The break-in is tiptoe, but it's not ballet. The operation is triggered when January is ending and February is starting. Silent and hidden, as befits hot investigations. No limited mandate, full license to uncover, verify, investigate, above all to monitor the environment. A sort of eye thrown over the trench, as if a mountain suddenly fell into a pond. Communication is one of the many that daily breaks into the island's environmental protocols, those where the environment is managed, including authorizations, licenses and monitoring. One of many, but not the same as the others. The card is headed with a republican symbol, the sender is an institution rather than an acronym.

Tilt pulse oximeter

Just saying their arrival, in environments where the environment is polluted or not protected, accelerates the heartbeat and sends the oximeter into a tailspin. The effect of the letter is disruptive, a sort of tsunami from Oristano to Nuoro, from San Gavino to Sanluri, from Portoscuso to Cagliari. The signature is of Lieutenant Colonel Angelo Rubechini, commander in chief of the Ecological Operational Unit of Cagliari, the Noe, the armed wing of the Carabinieri for environmental protection. Use the tact of the state institution and the stubborn firmness of someone who has no time to waste. The object is apparently ordinary, the content, however, is precise and circumscribed, peremptory and delicate. Hot matter, no frills: large contracts that involve the environment.

Environmental snipers

The precision of the missive (pictured) is that of a sniper who knows where to go from a long distance. Let me be clear, there is no investigation, at least for now, but certainly in the hands of Noe a swag of documents is ending that will end up examining one of the most delicate chapters of the island's environmental protection: the disposal of sewage sludge, those to be clear that end up in the agricultural lands of Sardinia, from north to south. The operation is encrypted in the ways, explicit in the contents: «Operational planning 2022 - Monitoring large contracts». What is meant by large contracts is not declared, but they certainly know where to knock to discover facts and misdeeds, potential pollution of an immense heritage such as that of the Sardinian agricultural countryside. In Sardinia there is only one large public order that concerns "directly" environmental protection. A contract and a triangle: Sardinian, Spanish and Sanlurese. The Carabinieri del Noe never write the name of the three companies that alone govern the sewage of one million and 650 thousand inhabitants, but with a compass they circumscribe the perimeter. Certainly, however, in the document in our possession, there are the recipients of the mission, declared as exploratory, of the Noe. Institutions and agencies that let you understand the range of action of the Carabinieri Ecological Operational Unit: the Provinces of Oristano, Nuoro, South Sardinia and the Metropolitan City of Cagliari. However, the Arpas departments of Oristano, Nuoro, Portoscuso and Cagliari also receive the letters. It is to them that the bolt from the blue that last January 28 strikes the IT mailboxes of two thirds of Sardinia.

The alarm

The premise has the function of "Good morning", however, the alarm rings in the following points. The preamble reads: "This Noe, as part of its institutional prerogatives, is currently monitoring large contracts involving sectors that directly involve that of environmental protection". Immediately afterwards, we get to the heart: "Having said that, - writes the Commander of Angelo Rubechini - in order to acquire valid support for carrying out a context analysis, it is required to want to transmit each one for the part of its competence the following" . And what follows is much more than an interrogation with a light tower aimed at the eyes. The unsuspecting officials of the Provinces, Metropolitan City and Arpas understand what it is from the first nail stuck in the list of documents to be transmitted: "Annual report on the use of sewage sludge sent to Ras, the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, for the years 2010-2021 ".

The record contract

This is where the alarm goes off in the island's environmental buildings. Under the spotlight of the Noe, the gigantic 350 million euro contract won by a Spanish multinational capable of winning an unprecedented tender announced by Abbanoa ended out of the blue. An endless contract that manages 90% of the island's purifiers, with attached sewage sludge to be disposed of, or rather to be managed. On the one hand, the public regional company that is in charge of the sewerage system of most of the 377 municipalities of the island and on the other the Spaniards of Acciona who have been awarded 90% of the regional territory. The third party in the triangle is from Sanluri, a company that alone is the subcontractor on behalf of Acciona of all the sewage sludge on the island. A complex management system governed by a myriad of regulations, with a question that makes many sleepless: what happens to those hundreds of thousands of tons of sewage sludge? The wide-ranging investigations in Italy have led to trials and arrests, complete with contamination of agricultural land that ended up in the criminal jersey of the environmental disaster. In Sardinia, to date, the only investigation that has landed in the courtrooms is that concerning a plant for the treatment of sewage sludge located in the heart of the land of Malvasia, in the municipality of Magomadas, managed by a local company directly connected, through a intermediary, to the Apulian sewage sludge. The revolt of the inhabitants had first led to the seizure of those plants and, then, to the trial of the managers of the company who managed that mountain of "nauseating" mud located a stone's throw from the small town of Planargia.

