Cesena:the protest against the SNAM gas pipeline has already collected 38,000 signatures

Almost 38 thousand signatures were collected in two months on the Change.org platform by petition to ask SNAM to divert the route of its methane pipeline which, if built on the planned route, will lead to the destruction of a refuge in which over 60 animals live and a forest of approximately 600 trees.Marta Garaffini and Federico Raspadori, the couple who own the refuge, launched the battle.As a sign of protest, the woman also began a hunger strike, which lasted two weeks.The spouses said they tried to open a discussion with the company, asking them to provide a small deviation of the route.Otherwise, "once the construction site is finished - they said - they will give us back our devastated fields", which they will no longer be able to use for their projects "because the lifetime easement of right of way on that land implies that SNAM, every time it has to make maintenance work, will return to dig and destroy everything”.

The mega SNAM Linea Adriatica gas pipeline winds along the Apennines, i.e. in the most seismic risk areas of the Peninsula.From Massafra to Sulmona the work has already been completed, while the 430 kilometers planned between Sulmona and Minerbio are still missing, whose construction sites risk being destroyed. deface the territory indelibly.Among others, the area of ​​the province of Forlì-Cesena will also be involved, where many residents, following the tragedy of the flood that hit the area last spring, received expropriation letters from SNAM.“The excavations for the installation will be 4 to 5 m deep and approximately 50 m wide, and will cross our land obliquely passing close to the house and preventing us from reaching even that very small piece of land that would not be destroyed – they have explained Marta Garaffini and Federico Raspadori in their petition, which to date has 37,643 signatures -.Ours is a small piece of land, not a farm of hundreds of hectares and around the perimeter there are only plowed fields, where wheat or alfalfa is grown every year, crops that would have no problem continuing even after they were put into operation. laying of the methane pipeline;furthermore, those around our house are fields where the methane pipeline will already pass and therefore the owners of these have already received the notice of temporary expropriation of them".Instead, in their case, if the route of the gas pipeline is not diverted, when the construction site is completed the lifetime easement of right of way that will hang over those lands will prevent its use, allowing SNAM to intervene when necessary.“It is a de facto expropriation of our land and without it, for us, even the house we bought no longer has any value, because we would never have bought a house without land”, denounce the couple, adding that, given this scenario, SNAM wants to give them "just over 4 thousand euros in compensation".Furthermore, the promoters of the initiative explain, "even if SNAM accepted our requests for deviation, there would still be a strong fear for us that with the lowering of the water table, necessary for the works, we would be left with little or no water supplies from our wells, vital water for our plants and animals, so in any case this pipeline would be terribly invasive for us."

At first the gas pipeline project was called "Adriatic Network", since the pipeline was supposed to pass along the coastal strip, but following the construction of the southern sections, corresponding to the TAP coming from Azerbaijan, SNAM decided to hijack the route on the Apennines, in the areas already largely devastated by the earthquakes of L'Aquila and Umbria and Marche.According to the calculations carried out, millions of trees will be cut down for the construction of the gas pipeline.The work will cost 2 billion and 500 million euros, which will be paid by citizens through their gas bills and, if it sees the light by 2027, by European funding.On the occasion of the International Day to fight against unnecessary and imposed large-scale works, numerous events took place last December 8th protest demonstrations which involved, among others, the Municipalities of Forlì, Apecchio-Città di Castello, Colfiorito, Sulmona and Brindisi, organized by a network of associations including the Campaign for the Climate Out of the Fossil, the No Tap movement, the Network No Rigass No LNG, No Hub, as well as the No Pipe Committees of the various regions.For years these entities have been opposing the mega SNAM Linea Adriatica gas pipeline, trying to inform and raise awareness on the subject of the population.Which, having realized the concrete danger, is responding presently.

[by Stefano Baudino]