Anti-capitalist protesters yesterday took on the Venice dam project. ANSA reports about 200 young anti-globalists staged a sit-in at the site where preliminary works are under way on the MOSE barrier scheme. Protesters sounded car-horns, shouted slogans and waved banners saying "Let's Stop The Eco-Monster" and "Mose Is Eating Up Venice." According to Ireland On Line, demonstrators have been holding daily protests during the Venice Film Festival.
Work on the project had to stop because of the protest and there was damage to machinery, including electric and hydraulic systems, said the New Venice Consortium, the government agency created to oversee the project.
The protest came a day after Veneto Governor Giancarlo Galan warned Venice "could suffer the fate of New Orleans" if a centre-left government comes to power next year. He claimed any new centre-left government would pull the plug on a project that "offers the only hope of making Venice and its lagoon safe for good."
Galan's statement stirred a wave of protests from opponents of the plan who believe only alternative projects can save Venice.
Last month an environmentalists' report said the project violated European Union environmental directives regarding sites of European importance.
Another report identified 19 violations of municipal, regional and European environmental laws.
The Moses project comprises 79 barriers, designed to rise from the seabed to block the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea when high tides are forecast. The threat to Venice appears to be increasing as heavier rains have hit northern Italy in recent years, weather experts say. Experts say there are three main reasons for high water in the city: the rising floor in the lagoon caused by incoming silt; the undermining of the islands by the extraction of methane gas in the sea off Venice; and the overall increase in sea levels caused by global warming.
Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and a slew of environmentalists have condemned the plan which they say will not only fail to halt the island's sinking, but will also upset the region's already delicate ecological balance.
By periodically shutting off currents into and out of the lagoon, pollution levels will rise to dangerous levels, they say, and when the gates are reopened, the water will come pouring back in, causing damaging waves.
Both groups have said a more sensible solution would be to shut down a deep canal whose dredging has increased the flow of sea water to the region and eroded the floor of the lagoon.
Italia Nostra is the oldest national association for the defense of Italy's historical, cultural and environmental heritage. The group opposes the huge dam system proposed for Venice and its Lagoon. First, it says, for a central principle: the Lagoon's environmental imbalance is a cause of flooding in Venice, and this has to be addressed before considering a Pharaonic project that could aggravate the problem.
In addition to this fundamental objection, Italia Nostra has dozens of reasons for opposing this costly project. they are:
Environmental impacts
1. To anchor the huge dams on the sea bed, the construction companies would excavate about five million cubic meters of sediment, including parts of the hard layer of clay on which Venice itself rests.
2. Into the huge cavities to be dug in the Lagoon, the builders would then dump over 12,000 cement piles, over eight million tons of rock (enough to build the Great Pyramids at Giza!) for the foundations of their dams. They would also sink 50,000 tons of sheet metal for the underwater dams.
3. Just for construction, a further 10 hectares (25 acres) of Lagoon would be excavated.
4. A huge flotilla of barges and ships will be necessary to remove the excavated material and bring in the rock, cement and metal.
5. The Lido Outlet would be transformed with the creation of an artificial island, 9 hectares (22 acres) in size, for buildings and workshops, as well as a 20 meter (60 foot) high smokestack.
6. The coastline would be devastated at Ca'Roman, whose beaches are protected as a natural area under EU law.
7. Before the dams actually start operation, Venetians will have to undergo at least eight years of construction with high environmental impacts (for example, the sediment released to the Lagoon's waters could devastate shellfish harvested.)
8. When the dams are completed, anodes to protect their huge metals gates will release about 10 tons of zinc into the Lagoon each year. The toxic metal could accumulate in the food chain.
Costs
9. Construction will cost an estimated 3.7 billion Euros. In comparison, restoring the Lagoon's environmental balance would cost little.
10. Maintenance and operation of the dams will cost millions more each year. For example, up to 35 kilos (75 pounds) of mollusks and other animals and plants will encrust each square meter of metal gate. These will need regular cleaning. Moreover, every five years, each gate will need to be removed. The Lagoon will be become a permanent building site.
Will it be effective?
11. The colossal dams will render permanent the Lagoon's environmental imbalance: the deep channels dredged in the last century through its outlets will become concrete. The erosion that is now eating away the Lagoon's precious wetlands would become permanent, and this rich coastal lagoon, protected by European law, would be transformed into an area of open sea.
12. The dams may not even protect Venice! In the case of significant sea-level rise of 50 cm (20 inches) or more - according to scientists such as Venice's own Paolo Antonio Pirazzoli - they will not be effective.
13. The dams may not protect Venice in the case of exceptional events like the devastating 1966 flood. Water would steadily pass between the individual gates. Moreover, torrential rains on the mainland would also pour into the Lagoon, as in 1966.
14. Another risk is that oscillation of the individual gates in the face of heavy seas would allow through more water and may in extreme cases result in a complete breakdown of the system.
15. For smaller flooding events, on the other hand, the dams would not be used. At present, the dams would be raised only for the highest tides (those +110 cm above median sea level). In 2002, low-lying areas of Venice, in particular St. Mark's Square, were repeatedly flooded by these lesser events.
16. Italy's environmental impact commission also warned that the maintenance of this huge, underwater structure could face unexpected difficulties.
Legal issues
17. Italy's special laws for Venice call for the restoration of the Lagoon's environmental balance, the elimination of petrol tankers and the opening of the fishing valleys - before building any dam structure. Italy's cabinet reaffirmed these priorities in March 2001. None have happened.
18. The special laws also call for public works that are testable, reversible and gradual. The huge dam project has none of these characteristics: it will be a rigid system, cemented permanently into the Lagoon bed.