The Magomadas scandal

Shocking facts are emerging from the procedural documents and the hearing. The experts of the Prosecutor's Office of Oristano did not leave any margins: in the countryside of Magomadas and its surroundings, spills of 1,600 tons per hectare were ascertained, reaching in some cases up to two thousand. All this when the legal limit was just 40 tons. That operation, however, concerned the sewage sludge sent with impunity from Puglia to Sardinia, devastating the environment and making the life of the inhabitants of those territories impossible. Now the attention, on a large scale, shifts instead to the sewage produced on the island. To make the request for documents by the Noe relevant to the various institutions involved in the “sewage sludge” operation is the indicated time span: 2010-2021.

11 years under scrutiny

A period of 11 years indicated, probably, not by chance. Crimes in this area, such as those of environmental disasters, have, for example, a period of 12 years. A decade marked in all points of the Noe's letter. A list of documents to be acquired that has turned the entire environmental system of the island upside down. The second point of the request is, in fact, a sword of Damocles on the same control bodies: "Copy of the annual program of control and supervision of the use of sludge in agriculture, for the years 2010-2021". As if to say: tell us how you planned the monitoring and surveillance on that mountain of sewage sludge that ended straight in the agricultural fields of Sardinia? For the men of the Noe, however, the programs are not enough, since the next point is nailing: "Give us the Reports from which, for the years 2010-2021, the control and surveillance interventions on the spreading sites of sewage sludge in agriculture emerge with specification of the reasons for the intervention, of the type of activity carried out (eg sampling, inspection, etc.) as well as of which legal entity ". One gets the impression that the Nucleo Operativo Ecologico has a clear picture of the situation, but that it wants to allow the control bodies to try to demonstrate that they have, in any case, done something to control the spillage in the fields of those putrid mud.

Tell us about the samples

It is emblematic that the environmental carabinieri have asked to indicate "the activity carried out", recalling, not by chance, the example of "sampling". An activity that seems to have always been reduced to a flicker, relying solely and exclusively on what was declared by the managers of the sewage sludge for the analysis. Not really a guarantee of third party. The acquisition of the deeds then tightens on the managers of the big business of sewage sludge. In this case, the request is even more precise: "Please send the Reports from which the control and surveillance interventions of the storage sites, treatment of sewage sludge, with indication of the type of activity carried out, emerge for the years 2010-2021, sampling example ". Therefore, Il Noe places under its attention also the Sanluri site owned by Shift which, on behalf of Acciona and Abbanoa, under subcontract, manages the entire “market” of sewage sludge in Sardinia on its own. The last two provisions, signed by the Commander of the Noe, are as peremptory as ever. The penultimate: "In the reply note - writes Angelo Rubechini - please, (underlined), to explain the reasons that could lead to failure to produce what was requested". The exhortation is almost an invitation to "defend" oneself well from any silence or failure to produce documents.

big Bang

And, finally, the big bang: "In reporting the urgency of the request, it will be appreciated to receive the above listed on IT support within 2 days". Forty-eight hours to reconstruct 11 years of checks and analyzes, sampling and inspections. The subjects called to give answers so promptly had only two possibilities: to have an archive so well organized, demonstrating that they had the matter under strict control, to respect the deadlines, or, that they did so little that the transmission in two days could also seem too wide. The deadline expired on February 1st. None or a few, however, have respected the 48 hours. The volume and content of the documents transmitted are now to the attention of the carabinieri of the Noe.

Fingers of one hand

According to the first indiscretions, which cause the entire sector of environmental controls on the island to fibrillate, the inspections could be counted on the fingers of one hand: sampling and analyzes would be practically absent, the reports for each inspection would be two or three pages, more than half are filled with photographs of the sites. The Noe's “Fanghi Fognari” operation has just begun, but could soon draw conclusions. One element will emerge with certainty from the analysis of the data: in Sardinia we went from 7,000 tons of sludge spilled on the agricultural lands of the island in 2005 to almost 14,000 in 2019. The lands involved in this escalation were 1,378 hectares in 2005 and have become 2,639 hectares in 2019, double that. In those 48 hours imposed on the persons in charge of the controls, an all too clear message was hidden: to secure the lands of Sardinia we have no time to waste. The Noe's mission has begun.

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