Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

S.O.S.from Venice

lelia | 15.07.2005 12:11 | Ecology

Nothing can be more exasperating then the realization that nefarious financial interests are wrecking the environment with the false excuse of saving it. This global tendency applies also to the lagoon city of Venice.

July 5, 2005
VENICE UNSAVED:

Nothing can be more exasperating then the realization that nefarious financial interests are wrecking the environment with the false excuse of saving it. This global tendency applies also to the lagoon city of Venice. More and more Venetians suspect these days the four billion dollar project to ‘Save Venice’ from flooding is padding certain pockets while leaving their city to sink deeper into its lagoon.
Perhaps too late, in view of the massive dam and barrier constructions already under way, Venetians are calling for help from friends and sympathizers abroad to stop the gigantic project. The idea of the protesters is to paralyze, or at least disrupt, the dumping of thousands of tons of concrete and metal poles onto the maritime floor where environmentalists warn it will destroy or compromise the delicate ecosystem of the lagoon in which Venice and other islands have thrived and survived for the last 1,500 years.
In a construction-crazed Italy (resembling a building site these days) the plight of Venice’s recalls the war in Iraq: The fake clarion call to save a country in reality was a call to destroy it first so it can be rebuilt at vast profits and its resources exploited by the destroyers.
In Iraq Halliburton was awarded the monopoly to supply and rebuild. In Venice the Venezia Nuova Consortium, linked to major Italian companies, was also awarded a monopoly. Already the first slices of a 3.7 billion euro ($4.2 billion US) State fund set aside for the project to rescue Venice from drowning have been handed over to the builders.
Those not yet blinded by the PR hype about salvation, rescue of a global patrimony and Good Samaritan work have long suspected the consortium’s massive mobile barriers to block exceptional high tides at the three canals connecting the lagoon to the Adriatic Sea will only benefit certain bank accounts but not the city of Venice. (Just as anyone of intelligence has realized the war in Iraq is highly profitable for some.)
In Venice – if critics are right - the monumental constructions of the eighteen floodgates will alter the lagoon’s physiognomy forever, obliterate the habitat of birds in the lagoon, remove five million cubic meters of sediment, create artificial islands with power stations and control towers and weaken the foundations of a city it is supposed to fortify.
Not surprisingly most independent hydro-engineers, the World Wildlife Fund and UN agencies like UNESCO have condemned the Save Venice system as outdated by thirty years, excessively expensive, unnecessary and destructive to the life of the lagoon and its islands – the most famous of which is Venice.
But the construction is going ahead undaunted. This in spite of allegations the project may be illegal since the consortium was created without a public tender, was awarded a monopoly over all construction and planning and was given the green light without consulting the people of Venice. More baffling still, the basic law of Venice - scrupulously followed for 1,000 years - stipulates all projects to construct dams, dykes or change river-beds must be reversible. But the consortium’s so-called ‘M.O.S.E.s’ project (he who divided the waters) is irreversible.
Perhaps the most ludicrous part of this multi-billion rescue effort is the already accepted result by the project architects that the ‘M.O.S.E.s’ will NOT stop Venice from sinking. It will not stop huge tankers and passenger liners from entering the lagoon. In fact it will make it easier for ever bigger vessels to enter the lagoon and the port of Venice, a lucrative enterprise. Nor will this ‘Moses’ stop the ‘acqua alta,’ (high water) the average fifty times a year when exceptional high tides flood parts of Venice, among them Saint Mark’s Square. (During acqua alta tourists walk on duckboards and Venetians don rubber boots.)
In the end all the expensive concrete-and-metal monstrosity will do for Venice is to raise floodgates during freak high tides. These ‘freaks’ occur four or five times a year. Some engineers already argue the pressure on these floodgates could be so acute during a particularly high tide the gates might burst with the apocalyptic effect of a burst dam for the city of Venice. Even the designers of the barriers agree if the sea level rises by 50 cms in the near future their floodgates become ineffective.
So why the rush to launch this highly dubious project? One can only deduce neither Cassandra-like warnings nor expert opinions can halt the avarice for a share of these public works. Despite more and more opinions to the contrary the builders, backed by a massive public relations campaign, insist their system will safeguard Venice from the waters of the Adriatic, at least during exceptional high tides. Sadly the opponents and critics of the project have neither the funds nor the human resources to counteract years of indoctrination of a Venice saved by ‘Moses’.
