The clash is hidden, like the heavy metals that the drilling barge is probing in the shallows of the industrial port of Sulcis. That auger positioned on a patched-up raft for submarine cores has been searching the stretch of water on which the long shadow of the chimney of the Enel power station in Portovesme reverberates for days. We look for the stratigraphy of poisons, those sunk for decades in the sea in front of one of the most polluted areas in Italy. In that basin that has become a port without depths, the poisons are there, but no one is able or willing to measure them.
The dance of poisons
More than certain data, every survey in front of the east quay reveals oscillations of all kinds, so much so that now it seems to be the dispute between the Industrial Consortium of Carbonia-Iglesias and the company that makes recourse to that sad hole deep underwater. back in 2016 it was awarded, without ever starting them, the works for the excavation of the industrial port. The conflict, ready to land in the courtrooms, on the piles of lead and zinc accumulated in the seabed of Portovesme, however, is nothing compared to the war that is being unleashed on the environmental disaster and on the repercussions on human health of that regasification plant that Snam, for account of the Draghi government, he would like to place in the inaccessible eastern quay of the industrial port of the deep Sulcis. Holy war, with doors in the face, and dramatic admissions that reopen in a bloody way the never healed wound of the industrial pollution of this raped and abandoned area.
Clash over health
The clash is titanic, on the one hand the Higher Institute of Health, the highest authority in public health, and on the other Snam, the company which, in agreement with the Government, would like to give a sop to gas. the only region in Europe without methane. After the unedifying chapter of a gigantic ship, costing 269 million euros, to be transformed from a gas carrier to a floating regasifier, the Golar Arctic, which cannot enter port due to the lack of sufficient seabed, now is the turn of such a bloody matter what has been forgotten: the health of workers, citizens and the environment. A “Portovesme” chapter that reopens with the virulence of devastating data that on the health level should make anyone jump. The dossier that was to remain segregated in the rooms of the "Eco-Aeolian" Ministry of Transition ended up in the investigation pages of our newspaper with the publication of that cutting opinion of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità: that regasifier placed in the middle of the industrial port "Determines an additional contribution to the environmental concentrations of pollutants in the air".
Sanitary rejection
The conclusions of the state body regarding the protection of public health did not grant an appeal: "The project presented by Snam is not acceptable for the purposes of protecting the health of the population residing in the area". The picture envisaged by the Environment and Health Department of the Higher Institute was all too clear: all the environmental values, to be added together, bring the pollution data well above the maximum health risk thresholds. Heavy claims, for those who thought that the environmental issue was under control in Sulcis. The reality, on the other hand, is anything but.
Buckets of poisons
The scandal of the plastic buckets used to measure the environmental impact on the territory, denounced in recent days by our newspaper, has uncovered the issue of controls and the reliability of environmental and health checks. It is for this reason that every affirmation on the health of the territory must be weighed and verified with the precautions that must be taken when superficial and negligent behavior is encountered, in order not to hypothesize more serious ones. The picture that emerges from the documents in our possession is alarming to say the least. The Istituto Superiore di Sanità had been caustic in attacking Snam's work without hesitation.
Omissions & soft data
Strong accusations, all written in black and white in the document published by our newspaper: you used the 2020 lockdown data as reference data for environmental analyzes; an optimistic and unrealistic land traffic scenario was assumed; especially in calculating the impact of the regasification plant, the emissions data linked to the resumption of industrial activities were ignored. The rejection of that floating infrastructure was without appeal: new pollutants cannot be burdened in that area. Snam, however, after having spent the beauty of 269 million euros to buy that 291-meter-long ship with a draft of over nine meters, without carrying out the necessary checks and without having any prior authorization to place that mega gas tanker in Portovesme, now there is not to succumb. The tones towards the opinion of the Higher Institute of Health are not conciliatory and, if anything, they send the accusations back to the sender on data and analyzes, environmental and health, all to be done. In those 47 question-and-answer pages with which Snam replies to the opinion of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Sardinian public health is heavily involved with a letter sent directly to the top management of the Sulcis local health authority.
Snam letter
The letter asks to know everything that should have been the basis of the regasification plant project. There should have been, in fact, but it is not there. The picture of the situation and the superficiality with which the government first decided to install the "float" in the Sulcis is disarming. And Snam's request to ASL for a meeting is proven proof that we are groping in the dark. The letter is a string of pressing elements that make it possible to understand the gravity of the situation: "The data to be examined to assess the state of health, also in the light of comments previously received from ISS, according to the writer (Snam) should be the mortality data, hospitalization data, and cancer incidence data if the area concerned is covered by a population cancer registry ".
Cancer registry
And this is one of the bloodiest and most devastating passages of the entire stakes: the cancer registry. Snam knows perfectly well that it does not exist in Sulcis, that it has never been activated despite a regional law and that, above all, that register is not around the corner. A game of chess on the health of citizens and workers, given that the Higher Institute of Health asked that the pollution incidence data be found both on the resident population in the municipality of Portoscuso and in neighboring countries, and in the employed population in the industrial area.
The confession of risk
In the meanders of Snam's response to the Institute of Health, however, a fact emerges in all its gravity. The health organization, among the reasons for the refusal of the “floating” operation, had pointed out that the analysis of the Snam project had ignored the possible reopening of Eurallumina and the former Alcoa in terms of pollution. And without fear of denial it was hypothesized by the state control body that those additional factors would clearly have brought the degree of pollution of the entire area above the threshold. The state gas company was forced to redo the calculations on the polluting sum of all the industrial plants in Portovesme: the result is devastating.
Triple risk
The permitted risk threshold for inhalation (Hazard Index) is set at a maximum value of (1) one, the result that emerges from the calculation is, instead, of 2.854, or almost three times as much as foreseen by the risk index. Snam attributes this exceeding of the risk value to the exceeding of PM2.5, or the “fine particulate”, the most insidious and dangerous for human life. These are anthropogenic micro-powders (industries, heating, vehicular traffic and combustion processes in general). Once inhaled, they are able to penetrate deeply into the human respiratory system, overcoming the tracheo-bronchial barrier and reaching the alveolar area. According to the European Environment Agency in the 10/2019 report in the 41 countries of the European continent, in 2016, 412,000 premature deaths attributed to exposure to fine dust were recorded.
Children, the elderly and the sick
For the Ministry of the Environment “fine particles can cross the alveolar barrier, pass into the bloodstream and be absorbed by the tissues. More vulnerable to the risks associated with exposure to atmospheric pollutants are those with heart or lung diseases, children and the elderly ». All data out of range that are found for most of the substances subjected to verification, with reference to the results produced by the three Arpas control units, located in the Portoscuso area and managed by the Cagliari structures of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Buckets and control units
A chapter, that of the analysis on the territory, which leaves many doubts open, if only the scandal of those buckets hanging under the trees, used as deposimeters, has opened a glimpse of truth on environmental controls in Sardinia. And to realize that not everything is in order it would be enough to take a tour around the monitoring station in the center of Portoscuso, to make sure that it is probably positioned upwind of the emission pollutants or, worse, it is surrounded by vegetation making the pollution control capabilities. In short, the regasification plant was needed to tear through silences and omissions.
