Ponte sullo Stretto, the Via-Vas commission approves the work 'with prescriptions'

It is not a rounded opinion what has come out of the Via-Vas commission's rooms on the Ponte sullo Stretto, a disputed work that is the subject of furious controversy between majority and opposition. The body working in the belly of the Ministry of the Environment has given its final verdict on the project, raising a green disk but 'with prescriptions'. This was confirmed by Mase sources. "The Technical Commission for Environmental Impact Assessment, has completed its activities within the deadlines, approving today its opinion on the project of the Stable Link between Calabria and Sicily including the Bridge and the road and rail links on the ground," they explain at the Environment Ministry. "The Commission pronounced itself positively on the environmental compatibility of the project, as integrated with the proponent's report, in accordance with DL 35/2023 on the restarting of the Bridge's procedure in compliance with the prescribed environmental conditions that will have to be fulfilled mostly in the phase of the presentation of the executive project". The conditions "concern, not only the natural, terrestrial, marine and agricultural environment, but also aspects related to detailed design for ground works, construction site, materials management, supplies, noise and vibrations".

In other words, as is almost always the case with projects of this size, the Commission has indicated a series of technical measures that will have to be complied with during the infrastructure's execution. According to the letter of the rules governing the operation of the Via-Vas opinions, the "prescriptions relating to the revision and implementation of the plan or programme", as we read on the Environment website. The opinion comes after a battle of paperwork, with several requests for technical clarifications by Mase against the documentation submitted by the Stretto di Messina company, client of the work: a total of 239 objections raised by the previous Via commission, which expired in May and was renewed in all its components last July.

The objections concerned Via procedures, impact assessment, land use plan and compliance checks, as well as other issues related to the project's impact on the environment and its implementation. And again: the cost-benefit analysis with the request to better clarify the "social, economic, political and institutional context in which the project is set" and the maintenance costs of the work with the "request to better specify the type and variety of investment, maintenance and management costs of the work". The documentation with the counter-deductions and integrations of the commissioning company had been sent in September and now the final verdict has arrived, the one that will now take the path of the Cipess perhaps as early as December but more likely in the early months of next year.

The decisive meeting of the Mase Commission had also been announced by Minister Salvini at a conference in Rome. "Let's see if today little fish, seaweed and birds allow Italy to do what everyone else is doing, the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Americans who build bridges all over the world without the seaweed and little fish caring much about it,' the Porta Pia minister had joked.In the meantime, with regard to the controversy surrounding the seismological tests, yesterday the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology distanced itself from the situation, declaring itself to be 'totally uninvolved in any report that, possibly signed by Ingv personnel, only represents the scientific thinking of the authors'.

The INGV clarifies that on 26 September 2024 a "Scientific Collaboration Agreement" was stipulated with Sapienza University of Rome, through the Department of Earth Sciences, whose Technical Annex "clearly specifies that the technical-scientific reports produced downstream of the agreement are the sole responsibility of the authors, even if they are INGV employees, with the exclusion of any responsibility of the Institute for their content and use". And therefore "the Institute declares itself totally uninvolved in any report that, if signed by Ingv personnel, only represents the scientific thinking of the authors, as provided for in the agreement".