The project is based on the reality that water from the Adriatic Sea flows through three channels into the vast lagoon where Venice nestles as a man-made island built on tree trunks rammed deep into the floor of the shallow waters. These channels act like a flushing system for the lagoon. Depending on the tides seawater flows in one channel, washes, replenishes and purifies the lagoon and then flows out through another channel - or vice versa. The lagoon itself has a unique ecosystem made of brine, fresh water (from rivers) and sea water. Some local wildlife and fish species are found nowhere else in Europe.
For 1,500 years Venetians realized any tampering with this marvel of nature could be disastrous for them, their city and the abundance of wildlife on and under the lagoon.
In its long history the city had many enemies. But none of them have been as destructive as the State of Italy. Even the conquering Napoleon who told the last Venetian Doge: ‘The Republic no longer exists’ only pilfered some of the city’s artifacts (returned later) and tore down one church. Yet the Italian State tends to ignore the delicate eco-balance of the lagoon. In the years after World War II Italy built its sprawling and mega-polluting Marghera petrochemical complex right on the doorsteps of Venice. Between 1950 and 1970 alone the water pumped from the lagoon for this complex lowered the ground level of the city of Venice by 10 centimeters. (Since 1902 Venice has sunk 23 cms). Petrol tankers for Marghera began to enter the lagoon. These required deep dredging of shipping lanes (up to 20 meters) despite a law from the days of the Republic that no shipping lane must exceed a depth of four meters.
Next came a period of local apathy: Between 1965 and 1995 the city of Venice failed to clean its canals, a chore their forefathers considered indispensable to maintain both the health of the city and the lagoon. The purification of the canals improves the circulation of tide water and washes out accumulated waste. In the end it was the abominable stink rising from the neglected canals that rekindled a frantic cleaning campaign ten years ago.
Faith the M.O.S.E.s will save Venice from sinking is zero. In private even some of corporate beneficiaries and local politicians doubt the project will ever be completed or will last the distance of the envisaged eight year construction period. Governments in Italy tend to change. The legitimacy of a project can be interpreted in different ways, depending on the political climate and those in power. The ‘M.O.S.E.s has already enough high profile detractors to scrap it at a moment’s notice. (The project was approved and then inaugurated in 2003 under the premiership of Italy’s controversial billionaire businessman Silvio Berlusconi. )
What if after the initial frenzy to grab as many funds as possible the whole project will end up as a scene of sunken cement and metal, half completed floodgates, mountains of dug-up sediment and partly completed man-made islands?
The scope of the ‘destruction’ can be awesome: Five million cubic meters of sediment are to be excavated including parts of the hard layer of clay on which Venice is anchored. Into these cavities the builders will dump 12,000 cement piles, eight million tons of rock and 50,000 tons of metal sheets. Coastlines protected by European Union law would be devastated and when the floodgates are completed (if ever) anodes to protect their huge metal gates will release about 10 tons of zinc into the lagoon each year. This toxic metal could find its way into the food chain.
For those interested scores of alternative projects have been proposed, cheaper, faster, more effective, but most important - all of them reversible. The M.O.S.E.s is not.
The alternative experts who argue for far a less monumental Moses feel one of the first initiatives should be a ban on the towering multi-storey passenger liners and other large vessels entering Venice. Their passage shakes the city in its frail foundations as they pass along the Riva in front of the Doge’s palace. Next the connecting channels to the Adriatic could be made narrower allowing less water to pass during high tides. The city foundations and walls should be reinforced and shored up, speed limits (in effect on paper) rigorously enforced and less expensive and removable floodgates designed. (One design offered can be built in two years at a fraction of the price of the Moses.)
Historically the city fathers of Venice always carefully weighed up - sometimes for years, sometime for centuries - any project intending to change their watery environment before granting it the go-ahead. Even then the go-ahead carried the proviso: If the system does not work dismantle it.
It was this kind of wise caution that helped the City on Water to survive for more then a millennium. (ends)

WWW.ULISCHMETZER.TK

lelia

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech