A forum on the wind projects hanging over Sinnai, Maracalagonis, Selargius, Settimo and Quartucciu. In the headquarters of L'Unione Sarda, journalists Paolo Carta, Marco Noce and Paolo Paolini interviewed Barbara Pusceddu, mayor of Sinnai, Gabriella Mameli, deputy mayor of Selargius, Stefano Deliperi, president of the Legal Intervention Group, Matteo Puggioni, agricultural entrepreneur of Sinnai, and Father Gabriele Biccai, parish priest of Sinnai and Superior of the Discalced Carmelites for central Italy.
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Two wind projects, 31 blades 200 meters high divided between Sinnai and Maracalagonis, plus the collateral works and cable ducts in Selargius, Settimo and Quartucciu: the effects on agriculture, tourism and landscape?
Stefano Deliperi: «The shovels on the outskirts of the inhabited centers and on the slopes of the Sette Fratelli would change the characteristics of one of the most naturalistically important areas, also damaging many productive activities. We would find ourselves a barrier of wind towers a stone's throw from the mountain and the sea. These projects are part of a mad rush to renewables, which is anything but necessary. Moreover, at a regional level, 824 have been presented to produce thirty times the amount of energy we have today. Planning on renewable sources is essential, that's where it's right to go. We have a lot of rooftops and abandoned industrial areas that could satisfy most of the so-called "urban" requests. Why isn't it done? For an economic choice: agricultural land costs less. Therefore they will also make us pay for the kilowatts that we will not consume, as foreseen by "dispatching", a bad word to indicate the balancing system between the energy requested and that produced. It's obvious speculation. Have you ever seen a guarantee from these companies to guarantee the disposal of systems at the end of their life? It's like the phoenix, they talk about it, then it disappears, the engineered failures of these companies are not an invention of environmentalists: the machinery remains there and the community has to pay the costs of its removal. Today is the Far West, we still have time to correct the mistake but it means annoying big economic interests: do we want to do it?".
Matteo Puggioni: «I made the discovery during the election period, on a Wednesday night: 17 shovels between Sinnai and Maracalagonis. Half of my land is included in the project, wind turbine number 7 falls inside. If it became reality, the company would cease to be profitable, canceled in the name of a green transition that has nothing environmental about it. My vineyards are registered in the DOC and IGP registers, yet it didn't help. They claim that, to bury the cables, the vineyards will be uprooted and then replanted, a crazy idea. They didn't even consider that European Union money was invested in that area and the intended use cannot be changed for 10 years."
Gabriella Mameli: «The activity of the committees and that of local administrators is the real barrier against an invasion that risks jeopardizing local crops and distorting the territory. They want to change the characteristics of Sardinia, an irreversible transformation that makes us fear the worst."
Barbara Pusceddu: «It is an invasive, disfiguring project that cancels everything that has been built over time. The wind turbines fall in the same production area in which an intervention by the reclamation consortium was financed for three million. In the same localities, the expansion of the water network is being studied to give new opportunities to farmers, but the shovels ruin everything. They are 200 meters high in places without roads, so new expropriations are expected to build them. There are different risks: economic-productive, for the health of plants and animals that inhabit the area, for the landscape."
Father Gabriele Biccai: «We need to conserve, monitor, perhaps we are a little late, but we must stop squeezing our planet, not insist on the project of putting wind turbines in Sinnai, which has always been suited to something else».
Have you met company representatives? What did they offer you?
Deliperi: «We know that in some cases they offer the renovation of a small garden, little things like that. The so-called compensation measures are worth little when the impact on the territory is so heavy."
Puggioni: «They sent me a registered letter which only contained the sender's address and company name. I replied that I wasn't interested in anything. In February I noticed a van with the proposing company's sign going back and forth around my company. A few days later I learned about the project. I don't want them to do the havoc already seen in Settimo here, where there is a plain lined with abandoned photovoltaic panels."
Mameli: «Never met, despite the Municipality hosting a very impactful project, with the substation and cable ducts. Selargius is considered a corollary to the project, even if our offices are very busy reading the documents and preparing the observations. Practical effects for citizens? Nothing, they don't promise hiring or benefits of any kind."
