Campaign For A Living Venice

“Instead of masking this useless and damaging work we could erect a tombstone at the three mouths of the port with the names of all the politicians, technicians and businesses who approved this extreme example of criminality and corruption…” -Ambiente Venezia

By Alberto Vitucci

Venice. MoSE is there, now it needs to be made to work, as well as “mitigate” its impact on the environment at the mouths of the port, work required by European laws and norms. Work that was never realized or realized only in part with the architectural installations entrusted to Iuav, beginning in 2005, for the cost of a million Euro. Since then a geological age has passed. The Consorzio Venezia Nuova of Mazzacurati no longer exists. The MoSE scandal emerged with arrests and the discovery of bribery and waste. Now there are special Commissioners who were nominated by the President of Anti-Corruption Raffaele Cantone, and they are trying to change the course.

Today they held a public meeting at the Arsenale together with the Director of Public Works of Triveneto (the ex-Magistracy of the Waters) Roberto Linetti to discuss “proposals for landscape and environmental projects for the works at the mouths of the port”. The hashtag of this initiative is “Betterlatethannever”, signifying the serious delay with which this grand work has arrived at the procedure of “Public Debate”, for decades used in other European countries such as France. At the Arsenale the Iuav’s projects will be presented. “Following this will be meetings on specific subjects, open to all, to receive proposals, advice and comments”, said the Consorzio’s Commissioner Giuseppe Fiengo.

The goal is certainly noble, but the controversy has already erupted. “The leaders of the MoSE system continue to try and fool us”, writes the association Ambiente Venezia, “Now we have a surreal public meeting regarding projects to mask the work. MoSE may never be completed and will never work. We have long requested, a request that has not been heard, a public meeting about the workings of MoSE and its anomalies. To discuss the defects of MoSE which were pointed out by the Environmental Impact Evaluation of 1998, the problems exposed by Principia, which was called by the City in 2009, and which have never received any response”. “Instead of masking this useless and damaging work”, they continue, “we could erect a tombstone at the three mouths of the port with the names of all the politicians, technicians and businesses who approved this extreme example of criminality and corruption, which has squandered the funds of the Special Law”.

Based on an agreement signed between Iuav and the Consorzio of Mazzacurati in 2004, projects and responsibilities were approved and financed with State funds for architects Carlo Magnani – the ex-Rector – Alberto Ferlenga, the current Rector, Aldo Aymonino and Alberto Cecchetto. Until now nothing has been completed, but the bills have been paid. The most tangible effort is that of June 2012 for the definitive planning of the architectural integration of the MoSE structures, at a cost of 610,000 Euro. The first project for the “architectural integration of the mobile structures” dates from 2004. This cost 350,000 Euro plus tax. A few months later saw the project for “the integration of the building yards in the coastal territory”. These are the concrete giants on the beach opposed by environmentalists. The cost: 300,000 Euro plus tax. In March of 2006 30,000 Euro were spent for the “artistic direction” of the building yards at Treporti-San Nicolò and Chioggia. In November of 2007 there was a new contract between the Consorzio and Iuav for landscape design on the south shore of Chioggia, the examination of the integration at Lido and the “reworking” of Malamocco. The cost of this was 240,000 Euro plus tax. In 2012 the definitive design was billed at 510 Euro, and finally in March of 2014, just three months after the MoSE scandal arrests, another 313,000 for executive projects, in a contract drawn up together with the company Thetis.

Source: La Nuova Venezia, 17 May 2018