There was emotion and sadness, on the morning of Thursday 27 March 2008, in the voice of Gaetano Pedroni , Cisl trade unionist, while I was interviewing him for a local radio station: « Me, with Lorenzo Porcheddu, Claudio Paddeu, Lorenzo De Rosa, Beppe Chelo (representatives of other union acronyms, ed) we have placed a signature that practically sanctions the definitive death of the Arsenale . This is a note of sadness for me. It wasn't easy… The workers are safe, but the Arsenale is dead!».
The day before, the 4 trade unionists from Cisl, Cgil, Uil and Flp had gone to Rome, to the Ministry of Defence, where they had signed the agreement for the relocation of all the civilian employees of Moneta's Military Arsenal. It was as if the crew had been saved, all the crew of an old, glorious ship, which however was about to sink , to sink definitively in the deepest sea.
In the short term, therefore, the 143 employees would have had to leave the structure, directed by the frigate captain Roberto Aramu who would have handed over the duties to Guido Bertolaso, head of the Civil Protection appointed by the Government - as Mission Structure - to carry out the work necessary to the organization of the G8, however, never took place.
The Arsenale officially closed on May 16, 2008 with a solemn ceremony.
Things then went as they went as they are sadly still going, with a structure - on which millions of euros have been spent - still unused .
The Arsenale, or rather the Royal Arsenale, was built way back in 1891 (132 years ago). In that year « 25 specialized workers coming mainly from the Arsenal of La Spezia arrived in La Maddalena where they set up various departments envisaged in the organization of the Lieutenant General of Engineers Giovanni Moneta. Within the naval base, the Arsenale (or the Officina Mista Lavori) had to provide for maintenance, repairs and assistance of any kind for the ships of the Regia Marina and to keep the machinery, weapons, buildings of all types in good condition. structures belonging to the Ministry of Defense in the Estuary, as well as providing for the needs of all Sardinian traffic lights » (from 'Moneta', published by Italia Nostra, 1991, Tip. Rossi).
To those first 25 workers were added about 200 convicts of the Moneta Penal Colony. In the following years, the Moneta district arose around that Arsenale with houses that housed both the military families who served at the facility and civilian workers. Civilian employees who numbered 117 in 1910; in 1929 there were 200; already 250 in 1935; as many as 650 in 1970.
Then the decline began: 500 civilian employees in 1990; 335 in 1995; 295 in 1997; 143 at the time of closure, in 2008.