Terra dei fuochi, the report is ready: 90 per cent of the clean-up is still to be done
Commissioner Giuseppe Vadalà, appointed in February after the Strasbourg ruling, handed over the collected data to the government and is now working on the action plan
4' min read
4' min read
In the 'Terra dei fuochi', only 6% of the interventions foreseen by the land reclamation plans have been carried out. Of the 7,200 hectares of agricultural land subjected to attention, most have yet to be verified and, in any case, among the 10% or so that have been checked, 500 hectares hazardous for cultivation have already been identified. While on the land of the 90 municipalities included in this disgraced area of Campania, 33 thousand tonnes of waste still lie open on the ground to be removed. Which is an enormity.
These are just some of the points written in black and white in the report that the single commissioner for the Terra dei fuochi, Carabinieri General Giuseppe Vadalà, has just delivered to the government after 60 days of reconnaissance in the field. In it there is much more: from the list of areas that need to be started from most urgently to the investigations that are still ongoing for pollution offences. A stark list that is a snapshot of what the civic committees of Campania's citizens have been saying for years: that not enough has been done to protect them.
The commissioner had been appointed by the Italian government on 19 February, after the European Court of Human Rights, in a landmark ruling, had condemned Italy for failing to sufficiently protect the health of the 3 million citizens living in the Terra dei Fuochi from environmental pollution. Now that the report is ready, we can start with the new plan of contrast and reclamation actions, for which the Strasbourg court has given Italy two years. The money needed? "To date we do not have an exact figure, but it is in the region of hundreds of millions," says General Vadalà.
Let us go in order. The biggest vulnus concerns the reclamation of landfills and contaminated sites, on whose timetable we are far behind. Of the 293 sites listed in the reclamation plan that the Campania Region has updated several times between 2013 and 2024, to date only 6% of the interventions have been carried out. To this must be added more or less 7% of interventions that have at least been started. The rest, however, is still to be done. Not only that: 65% of the sites even have yet to be characterised, i.e. the exact mix of pollutants and how to treat them must be identified.
As far as the agricultural sector is concerned, of the 58,761 hectares of cultivable land in the municipalities of the 'Terra dei fuochi' - straddling the provinces of Naples and Caserta - about 7,200 hectares have been assessed as being at potential risk, more or less serious. Of these, those included in the highest risk categories, and therefore to be urgently investigated, number around 1,200, but of these 800 have been examined: 'Of the 800 examined,' says the commissioner, '91 hectares have already been banned from all cultivation activities because they have been found to be polluted. However, all the other report cards are missing.
