Garda Lake Municipalities Collaborate on Integrated Water Cycle Management
Towards the integrated water cycle. The mayors of twelve lakeside municipalities on the Veronese shore of Garda have committed to entrusting the Azienda Gardesana Servizi with the management of their aqueducts. “A definitely positive result,” states Vittorino Zanetti, chairman of the board of directors of the Azienda that manages the collective sewer collector, “aiming in the long term to establish an extended territorial management area (Ato) covering the entire lake basin, ultimately leading to improved environmental management of the lake.”
Decision aligned with regulations concerning water resources, which stipulate that water uses should be directed “towards conserving and renewing resources to safeguard water heritage, environmental livability, agriculture, aquatic fauna and flora, geomorphological processes, and hydrological balances.” The choice involves some economic sacrifices for certain municipalities but is based on the assumption that ownership of the infrastructures remains with the municipalities.
Projects and plant management
“The first step of the operation will be to assign to an external company,” Zanetti explains, “the surveying of the installations, including storage and sizing of tanks and supply lines, with all systems connected via telematic network to a single corporate control center. A specific agreement will then define the unified management activities, routine maintenance, and operational adjustments to ensure the supply of drinking water at optimal efficiency levels, without altering the system’s configuration.”
Subsequent phases will involve the AGS granting assignments for the upgrading, expansion, and replacement of network components, to be financed by municipal funds, gradually transferring the plants and tariff policies to the Azienda itself. “All these phases are subject,” says the chairman of the board, “to upcoming regulatory modifications regarding the corporate structure and the gradual transfer of municipal sewer systems to complete the integrated cycle as mandated by law.”
The vigorous meetings between the mayors and the Azienda’s board, with established strategic guidelines, aim both to regulate relations with the sister company Azienda Speciale Consorzio Garda Uno (Brescia side), in pursuit of a single managing entity with equal standing among the municipalities, and to achieve, if possible, a common optimal territorial management area across the entire Garda, as well as to refine relations in managing the Peschiera collective wastewater treatment plant.
Another guiding principle, emerging from the Garda public administrators’ assembly, is to follow the implementation plan based on the findings of the Politecnico di Torino study, in accordance with agreements with the Brescia-based Azienda Speciale. “Meanwhile,” Zanetti concludes, “contacts will be initiated with the Province of Trento to harmonize lagoon discharge practices of purified waters and, in the future, co-management of the entire environmental safeguarding program in coordination with Garda Uno.”
The board of directors is determined to move quickly, with plans for a joint meeting with Brescia-side representatives before the end of November, and a roundtable conference with technicians and the public scheduled for the first decade of December.