Lazise-Peschiera Pipeline Repair: Boosting Garda Lake Wastewater System
Start of repair works on the Lazise-Peschiera sublacual pipeline. During the 1990s, to support the grounding collector, a fiberglass structure costing approximately fifteen billion lira was built, which was supposed to transfer wastewater directly from Pergolana in the Municipality of Lazise to the Peschiera conurbation treatment plant. Since it never came under pressure, it remained unused for years and was at the center of a complicated judicial matter. With the agreement signed last month, it is now up to the company Fondedile of Naples to repair its pipelines at their own expense, which have numerous ruptures along a route just over eight kilometers long. Only upon successful final testing will the azienda gardesana servizi pay just 900 million lira of the three billion lira it was condemned to pay, with an arbitration award, settling all further claims.
The repair works, started in recent days and overseen by engineer Graziano Falappa, expert in submarine pipelines, are to be completed before Easter 2002, with all technical and administrative acts finalized by the end of next year. Once completed, the sewage system on the Veronese side of the lake will more than double its capacity in the most delicate section. Undoubtedly, this marks a positive administrative beginning both for the new director of Ags Eugenio Azzali and for the recently appointed Board of Directors.
Comments on the management and future of the system
“Certainly, the work carried out by our predecessors was good,” admits Vittorino Zanetti, recently appointed president, “and this has been acknowledged even in the letter recently sent to them.” The council, among other things, had previously voiced the need to establish a management company for the sewer collection, treatment, and delivery of potable water, operating mainly in the Garda municipalities.
“It is up to the Assembly of mayors to set the guidelines within which Ags should operate. However, personally,” Zanetti emphasizes, “I believe the goal of shared resources within the consortium is commendable, given that Lake Garda reflects a specific socio-economic reality. Therefore, an expanded action involving the conjoined efforts of the Garda Bresciano company and links with the Autonomous Province of Trento is justified.”
Let’s not forget,” the president clarifies, “that the situation is complex. For this reason, a broader conference is planned to clarify the current state of affairs as much as possible, focusing both on the management issues of the conurbation treatment plant and the entire Garda sewer system, especially considering the findings of a study commissioned in the past to the University of Turin and completed last year.” The report, reviewing what has been done, highlights a series of structural deficiencies and states that a system divided into four treatment plants would have been preferable instead of just one.
The document emphasizes how some of the complications that have arisen over twenty years of functioning of the Garda water decontamination system stem from management split between two companies, one veronese and one brescian. “Exactly for this reason,” Zanetti states, “it is time to rethink, analyze proposals to adapt the intake system to the company’s treatment plant as outlined in the project by engineer Mario Quaglia and revised by engineer Gaetano Romanò. Meanwhile, given that the interventions will take a long time, it’s essential to continue with some partial works within the framework of the Polytechnic of Turin project.”
