The oil of the Haven

ROME - Like in Louisiana, the oil spills live here. Off the coast between Genoa and Savona more than 50 thousand tons of crude oil lying on the seabed. Forgotten by who should clean up the area, it pollutes the water, covers with a grayish mud the fishes that get cancer. Solidified by time up to look like moon rocks, oil crowds the Ligurian fishing nets despite thrown away from the area off limits. Yet, according to authorities, there should be no trace of the biggest ecological disaster in the Mediterranean. That of the supertanker Haven, sank before Arenzano 144mila tons of crude oil after an explosion that killed five sailors on 11 April 1991.

Since then there have been nearly twenty years but the effects of neglect or carelessness, bureaucracy or denouncing superficiality ,as Report (a well known italian tv show) broadcasts in a documentary this evening by Sigfrido Ranucci, are evident among those tarred fish dying from the bottom. A disaster without a guilty as the greek Cypriot company didn't paid out after blames the captain, who died in the accident. A disaster that continues in the indifference, although researchers paid by the State alerted the government and ministries of the seriousness of the situation.
Just a few numbers tell the italian story . In the aftermath of the accident, experts estimate the ecological damage in two trillion lire. Italy 117 receives as compensation for deciding to use it: 32 to cleaning up the sea and 60 communes of the coast by way of compensation. In fact, billions have been spent only 16 (about EUR 8 million) to reclaim part of the Haven - after the Berlusconi government had entrusted them to the Civil Protection in 2005 - and then certifying that the waters were clean. This was not, obviously, but so long ago and the other 8 million euro to clean up the water - and re-allocated to the Civil Protection in 2009 - were used to secure the Stoppani, a company that had polluted chromium and copper water, and partly due to the mobility of workers.
(www.repubblica.it)

The oil on the sea floor does not seem to be interested, you can not see from the shore, on the surface of the water either. So much so that the 60 billion going to compensate the municipalities are used to rebuild the boardwalk, Arenzano, fix the sewers or the area and the former railway. Yet experts have said many times over the years: there is no map of the seabed to find out where the tar is finished, there is risk to the sea, to the population. In 1995, four years after the disaster of the Haven, for example, researchers from the Institute for Applied Marine Research, commissioned by the Ministry of Environment to prepare a plan for remediation, with a bathyscaphe descend to 700 meters. And they see endless stretches of tar, fish in the crevices of bitumen.

"The problem is that the residual hydrocarbons are capable of inducing cancer. We found the fish that live in close contact with the bottom and noticed as one species in particular, show symptoms, signs of liver cancer." Reactions? "It was decided to turn a blind eye, as if the problem did not exist," said Ezio Amato, then scientific director of the government for the remediation Haven.

Since then nothing has changed, the fishermen in their nets find pieces of tar such as boulders, fishes covered in raw that they must clean up with oil if they want to sell it .The Civil Defence and the Presidency of the Council consider the matter closed . Only the Ministry of Environment says he is ready to collect reports of pollution, "as if he had never seen the report of its own scholars 15 years ago." But the worst, says Ranucci, is that the history of Louisiana could be repeated in Italy seen as the application is submitted for drilling in search of oil: from companies based phantom, without going on the seats, without even taking into account where you want it search for gas or oil is an active volcano.