Campania, lockdown ends and environmental havoc begins: spills on the Domitian coast and in Scafati

Environmental havoc on the Domitian coast, in Campania, just forty-eight hours after the end of the restrictive measures imposed to contain the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic: journalist Fabio Mencocco denounces this with an eloquent photograph. An image that captures a black spot at the mouth of the Agnena canal, between the towns of Mondragone and Castel Volturno. “In forty-eight hours,” Mencocco wrote on his Facebook profile, “we immediately screwed everything up. Let’s reopen everything immediately rhymed with let’s destroy everything. Unfortunately, we are much worse than the virus, and if we don’t go to the beach on the Domitian coast in the future, it certainly won’t be the fault of the coronavirus.” Mencocco then directly addressed the governor of Campania, Vincenzo De Luca, and the environment minister, Sergio Costa: “do we want to do something about this absurd havoc? Do we want to finally find a solution?”

The situation was brought to the attention of the mayor of Castel Volturno, Luigi Umberto Petrella: last night technicians from the Regional Agency for Environmental Protection in Campania (Arpac) went to the site and collected water samples to perform analyses. The results, Petrella announced, will be known in a few days. “Only three days have passed since the restrictions because of Covid 19, since the reopening of some business activities,” Petrella said, “and on the Domitian coast the unthinkable is happening, what we never wanted to see again ... in the so-called phase 2 operations of hardened criminals who have contributed over time to the devastation of the environment have begun again. Investigations are under way by law enforcement and the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prosecutor’s office.... We must not only defend ourselves against the invisible and viral enemy, Covid 19, but especially against ’terrorist attacks’ by unscrupulous people.” The assumption is that these are illicit spills.

But the region’s northern coastline is not the only area where, after the lockdown is over, such situations have been seen. In fact, the Greens’ regional councilor Francesco Emilio Borrelli has received, from some residents of Scafati (province of Salerno), some images showing how the reopening of production activities has once again turned the waters of the Sarno River into dirty (and smelly, citizens say) sludge. “Until a few days ago we were talking about the beneficial effects that the lockdown had had on the environment and now, instead, we find ourselves in the same disastrous conditions of pollution as before,” says Sofia Esposito, a Salerno exponent of the Greens. “It was enough to restart some activities that the waters of the Sarno are becoming putrid and in some areas are again emitting a nauseating smell that is putting a strain on residents. We have asked for extraordinary and continuous monitoring and checks on all the discharges of businesses along the waterways that have reopened in recent days because this situation is unacceptable, especially now that we are still in an emergency and safety must come first.”

“We had sounded the alarm that with the reopening of the activities the pollution would return in a big way, and it did,” Borrelli added, “because no changes were made to the production system and controls, so we certainly could not hope for anything different. We demand that blanket controls be carried out on all companies and businesses that have reopened to understand who is behaving illegally and hit them even with the closure of the activity, it is clear that the disastrous situation of the Sarno depends on illicit spills and we must fight them with all forces, whoever will be identified to commit crimes against the environment will have to suffer very severe penalties. That is why we have also sent a note to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The quarantine has made us understand that the Sarno can be de-polluted and that the main ravagers of the river are those who carry out some business and industrial activities in the area. Now we need to identify them and hit them as hard as possible even going so far as to close them down if necessary.”

In the photos below: the waters of the Sarno again polluted after the resumption of activities, and the mouth of the Agnena.

Campania, lockdown ends and environmental havoc begins: spills on the Domitian coast and in Scafati

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