From drought to hail. Two phenomena, one result: damage to the countryside. There is no peace for farmers in the central and northern areas of Sardinia. In recent months they have had to deal with the lack of rain, which has led to water restrictions in Baronia and the worrying drop in reservoir levels. With, among other things, the tourist season just around the corner, which will cause the population in Sardinia to multiply and water consumption to grow exponentially.
Today we were hoping for rain, which had been announced. Instead, grains of ice fell.
«After months of drought which brought the agriculture of the upper Barbagia and Baronie to its knees, the hail arrives to deal the final blow to an already severely compromised production framework». The president of Confagricoltura Nuoro-Ogliastra, Michele Ena, said this when commenting on the hail that hit today, between lunchtime and the afternoon, especially in the areas of Bitti, Orune, Onanì and Lula, with a disturbance that it moved unevenly in terms of precipitation and intensity.
«The damage calculation», continued Ena, «will begin tomorrow especially in the vineyards, olive groves and fodder fields which in recent days were being mowed and harvested . The only positive note of this Wednesday to forget concerns the waters that will arrive in the Maccheronis reservoir in Torpè in the next few hours. A very precious water rescue", he concluded, "which will help us, perhaps with the rain arriving in the following days too, to slightly improve the level of flooding of the dam, reduced today to just over 8 million cubic meters of water of 23 of authorized useful capacity".
And this emergency is precisely at the center of four technical tables organized between today and tomorrow by the governing body of Sardinia (Egas), with the municipalities of Siniscola, San Teodoro, Budoni, Torpè and Posada, among the most affected by the absence of rain.
The regional agency of the Sardinia hydrographic district (Adis), Abbanoa and the mayors of the five municipalities involved between Baronia and lower Gallura were invited to the meetings. The first two meetings focused on the municipalities of Siniscola and San Teodoro, tomorrow it will be the turn of Budoni, Torpè and Posada.
The administrators, forced into restrictive ordinances to deal with the water emergency, are asking for extraordinary interventions to deal with the water shortage in the Maccheronis dam on the Posada river.
In Siniscola, approximately a third of the water networks will be replaced. In the last two months alone, several interventions have been carried out and four teams are working to replace 30% of the pipes on a total length of 35 kilometers of network. Nine kilometers of new pipelines are planned in the town and 1,000 connections have been created for a total investment of approximately 5.5 million euros. San Teodoro will also receive substantial investments for interventions on an obsolete network. In the Gallura municipality, the replacement of 16 kilometers of pipes has been planned, approximately 35% of the entire water network, and 1,500 new connections will be created for an investment of 11.5 million euros. Interventions that will be financed by Pnrr funds and the Development and Cohesion Fund. Mayor Rita Deretta underlined the need to be able to count "on a greater presence of personnel dedicated to water networks, especially with the approach of summer which brings a significant flow of tourists".
The first citizen also urged "the possibility of using the resources coming from the Liscia reservoir to save the use of resources coming from Maccheronis".
«For eight months», explained the president of Egas Fabio Albieri, «we have established a control room and we are trying to resolve the problems. Unfortunately we are experiencing an exceptional year, with a water flow equal to half that recorded in the leanest year of the last 100 years."
(Unioneonline/E.Fr.)