Campaign For A Living Venice

PRESS RELEASE

Comitato NoGrandiNavi-Laguna Bene Comune and Associazione AmbienteVenezia

The recent statements to the press from Minister Galletti and Undersecretary Borletti Buitoni have thinned the dust hovering around the announcement of the revival of a project to use the Vittorio Emanuele canal as a route for cruise ships to reach Marittima.

Minister Galletti has in fact reiterated “the independent role of the VIA commission which has given a positive opinion with limits to the Duferco project and rejected the so-called Contorta, and as regards the future it is not up to the Minister of the Environment, who has the task of evaluating environmental impact, to choose the approach of the cruise ships”.

This demonstrates that there is no formal agreement on a new project; the statements of Undersecretary Borletti Buitoni run along the same lines when she says that “this does not remove the fact that the Vittorio Emanuele solution must be subject, like all the other projects, to the judgement of the VIA commission, because there are problems, beginning with the excavation of toxic sludge and with the impact on the canale dei Petroli”.

These statements of members of the government should cool the enthusiasm of the Port lobby and of all of those, beginning with Mayor Brugnaro, who have thrown out yet another proposal after the poor showing made by the Contorta project, and who for three years have blocked every alternative solution and have divided the city.

Now we are to believe that the arrival of the ships at Marittima, after having traveled 25km in the Lagoon, is convenient, forgetting that other than the problem of storing millions of tons of toxic sludge, the Port Authority, for reasons of security, has in many occasions come out against the crossing of the industrial area of Marghera, and the same Port Authority has rejected this proposal due to the harm it would cause to the commercial port due to the traffic congestion it would cause in the canale dei Petroli.

What would have to be changed to turn these opinions positive?

At this point it is necessary for Minister Delrio to clarify his position.

Their contradiction is in fact macroscopic, which is to say that while they support the validity of stopping the container ships at the reef of the mouth of Malmocco and then transfer the containers with barges to Marghera, they reject the possibility of stopping the cruise ships at the mouth of Lido to transfer the passengers using eco-friendly motor boats to Marittima!

Five years after the Clini decree –  a passage to send the ships on a different route than the cruise ships now take in the Bacino di San Marco and the canale dell Guidecca has been identified by the VIA Commission, which has given a positive opinion with provisions to the Project for a cruise ship terminal at Bocca del Lido;

Putting out new proposals only signifies buying time to continue, without interruption, to have the cruise ships pass in front of San Marco, which is the Cruise Companies’ true objective.

For our part we will continue our mobilization against destructive projects for Venice and the Lagoon, which can also take the form of legal recourse, because the transitional phase is over and the law of the State should be respected.

Comitato NoGrandiNavi-Laguna Bene Comune and Associazione AmbienteVenezia

Venezia, 27 March, 2017