Environmental disaster Regi Lagni, seizure of the grilling plant validated

The seizure of the so-called Regi Lagni screening plant, the structure built on the right bank of the mouth of the Regi Lagni canal, under the control of the Municipality of Castel Volturno (CE), was validated on July 1st by the Judge for Preliminary Investigations of the Court of Santa Maria Capua Vetere. Its purpose was to prevent floating solid waste, such as WEEE, car tires, plastic bottles and even buffalo carcasses, which for whatever reason were thrown into the canal, from reaching the mouth and flowing into the sea. The emergency seizure of the grilling plant was issued by the Sammarinese Public Prosecutor's Office on June 18, 2019, and was executed on June 21, 2019, by the military of the Environmental, Agri-food and Forestry Police Investigative Unit – NIPAAF, of the Caserta Carabinieri Forestry Group, with the assistance, on this occasion, of units from the Castel Volturno Carabinieri Forestry Station. The plant is owned by the Province of Caserta and has been managed by SMA Campania spa, an in-house company of the Campania Region, since July 21, 2016, pursuant to a private agreement signed between the latter and the provincial body.
The Regi Lagni canal represents the best-known part of a larger hydraulic and reclamation work, started in the Bourbon era to regulate the surface waters falling on an area of ​​about 110.000 hectares, distributed between the current Provinces of Caserta, Naples and Avellino. As a body of surface water flowing into the sea, the Regi Lagni have the function of collecting the waste from numerous urban and industrial settlements and unfortunately the state of chemical-biological pollution of the waters that pass through them is already widely known, to which is added the further criticality represented by the transport, with the current, of various types of solid waste, including special waste, of anthropic origin illegally abandoned in the canal itself. The removal of solid special waste from the river course was therefore the primary objective of the project, desired by the provincial administration of Caserta and approved in 2006. The works for the construction of the grid ended in 2013, but the management activities immediately highlighted the unpreparedness of the provincial administration to correctly and efficiently deal with the costs and technical-administrative implications of the work, which was also deactivated from 6.10.2014 to 21.07.2016. Therefore, what was supposed to constitute an environmental protection to defend the quality of the Domitian coast, soon turned out to be a site in a state of abandonment similar to a landfill.
In order to restore the functionality of the grilling plant, on 5 July 2016, the Mayor pro tempore of the Municipality of Castel Volturno ordered with his own ordinance the Province of Caserta and, subordinately, SMA Campania, which had made itself available in the person of its Sole Director, to restore, in the shortest time possible, the operation of the grilling plant and to identify the managing entity. This led to 21 July 2016, the date on which a private agreement was signed between the Provincial Administration of Caserta and SMA Campania SpA, with which the said SMA assumed the burden and the responsibilities of managing the grilling plant, taking on, in particular, the commitment to carry out, at its own expense, the extraordinary and urgent cleaning and restoration interventions of the plant itself.
The act established a duration of the interventions divided into "4 phases", the last of which would have ended with the delivery of the plant to the entity that the Campania Region would have to identify for management. To date, there is no evidence that the Campania Region has identified any entity and therefore the aforementioned "4 phases" and with them the obligations assumed by SMA Campania SpA cannot be considered concluded. This having been clarified, the long and complex investigative activity, associated with specific technical-specialist consultancy by a geologist appointed by the Prosecutor's Office, has highlighted significant shortcomings in the operational management of the plant with effects of environmental degradation both of the Regi Lagni canal and of the facing coastline.
In fact, the discontinuous management over time and the lack of necessary ordinary and extraordinary maintenance caused a significant and measurable compromise and deterioration of the waters and ecosystem of the mouth of the Regi Lagni, with consequent spillage into the sea of ​​all the transported solid waste. The poor and inconsistent management also caused an increase in the level of the canal itself at its mouth, such as to even cause flooding and backflow of the waters exiting from the nearby purification plant of VILLA LITERNO – FOCE REGI LAGNI, as well as favoring the alteration of the ecosystem of the Mouth of the Regi Lagni, whose natural beauty was also often spoiled by nauseating odors, the presence of cloudy water and the presence of bulky solid waste.
The investigation also highlighted that SMA Campania, in the absence of the required authorization, carried out a collection, recovery, transport and disposal activity of waste for approximately 1 kg, coming from the separation, by means of a mechanical shovel, of the coarse waste from the waters of the Canale dei Regi Lagni and the waste retained by the grid. The Public Prosecutor's Office, following the detailed investigations, has now entered the legal representative of the company SMA Campania SpA in the register of suspects, for multiple unlawful conduct in the field of environmental protection and non-compliant management of the waste cycle, contesting the hypothesis of the crime of environmental pollution, by way of negligence, and of illegal management of waste. Given the importance of the function to which the grilling plant is subject, the local Public Prosecutor's Office has ordered the seizure of the structure with the right to use it by the company SMA Campania, conditioned by a series of detailed and specific requirements in consideration of the circumstance that its activity, although deficient and unsuitable, is nevertheless useful and continues in such a way as to avoid further pollution phenomena.
The Mayor of Castel Volturno, Luigi Umberto Petrella, designated as judicial custodian of the plant, will have to avail himself of the local Municipal Police for the verification, even daily, of the prescriptions issued by the Judicial Authority consisting of an immediate extraordinary maintenance activity aimed at removing debris as well as anything accumulated, a daily cleaning and removal of debris, the sieve, as well as anything else collected from the grid, in the installation of video surveillance systems of the plant such as to guarantee a complete view of the grid and finally the connection to the national electricity grid for the supply of electricity necessary for the operation of the plant. The operation, directed by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Santa Maria Capua Vetere and conducted by the Investigative Unit of the Environmental, Agri-food and Forestry Police of Caserta, NIPAAF, a specialized department in environmental matters of the Force, confirms how the attention to the protection of the!' Environment in the province of Caserta always remains one of the main priorities of the Judicial Authority and the Carabinieri.

Gustavo Gentile