminum hub are unable to operate. Hence the closure, at least temporarily, of the plants. However, not before the aluminum pole had given rise to a very heavy situation of environmental pollution, due to the emission of waste into the air and water, and devastation of the landscape, not too different from those of ILVA in Taranto, even if less visible (there are no dust here). The spread rates of leukemia and other cancers in the area around Porto Vesme are, according to environmental associations, among the highest in Europe. The fumes from the plants threaten surrounding towns and developing tourist, agricultural and fish farming areas. Although it should be clarified that, from this point of view, the situation of the Porto Vesme hub is very different from that of ILVA: the environmental problems are similar, but an initial economic balance that, without considering environmental costs and to health, is in the Sardinian case completely unsustainable.
It is good to remember this story, when considering the difficult choices facing the government with respect to Sulcis and Alcoa/Eurallumina. The request of the courageous men and women, who have aroused the solidarity of the President of the Republic and of much public opinion, proud of their work and desperate at the idea that a definitive closure of the plants would condemn Sulcis to an economic and social desert, is actually return to a situation of assisted economy which has no prospects without permanent public intervention. The request of those who propose presumed strategic priorities for aluminum production and fear that Italian industry will become even more dependent on imports is no different; even if the Italian situation is not very different from that of the other European countries: for the reasons we have mentioned, the production of aluminum is concentrated in countries rich in minerals or energy, such as the Arab countries, and Europe contributes only ten per cent of world production, despite being a large user.
But is a development policy in Sulcis that is self-sustainable possible? The impression is that it is, if it is based on its natural and environmental resources, which are not few, and on its history. The Sulcis Geomining Park, a monument to the mining history of the area, was the first of its kind in the world and is a UNESCO protected site: yet its development is slowed down by the region's inertia in allowing the reform of the consortium that manages: important private initiatives that would have favored its commercial use have been discouraged. The agricultural activity of the area appears promising, in particular that of wine and fruit. The tourist potential is enormous, since it is an area fortunately still largely free from excessive building speculation: former mining villages such as Buggerru and Nebida have been able to convert into tourist centers and complement already developed centers such as those of the islands of Sant'Antioco and San Pietro . Beaches very well protected by local administrations allow us to hope for further developments, perhaps non-invasive as elsewhere in Sardinia. Finally, the same human capital of workers in the metallurgical and mining industries, if retrained, could represent the support for the development of an industrial activity more compatible with the environmental context. These are factors that could be sufficient to activate a self-sustained growth cycle: also because, fortunately, Sulcis, although poor, is not densely populated and the numbers are small. As many commentators from Sulcis (you can find them in the blogs) point out, the limit is rather given by the local unwillingness to exploit these resources: a consequence first of a tradition of pastoralism and then of the external management of the mining companies and therefore of the state holdings as well as of the distrust towards of external initiatives.
The problem facing the government is then that, unfortunately common to post-war Italian politics, of choosing between a stop-gap solution that alleviates the present tensions through further subsidies for future generations, and of identifying channels and methods, and projects, that activate local initiatives and attract them from outside, in order to design a new path for the development of the region, naturally providing the necessary shock absorbers, and the conditions for retraining, to workers who are affected by the current crisis and initiating processes of environmental and of industrial conversion. Bearing in mind that such a path requires responsibilities and skills that do not only belong to those involved in Industry and Mining, but also in the Environment, Agriculture, Tourism and Social Cohesion.
