Remediation Efforts for La Cava del Pirata Discussed at Municipal Conference
Yesterday morning, the Services Conference was held regarding the joint remediation and safety measures for La Cava del Pirata and La Cava Busa. The conference had been essentially updated after the session on November 6th to give participating entities more time to thoroughly evaluate the analysis data related to the presence of pollutants, their concentrations, and locations.
The session yesterday, attended by Municipality, Province, Region, ASL, and Arpa—the bodies and institutions responsible—as well as Ing. Gorio, the consultant in charge of designing the interventions, included a sort of hearing for the president of Int.Dep.Cast, Belluzzi, and for Huntsman (formerly Marchon), represented by Ing. Benvenuti.
Involvement of companies and assessments
The involvement of the manager of the municipal purification plant and the company was requested by Sali, the provincial environmental assessor, to verify possible implications of Huntsman on the groundwater remediation work, attempting to clarify the results of some samples taken upstream of La Cava del Pirata.
The mayor summarized the results as follows: “The characterization plan has been approved, although ASL and Arpa might have preferred additional monitoring and investigations. Regarding Huntsman, the data they provided were fragmented, but they expressed full willingness to reorganize them to facilitate reading and legal compliance.”
“For now, we cannot determine whether or not they are responsible for the values under observation.” A hypothesis, discussed during the previous session, was that there might be an issue with the hydraulic barrier that treats the water before it is sent to the treatment plant.
However, the data from Ind.Dep.Cast do not seem to support this interpretation: “The analyses performed on the waters, coming from ex-Marchon and arriving at the treatment plant, are within legal parameters,” states Belluzzi.
Future prospects and ongoing activities
Regarding ex-Marchon, Ing. Benvenuti says: “We were invited to update on the progress of the internal remediation work, which began in 1995, and we are making good headway. We were then asked to present a summary report.”
The next session of the conference, scheduled before Christmas, is expected to approve the preliminary remediation plan: “It is important to reach approval,” emphasizes the mayor, “because this would make it easier for us to access funding for the joint remediation of the two sites.”
