ENEL Green Power plans to build a pumping system with a new underground power station between the lakes of Montagna Spaccata and Castel San Vincenzo. The project, proposed by a self-described ‘green’ industrial group, envisages the construction of new tunnels with a diameter of up to six metres for a length of about 10 km, new roads to serve the sites, powerlines, and the clear-cutting of 11 hectares of forest to begin with. This devastating project would involve the removal of around one million cubic metres of rock to be transported by truck to neighbouring areas in the Mainarde mountains between Alfedena, Pizzone, Montenero Val Cocchiara and Castel San Vincenzo.
This project, which would come to life in and in the immediate vicinity of the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, would not only have an unacceptable environmental impact, but would also make life impossible in the villages of the area that live on tourism.
The local communities held two public assemblies on 17th and 23rd of September. The first assembly was attended by over 200 people including ordinary citizens, association representatives, local public administrations and protected areas. A clear NO to the project was repeated a few days later, on 23rd September, with the establishment of the NO PIZZONE II COORDINATION.
The coordination was set up in Alfedena and is made of and self-organised by associations and inhabitants of the area, as well as experts, activists and citizens from all over Italy.
The coordination is based on three solid and unavoidable principles:
- Firm opposition to the implementation of the PIZZONE II project
- No negotiation with ENEL, nor possibility to reach any compromise or mediation
- Establishment of an active and vigilant counterparty in the area, as a grassroots coordination of the inhabiting communities and without expressing any specific interests of known administrations, parties or other political organisations.
The co-ordination favours direct democracy, horizontality and the active participation of its members. It has no representatives but expresses itself publicly through its spokespersons.
The coordination aims to inform and monitor the territory through the instrument of the public assembly, an open space of confrontation in which all citizens, administrators and representatives of bodies and institutions can take the floor. In the coming months, actions will be put in place so that bodies and institutions will speak out firmly for the project to be withdrawn by Enel and in any case stopped if the company wants to insist.
INFO: +39 3386790807, +39 3299815055, +39 3460516825, +39 3683188739, +39 3336972803
