Special Commissioner for MoSE Elisibetta Spitz specifies the first threshold in the quarterly report on the work’s progress.
9 September 2020
VENEZIA. The safeguard threshold has been set at +130 cm with respect to Punta della Salute, over which would trigger raising the MoSE barriers to protect Venice from acqua alta. This action will protect 55% of the city’s area from flooding.
So writes Special Commissioner for MoSE Elisabetta Spitz in the quarterly report on the work’s progress. It will be the Commissioner herself and the Superintendent of Public Works, Cinzia Zincone who will authorize the raising of MoSE.
After the test of simultaneously raising the barriers at the three inlets to the lagoon on last 10 July, another similar test was done in August. The next will be done 11 September.
During the test in August, explains Commissioner Spitz’s report, they registered an improvement in the time it took to raise the dams compared to the previous test “and a perfect repositioning of the dams in their bases”. In consideration of the state of partial completion of the equipment, the time limit for the raising is prudently proposed to be 120 minutes, a parameter set based on the time in the July test, “but which can progressively improve with the advance of the work and continued testing”.
Preparations for the procedure that will have to temporarily regulate the operations of raising the dams until the completion of the work have almost been completed. When the MoSE is completed, definitive procedures will go into effect.
Apart from the “safeguard threshold” at +130cm, the other main elements – valid only in this provisional phase – stipulate that the decision makers (pending the establishment of the actual Control Room) are the Special Commissioner and the Superintendent. The ‘operator’ is Consorzio Venezia Nuova, which is acting based on the guidelines and predefined technical-operational specifications. The entire procedure, the report informs us, will be subject to the approval of the Superintendent by the end of September.
Source: La Nuova Venezia
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