Enel also wants to puncture the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park.
Associations write to the Ministry, the Park and other entities asking them to shelve the project, which violates so many regulations.Enel Produzione S.P.A. last February started the National Environmental Impact Assessment procedure for a project to build new facilities through the explosive excavation of more than 2 kilometers of tunnels and a large cavern between Campotosto and Providenza Lakes in the middle of the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park territory, to boost water pumping between the two lakes.
The same company in the filed documentation admits that “draining volumes and consequently further lowering the groundwater level.”
According to Enel engineers, “The new works will increase the deep drainage effect and can therefore extend the cone of influence of the disturbance. The captured springs closest to the power plant (High and Low Sferraccione and Mattone) are about 2-2.5 km away, at higher elevations from 200 m to 380 m above the bottom of the underground excavation, so it cannot be ruled out that the excavation may produce an interference with reduced flow rates.”
Regarding surface water, Enel’s engineers say verbatim that “The construction phases may be a source of impact due to the possible leakage of pollutants that could compromise the water quality of Lake Providence and those of the Vomano River.”
We add, where there is a drinking water treatment plant, Piaganini’s, that supplies the entire province of Teramo and hundreds of thousands of people with drinking water. Too bad that Enel’s engineers have really forgotten this little detail….
According to the project, about 250,000 cubic meters of aggregates will be produced.
En passant, we also mention other relevant issues, from the exaggerating effect of the already heavy fluctuations in the level of the two lakes to the existence admitted by the same technicians of faults mapped by INGV.
Seven associations: Stazione Ornitologica Abruzzese, Salviamo l’Orso, LIPU, Altura, Italia Nostra, Mountain Wilderness, and Gruppo di Intervento Giuridico, have therefore written to all entities, from the Ministry of the Environment to the Gran Sasso National Park, to demand the immediate dismissal of the project, which blatantly violates numerous regulations of the Protected Areas Framework Law 394/1991 as well as the Park Plan. These include the prohibition on altering the water cycle, the one concerning the removal of minerals, the one concerning the use of explosives, and the one on altering the quality of water and air.