Legal Battles Erupt Over Waste Plant Project in Brescia Area
Twelve guarantee notices, a fiery open letter addressed (but not yet sent) to the Criminal Judiciary, at the bottom of which signatures are gathering in town and many discussions are underway. The highly debated project to build a 70-megawatt power plant fueled by waste-derived fuel in the locality of Campagna Trezza is back in the spotlight, with an investment of 300 billion Lira.
This time, as we have said, it’s 12 warranty notices making headlines. These are the notices delivered in recent days to city councilors who, on the evening of November 8, 1999, before submitting their resignations to the secretary, causing the dissolution of the City Council and early elections, adopted two amendments to the technical standards of the city’s General Master Plan.
The amendments aimed to: «Prohibit in zones D2 located to the west and southwest of the town the settlement, the installation, and operation of industries for the storage and processing of municipal and special solid waste, as well as the installation or operation of equipment for waste combustion or using fuel derived from waste. In any case, these industries must be at least three kilometers from the town, two kilometers from the fractions, and fifty meters from residences.»
They also included alterations to the maximum building height. This would have been the final blow for the Eurosea plant, which had initially received a preliminary favorable opinion from the Lega government. Once the Council was dissolved, the incinerator project was halted.
Currently, appeals have been filed with the TAR (Regional Administrative Tribunal) against the two resolutions, which will be discussed before the administrative judges in Brescia on October 27. The Eurosea Srl company also initiated legal proceedings demanding compensation of 300 billion Lira against the city councilors who, by approving resolutions n. 84 and 85, allegedly caused damages, as argued by Eurosea’s administrator Francesco Bernardi.
Following the seizure of files in the Municipality on March 9, the guarantee notices have now been issued, as reported by both Lonato Ambiente representatives and some recipients; notices which, it is important to reiterate, are communications issued to protect the interested parties. They were sent because, after six months from the start of the criminal proceedings, the Public Prosecutor, Dr. Alberto Rossi, requested a six-month extension for preliminary investigations, until December 3.
This is how the investigation, which hypothesizes a violation under Article 323 of the Italian Penal Code (abuse of office), came to light. The notices arrive precisely at a moment when the new City Council is preparing to reexamine and definitively approve the two amendments and related technical norms.
The recipients, as mentioned, are 12 councilors who voted for the resolutions: Ugo Ughi, Roberto Vanaria, Renato Roberti, Franco Ferrari, Sergio Paghera, Davide Baccinelli, Luigi Caprioli, Pietro Musatti, Antonio Roscioli, Giuseppe Gandini, Eraldo Cavagnini, and Fiorenzo Bresciani. “The communication has arrived, I’ve already gone to my lawyer, and I do not intend to make statements,” says Davide Baccinelli, the current deputy mayor of the city.
The environmentalists speak out instead. Lonato Ambiente, the association that fought against the construction of the incinerator and that, in alliance with the Ulivo, narrowly won the recent elections, has prepared a open letter addressed to the Criminal Judiciary, signatures are now being collected at the bottom. The letter has not yet been sent. These are the most significant excerpts from the text circulated by Lonato Ambiente.
“The residents of Lonato were stunned to learn of Brescia Prosecutor’s investigation into alleged abuse of office. They only found out accidentally because the Public Prosecutor requested a six-month extension of the investigation. For past and present city councilors, if they persist ‘in the mistakes of the old’, a threat of criminal charges and possible astronomical damages now hangs over them.”
Just before the final approval of the urban variant that banned waste industries from locating near Lonato’s inhabited areas, an intolerable threat is being inflicted on the free voto and conscience of the councilors. We demand the restoration of fundamental political freedoms and that the citizens’ right to govern themselves freely, within the law, is protected from misleading pressures.
The Chief Prosecutor and the Prosecutor General of Brescia must therefore ask the Public Prosecutor to pursue investigations with the same zeal applied in formulating accusations; in other words, six months of suspending our political freedoms is too long.”