Pusceddu: «No contact with the municipal offices, I know that some citizens have been recipients of registered letters. No compensation measure has been proposed."
Father Gabriele: «Obviously they didn't come to me, not even to confess».
Could the plan of the mayor of Mandas to create a network of "protection constraints" with the Superintendency that blocks speculation be a path?
Deliperi: «Not only can it be, but it must be. The protection zones must be taken into account in the plan of suitable areas. The logic is right, we also advised everyone to carry out a census of archaeological, cultural and environmental assets to subject them to restrictions. Where there are constraints, the systems cannot be built."
Puggioni: «Farmers who remain the true sentinels of the territory should be guaranteed in this network. Instead today we are fighting against a clearly speculative project, a copy and paste vomited onto the territory with an expected investment of 158 million."
Mameli: «Mandas' proposal is welcome, we hope that the Region is truly a protagonist in territorial planning to prevent it from being plundered».
Pusceddu: «Mandas' proposal is important. In Sinnai we highlighted the constraints already present in the portion of the territory where they would like to erect the wind turbines. Now that the Region must identify the areas suitable for the construction of these plants, why not include the disused industrial ones? They would be perfect."
Father Gabriele: «To me it seems like an explicit invitation to enhance the beauty, the landscape, the small country churches, domus de janas, tombs of the giants. This is our territory, Pope Francis wrote it in the encyclical Laudato si': “Exploitation arises from this inability to stop and contemplate the beautiful”».
Some mayors are betting on the judicial route: is it useful?
Deliperi: «It is a weapon to be used intelligently, perhaps it is important to find a relevant case that can produce a positive result. It would be useful if in that case the appeal was made by the mayors, the Region, the trade associations, all together. When there is a territory that forms a common front then yes, judicial action becomes very important, the administrative judges would also evaluate this aspect".
Puggioni: «It is one of the last roads to take, but if a way is not found to block the project it becomes mandatory».
Mameli: «On the Tyrrhenian link there is an appeal to the President of the Republic. For municipalities, going alone is a little scary, not only because of the expense. Judges are not aliens, they live on earth and being faced with a non-compact territory has a weight in their eyes."
Pusceddu: «Action to be considered if the comments on the project presented by public bodies and private individuals are not successful. It has costs but when it is undertaken by multiple subjects I believe that the judges also evaluate this aspect."
Father Gabriele: «I think it is important to create more and more sharing, citizens must share the problem, all Sardinians should rise up against the speculation that destroys the landscape: unity is strength».
The proposal for a popular initiative urban planning law?
Deliperi: «The law is the one to be passed in 180 days for suitable areas. All the Regions have given their consent to that path, including the Sardinia Region. This is the legislative channel that has been chosen."
Puggioni: «A new urban planning law at regional level is certainly good, it should have been done sooner so as not to arrive unarmed in this assault».
Mameli: «The moratorium proved to be insufficient. The Region must regain its role by indicating where the plants can be built and where they really cannot."
Pusceddu: «The Region has prerogatives in its statute, I hope that this peculiarity can find proper recognition in an urban planning law».
Father Gabriele: "I don't know what the most suitable system is, but we certainly need to stop this invasion."
How do you imagine the energy transition?
Deliperi: «Made with a bit of healthy common sense, with our feet on the ground, with greater determination on the part of those who represent us towards a private world that is dictating the rules and the results are there for all to see. Otherwise it will be a very conflictual transition."
Puggioni: «Certainly not decided by multinationals or by companies created just to put shovels. The panels on the roofs are not blasphemy, and neither is raising wind turbines in abandoned industrial areas."
Mameli: «It must be shared, with benefits for local communities. The production assigned to Sardinia is much higher than what is actually needed: in reality, wealth is produced only for those who install the systems."
Pusceddu: «We are giving space to the speculation of multinationals and companies that plunder the land in which we live. The energy transition, on the other hand, is a shared one, of energy communities, valorising the many areas disfigured by industry and abandoned, which at that point would be functional to the production of energy and would guarantee jobs".
Father Gabriele: «With the protection of the wonders that nature offers us and with a more sober culture, which rejects waste».