Garda purifier, project to be revised or plant to be moved

05 November 2024

 

Perhaps a turning point, and not a small one, in the matter of the future Garda purification plant. The mayors of the municipalities along the Chiese River were the ones who gave the news, and a delegation of them was received yesterday by the prefect and extraordinary commissioner for the purification plant, Andrea Polichetti.

New scenarios

Gavardo and Montichiari may no longer be the sites for the wastewater collection and treatment plant on the Brescia side of the Benaco. A series of verifications that have been started and are still in progress, also as a result of the objective difficulties of the two sites in guaranteeing the energy self-sufficiency required by European regulations, would seem to lead to a different choice, with a single purification plant to be built in another municipality, large enough to host, as the European directive requires, even photovoltaic plants capable of satisfying its energy needs.
 

The meeting in the prefecture

The news, as mentioned, came from the mayors present at yesterday's meeting. ‘To the prefect we reported in summary on the long journey that began in 2018 - says the first citizen of Gavardo Davide Comaglio -, illustrating all the gaps, discrepancies and anomalies that emerged in the technical-economic feasibility studies presented in support of the choice that fell on Gavardo and Montichiari, and highlighting how, in our opinion, there were and there are precise political wills that overcome and bend laws and regulations to obtain the result that was set. We have reiterated once again that the protection of Lake Garda, Italy's main freshwater basin, is also close to our hearts, but that it cannot be done at the expense of our river'.

 

Perplexities remain

The extraordinary commissioner was given details of the reasons for the appeal to the Regional Administrative Court filed in 2021 and was handed a copy of the complaint to the Court of Auditors signed by the seventeen municipalities of the ‘no’ front to the project, which wondered ‘who should pay for the work, the cost of which has more than doubled compared to what was originally planned’.

‘After listening to us,' continue the mayors of the delegation, ’the prefect pointed out the relevance of the recent European regulations, soon to come into force, which impose the redesigning of purification plants so that they are self-sufficient from the energy point of view, and therefore equipped with their own photovoltaic system, a system that would not, however, find space in either Montichiari or Gavardo.
 

Elsewhere

The most concrete hypothesis would therefore suggest a change of direction with the prospect of a new location, on the territory of a municipality different from the two indicated to date, where a single purification plant and, at the same time, the photovoltaic field could be built.

‘We have reiterated to the commissioner that, wherever the facility is to be located, we remain opposed to the discharge into the Chiese river, which cannot be the receptor of purified water, since for long periods of the year it does not have the adequate dilution capacity and already has serious environmental problems,’ emphasises the mayor of Montichiari, Marco Togni. We have asked that the receiving body of water and the location of the purification plant finally be the result of an objective strategic environmental assessment, so that the entire project, which also includes the collection systems, the lamination tanks and the pumping plants, is examined in every aspect. While we thank the prefect both for his willingness to meet and for the openness he has shown in the future,’ the first citizen of Montichiari concludes, ’ we assure our fellow citizens that we will continue to monitor the evolution of the situation, reaffirming our commitment to ensuring sustainable management of water resources while respecting environmental concerns and local communities.

 

Read the full article on: Depuratore del Garda, progetto da rivedere o impianto da spostare | Giornale di Brescia