A possible sinthesis for an incredible story

A possible sinthesis for an incredible story.
|Translated by Luther Blissett|

When Eni is creating pollution, then public institutions do not see, do not verify, do not intervene. This story, incredible even for the people who lived it themselves, begins in 1996 when a spontaneous Committee of miners in the Colline Metallifere, fighting for their jobs and in contrast with their Unions after Eni abandoned the mining sector, revealed that in the past toxic waste had been stored in the Campiano mine. The waste material was then placed in a dry area, but after the pumps had been stopped following the halting of every activity in the mine, it was submerged and dangerous toxic metals have passed into the water. The pollution is from mercury and arsenic, which pass into the waters in a particularly acid environment which is in turn produced by the metallic solphides found in abundance at surface level. We have traced the procedure followed by Eni to obtain the necessary authorization to store the waste material by the Regione Toscana to and we found that the material (pyrites ashes from the Eni plant of Scarlino), had been passed, through documents containing misleading information and dodgy lab tests, for reusable material (even at surface level and even in an acid environment) good both for the surface lining of dump sites and to be used instead of quarry material in the making of roads. The local Health Authority had indeed correctly certified the real hazardous nature of that waste material, but local Mayors and regional administrators had turned a blind eye. So the pyrites ashes were scattered in huge quantity here and there in the territory of Alta Maremma. They were mainly used to build farm roads in the farms close to the Scarlino plant and to fill in marshland. In the meantime the first wells of potable water had to be closed. Notwithstanding that millions of tons of this dangerous waste still lie abandoned under the sky, or dumped in the hollows of the Padule di Scarlino, in contact with surface waters and on permeable ground. All this has been documented in papers and scientific studies commissioned by the Regione Toscana and by the magistrates. But nothing happened. We stepped into action demanding inspections and the inclusion of such areas in the Regional Plan for land restoration and at the end of 1997 we obtained the inclusion of 24 sites. But the delays of the local administrations allowed Eni to negotiate agreements with some of them (e.g. the Comune di Scarlino or the Comunità Montana dell¹Amiata) whereby the local administrations pay for the land restoration and in exchange receive the ownership of the land and of the buildings existing on it now owned by Eni. More agreements were planned and then dropped (e.g. the one with the local administrations of the Colline Metallifere or the one with the Regional Commissary for the Creation of a Strategy for Waste Control). Today we can assess that in the exchange planned the relation between the costs for land restorationand the value of the properties that Eni was offering was ten to one. Regione Toscana arrogantly failed to answer our requests. The same applies to the Provincia di Grosseto. Nobody wanted to ascertain where the tons of arsenic and mercury produced in the melting process of sulphides in the Eni plant of Scarlino, had ended up. Nobody wanted to force Eni to make safe its waste material, which had been proved to be toxic and lies in the open totally unprotected. Thanks to the action of another Committee in nearby Follonica, we succeeded to take the case to a Parliamentary Investigation Commission on crimes connected with waste production and disposal chaired by Mr. Scalia MP. Although this Commission confirmed all the circumstances of our report there hasn¹t been so far any result. Worse, Eni, forced to confront the law on land restoration and to abandon the planned agreements decided for a complete change of strategy and aimed at a complete discharge of its responsibility claiming that in the hills inland metallic sulphides naturally come to the surface. Eni managed to have the provincial and regional Arpat certify the ³natural and ubiquitous² presence of dangerous quantities of arsenic in the alluvial ground in the flatland around Follonica and Scarlino. This is also false or rather it is an artificial certification which aimed at demonstrating the ³natural and ubiquitous² presence of the arsenic, by deliberately choosing to analyze sites which were indeed far from the plant, but in which Eni had in the past transported tons of pyrites ashes (used as Œquarry material¹) and whose soils were mainly clay. Arpat goes on to certify also the impermeability of the soil to prove that arsenic, which was found up to the depth of 6 meters cannot have percolated from the surface on which the ashes had been placed. Eni plants are in reality built on lenticular strata of sand, silt, clay and shingle, typical of the alluvial soil of recent formation, underneath which are vast ancient riverbeds filled with shingle. The surface waters are in touch with the ashes containing arsenic in huge quantity which dissolves in the water and could contaminate the whole area. Such a massive presence cannot be natural. Although we reported to all the competent authorities and to Arpat the spreading of the pollution resulting from the previous industrial activity and notwithstanding the existence of highly qualified studies made in the ¹80 which ruled out a toxic concentration of arsenic in the flatland around Follonica and Scarlino, Eni has obtained to avoid the cost of land restoration. The pollution of the subterranean waters goes on and more wells of potable water which served Follonica have been closed. The local administrators, lacking the water necessary for tourism and for the other productive activities are looking for alternative supplies and even repropose an old Eni project: the production of potable water from seawater by a plant whose cost is to be borne by the collectivity and whose energy balance would be disastrous! All this is happening nowadays in Tuscany where Ulivo is ruling. Or rather Eni is.