Ilva and beyond. Taranto closes 2019 as the Italian city symbol of controversial industrial choices and worrying environmental crescendos. The stretch of sea overlooking the now ultra-known Tamburi district it is among the most polluted in the Mediterranean. An emergency contiguous to the employment one, which places colossal responsibilities for the ecosystem and health on the shoulders of administrators and managers. For years that sea has swallowed residues of all kinds.
Heavy metals, oils, waste that have literally devastated flora and fauna. Until now, little has been said about it due to the primary emergency linked to the survival of the steel plant. How long has the city been waiting for an institution, an institution, an authority, someone in short, who in times of environmental fury, would take charge of this other threat to the city and to the economy? 2020 should finally provide the solution. Even if the decree that recognized Taranto as a contaminated sea site dates back to 2001.
The Mar Piccolo of the Apulian city is classified as highly polluted. Suitable place to experiment with technologies for the remediation of water and sediments. Scientifically an interesting test environment entered in the European funding program LIFE. CNR, the Municipality of Taranto, Enea and qualified companies, in the specific Life4MarPiccolo project, will study the waters by verifying the presence of all dangerous microorganisms. They will work to transform the pollutants into harmless compounds.
A potential palingenesis for industrial sediments discharged mocking industrial controls and ethical principles. The unhealthy area is very vast although of extraordinary economic and tourist interest. At the center of the Mar Piccolo, a mobile photovoltaic system will survey an area of 3.000 mXNUMX. The plant will collect the sediments for subsequent microfiltration. The prospect is to have an environment freed from dangerous and purified substances. All as a result of the activities (needless to say) of the former Ilva, of the petrochemical pole, of Cementir.
An intense process of industrialization – it is written in the Life4MarPiccolo project – which has led to the massive production of waste and waste which, through poor past management, have caused a deep contamination of the seabed and waters of the Mar Piccolo. Those who could have avoided the degeneration and pollution of the body of water did not.
Europe in its water and habitat protection strategy recognized the need for action. He certainly did so in order not to mortify the economy of cities overlooking the sea, without imagining that the very serious crisis of his most famous establishment would then break out in Taranto. But environmental sensitivity must accompany those industrial reorganization processes that have made the Italian economy great. Slogans are not enough – wherever they come from – to put effectively integrated economic systems that produce wealth and social peace back on the right track.
A cycle has ended. In Italy, explains the Cnr, the problem of contaminated sediments has assumed growing importance, above all after the classification in 1998 of sites of national interest to be restored. Together with Taranto there are Naples, Porto Marghera, Piombino, Massa Carrara and many others. Realities that have produced jobs, income, industrial fame in a general disinterest that only the awakening of the circular economy asks today to restore.
