In the morning, the Carabinieri of the Command Group for Environmental Protection and Energy Security of Naples and of the Torre Annunziata Group, in execution of a preventive seizure order issued by the judge for preliminary investigations of the Court of Torre Annunziata, at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office led by Nunzio Fragliasso, proceeded with the seizure of a confectionery factory.
This concerns Idav spa of Striano, for environmental pollution, obstruction of control as well as illegal discharge of industrial waste, illegal waste management, unauthorized emissions into the atmosphere and building and landscape crimes.
The investigations, carried out by the Carabinieri of the Noe of Naples with the assistance of the technical staff of the Arpa Campania, and coordinated by the Oplontina Public Prosecutor's Office, have allowed to ascertain that the activity of production, packaging and sale of candied fruit, jams, marmalades and sugared almonds with the "bio" brand of the Idav of Striano, located on a surface area of approximately 81 thousand square meters.
It was carried out in violation of environmental legislation, with reference to the discharge of waste water into watercourses, waste management and emissions into the atmosphere, on the basis of a Single Environmental Authorisation (Aua), invalid and ineffective due to the non-conformity of the urban planning status of the places, due to the presence of numerous building irregularities, as well as unsuitable, since the exercise of the activity was subject to the issuing of the Integrated Environmental Authorisation (Aia) and the Environmental Impact Assessment (Eia).
In particular, industrial wastewater, consisting of water from the manufacturing process and washing water from the factory yards, carrying polluting substances such as oils, greases, hydrocarbons and dust, was dumped, through the use of special by-passes created under the pavement of the company's external yards, partly into the adjacent Rio Foce canal, a tributary of the Sarno River, and partly onto the ground and underground, through a pipe carrying the wastewater, by means of specially constructed trenches, on the land adjacent to the production plant.
The illegal conduct, repeated over time, has caused serious environmental pollution due to the "widespread state of contamination of the environmental matrices of the soil, surface water and underground water" present at the company's plant, due to the release, in the waste water, of suspended solids, dissolved solids, hydrocarbons, aluminum, sulphides, chlorides, manganese, ammoniacal nitrogen, in concentration values exceeding the legal limits and corresponding to a level of "unacceptability" and the risk of "high mortality for living organisms".
Furthermore, the presence of heavy metals such as copper, zinc and lead was found in various samples of the company's waste water (among the metals listed in Table 5 of Annex 5 to Part III of Legislative Decree no. 152/2006 as "substances for which less restrictive limits than those indicated in Table 3 cannot be adopted for discharge into surface water and discharge into the sewer system, or in Table 4 for discharge into soil", due to their characteristics of toxicity, persistence and bio-accumulability).
During the checks carried out last September, it was also discovered that the waste water resulting from the washing away of materials and products, which had been the subject of a fire that had affected part of the industrial plant in July of this year, was being conveyed, without any purification, into illegal drains.
It was also found that the company abandoned and otherwise deposited in an uncontrolled manner non-hazardous special waste, including processing waste, and illegally disposed of special waste consisting of sludge from the purification plant. The legal representative of the company is also liable for the crime of obstruction of control, for having hindered and evaded the environmental control activity "through the preparation of obstacles and - as stated in the note from the Prosecutor's Office - the artificial change of the state of the places".
Finally, it was discovered that a steel structure covered with insulated panels had been built inside the company premises, in an area subject to landscape and environmental restrictions, in the absence of a building permit and landscape authorization.
In execution of the royal precautionary measure, the industrial plant was closed and the production plants and processes were completely stopped, as this was necessary to put an end to the illegal pollution conduct and to prevent the worsening of the consequences of the crimes being prosecuted, also considering the fact that the same company had previously already been the subject of a similar seizure order for violation of environmental protection legislation.
Today's royal precautionary measure, necessary to avoid further damage to the surrounding environment and the Sarno River, is part of a broader and more complex investigative activity conducted in a capillary manner by the Carabinieri of the Naples Group of the Environmental Protection and Energy Security Command, making use of the valuable technical collaboration of Arpac, and still underway, under the coordination of the Torre Annunziata Public Prosecutor's Office, to ascertain and remove the causes of pollution of the Sarno River and its tributaries, involving companies based in the area of the river's hydrographic basin, to identify illegal discharges of industrial wastewater flowing directly and indirectly into the Sarno and to stop illegal activities that affect the health of the watercourse, without, however, neglecting the significant negative impact on the same caused by faecal discharges from some Municipalities, still without a sewer system and/or not yet collected at existing purification plants.
This investigative activity has so far led, for the Torre Annunziata Public Prosecutor's Office alone, to the carrying out of 317 checks (of which 176 with non-compliant results), to the adoption of 57 seizure orders, total or partial, of the same number of companies or production plants, to the imposition of 29 administrative sanctions, to the reporting at liberty of 191 people and to the arrest of 2 people for a variety of environmental crimes, including environmental pollution, in the face of a total, referred to the entire Sarno river basin, also including the activities coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Offices of Avellino and Nocera Inferiore, of 560 checks (297 of which with non-compliant results), 99 seizure orders, total or partial, of companies or production plants, 86 administrative sanctions imposed for a total amount of 316.945 euros, 339 people reported at liberty and 7 people arrested for a variety of environmental crimes.
Article published on 10 December 2024 - 13:32
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