Abruzzo:a protected area of ​​the Sirente-Velino park was devastated to produce artificial snow

They excavated thousands of cubic meters inside the Sirente-Velino Regional Natural Park, in Abruzzo, in the excavation operations of a basin for artificial snow, despite not having the necessary authorizations.For this reason, the L'Aquila Prosecutor's Office has ordered the direct summons to court for the works director and the manager of the contracting company who were working on the construction of the cross-country skiing stadium in the Piani di Pezza area, in the L'Aquila municipality of Rocca di Mezzo.As a result, the project was shelved.The decisive factor for the opening of the procedure and the halt to the works was the commitment made by the environmentalist associations Abruzzo Ornithological Station, Salviamo l'Orso and WWF, who immediately reported the start of operations and presented the complaints that led the Abruzzo magistrates to shed light on the matter.

Within the decree, the Prosecutor's Office explains that it has established the direct summons to court for the two subjects - that is, the direct criminal action by the Prosecutor, who summons the defendants to appear directly before the single judge - since they would have "carried out an excavation of 3200 cubic meters inside the Park, but also of a Special Protection Area and a Special Conservation Area, in the absence of the required authorizations or in any case not respecting the authorization process envisaged with reference to the Impact Assessment therefore starting the works in the absence of the required authorisations".Specifically, the types of crimes contested are inherent to violations of articles of the Consolidated Law on Construction and the Consolidated Law on Cultural Heritage on the carrying out of works on landscape assets.The pre-trial hearing will take place at the ordinary court of L'Aquila on January 8, 2025.«Our complaints had detected numerous irregularities, from the Impact Assessment procedure to the unavailability of land burdened by civic use - have commented the Abruzzo Ornithological Station and Let's Save the Bear, expressing enthusiasm for the decision of the Prosecutor's Office -.Obviously we will follow the criminal proceedings but immediately it is essential to restore the places, even more so in consideration of the entry into force of the European regulation on renaturalisation".

The exponent organizations judged the idea of ​​spending more than a million euros to "excavate thousands of cubic meters of a park, in order to create a basin in which, in the midst of the climate crisis, there are even plans to use drinking water to produce artificial snow».Net of specific legal cases like this, in fact, it is a phenomenon that has aroused strong criticism from environmentalist networks, in particular for how it was endorsed, promoted and financed by the Meloni government.In fact, within two years, the executive has allocated over 400 million euros of public funds for the benefit of new ski lifts and artificial snow systems on the ski slopes.A choice that contrasts not only with what has been reported by committees and mountain communities who, on several occasions in recent years, have denounced how mass skiing is harmful to the territories from a social and environmental point of view, but also with what has been put in writing white in 2022 in a report from the Bank of Italy, which has explained how artificial snow and the practice of alpine skiing are no longer sustainable from an economic point of view due to the ever decreasing presence of snowfall due to overheating.Artificial snowmaking also causes large water consumption - in fact, it is necessary to make artificial snow on the mountains use huge amounts of water, which is always taken from streams, rivers, springs or from the drinking water network - and pollution of the territories due to the use of chemical substances in the production of synthetic snow.Therefore, it has a particularly impact on the environment.

[by Stefano Baudino]