Mose project: for the first time Venice tests a "pharaonic" work to prevent flooding

The vanguard

07/10/2020 - 9:08

• Clarín.com
• World

When in November of last year a blow by sirocco caused the tide to rise by surprise to 187 centimeters and Venice suffered the second largest flood in its history, there was a word that was on the mouth of all Venetians: MOSE. In addition to having a biblical allusion - in Italian, MOSE means Moses, the prophet who separated the waters of the Red Sea - the MOSE is also the Electromechanical Experimental Module, a complex system of mobile levees installed at the gates of the lagoon with the aim of safeguard the city from the channels of increasingly frequent floods that threaten to destroy its incalculable heritage.

The mobile barrier system began to be built in 2003, under the government of Silvio Berlusconi, but it was not until this Friday that the general test was carried out to see the 78 gates that will protect Venice from floods rise for the first time. It is not in any case an inauguration - the end of the works on the gates is not expected at least until the end of 2021 - but the Italian authorities hope that the barrier can be raised in case of exceptional tides in the autumn.

"We must avoid the acqua alta - as the Venice floods are called - which threatens to destroy this wonderful heritage," said Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who was in charge of activating the barriers. After more than an hour the test has been considered successful and the Venetian lagoon of the Adriatic has been isolated for the first time.

The process is long: it takes time to get the levees of this enormous structure unique in the world up and running. Other cities in the United States, Russia or the Netherlands have built barriers at sea to protect themselves, but none have dared with this system of levees that disappear completely underwater, and therefore are invisible if they are not activated. Once they come into operation they will rise in case the tide rises above sea level above 1.1 meters with a 45 degree incline to isolate the lagoon in its three natural outlets: Malamocco, Lido and Chioggia.

But since it was designed, the controversies that have surrounded the MOSE have turned a large part of Venetian public opinion against it. In fact, while all the authorities were carrying out the general test this Friday morning, several ships of the committee against MOSE have stood in front of San Marco square to protest against a work that they consider obsolete and harmful to the fragile ecosystem of the Venetian lagoon. .

"It is okay to have doubts, it is okay to discuss but I say to those who protest, to citizens and intellectuals: let's focus on the objective of completing the MOSE. Let's do it in a way that works, ”the prime minister has claimed.

The work has already cost more than 5,500 million euros and should have started operating in 2016, but it is still in an experimental phase. The levees have already been fully installed, but technicians have yet to check whether the barriers are incident on standing up or in the fire fighting system.

Furthermore, in 2014, the Venice Nuova Consortium (the concessionaire of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport) had to be intervened by the Government in a corruption scandal. A judicial investigation revealed that several of its members had received illegal commissions, and top-tier politicians were convicted, such as former Veneto governor and former Berlusconi minister Giancarlo Galan, who pocketed nearly a million a year in exchange for construction favors. .

By Anna Buj. Correspondent in Rome of La Vanguardia