When you ask for directions to reach the "asbestos mountains", in the land of what was the Morandi bridge, they don't even bat an eye: «Always follow the river». The gaze is turned to the horizon, but only a longitudinal puddle can be glimpsed, climbing backwards, from Genoa towards the Alps. For everyone, that dry stream like the Po is the Polcevera, which from the mountains flows straight into the mouth of the city of Christopher Columbus. The steel bridge that replaced the one that dramatically collapsed on August 14, 2018 is the terminus.

Towards the Third Pass

Before meeting the provincial road number six, the one that takes you to the heart of the Terzo Valico dei Giovi, you have to face a jumble of viaducts, tunnels and ring roads that separate the port of Genoa from the mainland. Getting to Cravasco is a bit like going down the hill to Tascusì, on the peaks of Desulo. Hairpin bends that rival Alghero - Scala Piccada or Iglesias - S.Angelo, modest altitudes, no more than 500 meters above sea level, if it weren't for the limited space to reach them. When you pass Campomorone, the leading municipality of a group of scattered villages and houses, built along that river reduced to a mere ghost, to reach the headquarters of the largest Italian construction site, you still have to cross two mountain hamlets, Campora and Isoverde. You perceive that you are about to cross the entrance door of the factory of super-fast tunnels and tracks, when the road suddenly becomes flaming asphalt.

The crater on the mountain

To understand where the asbestos caravan destined for the Sardinian landfill should start from, deep in Sulcis, a land that has always been plundered, there is no need for a road sign: on the left, you bump into a gutted gray-concrete mountain as if they wanted to solve it with blows dynamite the problem of the fog in the Po valley by erasing peaks and creating drafts, on the right, however, a fenced-in construction site as if it were a military range. To connect the two fronts there is a Flying Belt, that of Cravasco, a flying bridge that connects the inside of the tunnels being excavated and the mountain gutted by the nearby cement plant. A sort of continuous flow conveyor belt, because here, to build the high-speed railway, 90% entirely in tunnels, destined to connect Genoa with the Alps and the Rhine, people work day and night, seven days a week. Every day, a mountain of asbestos-bearing rock is extracted from those gun barrels driven into the stone, i.e. slag with very high asbestos contents. All stuff to be extracted and sent who knows where. Certainly the papers sent to the Sardinian Region to ask for the derogation to be able to send them to Sardinia speak in no uncertain terms of more than 50 trucks a week, stuff of 1000 tons every seven days.

Serra Scirieddus mission

A mountain of poisons to be shipped by sea to the promised land of Serra Scirieddus, between Gonnesa and Carbonia. The two companies that put pen to paper the request for an exemption to be able to ship that waste to the island declared that they work right here, in the name and on behalf of the Cociv Consortium, appointed directly by "Treno Alta Velocità SpA". In the mechanism of the consortia it was then up to that of the "Tunnel dei Giovi" to create the "Lotto Cravasco", the one from which the asbestos trucks should depart to be shipped and unloaded in Sardinia. No one approaches the entrance gate, not even by mistake. The golden rule in asbestos land is an iron silence.

Derogation to ship

After all, the game is much more than delicate. The request filed with the Regional Department of the Environment, directly by Riverso, the company that owns the Carbonia landfill, states it openly: we are the only landfill in Italy that can "accept" that asbestos waste, as such we respond perfectly to the requirement of "proximity". However, transforming a thousand kilometers into a landfill around the corner is not an easy game, not even for the large industrial waste "dealers". They try, of course. The reportage trip to the Ligurian construction site throws a question as disturbing as it is indispensable on the regional table, that of the Environment Department, to get to the bottom of the blitz plan developed in the secret rooms of the waste governance in northern Italy, ready for be shipped to Sardinia, starting from the asbestos extracted from the Third Pass tunnels, first of all from the Cravasco construction site, the one on the banks of the Polcevera. It is the excavation data from that construction site that raises a disruptive question: who "certified" that request for an exemption to transfer that asbestos waste to Sardinia? Is it certain that the contracting station, after completing almost 80% of the work, really has a problem in disposing of that asbestos? At the end of March, according to data from the General Contractor of the billion-dollar project, the accounts of the Cravasco shipyard showed a state of progress of 77%. What's more, according to the company's newspaper, the excavations of the "Window of Cravasco", 1,260 meters, would have even been finished on 19 February 2017, while on 25 May of the following year, 2018, it would have been completed the “Camerone di Innesto with the Natural Tunnels of Valico” excavation in the direction of Genoa and Milan. The four kilometers of excavation of the Natural Tunnels of Valico towards Genoa were completed on 19 February 2022. In this construction phase, according to direct sources, the definitive lining of the tunnels is underway.

Excavations completed

It is the plan of the works, found on site, that denies the reconstructions placed at the basis of the request for an exemption to send that waste to Sardinia. In that construction site indicated at the base of the communications to the regional councilorship there is no risk of work stoppages: "for the Natural Tunnels of Valico, despite the excavation with the traditional method, the excavation activities and the construction of the definitive lining of the tunnels are progressing pace in the direction of Milan, while in the direction of Genoa the excavations are completed on both tracks». An affirmation, that of the contracting station, which "deconstructs" the request for a specific derogation for sending asbestos from the "Terzo Valico dei Giovi" to Sardinia. The construction sites referred to in the communications made by Riverso to the Region are simply already concluded or in the final phase.

What waste in Sardinia?

The next question is obligatory: what waste do you really want to send to Sardinia with that derogation invoked for a work that is in fact nearing completion? Fifteen days are left before the expiry of the terms for oppositions from citizens and associations towards that "tourism" of asbestos, but an administrative and political problem of no small importance arises: the Region has verified the basis of that request for derogation ? The regional silence on the matter does not help to clarify.

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