The Northern War on Water
The new evil of the North is called drought. Federico Guiglia's notebook
The new evil of the North is called drought. With all the distinctions you want between virtuous territories or with deficient aqueducts. Between institutions capable of investing in water or not. Between farsighted administrators and politicians and those still prisoners of a wrong approach on the subject: to intervene only if and when it hasn't rained for too long, instead of collecting water from the sky every time it divinely falls to use it when the God of rain has taken the his long vacation.
THE GOVERNMENT'S MOVE AND THE WORDS OF FUGATTI
If the water issue weren't characterized by obvious errors that have been tolerated for too long due to a general and poor culture of prevention, which is the evil of evil, the government would not have decided to appoint a super-commissioner to run for cover. "Running" is precisely the verb, before the drought overwhelms the economy in all sectors, from agriculture to industry. And before such a serious and uninterrupted lack of water affects the lives of citizens and communities in an irreparable way.
But the enemy of drought cannot be won with a war of words. Not even with those, albeit sharp, of the president of the "autonomous" province of Trento, Maurizio Fugatti. Who likes to point out that we must not give water to territories that waste it. Which is, it seems to understand, a bit like talking to your daughter-in-law, her Trentino, because your mother-in-law Veneto understands. Even if Fugatti always specifies that he is not angry with close relatives and geographically neighboring him. Even if Fugatti always invites his institutional colleagues to join in the common battle for water for all.
But the outings against the "wasteful" (and who would they be, then?) or the extravagant contrast between those who represent territories of the plains and those of the mountains do great harm to the common cause.
Meanwhile, why do the two top representatives of the "family" institutions – Veneto and Trentino – belong to the same political party, don't they, Luca Zaia and Maurizio Fugatti? In theory they should get along very well on water too. And then, second paradox, certain jokes sound as if there were a North further North than the North with its distributable or even non-distributable water resources, compared to a pure geographical South of the North, which instead should or could do a little his water duties better.
THE ECONOMIC RISK OF DROUGHT
However sweet, good-natured and even denied, it is a meaningless polemic. Water, when it exists, is not a Trentino asset, even if it flows in those parts, but it is the property of all citizens. And then if those who represent the territories start with the assumption of "first the Trentino people" – to which others could respond with "first the Venetians" and still others with "first the Lombards" -, the seriousness of the problem is lost sight of, which is Italian. The drought makes no parochial distinctions, it affects the entire peninsula of plains, mountains and seas between North and South.
This is why the super-commissioner will have to demand a national gaze and unified management in harmony with all territories, without exception. Even the arid seasons change from year to year, and perhaps the Region kissed by the rain or by its better water organization capacity will find itself in distress the following season. But if it has not helped when it could and should have done so, it will be less listened to when it is she who requests collaboration from the State or the other Regions.
The war of words must be waged against drought, not against territories that are victims of lack of water. Certain controversies are out of time and above all out of place: water has no borders in the Italian Republic.
Published on the Arena di Verona
www.federicoguiglia.com
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/siccita-nord-italia/ on Sat, 01 Apr 2023 05:05:40 +0000.