19. The national Environmental Impact Assessment Commission gave the dam project a negative assessment in 1998 (legal maneuvers invalidated the subsequent formal Minister's decree - but not the assessment itself). The dam builders are starting construction on initial, "complementary" works, approved only by a regional commission. Italia Nostra argues - in court - that only the National Commission can approve these works.
The monopoly problem
20. The dams' builders, the New Venice Consortium, hold an "exclusive concession" - essentially a form of monopoly - on studying, designing and building public works in the Lagoon of Venice. Private companies have a natural and legitimate interest to compete and make profits in the marketplace. Major public policy decisions, however, need good government and transparency to ensure that the public good is protect. For large public works, both design and construction should be open to competitive bidding (under EU and even Italian law). For complex works, design and construction may be combined - but again with open competition. In Venice, the "exclusive concessionaire" has never faced competition. Moreover, the builders were also in charge of most preliminary scientific and technical studies, which could have been used to develop and evaluate alternative approaches.
21. The builders dominate public information about flooding in Venice. Their information centre, press office and high-quality videos and materials present beautiful images of the dam project with hardly any discussion of its impacts and risks.
Missing studies
22. The national Environmental Impact Assessment Commission identified a series of important issues that need to be studied. These include: predicting exceptional tide events; assessing environmental risks; studying the sediment layers to be excavated; and reviewing the changes in the Lagoon's dynamics the dams would create.
The wrong approach
23. The Lagoon, goes an ancient saying in Venice, has a thousand names. Italy's National Environmental Impact Assessment Commission warned that Venice can not be protected without "complex management of the Lagoon system". This "system" includes the city itself, surrounding islands, salt marshes and other key ecosystems, as well as the mainland area whose waters flow into the Lagoon. It needs "an articulated union of works and actions" that are testable, reversible and gradual, according to the Commission. Instead, the dams try to address the problem of high tides with one single, huge project.
24. For centuries, Venice and Venetians have intervened in the Lagoon with extreme prudence. All works were extensively tested and discussed. Today, this prudence and the underlying respect for the complexity of an exceptional ecosystem are as indispensable as ever.
Italia Nostra says there are alternatives to the huge and costly dams. These alternatives not only can protect Venice, but also can restore the Lagoon's natural balance. Here is an outline of key measures that need to be taken.
An Action Plan to Protect Venice
At the Lagoon's three outlets to the sea:
• Reduce the depth and cross-section of the Lagoon's outlets with flexible, reversible methods. Reduce also the depth of the shipping channels that cut through the Lagoon, in particular the oil tanker channel to Marghera. Recent studies have shown that these measures would significantly slow high tides rushing toward Venice, thus reducing flooding - a fact that the Consortium behind the dams has finally admitted.
• Remove oil tanker traffic from the Lagoon, and construct an outer port alongside the Lido island for the largest cruise ships, similar to the one already built in Monte Carlo. Then the huge tankers and cruise ships would not enter the Lagoon, allowing shallower channels. These measures are also important in and of themselves. Already in 1973, an Italian law calls for the removal of oil tankers from the fragile Lagoon! And the huge cruise ships that now pass St. Mark's Square dwarf the city and risk eroding its foundations.
• Build new jetties outside the Lagoon to block the southern winds that create tide surges.
• Develop compatible projects to close the Lagoon's outlets in the event of extreme surges. The Venice City Council recently reviewed a proposal called ARCA, which effectively reverses the Consortium's dams and their heavy environmental impacts: instead of gates in huge underwater foundations, ARCA proposes floating structures that can be filled with water and sunk in place when needed.
• Study future methods of coastal protection in case of severe sea-level rise.
And throughout the Lagoon and surrounding areas:
• Continue and expand local measures against flooding, such as ongoing work to raise streets in Venice. Most important is the protection of St. Mark's Square, one of Venice's lowest points.
• Prohibit natural gas extraction in the upper Adriatic and its risk of further subsidence (falling land levels).
• Re-open the "fishing valleys" to the tides (though preserving their fish farming), as well as other areas. This would allow exceptional tides to expand further in the Lagoon, reducing flooding in Venice.
• Reduce risks of flooding on the mainland - in heavy rains, flood waters can flow into the Lagoon and towards Venice.
• Protect and recover the Lagoon's eroded salt marshes with environmental engineering techniques, instead the coarse methods historically used by the Consortium. A 1999 LIFE Project, financed by the European Commission, tested techniques for salt marsh recovery.
• Reduce motorboat traffic, whose waves and screw wash erode salt marshes (as well as Venice's foundations).
• Cut water pollution in the Lagoon. The deep channels and strong currents have had one positive effect, flushing heavy pollution out of the Lagoon. Along with healing these deep cuts and restoring the Lagoon's equilibrium, pollution to the Lagoon (from industry, urban centers and intensive agriculture) has to be reduced.
• Expand monitoring in the Lagoon and throughout the upper Adriatic to track sea-level rise.
• Renew experiments to raise Venice and the islands of the Lagoon, following earlier tests on the island of Poveglia.
The equilibrium between sea and Lagoon, between land and water and between fresh and salt water "is the reason that the environmental and human mosaic that defines the Lagoon itself has survived", according to Italy's National Environmental Impact Commission. The Commission concluded that this equilibrium can only be guaranteed with an "articulated system of works and actions" that are testable, reversible and gradual, as Italy's laws for Venice require. Sources: ANSA (Italy), ITALIA NOSTRA, Venice Chapter, Ireland On Line, Planet Ark
No comments:
Post a Comment