The Mugello wind farm will be built, Italia Nostra-Cai:“Black day”.Legambiente and engineers defend the project

Ditto the Tuscany Region:"Good news for the environment"

Of Diego Giorgi and Carlandrea Poli

FLORENCE – The wind farm in Mugello has the green light:two appeals presented by the Municipality of San Godenzo (Florence) and by the Italia Nostra and Cai associations against the Region's authorization for the new wind farm of Mount Giogo di Villore, between the municipalities of Vicchio and Dicomano.Already in September last year the Presidency of the Council of Ministers had rejected the opposition presented by the administration of San Godenzo and the Ministry of Culture.

“Today is a black day for Tuscan and Italian nature. But the resistance to the industrial colonization of nature and landscape does not end with this sentence, in fact it has only just begun“, assure Italia Nostra and the Cai Firenze in a joint note, whose requests were rejected by the administrative justice.The judging panel, they explain, "declared the appeal inadmissible due to having been presented while the authorization was suspended. We will try to clarify this interpretation of the court in the next few days and evaluate whether legal steps are possible to obtain more substantial justice“.In this case, moreover, "we have been aware from the beginning that resorting to administrative justice is not the best way to correct choices that we believe are profoundly wrong".However, the fact that the environmental front is divided on the issue is demonstrated by the position of Legambiente, which is in fact diametrically opposed to the appellants.The park, it is explained, "will contribute to cutting 40,000 tonnes of Co2 emissions per year", through "seven wind turbines with a total installed power of almost 30 megawatts, which will produce clean energy for approximately 100,000 users".

Legambiente, which places the operation among the Italian "ecological transition construction sites", welcomes "with satisfaction the news of the unblocking of the Villore wind project, because the climate crisis forces us to adopt resolute and coherent countermeasures not only in terms of adaptation, but also in mitigation“, underline Stefano Ciafani and Fausto Ferruzza, respectively national and regional presidents of Legambiente.And it is the opinion of the Florentine engineers was also positive:“Wind power plants can be compatible with the environment and the landscape if well designed”, intervenes Stefano Corsi, coordinator of the environment and energy commission of the Order of Engineers of Florence.“In Italy an authorization process can take years and it also happens that a project with an environmental impact assessment is called into question.All this - he continues - produces delays in the energy transition to renewable sources, so in the meantime we continue to produce with fossil fuels".Italy, thus, "remains behind other European Union countries and their own programs in the construction of renewable energy plants: new plants for 9-10 gigawatts were supposed to be built in 2023, but instead less than half of them were built“.In this sense, "attention to territorial compatibility is very right, but if it translates into a no a priori it risks being sterile.Furthermore, using the foreseen forms of participation in the definition of better environmental mitigation measures would allow for better projects from all points of view".

REGION:“GOOD NEWS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT“

The sentence of the Tuscan TAR "recognised the correctness of the procedure conducted by the regional offices, noting in particular that a correct weighing of the public interests, considered prevalent, was carried out - comments the regional councilor for the Environment Monia Monni - the judgment expressed by the court regional administrative authority considers both the studies and calculations carried out by the company that proposed the plant, and the mitigation, monitoring and prescriptive measures imposed during the services conference.Therefore the Monte Giogo di Villore wind farm will be built and this is good news for the health of the environment and for the fight against climate change".Monni adds:“Those who oppose the development of renewable energy sources do damage to the environment and to the very landscape they say they want to defend.This epochal challenge cannot be postponed and depends only on the sustainable and far-sighted choices we make today."