The Draghi decrees, converted into law, were clearly written in a hurry and badly, in the wake of the incidents that occurred in the San Marco Basin and the international pressure to remove ships from the Venice Lagoon.
[The following is a Press Release by the Association Ambiente Venezia]
News has recently arrived that the VIA Commission has rejected the dredging of the Port of Olbia.
Digging to adapt port channels to the increasing size of ships is in growing conflict with environmental and navigation safety concerns related to the configuration of the coasts and the national territory.
And in Venice?
What is the current status of the latest lagoon excavation projects (6,800,000 cubic meters of polluted sludge) by the Special Commissioner for Cruises Di Blasio?
The Association Ambiente Venezia condemns the lack of action in the management of the cruises by Commissioner Di Blasio. It would have been elegant of Di Blasio not to leave to his successor procedural burdens on questionable and unrealistic projects.
For example, the inconclusive and unfinished Call for Ideas, which was supposed to be “urgent” and concluded within 6 months in 2021, will now be a burden for the new president of the Port Authority.
Ambiente Venezia asks the Parliamentary forces to adapt the laws converted from the two Draghi decrees, specifically for the entire part relating to the Call for Ideas for docks situated outside the protected waters of the Lagoon.
The pronouncements of the Council of State and the favorable vote of the VIA Commission on the project at Bocca di Lido now make it possible to re-evaluate and implement it in parts as well.
The Draghi decrees, converted into law, were clearly written in a hurry and badly, in the wake of the incidents that occurred in the San Marco Basin and the international pressure to remove ships from the Venice Lagoon. They were certainly not written by a person with expertise in the limitations relating to the port located in Porto Marghera.
Thus, Ambiente Venezia also calls on the political forces to correctly define what is meant by “temporary docks” for cruise ships in the commercial and industrial area of the port: they should be defined as a temporary function and therefore the infrastructures should also be reversible, not definitive and long-lasting works both in terms of their physical and environmental effects.
Ambiente Venezia considers the strategy implemented by Di Blasio and his entourage of two sub-commissioners and the general secretary of the Port Authority, to present five separate projects for the excavation projects in the Lagoon, and not a single project, to be a serious methodological error.
While this strategy aimed to avoid a unified VIA of the projects, this plan was rejected by the Veneto Region itself which, as an institutional body, is part of the ministerial VIA procedure.
To complete the mess, the two missing projects for the excavation of the Malamocco Marghera Canal and the North Canal for the construction of the definitive terminal at the Sponda Nord were presented in extremis to the Ministry of the Environment on May 30 by Di Blasio, the president and commissioner for cruise ships, who had already left office.
However, this did not prevent him from purchasing a private area in advance within the SIN (to be decontaminated) area before knowing the outcome of the ministerial evaluation.
The latter two excavation projects are in addition to the excavation of the Vittorio Emanuele canal and the construction of the 46-hectare island/landfill with the sludge to be removed from the Venetian Lagoon, all a ZPS area. As can be seen from the MASE VIA website, the project documents have not yet been published for public consultation. The administrative verification is underway.
Ambiente Venezia, with the presentation of its Observations on the landfill project and the excavation of the Vittorio Emanuele Canal, had asked that all of De Blasio’s projects be unified into a single VIA and VAS procedure – environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment – because they involve multiple excavations in the Lagoon, and the effects are synergic and cumulative.
The SEA is necessary because there is no PRP Port Regulatory Plan that has been updated to the current Venetian reality. The PRR that Di Blasio refers to is from 1965, dating back to the time when not even the Malamocco-Marghera Canal had been excavated. Yet as early as in 2013, Minister Clini, when signing the Decree for the redefinition of the Porto Marghera SIN area, had imposed the drafting of a new regulatory plan for the lagoon port.
Furthermore, the unification of the five excavation projects and the construction of a landfill in the Lagoon was called for in the request for integrations presented by the VIA Commission of the Veneto Region.
Ambiente Venezia
Campaign For A Living Venice 